#to be fair April sorta has one

[jo-does-things]

I officially play to many fighting games because now I watch cartoons/shows where people fight hordes of enemies with traditional weapons and all i can think is  ‘Why does no one have an AOE attack??????’

Like I want to know what they expected to happen when they went to Bug Planet home of Bugs without anything to effectively deal with the inevitable Bug Swarms. 

[layer-10-love]

Lady Moon.

2012 leo x reader-

As the leader or the team, Leo tended to be more focused in leading and less interested in other ‘lesser’ hobbies. So it’s a bit of a surprise when you find a romance novel underneath his pillow.

aka, boy fail cringe leo (affectionate) also i wrote this like in 40 minutes so apologies for bad writing

As the appointed leader, Leo tried to be serious and mature about his role;with no help from his brothers. Strong, calm, confident, stoic and mature was what he was supposedly was. Unfortunately, anyone that knew him for more than a few minutes would know that he is none of these things. At least to a certain extent.

Truth is, Leo…was a big fat nerd. No surprise there. He liked watching space heroes and often gushed about it to the nearest living creature, giving them new meaningless memories and a massive headache. He liked making stupid jokes and god awful puns. It was honestly sorta cute to you.

What was a surprise was the book that was underneath his pillow. You technically weren’t supposed to be going through his things, but he technically should’ve given back that black cat plushie you let him borrow for Halloween. Picking up the book, you glance over the title.

‘The Man and the Moon.’

From the looks of it, it was a romance novel.

…Leo? Leon? Leonardo? Fearless?

You never pegged him for the type to read romance books, hell, you never pegged him for the type to read things other than Japanese literature or comic books.

‘A classic romance novel tells the story of two star-crossed lovers, Max and Luna - both literally and figuratively. Max is a successful businessman who has dedicated his entire life to making his dreams come true, and Luna is a quiet and mysterious woman who seems to have a special connection with the moon. Despite coming from different backgrounds, Max and Luna quickly find themselves drawn to each other, and they must navigate the rocky terrain of love and discover the true meaning of happiness.’

You read as you skimmed over the summarization of the novel. It seemed like a good read! But, if you talked to Leo about your little discovery, you’d probably be in for another classic Leo Lecture about not snooping. Again, it was fair in your humble opinion.

And if you shared this information with his brothers, he would be ridiculed and mocked by his brothers, despite them having weirder hobbies. Aka, Mikey and his weird obsession with boiling pizza. Ah, brotherly love.

You made a mental note on the book and carefully stored it away underneath Leo’s soft pillow.

He doesn’t need to know.

——-

Leo seemed to be busy more often than usual, with the lame excuse of being occupied with meditation and training in his room.

Which was a bummer since tonight was a movie night with everyone. Raph, Mikey, Donnie, April and even Casey were here!

You huffed and sat on the floor in front of Mikey who was sitting on the couch.

“So, what shitty slasher flick are we watching tonight?”

Raph grinned menacingly while holding a dvd and standing in front of the television.

“It’s not a slasher film, god knows Mikey would have nightmares again. Not that I’m against the idea of Mikey suffering, but I don’t want to have to let him sleep in my bed again.”

Mikey cheered from the back,

“I knew you cared about me! See, Casey? Raph likes me more than you.”

Casey frowned and groaned.

“C'mon! Do we really have to watch a baby version of scary movies?! What happened to entertainment and morality?”

“I’m surprised you know the word, ‘morality’”, teased April.

“Nah, I think he’s just throwing out random words and hoping that one of them will make sense. Remember when he said that we should ‘photosynthesis’ and ‘equilibrium’ with the enemy?”, you add mockingly, “You almost made Donnie pop a blood vessel.”

Speaking of Donnie, he rushed right through his lab door carrying multiple blueprints and plans for whatever new project he was working on.

“Hey four eyes! Gonna join us for crappy baby's first horror flick?”

“Why do you call me four eyes, Casey? I’ve never even worn glasses before, so why would you nickname me something that doesn't make any sense?”

“Easy.”, started Casey, “Glasses make you a nerd. YOU are a nerd without glasses, therefore you need glasses since you’re a nerd.”

“Casey connecting the dots? Hell must’ve flown over and pigs must’ve learnt to fly.”, you snickered.

After a whole debate between Donnie and Casey, the pizza was brought by Mikey and the rest of the snacks were laid on the floor by April and Raph. Monthly movie nights were truly a miracle.

But, there’s something missing.

“Where’s Leo?”, Mikey questioned while taking a disgustingly large bite of his pizza.

“Fearless? Eh, he’s probably in the dojo training like always.”

“Probably, but usually everyone joins for these types of things! Do you think he’s training or doing something else?”

“If you care so much why don’t you ask him for yourself, [Name]?”, Raph says, really not caring about anything else other than the movie that he picked.

You grumble and reluctantly head over to Leo’s room, hoping that he wasn’t doing teenage boy activities. Ugh.

You considered knocking on his door, but then you remembered the plushie he never returned and slammed the door open.

