kursuskomputeranaktanjunganom

[lyzelky]

Fanfic Snippet

Decided to post the intro to a bg3 fanfic I'm writing. Will I ever finish? Who knows! But I have a lot more than this written already and I might post little parts of the story here from time to time. Features my Tav, name ((REDACTED)), Typical TavXAstarion brainrot, eventual smut, although this post is clean. Enjoy! CW: Cursing, Mild Injury ______________________________________________________________

When she comes to, it’s to the sound of screeching metal and a high pitched, keening wail.

Then, before she has a chance to open her eyes, or at the very least string two thoughts together, her world turns sideways and her head collides into something firm and fleshy.

Bright lights snap into focus behind her eyelids, and she moans, wincing at the throbbing blast of pain that now radiates across her entire skull.

The keening noise stops, or at least dims, but tremors persist deep within the bowels of wherever the hells she’s ended up. She hesitates a moment to see if her head is split open. A cursory pass with her hand reveals no open wound, and she relaxes a fraction before peeking an eyelid open.

She shuts it almost immediately, takes a deep breath, and counts to five.

I’m dreaming, She thinks lightly, This is just a really terrible, fucked up dream, and when I open my eyes, I’ll be back in my bed in…” Her mantra fades as her brain searches fruitlessly for a memory no longer there.

Fuck.

It seems her head injury has done more than just give her a headache— it has also apparently knocked her memories clear into next week.

She scrubs at her face, pressing hard against her eyelids until patterns form in the darkness. Something squirms behind her eye at the pressure, and she gasps, eyes flying open of their own accord.

The nightmare hellscape beyond hasn’t changed, and now there was something wriggling around in her head.

Double fuck.

[bulbabutt]

okay. lets bite the bullet and talk about 2012. lets talk about child abuse, familial abuse, generational abuse, toxic family units, whatever you wanna call it. lets talk about it and whether it exists in this show. i actually encourage you to read this no matter what your take is, just to hear it out. let me be FUCKING clear: i love this show, but i get scared to talk about it seriously. everyone on every side is defensive all the time but i love every turtles show to no end.

this post is going to go over so well and not controversially at all.

precursor: every splinter is some level of shitty dad. he always has been. the fucking bare bones of the character is that he raised his children to kill the man who killed his own father. thats inherently fucked up. every splinter has some level of fucked up about him. maybe hes inattentive, or neglectful, or strict, or secretive, maybe hes just not very good at dealing with his kids. splinter is supposed to be far from perfect. thats what makes him splinter. maybe he grows over the course of a series, maybe he doesnt. maybe hes supposed to be shitty his whole life, maybe hes not. thats just splinter. each is adapted differently depending on the story being told.

and 2012 has a very interesting tone to its story.

lets start at the beginning, back in japan. this is season 3, was this story what they intended when they started writing the show back in season 1? probably not, theres probably things they would have written differently had they known this was where splinter's story started. thats kind of the way tv works, you add the details later. but for our sake of analyzing the character of splinter as a whole, it seems best to start here as if its all intentional.

hamato yoshi is a member of the hamato clan. theyre a very traditional old ninja clan in the modern world, they have old feuds and theyre trying to keep their culture alive. they're literally the last of a clan of ninjas like this, having (supposedly) defeated the foot clan (their generational enemies) back when yoshi was a baby. hes set out to lead next, and its very important to him. and yet hes married to a woman who works in the city, a modern woman who doesnt live the life he does. she even moved to be with him. i feel the need to compare this to how men in the real world who want traditional wives never go for women who are willing to be their housewives, always try to break down the independent ones. splinter seems unconcerned with how his wife wants to live. with how she wants their daughter to be raised.

im not necessarily saying this is how this comes off in the show, but i find it interesting to think about. this is absolutely the most rounded version of tang shen as a character (thus far) it stops her being just a name on a page "hamato yoshi's love and the object of his enemies affections who died" and turns her into a woman who has a stake in the story. gives her more agency.

its very interesting that this show implies an actual relationship between tang shen and oroku saki, albeit a one-sided one that didnt work out, but they do seem to have parted on equal ground. the pair of them discuss yoshi's inattentive duties as a husband and father, that he's too obsessed with the tradition and lineage of his clan. honestly, if this woman just took her baby and left no one would blame her! he has his priorities set, and it leaves no room for her and their newborn baby. if she ran away with saki at this point, the story would make just as much sense.

