HAHAHAHAH THIS HAS NO ROGHT TO BE AS FUNNY AS IT IS

remember that scene where Benthomaar tells nya how nyad merged with the sea to stop wojira the first time? well, Kai overheard it. and he's not gonna let his baby sister sacrifice herself. so what does he do? he sacrifices himself instead. duh.

Finding the scroll used to depict nyad merging with the sea, he deduces that it must be possible for other elemental masters to merge with their element, too. When ninjago fully floods, and Jay is passed out from drowning, he merges with the sun to dry up the flooded city and defeat wojira. Cue angst, because he's one with the sun now. and where is the sun if not in the sky?

Theory time yap yap yap Theory yap time Theory time theory–

Ooooh don't even start. I have to physically stop myself from stimming whenever I think about this.

At the end, when Kai gets the bounty working, the final shot is him sailing away from the realm of monsters, taking off his cloak and hat and putting on his og Gi, then the animation just shifts to the 3d style while he silently cries his heart out. Because he's home. It's over. Even though he'll never forget what he's seen, what he's experienced, he'll sure as hell never let it tie him down.

Ooooh my boy. I didn't know you were jacked full of trauma. Dr s3 is gonna HIT my lord.

Oooooo thank you for the confirmation

EXTREMELY, INCREDIBLY, IMMACULATELY IMPORTANT: DO YOU ALLOW PEOPLE TO USE YOUR ART AS PROFILE PICS

YYYYYES I DOOOO BRO and if its possible just some creds somewhere ofc BUT YEAH IF SOMEONE USED MY ART AS THEIR PFP ID PROBABLY BLOW UP????

Kai's vision in the phantasm cave was simple. Very simple. All there was was a mirror, about the same height as him, with a black stand and body. It swayed a little in the wind, the wood creaking, maybe due to age or decay. At first, he was confused. Maybe he looked around and couldn't see anything. Maybe he just shrugged and cracked a joke about missing his reflection. Besides, what's so bad about a mirror?

Then the air changed.

Maybe it grew thicker or carried something more foreboding. Deadly. Maybe the ground felt slightly rougher, jagged rock digging into his soles more evidently, harder to ignore. Maybe his skin felt itchy, like something was crawling under it.

Maybe everything suddenly became familiar.

Then he looked back at the mirror.

And it was him.

No, not him. Him. Not the Kai, who was reliable and strong, the Kai who was everything a ninja and hero should be. It was the ugly, dirty part of him. The one who gave up their morals in order to survive. The one who he'd long thrown away and pretended never existed.

The real him.

Back in his leather robes and monster fur coat, the smell of dirt thick on his form, the katana he forged with his blood sweat and tears attached to his side. Like it always was. His face was covered, his hat planted firmly on him. It was like he never left. Or it never left him. Something wet coated his arms as his reflection stared back at him, unblinking.

And maybe Kai thought, painfully, that it was over.

Then, as suddenly as it started, everything was back again.

The whiplash was strong, but years of resilience made him good at hiding those things. He quietly looked around, maybe pinched his arm, making sure he was back. For real this time.

He could hear Nya behind him, telling Lloyd that she broke out because she knew it wasn't real. And she's right. She knew Jay could never forget her, and because of that she knew her vision wasn't real, just a fake scenario made to test her.

But Kai's vision was.

It was real.

His fear wasn't becoming a monster,

It was returning to being one.

has this been done before

Ight guys place your bets now

I'd like to think that Kai used to be a shy kid

also bonus sketch:

my biggest hear me out will forever be kai from ninjago

Monstrosity trailer analysis part 1:

The Monsters are terrifying, and everything is huge

One of the very first shots of the trailer shows the fire knight mech (which I’ll call Ignis not because it’s canon, but because it sounds cool and is much shorter) standing right beside Kai. I remember seeing this for the first time and just marveling at the sheer size of the mech. It’s one of the biggest mechs in the Ninjago franchise, and having Kai right next to it, contrasted with the giant flag, makes everything feel so massive that it’s almost uncomfortable.

The next shots are definitely one of the most memorable. It's what the guardian dragon (who I'll call Ator (pronounced ey-tore) for the same reasons as ignis) calls: 'the beast who ravaged her homelands and destroyed her future.'

Im pretty sure we all had the same reaction when seeing this thing for the first time. Because Jesus christ, that thing is huge. Compare that to the trees, which we know are fairly big since we see Kai stand next to one later in the trailer, and they look like literal twigs compared to the giant... thing. Its toe can literally topple a mountain. Which psycho designed this. I wanna give my thanks.

And since I'm following a trend to naming these characters... I'll just call it 'The Beast.' Pretty on the nose but accurate nonetheless.

The next monster shown is painfully unrecognized by the fandom which is sad because, to me, it's definitely one of my favorites. In the first photo, Kai takes a few steps forward, but when the light hits him, he just ceases movement altogether. It's definitely a red light green light situation. This is made even more horrifying due to the fact that there are SO MUCH (I'll call them eyeblights) EYEBLIGHTS BEHIND HIM. It seems like they have a specific area of the realm of monsters that they inhabitate, and that just makes the trailer 10000000000x better because now there a tangible ecosystem the watcher can actually see and hold on to.

Ooooh, this is hard to spot if you don't know what you're looking for. In this shot, Kai runs on a bridge while some monster that definitely looks made of roots and other organic material (I'll call it a rot-root) shoots out behind him in an action that's adjacent to a hand reaching out into the sky. You can see what looks like fingernails on the edges of the rot-root, and the overall shape looks kinda like an arm.

Another kaiju. Poor Kai. His name is Repnok.

Just for clarity, but the size of one of its whiskers is enough to reach half of the castle. Its head is the size of the castle, which can house more than a hundred people. This thing is atleast 100feet and above. Not as big as the beast, but still fucking giant.

Another thing that the fandom didn't notice for some reason is that the place Kai is in is a kingdom. If you look closely, the Repnoks leg is resting on a wall, and Kai is running on the same wall. Look just below, and you can see actual houses just barely out of sight. This means many things, though. This means there are actual confirmed on-screen deaths in ninjago because no one is surviving that shit, and that the realm if monsters is definitely the biggest realm so far and that many other smaller realms are inside of it. Sadly, all their occupants are probably dead, which will probably affect Kai for the rest of his life. (More in-depth analysis on this later in part 2)

I have no words. I don't think I need to explain this, really.

It's huge.

Like, ungodly huge. It's definitely a squid of some sort, it having barbed tentacles, but it's fucking huge. What the hell, Lego. Look how– Kai looks like a speck of dirt compared to it! Her name is Celybyss.

Another thing is that it's underwater. What kind of giant 'fuck you' is this to Kai.

That's all the monsters shown so far, and Lego did not disappoint. I wouldn't be surprised if they hired actual horror artists to work on this. Poor Kai, he's gonna have so much fun.