Leo scrambled off the bed and onto the ground, holding a familiar book before throwing it off into the distance, praying you didn’t see. He chuckled nervously while leaning suspiciously on his bed.

“Oh! Hey, [Name]…! Uh…do you need something?”

He seemed so anxious and nervous…it was actually kinda cute! It’s like you have two little creatures on your shoulder, each one trying to give you a way to navigate this whole situation.

‘Leave him alone and give him space! That’s the nice thing to do.’, says the one on your right shoulder.

‘Get the book and make fun of him!!!’, giggles the one on your left shoulder.

…it’s obvious who won.

“What were you reading, Leo?” You ask with a teasing grin, watching him squirm under your gaze.

“Oh…uh me? Uhm…comic books! Yeah comic books! I was reading a really weird part so that’s why I was surprised when you came in and…”

Whatever other words that were being soren from him was ignored, you only think about how oddly adorable it was.

You glance at where the book was hastily hidden and chuckled.

“What comic was it?”

Before Leo could make another desperate and obvious lie, you quickly snatched up the book from where he tossed it and read the title. It was the same one as before.

“The Man and the Moon?”, you teased.

“That isn’t mine! April just asked me to hold on to it for her!”, he blushed as he tried to regain his confidence and composure.

“Cmon, Leo, we both know you can’t lie to save your shell.”

He paused and looked away, blushing furiously and fidgeting with his fingers. You sighed and took his hand.

“Hey.”, you look into his eyes. “I pinky swear that I won’t tell your brothers. You know how they are.”, you think back to the time Raph was found playing a dating simulator, and how the bickering lasted for weeks.

“Plus,”, you continued, “it’s not the worst thing you've ever done.”

“…You don’t think it’s weird?”, he asked cautiously.

“Why would it be weird? Like, people read romance all the time.”

“But, y’know…I’m a guy…and a mutant turtle…and well…”

You shrugged and climbed onto his bed, leaning against his plastron once you had sat down next to him.

“Romance is nice, I guess. It’s just another genre in a variety of genres.”, you felt and heard his heart thump faster as he gulped nervously.

“So…”, You started, “Are you gonna go to movie night or what?”

Leo’s eyes widened as he seemed to have a revelation.

“The movie! Crap, I forgot about that!”

[quitealotofsodapop]

Wukongverse ships;

pretty much yeah!

Au!Shadowpeach is so married it hurts, while Canon!Shadowpeach are still building back up to being soulmates.

Ace and Joker (Jackpotshipping) are the Old gay married couple who have experienced every kind of high and low together, and insult eachother as a form of affection.

Peachbuds is "im in love with my best friend, but what about our friendship?" up until both of them admit their feelings in a whirlwind of tears and emotions. Awkward dramatic first kiss. Afterwards, its mutual dreams of being co-ruling-kings.

On Sugar + Spice (LinkedFacade) tho its more a QPR relationship. They value their friendship far above any romantic aspect.

Dasheng + Zhanshi (ReboundedHeroes) are raising kids together, and both have a mutual attraction. But its hard for them to say that they're together. Will refer to the other as their "husband/wife/mate" unprompted, but become flustered when asked how they feel about one another. Suddenly reminded of Loid and Yor from Spy x Family.

Smokey + Liang (fruitiedads), it starts out as "childhood rivals" to "uh oh, best pretend we're married so people don't ask too many questions about our kid." Sorta a "Buddy Daddies" vibe. It takes them a fair while to admit that they've been romantically attracted to one another for a long time. First kiss is probably one meant to be fake/for show, but they got too into it. First "real" kiss was at night by the pilgrims' campfire - Xiao Qi saw and woke everyone up with his delighted squeaking.

For the netflix Cherry and Olive (CherryandOliveStones); it starts out more like a mix of Disney's Hercules and Meg + April and Andy from Parks & Rec. Mutual fascination that has to learn to work through pride. The kid comes in later after Olive joins the pilgrims. Cherry melts like a gotdang ice cube every single time Olive kisses him, could be the 2nd or 1000th smooch; this monkey offline. Marriage only gets brought up cus of royal legal benefits (also useful for deterring would be suitors).

[autistpride]

Autism Acceptance

Prompt day 6: April 6

Amnesia AU

Word count: 1500

@wolfstarmicrofic

Remus was worried that his parents would say no. That they wouldn’t even listen to what he had to say and shut the conversation down. Remus knew he needed less support than he used to, but he was doing so well.

Remus had scripted his pitch in his head daily, sometimes multiple times a day, for the last week. As the number of days increased, so did Remus’ anxiousness. He began to pace and wring his hands. He started to withdraw and stopped speaking.

The change did not go unnoticed and finally Hope called a family meeting to have it out.

“Okay Remus, you’ve been wearing holes in the carpet again and I am pretty sure you should be wearing your compression gloves from how much swelling you’ve caused in your hands over the last week. What’s going on?”

Remus’ knees bounced and his hands clenched on the trousers of his pants. He took a breath and shook out his hands before he rose to his feet and started to move around the room in laps.