but then disaster strikes, saki learns the truth about his family, that he was actually a child of the foot clan (honestly i wish we saw this play out instead of jumping ahead in the story but thats not what this post is about) and he kills he and yoshi's father. revenge for him having killed his. cycles of abuse and revenge that never end. the pair of them were raised in this society that values lineage like this, that would kill for it. its no wonder they both grew up this way.

anyway, tang shen is killed by a blow meant for yoshi, and saki takes their child and raises her. based on splinter's lack of desire to be a father so far in the story, its honestly not one you can blame him for. its fucked up, but it makes sense. saki does to miwa exactly what his father did to him. cycles of abuse and revenge.

yoshi loses everything, and moves to america. he's turned into splinter the mutant rat, and gains four turtle sons.

so as established, he's not exactly grown up with a stable family life. he obviously, while human, wasnt acting as a stable father for the child he intended to have. so how good is he at this?

ive talked before about how the 2003 show treats the turtles as kind of one whole unit. they don't have individual relationship arcs, they dont have overarching storylines where they grow apart or closer, they're always in each other's corner.

2012 makes this more dynamic. here we see that 15 years seeing no one but each other, growing under this splinter has come with its own quirks. these brothers dont understand each other that well. they get jealous of each others treatment, some are left out, some are misunderstood. raph resents leo, none of them appreciate what donnie does, mikey bothers everyone else for attention, etc. it creates a really good starting place for this show.

(the issue i have with this show is more that they never really open or close any of these beats, at least not in ways that last. but boy does it make for some good dramatic scenes)

we see over the course of this first season that splinter treats his children just as he was, as little ninjas more so than sons. he raises them to follow his traditions, the ones tang shen never cared for. but this is all he knows how to be! you cant really blame him.

most people bring up mikey as the quintessential example when they talk about this, i dont want to do that cuz i know you've all heard it. while i think his father does disrespect him and i think it is paid forward and his brothers do too, i'd rather talk about raph for a change.

in one episode, raph loses his temper. to teach him a lesson, splinter makes his brothers pelt him in training while insulting him any way they can, and tells him to just... not lose his temper. this is a terrible lesson in general. instead of trying to coax out why he might be angry, it just plays up that if he loses his temper bad things happen.

splinter in this episode basically encourages bullying. this comes up a lot when it comes to raph. to compare, in 2003 when raph loses his temper, hes told to blow off steam which he does. his brothers don't blame him for having emotional outbursts, they know thats just how he is so they know how he needs to cope with it. he's given the physical space to let it out.

im not saying this show needs to be like that show, im just saying thats a version of this story where the outcome is better for raph as a whole. since this outcome is not as good for him emotionally, you can tell why he's still got these emotional issues. splinter never helps him more than that. thats more why this raph differs from that one, if that makes sense. one has his family in his corner more than the other.

speaking of. raph has a pet turtle. this turtle is the only one he can talk to about how he feels. why might that be? it's the only thing hes kind and gentle to, and he refuses to let his brothers make him feel weak for being kind to it. where did he learn to be ashamed of being kind and gentle? thats a learned behaviour. in a house full of other men... yeah, that would happen. but whos values start that?

when this turtle gets some mutagen spilled on it, it tries to get revenge on his family. there is such a resentment going on here, its extremely juicy. the show chalks this up to "post mutation insanity", but its just as easy to think that everything raph has experienced has made him seem angry and resentful and perhaps scared to his pet, and that former pet wants raph to himself so they can be free. the frustrated venting of a child complaining about how no one understands him in such a big way turns slash into a vengeful monster, cuz thats all he's ever heard. it makes sense, he went from a little turtle to a fully cognizant adult aged being in an instant. emotionally no one would handle that well, and definitely not someone whos only ever heard the worst about people.

he comes around later. notably by being on his own, away from the hamatos.

again, im not saying the show is writing this intentionally, but i think tonally its in the zone where you could see this analysis as being canon. that these little pieces of narrative fit the worldview of a toxic family unit that isnt dealing with its problems in a healthy way.

there's other small aspects. leo slaps mikey early on, having seen it on his favourite show be used as a way of getting someone to calm down. mikey questions this behaviour, leo seems to feel bad about it when questioned. if we know that that behaviour was bad, what other things might he emulate in a similar way?