“I was talking with Sirius when we had our last date. We went to the skating rink and then had ice cream, you remember?” Remus asked pausing to look at his parents who sat together on the settee.

Lyall motioned with his hand to continue. Remus started to speak and then paused. He tried again and then again. His carefully planned out proposal instead fell from his lips in a single sentence that sounded more like a demand.

“Sirius asked me to move in with him and I want to do it!”

Sirius had asked him to move in with him and Remus wanted to. He wanted to so badly. They had been dating for three years now and while Sirius had his own struggles at times due to his traumatic childhood, he understood Remus in a way no one else ever had.

Sirius and him had met at an autism family event. He was there with his brother Regulus who Remus was sorta friends with already. Of course Remus hadn’t known that Regulus had a brother or that he was as handsome as he was until the day they met.

According to Regulus, it took Sirius two months to coax up the courage to ask Remus out. Remus didn’t believe him with how smooth Sirius was when he finally did ask. But apparently Sirius kept asking Regulus questions about Remus until Regulus got annoyed and dragged Sirius to their weekly autistic adult meet up at the library so Sirius could pester Remus instead of him.

“Okay,” Hope said softly from her place. Lyall smiled a half smile when Remus spun from his pacing and stared at her.

“Really?” he asked, surprised and trying hard not to let his excitement sound in his voice.

“Ya, really. You both have been together for over two years now. He knows your triggers and glimmers and I’ve watched him calm you down from a meltdown as well as support you through your shutdowns. Ya. I think if that’s what you both want, then you should do it. I just worry about your epilepsy dear.” Hope said honestly.

“Sirius knows what my tonic clonic seizures look like mam. He even went with me to my last EMU.” Remus pointed out.

“I know, but what if they get worse again?”

“Hope darling, you can’t keep Remus here forever just because you worry that someone else will ignore all the signs like what happened in the past. Sirius is a very kind and attentive partner. He won't hesitate to call Remus’ provider if he notices anything.”

Hope let out a sigh and stood, pulling Remus down to hug her. Remus mouthed a silent thank you to his da over her shoulder and Lyall returned the gesture with a thumbs up.

Now Remus just had to tell Sirius yes, pack up his stuff, and he would be all ready.

Two years later saw Sirius and Remus happily living together. Oh they had had their fair share of disagreements in the beginning. Remus has resorted to masking around Sirius because he was afraid Sirius wouldn’t love him if he saw the real him all day everyday and not just for their small dates and random sleepovers in the lounge of the Lupin home. This led to a slow shutdown. Sirius tried to communicate to Remus during that time, but Remus was nonspeaking and wouldn’t respond to Sirius’ texts outside of simple replies to questions like, ‘do we need milk?’ After five months, it resulted in a fight that blew up so spectacularly, Remus was surprised that the police hadn’t been called on them.

“Hey Sirius do you know if we ha-” Remus began to ask when his words stopped. His eyes blinked and his plate fell from his hands and clattered onto the floor before Remus shook his head slightly.

“What were you looking for?” Sirius asked as he knelt down to pick up the plate.

“Huh? I'm not looking for anything. Why do you have my plate?” Remus asked, annoyed and took his plate from Sirius’ hands and stalked back to the kitchen.

Sirius sat stunned for a moment before following Remus. “You were. You came in to talk to me about something. Started to ask if I knew if we had something but then you stopped.”

Remus blew the situation off, but the scene replayed in Sirius’ head over and over the rest of the day.

The next time it happened, Remus had been cooking. He was peeling potatoes for supper and that time Sirius ignored the forgetfulness and panicked over the fact that Remus had dragged the potato peeler over his finger and peeled some of his skin away.

The third time, Remus had just finished brushing his teeth and was putting his tooth brush away. Afterwards he argued with Sirius that he had not in fact brushed his teeth and proceeded to brush them a second time.

Multiple times a week Sirius noticed these little things. Forgetting to turn off the hob, looking for his shoes after just putting them on, feeding their cat Fidget two hours after feeding him the first time, and more incidents than Sirius could count of starting to say something and then just staring at Sirius for a moment and having no recollection on what he was saying or even wanting to say.

Sirius finally broke down and demanded that Remus speak to his provider. And despite telling Sirius he was worrying for no reason, Remus agreed and scheduled with them.

Three months more of waiting, where Sirius noted mentally everytime something would occur and then typing them into a long list in the notes app on his cellphone. Three months of Remus telling Sirius that he was wrong, that he didn't or wasn't doing something, and telling Sirius he felt fine.

Four months and another EEG confirmed that Remus’ epilepsy had gotten worse. He now had not one, but three types of seizures, and one of them was causing Remus to have a type of amnesia and the medication he was on was making the third type worse.

Five months and the medications Remus was on were completely different. It had taken a month to safely wean down on one medication and rise to a therapeutic dose with another. But the side effects of switching meds caused Remus to be irritable and lack any appetite. Sirius stuck by Remus’ side through it all and had taken to buying pizza once a week because it was the only food Remus would eat more than a few bites of.

Hope suggested and offered many times to have Lyall pack and move everything back into Remus’ old room so that Sirius wouldn’t have to deal with it. Each time though was met with a narrowed glare and a polite, “no thanks” from Sirius.

Six months and Remus was finally feeling more like himself, despite still not eating much. Remus had read over the list Sirius had made for his neurologist and apologised fiercely to Sirius for the way he had acted. He felt terrible and suggested couples counselling due to the fact that over those few months Sirius had withdrawn and seemed to walk on eggshells around him. Remus hated that he had caused Sirius to feel scared, gaslighted, and condescended to.

Nine months Remus and Sirius were communicating better. They had completed their couples sessions but both still continued on individually.

One year and the two were doing better than ever.

Two years on the new medication was also their seventh year together and one year with Remus’ seizures under control, Sirius insisted on a celebration with all their family.

Remus spent nearly a week pacing holes into the carpet anytime Sirius wasn’t home. He scripted his words until he knew them by heart. None of that practice mattered as Sirius and Remus proposed to each other at the same time. They said yes.

[blindrapture]

june 23rd. fourth day of the Tally Mark logs.

last time I said I'd say something about the slender man. now, there's things I can say and things I can't yet, because-- say it with me now-- we're still Early in the story. but that's okay. I still think I can say some substantive stuff. (art by rappu)

the slender man was an Obsession of mine. I got into Marble Hornets just before season 1 ended, around April of 2010, after reading the Something Awful thread first, so my appreciation for the creature has always been rooted in an awareness of it as Something Writers Invented. a Concept. I read Just Another Fool around the same time, and I may have tried reading some other slenderblogs but the blogs simply weren't captivating me. Marble Hornets did. and likewise, I tried watching some other slendervlogs, I caught up with TribeTwelve, I gave EverymanHYBRID a fair shot, I found some enjoyment in DarkHarvest, I remember liking MLAndersen0, but, again, none of them captivated me quite like Marble Hornets. as the years went by, I tried the Slender games-- I do actually have a soft spot for The Arrival, but, like.. I suck at horror games. so, again, Marble Hornets. that was always the one for me.

to me, Marble Hornets excelled not just because it was found footage (and really creative re: production values, and really consistent and minimal re: characters, and had an archival-viewer priority when it came to pacing), but because it didn't actually take advantage of a lot of the features of the internet, and because it didn't actually take advantage of the ARG stuff, and-- most importantly-- it only went as far as the basic Wilful Suspension Of Disbelief all fiction calls for, it did not work hard to be like "NO THE SLENDER MAN IS REAL SO WATCH OUT." Marble Hornets was just.. a series. even the twitter element got phased out (though not before giving us some iconic gems like "sllee pn.ow"). it was Fiction, it was watercooler fiction like a damn TV show. we all watched it, we all talked about it, but we talked about it like a story. that was terribly significant for me, more and more as the years went by.

the slender man, as a concept, falls under a type of internet horror that flirts with the intersection of Fiction and Unfiction. Unfiction being, y'know, fiction that seeks the blurriest frame possible, fiction that wants to look real, fiction that is designed to fit into the "plausibly possible," often posted on social media as if real. those were fun, they caught on with the internet because they are fun. like, addictively fun. just look at the state of youtube horror now, the mountains of Top 10 Scariest Videos, ghost videos, UFO videos, cryptid videos. it's not even all found footage. there's an entire cottage industry of youtube videos that curate Written Word anecdotes from reddit and narrate them in a somber voice, and part of the point is that they are framed as if "this is a true story." my point being, like. that trend won out. my mum spends the majority of her days watching these videos, and I'm not joking.

it was fun to blur the lines like that, and slender man media was among the pioneers of it as a movement. I remember, I was there. and we in the Fear Mythos actively discussed this, about how much we wanted to do the same with our stories. OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING was where I committed to going against it. even when I, later that year, made my own Slenderblog (Where My Eyes Remain), I deliberately ended it with immersion-breaking End Credits. (photo mine, from Where My Eyes Remain)

at the time, I was just.. Sorta Uncomfortable with the lines being so blurred. over the years, I have only become more convinced in this: stories are certainly allowed to blur the lines, but the fact that it is so popular is A Bad Thing. the world is flooded in conspiracy theories and lies. lies are memetic. lies are fun. lies are a game. and some of the worst conspiracy theories out there were intended, by their creators, as just satirical fiction, but then they got popular among those they were making fun of, and the creators (or someone else) saw fit to monetize that. that is how conspiracy theories spread as radicalization vectors. even QAnon started out that way. and then the process of its growth was a deliberate inversion of the horror ARG: rather than having players try to uncover the content, players created the content by making predictions of what the next drop would be, and the creators took the most clever and incendiary predictions and made it the content.

the slender man did not cause this. I hold firm that it is the responsibility of those who chose to profit off of lies. but this is precisely why I grew so uncomfortable with the practice of breaking down the barrier between the audience and the fiction.

and Marble Hornets... did not do that. and Marble Hornets managed to be successful despite not doing that. frankly, many of the great slendervlogs did not do that. every time a slendervlog breaks itself up into, say, Seasons, or has a Credits sequence, this is a good thing.

where am I going with this.

that whole ramble is basically what our album No Entry was about, it's why the slender man is on the front cover. the slender man is not actually all that important to the narrative of the album, but it is entirely appropriate for it to stand adjacent to the narrative. (art by wiratomkinder)

but I shouldn't be talking about No Entry, I should be talking about Rapture.