there's things like donnie's predatory behaviour towards april. in a world where all they ever knew was splinter's stories of the outside world (and perhaps television from decades earlier), hearing splinter's story of his love for tang shen, his rivalry with his own brother over her, you could actually see why he would behave the way he does, why he claims her the way he does. not as an excuse, but as a reason he learned the behaviour. and there's multiple opportunities for his father to tell him off. he never does. why would he? he knows no better.

this splinter, unlike every other, is not old or disabled. he doesnt require a cane (at the start, but also was never a good cane) and its interesting that despite being like... a 40 year old man in the peak of his life he does not accompany his sons on missions. he sits around doing nothing and disproves of his sons heroic actions. april literally calls him out for this at one point. the show is actually telling us some of this man's behaviour is wrong.

one of the more upsetting things that happens in this household is a lot of physical hitting. "theyre training" you might say. understandable. but when you see a lot of hitting come from the father in this show, played for a laugh, when you see splinter play the "drunk master" bit it makes you think. is that okay? isnt that a bit much?

the end of the muckman episode is a freeze frame of splinter (after having knocked out all of his sons to punish them for leaving while grounded) turning his anger on april and her running away. idk thats just not funny to me. this is a bit of the dating of the show, 2012 was a time where character's in shows were meaner, less affectionate, more bullying in nature. that was the sense of humour at the time. that isnt me making a judgment, it's just kind of the era. a pre steven universe world, if that makes sense. so many of the jokes that end in a hit aren't funny in 2024. especially not when they come from a parent.

when this splinter speaks about his kids to their brothers he often ends up insulting them. "you should be like mikey, he never overthinks because he doesn't think", this would be a big reason the boys speak about each other the way they do to their faces. puts forward a bit more of that bullying thing i mentioned earlier. if their own father talks about them like this, of course their brothers do too. so of course they join in and give payback.

again. splinter wasnt raised in a normal family. he was raised in a ninja commune with a bunch of murderers. he wasn't great with his wife and baby daughter. its not surprising that he's bad at this.

so, ive just said a bunch of things about what's wrong with this household as a whole. i think ive explained why the family unit behaves the way it does: generational teachings of feuds and traditional values. i dont think this makes the show bad! i, in fact, wish there was more of it. i think theres so much low hanging fruit that the show kind of wants to play with, but cant fully bring itself to.

specific example: during the space arc on a planet thats driving all the characters emotions against each other we get this amazing scene where raph screams at leo for being splinter's favourite. leo responds by hugging him. its really well done!

however its never brought up again, never actually getting into the nitty gritty of why raph feels like that is exactly what i think makes this show resonate with so many people

its dark! it pulls at your heart strings! it makes people feel seen! we go in mikey's head at one point and see such splintered (lol) personalities in his head. he has a huge anger problem (much like raph) in there. he retreats into imagination land when stressed. the show kind of toys with "these kids are fucked up!" but never lets those character moments go anywhere. i love how fucked up this family is. its so complex, it feels real. at least real to me. i wish it went that little step further and let the characters talk about these things a little more.

maybe you have a different experience, and thats fine! but i wouldnt brush off people like me who look at 2012 and say "these dynamics make me uncomfortable". to excuse it by saying "my family is like that and we're fine" sometimes i just wanna say... <:/ are you? have you talked about that? and if that's your read on it is that its fine, thats great. but some people notice patterns and those patterns can make them uncomfortable. i hope ive explained the patterns here.

i think thats why the fandom is as big as it is. this show would lead to the most amazing deep introspective fan-works youve ever seen, it lays the pieces out so perfectly for you to draw your own conclusions about why they are this way. you cant really blame people for talking about it as if its got a way higher rating than it does. it feels like it does.

i should say, i dont even know if i blame the show on its own for leaving those pieces laying there, it was on nickelodeon. i sense studio meddling in the tone. i mean, given that the show wanted to end with the big mutant apocalypse storyline, and yet the network wanted to end it with the big 87 crossover..... yeah i think its safe to say nick would rather they keep it light.

which is funny, because i think the most controversial thing i can say is i personally love the finale arc as the mutant apocalypse. it so encapsulates my favorite part of this show. to end this show in the darkest timeline and say "even though these characters are so far removed from who they used to be and even though the entire world is over they still have each other in the end" and i find that so perfect.

so. i understand that this is always a touchy topic. i know people want to brush it off as "people say the 12 brothers are abusive to mikey but mikey is fine", and i think thats a really skewed version of it from both sides. first of all. mikey is not fine, look in that boys head. look how he copes. he's not. but also, mikey is not the only victim. they all are. these turtles are victims of their upbringing, victims of generational war. of men who didnt know how to be good fathers in the first place. and thats good writing! it feels deep! it connects!

for more context: any fucked up way you can think of karai being raised by shredder? its probably the same way here. splinter and shredder were raised the same way.

i guess i think about this a lot, cuz i always see things like "oh, rise fans write crossovers where the rise boys love each other and have to teach the 12 boys how to be nice cuz they dont like 2012!" and i just think to myself:

guys. do you understand why a person might do that? why would someone (likely a teenager) want 2012 mikey to be treated nicely by a kinder more openly affectionate version of his own family? do i need to spell that out for you? why do we connect with media at all, why do we write our own stories about it?

if you genuinely dont. i mean, im glad for you. but sometimes you wanna imagine a world in which your own family is more openly affectionate with you. where they hug and tell you theyre proud and love you and you never have to question it, never have to look elsewhere for that kind of approval. its less that they're idolizing rise, and more that they're looking at the two families and saying "this one is emotionally mature and in touch with their feelings more than that one. how would that play out?"

doctor feelings ass response.

look, im not saying everyone understands 2012, that everyone likes or needs to like it. im just trying to say that i think these fucked up parts of 2012 are all around my favourite parts of the show. its an inspiring story about this fucked up little family that has no one but each other, and they're not great about it. they try, but they don't always get it right. i just wish the show would have talked about that part more. but i think that since it doesnt people get to fill in those blanks themselves, and they do it so beautifully. and i really wish people on the internet would be more kind to one another when they wanted to discuss these darker themes they find in it.

these are the reasons i love this show. i think its so very interesting that splinter dies this fucked up father figure who never really apologized for his behaviour. i like that raph needs to be held to stop punching his brothers. that leo doesnt have a good grip on what it is to be a leader, that he tries bad ways of doing it. i like that no one copes well! i like that their relationships are so complex! this show is messy! its good! i wish it was more messy!

and id love if we could be more honest about these things and how they make us feel instead of just brushing each other off as "likes the show" or "doesnt like the show". the things that make me uncomfortable are why i love this show and i'm pretty sure i'm not alone there.

[b4kuch1n]

wizard looking for a way home (aka wizard of dark space)

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

of all the things to turn into a ridiculous (cleaned up) long comic (i have PLENTTYY of sketched long comics) i chose: spader skips class

i still dont know how to panel comics but that s what practicing is. for

[godsfavoritescientist]

How do I explain the ways in which the bill origins fic 'A Romance of Many Dimensions' by haley3 rewired my brain without needing to give paragraphs upon paragraphs of context. The fic is something like 200,000 words long. Almost every single good moment calls back to things that are set up earlier in the fic

[radioisntdead]

I am SUFFERING AND SOON Y'ALL WILL BE TOO, I AM COOKING SOMETHING [Oc and hazbin which reminds me I'm gonna rewatch it tonight]

[bonestrouslingbones]

for how hyperfixated i am on undertale aus i am so so severely out of the loop for pretty much anything outside of my own business rn but i guess the creator of underv/erse like. resigned from the fandom or something and i'm just lookin at their twitter post and seeing very outspoken undertale twitter-only mutuals saying they're gonna miss em like. damn folks really did just decide that misgendering is ok i guess

[moonshine-nightlight]

101 for your WIP game. Excited to see it when it's ready :)

@sarahserinde

thanks! i had the vague idea of this spin off for a while so i'm excited to be putting it all down!

Today has more than proven that Dale can defend himself and that you are certainly winning no accolades in such an arena, and yet you feel protective of him. You want to shield him from the harsh life he clearly lead before this, fighting for so much of his survival. You want to make a home where he can rest and enjoy life.

[freebooter4ever]

awww basketball again

[cutearose]

.

[forsty]

here are my thoughts: 

Rooster, Phoenix and Bob (maybe Payback and Fanboy too?) are in a metal band together (music genre may change... but as long as it stays within rock/metal)

Rooster: Guitar (lead), singer, piano, drums, 

Phoenix: Singer (lead), bass(lead), violin

Bob: Drummer (lead), singer, harmonica

Payback: Guitar, singer, bass

Fanboy: Bass, piano, 

Hangman is a sports jock, but closeted metalhead (probably Coyote too)

Additional: Goose, Mav and Carole were in a little band together. Goose dies in an accident, Carole stops doing music professionally, Mav joins band with Ice and Slider and others from the 86 crew? 