Rapture was in many ways my tribute to the horror I enjoyed. there's tributes to the SCP Foundation, to Dogscape, to creepy- and crappy-pasta, to RubyQuest, to Stephen King, not necessarily to Lovecraft but to Metallica's depiction of Lovecraft, there's even tribute to the vague vibes of Silent Hill that I had been exposed to growing up while being too scared to play it properly. in coming acts you will see tributes to many more things that unnerved me, such as Metroid Prime 2, obscure point-and-click horror games, even some one-off episodes of the fucking Sopranos that haunted me. the influences are many. but the most persistent tribute you will find is to the slender man. I still have my stubborn writerly pride, so I don't actually want to spell out for you what rapture does with the slender man, or even what it already has done by this point in act 1. I want there to be Slenderfans reading rapture, wondering if they're recognizing a device correctly, "is that a marble hornets thing?" the slender man is king of horror here. the slender man permeates all you'll read. rapture has plans for the slender man.

and rapture, at all times, is definitely fiction.

[nerves-nebula]

To the last anon, when it comes to Rise crossovers with 12 and how they handle ‘healing’ its done in a ‘holy-than’ tone. Especially with newer fans. When the arise movie dropped and crossover content was being made it was A LOT of 12 bashing in said fics. Like ‘Unfamiliar Familiar’ and ‘The fight for Mikey’ it was handled in such a bad faith way and reached such a wide audience that if i were to open a crossover fic for 12/Rise the predetermined ideas of ‘2012 brothers/Splinter are abusive’ ‘12 Mikey is innocent’ ‘12 April is a bitch’ are there.

Its why so many of us 12 fans vehemently speak out about it in a strong manner. A few of us are open to discuss it but the pool has already been tainted so to speak.

OH SO WE'RE JUST NAME DROPPING FICS NOW??? with like real people behind them and stuff?? ok damn i guess i really did kick the hornets nest here.

anyway, i read an ok fic once that i dont remember the name of where the rise bros were like "you guys are really mean" and the 2012 bros were like "y'all aint perfect either" and they kept fighting each other because of some sort of dimension thing where only one of them could exist in the same universe and it was an interesting enough premise i guess.

i stopped reading it cause the writing was a little too on the nose for me (like, people just saying exactly what they mean in an emotional situation sorta thing) but it wasnt the worst.

i think i also read a bit of unfamiliar familiar but i dont remember much about it. I guess I didn't notice that was character bashing? then again i never had a huge attachment to 2012 so i probably took the "2012 doesnt deserve mikey so im giving him to rise" thing as more lighthearted than you would if you like. were attached to 2012 and had strong opinions on them hah.

I assumed that the author was interested in telling a story about an abused kid who gets taken in by a new family, and just used 2012 tmnt to do it. I guess my blind spot comes from the way I view stories as vehicles for someone to express themselves. so i care more about the story itself and what it explores (usually abuse) than like, if they're being unfair to characters.

but yeah, having major fanfics that spread a version of 2012 dynamics you don't agree with/like is sure to rub ya the wrong way. I totally get the irritation there.

I read a fanfic that was similar to that actually, where 2012 Donnie and Mikey ran away cause home life was really bad, and it was written so well that I fell in love immediately. My favorite part was that we had parts from everyone's POV's, Donnie, Mikey, and then after they left Raph and Leo. AND it was going to be reconciliation too!! like they were going to get better and all this cool stuff, and the way it handled trauma and coping and healing was sOoOOOO good. unfortunately it was never finished, but yeah. i guess that's my ideal 2012 abuse fanfic that i'm always chasing the high of. it also scratched a particular itch i have for running away, and the tense feeling surrounding the lead up to you running away.

SIDE NOTE I have noticed some weirdness around 2012's female characters, but i think I have another ask that goes into that so I'll save it for there.

ANYWAY thats a long ass way for me to say "oooh i didnt realize that, i see things X way but it's clear to me now that a lot of people see it Y way. that's fair, anyway let me rant about other fanfics i read" haha

[operation-penguin]

My hot takes are that

1- king juliens parents are hilarious and extremely fun characters . Yeah they neglected him and whatnot but god theyre hilarious i dont get why theyre so hated (well i do, but they do end up improving themselves)

2- Mort isnt an eldritch evil god and the theorisers videos made people extremely annoying about mort😭like u cant post about mort without someone quoting points from the theorizer like theyre canon when theyre not (i think ahkj fans agree with this so idk if its a hot take or not)

3. This is more about fan things but ppl shipping king julien with karl is just weird like he committed a bunch of brutal murder acts agains kj WHY DO U GUYS DO THIS

Thats it squire barnaby out

okay so, this one has been in the inbox since APRIL. im so sorry Anon ToT

#1 fair but i like being a hater so <3

#2 It's really only outsiders that hate on my husband. being a hater is fine, unless it's against my husband then im going to kill you. mort is the sweetest most kind character in the franchise please read any of my mort posts for more info.

#3 idc about the murders or whatever, I'm more concerned that Karl is in a committed relationship with Chauncey. dont fight me they're cannon, happy pride month you bastards. Then again they could be poly. tbh KJ can be shipped with anyone and it works in some way, i sorta ship him with most main characters except his family (parents, UKJ, etc..), any human, Sonya the bear, and Private since I hc him as being around 15 and KJ in his late 20s early 30s (no shade to ppl who hc them as both being adults and ship them tho <3)

[nari-writes]

Can u write casey coming out to the bros + april as like trans or something?

cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coming out doesn’t start as a conscious decision. To be fair, not a lot of Casey’s decisions start out with messy things like forethought; it’s just easier to think and then do. No problems with self-doubt stopping him if he never gives it the time to sink hooks into him the same way it overwhelms Leo and Donnie. 

So coming out is basically: “Oh shit, did you guys get to see the pride parade yesterday? It was bangin’, one of the guys for the hockey team came with to help me with the jock rep.” He flexes, grinning at Raph, and then realises that everyone’s eyes are on him. “What?”

“You were...in the parade?” April asks, squinting at him, and then, her expression clears slightly as an idea occurs to her. “Oh, for a friend or something?”

“Uh, no?” Granted, he’d promised to go to help Randy-from-the-team get over their fright of it, but he’s been going to the parade since before he’d even been in high school. “Babe, I can promise you I was also wearing my flags.”

“Your...flags.”

Casey blinks. "Yeah," he says, and then blinks again. "April, you've seen my room?"

Donnie snorts. "And I'm presuming she was to notice anything in the pigsty you call a living area?"

"They're on the wall!" Casey defends, scowling, and then turns to look at Raph for help. "Dude, we had this discussion. You asked me what all my jacket pins meant?"

Raph looks pinned, flustered, and so Casey goes for the couch and his jacket, pulling the lapels out for demonstration. "See, here's the one I made for y'all, with the shell, and then this one has Dee's symbol for y'all, which he made into a tracker - don't think I didn't notice how heavy it was, Dee - and these two are from my sister - she wanted me to watch the new Sonic - and these are my pride pins!"

All five of his friends peer in closer, their heads pressed together, but Mikey's the first to poke Casey's cluttered collection of pronouns and his 'gay as in [cigarette emoji]' button. (His dad had gotten him that one after Casey'd started using more than just he/him, looking profoundly uncomfortable and a little bit afraid when he said, "I heard you talking about- reclamation. And I like to think I still know you well." and Casey had just beamed.)

"None of them are rainbows?" Mikey says, and Casey rolls his eyes.

"Well yeah. D'you really think a rainbow fits my vibes? At least the enby flag is sorta in my colour scheme."

"The-"

"Purple one," Casey offers, and when they all get even closer, has the sudden realisation that:

He absolutely just came out to his extended family

They, even though he'd thought he'd been pretty clear about it, had no idea

He's about to be asked so many questions

His lips pull at the corners, a slight edge of excitement that comes when the people he loves know him, want to know him so they know how to love him better, but instead of any of that he just says: "So am I also right in guessing that none of you ever noticed that I only wear makeup on days when I don't wear my binder?" and watches them all dissolve into yelling.

He's totally getting them to come to next year's parade.

[fjtrickster-blog]

Another ROTTMNT Rant (feat. Splinter)

I'm going to preface this that these are thoughts that just keep bugging me and I just wanted to scream them into the void and no one seemed to mind the Big Mama discussion one so here we are.

Granted this one is a bit more of a spicy take as this is Rise Splinter and over all I think his characterization in general is... spicy.

I've seen two camps that have sorta formed over this Splinter and I just can't get out of my head my need to talk about it and only the internet shares my hyperfixation so thus this post. If you don't agree: fair. If you want to discuss I don't mind. I just want to examine the situation as I haven't seen anyone really stop to examine it without clearly being in camp "Splinter is a good Dad" camp or "Splinter is the absolute worst Dad" camp. And I think there's merit in examining both why those two camps exist and seeing what evidence is actually presented in the show. Though I'll admit I'm not outside the campgrounds in this situation but I am sorta on the edge of the "good Dad" camp looking over the fence and going "y'know those guys have a point" which is what this rant will be about.

Okay disclaimers out of the way we'll get into it now. Now keeping in mind that the Rise series for the most part has a lot of moments played for comedy. The series for the most part presents the world with this lens so it is inherently difficult to see what is supposed to be taken as truth and what is played for laughs. It's difficult to line up objective reality when the comedic effect of for example Splinter acting like the teenager trying to avoid being grounded when he steals the Turtle Tank. Where Donnie in particular takes on the angry strict parent role.