[itsmegrigio]

So I decided a little bit ago that my goal for the FWIW was to try to reach 75,000 words (it's not as short as I originally wanted the project to be but would still be shorter than EWG was).

I've slowly been plugging away at Chapter 10 (aka the last chapter) and just recently crossed 74,000 words...the first scene (there's three total) isn't even done yet...😬😯

[chaotic-iguana]

chapter 3 of refuge is at 1k words 💪💪

[ofdraiocht]

"❤️"

[evandorepart2]

ok anyway im leaving in. the day after tomorrow at like 2am so im just saying its tomorrow cause im literally just gonna stay up till then theres no point in sleeping. BUT two things. one i need to finish packing. my clothes are dry so i just have to bring them upstairs and pack. sort of stressed out bc like. i like my outfit i dont want to change it but everyones telling me its too hot for a leather jacket like i know!!!! but its my jacket :(

anyway i just have to do that so ill do it now and then…on top of that i wanted to get the draft for my ghost story done but i havent been working on it at all >_< ive just been reading comics the past couple days. so tomorrow. for sure. i will definitely work in getting the draft done totally.

but ugh im kind of nervous i havent seen these people in so long and im not great socially. also i dont go on trips in general so like. i hope i have energy for a full month yknow. i have a tendency of isolating myself when im stressed out but i dont have any space to do that…not that i should but whatever you know

[twowivestwoknives]

have to put it somewhere but in the last 5 years 3 seperate groups of people have decided im the villain and never told me why just iced me out and isolated me and in 2/3 cases i dont think i actually /did/ anything i think its a mix of antiblackness, ableism, and that ive seen them/know that they hurt other ppl very badly.

group 1 was someone who i used to consider a best friend but who soft cut me off when i disliked a partner of theirs, then, when they decided to hate that now ex, they pushed for their ostricization and 'took me back' without apologizing. they refuse to make eyecontact with me and their partner now flatout ignores my existence, even though i literally was the olive branch for this friend to almost every community theyre successful in now (not that they owe me shit for that), and i think its bc im still close w another Black/mixed friend of mine who they hate now bc they called them out on their antiblackness (which they give excuses for why their nonblack ass can get away with it). this person notoriously throws people out and claims 'villain' when ppl get upset at how they treat others as so cruelly disposable, and ive seen it up close and personal even before it was me and i think that also plays into why they treat me lkke this now.

2nd group was my exes friends who only knew me when i was a self destructive alcoholic. i was loud and obnoxious and yeah i had shrapnel (never abusive), but they decided covid, year 3 of my sobriety, that id never changed, ramped up my exes resentment at me for the alcoholic years even after they said theyd forgiven me and were proud of how far id come, and were instrumental in the breakup if that 5 year relationship. even though one of those friends was literally also sober, they just couldnt forgive me for ever having been an alcoholic, i was just worse than all of them i guess.

3rd is a current happening. someone i knew from god 9 years ago, again who i invited into the community when they were new in town (see a pattern?) had their white friend LIE ABOUT NOT ONLY KNOWING ME BUT ME MAKING HER FEEL 'UNSAFE' (IVE NEVER MET THIS WOMAN), to kick me out of a discord all my friends are in, and when ppl challenged that initially, this person had the gall to say that i made them uncomfy, to the point for a while they wouldnt go to POC events i was at. this person who took the side of 2 white boys who isolated me at 19 bc one of them led me on then dated my ex bf (they didnt have to like me, i was FPing the guy, but the isolation and all my friends picking their side still sucked), and then this person went on to be sexually inappropriate and preassurey and crossing boundaries w multiple friends at this point. but i cant hang out where my friends r bc i make this person uncomfy. i think theyre scared id 'out' them as predatory or something (wouldnt w/o permission of vics obvi) and so they paint me as the villain first

and like if i did something wrong let me know so i can leave y alone and fix it (like i did getting sober going to therapy getting on meds ect) im invested in not hurting ppl. but i dont think i ever /actually/ hurt any of these ppl, i think they just benefit from me not being around and are willing to lie and exclude and ostricize to get it. and ik that sounds conspiratory but like. fuck.