In fact it's interesting how many moments between Donnie and Splinter both bring up problematic behavior of a parent being framed in comedic light. Donnie is the one who suggests in an off handed line when they're tricked by Big Mama that he's never gotten parental approval before thus why he was tricked. This comes up again with Donnie frustrated when Splinter is interrupted when he was possibly about to say "I'm proud of you". Not that it's limited to Donnie but Donnie tends to be the one to throw out jokes about these things in offhanded comments.

Given Donnie's mad scientist energy and Splinter's boomer-esque quality of not understanding tech. It's possible that Splinter over the years has had a hard time dealing with or understanding Donnie and so he would be overly harsh when Donnie messed up likely because it resulted in a bigger mess than his other brothers. It doesn't help considering Donnie is cannonically autistic which wouldn't help with either understanding the more subtle cues of the other.

However that doesn't explain how the other turtles show little signs of Splinter's emotional distance. Again everything we see is presented in the idea of "haha isn't this funny" but examine the kind of lengths and steaks they put into EARNING the right to get HUGS. All the Rise turtles (Donnie I can see arguements either way) tend to be very touchy with each other: climbing on each other, turtle pile lots of hugs. Given their isolation the fact that Splinter seems to hold physical affection as a reward rather than something freely given is I think concerning. Of course it's an isolated episode but the turtles all seem to crave approval and validation to a certain extent. Some more than others. I'd argue this is an indication of some amount of neglect.

Moreover Spliner IN THE SERIES. Has actively put himself and his sons into dangerous situations. More over. It bothers me that the moments we see Splinter being a GOOD father figure. Where he gives an encouraging speech and such. The only moments where he makes that sort of connection of building up someone instead of yelling at them how they should do something. The TWO WHOLE TIMES we see it. ARE WITH APRIL AND CASANDRA. (I'm not counting the movie in this and even then he had like two lines max with Leo about listening to his team). I don't mean to exclude April but I found it telling that Splinter's episodes where he willingly goes out and hangs with someone it's APRIL. It's ALWAYS APRIL. Sure the turtles ditch Splinter on occasion but the only moments we see Splinter in good mentor roll is with a human. I find this concerning. His conversations with his own sons are very much tinged in regret or him pushing an agenda (in the demolition derby case). It's like he can't get over that his sons aren't human on some level or sees too much of himself in them and it taints his reactions to them. To be fair the show doesn't give much chance to show off Splinter maybe he's had these moments with the turtles but we only have the show to go off and I think this fact is one of the points people who don't think Splinter is a good dad twig on. I'll also admit the one time we see Splinter hanging with a turtle that isn't agenda based is in the hidden city tales and there Draxum gets in the way. It's just the show seems to actively sabotage moments of Splinter being a good dad to his actual sons.

You can even see some of this behavior reflected in the turtles. The ditching Splinter or excluding him. The strict parenting attitude (mostly Donnie). The vanity (Leo mostly). The keeping secrets (none of them tell Splinter about Draxum in fact this is paralleled in the scene where Splinter realized the Foot are a thing to draw attention to it). Splinter is consistently shown prioritizing his own interests or wants or feelings over his sons.

NOW Splinter has several reasons for why he is the way he is. He's clearly going through depression. He had a strict grandfather as his only father figure. The loss of his mother had a big impact on him. I think the betrayal of Big Mama hit hard. The years and years of constant fighting in the Battle Nexus. The implied "duty and destiny" of the Hamato clan that was shoved on him. He also went from prisoner to single parent of 4 and also mutated into a freak in one night. All of those inform the reasons for WHY he's like this now.

But while they inform his character I don't think they should JUSTIFY his actions. However on the other hand his actions I don't think should CONDEMN his character. Splinter as the series goes on clearly grows WITH his sons. He tries to open up to them more. He more actively attempts to be involved in situations. He does his best to protect them. He clearly LOVES his sons.

Does love justify him? No. Not alone at any rate. However Splinter clearly does more than just pay lip service to the notion. When he realizes the problem when the boys are kidnapped, he clearly starts actively attempting to do better. Does he always stick the landing? NO. He's a person. He has flaws but he doesn't remain static either.

Honestly I think that's the best thing about this Splinter. I find it occasionally frustrating when people either make Splinter this empathetic emotionally open Dad who is here for his kids all the time and knows exactly what to say. I also find it frustrating when he's made out worse than he is being openly neglectful to the point of forcing Raph to be the adult (because while Raph has Eldest Child Syndrom he is clearly NOT that mature at the start of the series).

Splinter isn't the BEST dad. He's not the WORST either. He's trying and he's willing to admit his faults which is not something everyone can do which I think puts him in the "better than some dads" camp. And much like some people rant about how people focus too much on only certain aspects of the Turtles. I feel like the same could be extended to Splinter. He's more than his mimicked strict parenting techniques (from his grandfather) or his selfish nature or his familial love for his kids. He's a well rounded character that has some distinct flaws and really should be appreciated for all of them.

Alright rant over. For anyone who read this far. If you want to further the discussion I'd love to hear other thoughts. I think active literary discussion is fun and interesting and I appreciate you reading this to the end. Have a great day.

[14muffinz]

Some random thingies for the born-human donnie idea i had like a week ago

You might want to check the other post first, but the basic premise is that instead of Donnie being a turtle, he is April's twin bro. Also they're both younger than Raph in this AU sorry not sorry.

So bascially, pre-series donnie is a normal human, and then in the first episode of the show, draxxum catches donnie in the lab explosion and thus the show would be less centred around stopping draxxum and more around saving donnie, once they discover he is alive

Draxxum sees Donnie as an opportunity to finish what he began. Donnie already knows the basics on how to fight, is highly intelligent, and already has faint traces of mutugen from residual DNA due to his closeness with the turtles.

So basically, while the rise team are scrambling to find donnie, donnie is being experimented on by Draxum.

Draxum is not being redeemed in this AU, I'll find some other way to get the s1 finale to work.

In the meantime, April meets sunita and those two are practically inseperable at school, because during the day april doesn't have anybody else to lean on due to the turtle's... whole situation.

When they find Donnie, he's been turned into another turtle, specifically a softshell. When they frst find him, to be fair, Don is very out of it and so the brothers aren't really certain if it's him or another turtle, but either way they take him back to the lair and try to help him heal.

The days after Donnie wakes up for real are very, very angsty. Donnie has been mutated, and he is probably the first mutant ever to still have a human family member there who knows what happened.

Donnie has to remind himself, repeatedly, not to hate the brothers for what happened to him. Draxxum would probably have done this to April if he'd never been introduced, and if the brothers didn't know either of the twins Drax probably would have eventually found some random human to experiment on instead. At least Donnie was lucky enough to have a support system.

Leo very not subtly steals a cloaking brooch for Donnie, one day, but the image it gives isn't exactly the man they once knew. The markings from the mystic chemicals (the purple ones he has in canon) are still sort of there in his skin, which is also slightly lighter than it used to be. His old shoes are now too small. His middle and ring finger are difficult to manoeuvre. And a lot of other slight changes that make it very clear that he can never be the same human again.

But of course, he still tries.

Nobody tells you that being mutated into a half-turtle hybrid sorta ruins any chance at a social life, who knew? It is also annoyingly hard to hide.

[penguin--person]

i didnt know u had a milgram oc !! or i forgor... 12 for the ask game!!

hehe i do!! i made her back in like, april or may, and then did Nothing with her... n because we weren't like, that big of friends back then i think? we were close but we weren't divorced yet i think, i didn't know if you'd think me cringe or not for making a milgram oc i think !! n msotly chatted to arc about her... but i should have known better. shes like. girl loser. anyway!! gonna respond to this under cut:3 im gonna do every prisoner. sorry not sorry also i do wanna say, aiko is very underdeveloped. so if any of these things clash. 1) sorry:( shes silly like that 2) shes a hypocrite, sorta 3) some of this will probs change as i (if i) develop her

12. What is their relationship like with the other prisoners? as stated above, i will do every priosoner:3

Sakurai Haruka this guy... this dude.... hes sure a guy!!! what a dude.... i think, they're similar enough for both of them to dislike one another. aiko doesn't like him because he reminds him of her, in a way. he didn't get well cared for by his mother in his youth (neglected) and, i'm not sure about which one(s), but he has disorders also i think? or mental illnesses? i don't know boss . i like mahiru and amane and i only know things about the two of them. and also yuno. bc she's easy to know about. and muu. and umm . kotoko . twirls hair . i don't know much about the men ❤️as in, i while i do care about thinking about them, i prefer the girls, because, the guys are boring, to me . oh you're mentally ill? so am i. oh you're on twitter? im not. oh you have a guilty concience? youre actually pretty cool shidou btut fanon has ruined you for me. oh you, are? ok. oh youre a terrible depiction of did? why does the fandom like you so much. men cannot win in milgram. theyre all so. simple. and so are the women, to be fair, but. you get it. you get it mikey. you get it. anyway, i think aiko would act civil around him, if he tried to talk to her, but wouldn't go out of her way to interact with him. sympathises, though. pre-trial one results probs avoids him. thinks of him as a lost puppy. post-trial one, pre trial-two results, maybe envies the 'bond' he has with mu. post trial two resuls, she umm. well. haruka says "oh you wont forgive mu? ok well ill just kill myself then. loser" and umm uh. thats not. good for aiko. that was her murder, basically. yea also he has "born a guy, treated like a girl because parents wanted a girl" while aiko has "born. a secret. treated like a guy because, parents. something something. trans but never confirmed if she was a canon character, just alluded to."

Kashiki Yuno yuno my good friend yuno.. i think aiko would get along ok with her. again, doesnt seek her out, but! likes her:) thinks shes silly. likes listening to her talk and indulging in conversation. pre trial 1 results, aiko is generally very closed off, but, later on deems yuno a comfortable presence:) and post trial 2 results starts seeking her out to hang out.. likes sitting with her in silence. helps her take care of mahiru after t1. and umm . yuno also takes care of her. unsure if yuno likes her, too, or if she finds her. lame

Kajiyama Fuuta does NOT like him does NOT like how loud he is!!! thinks he should quiet down. doesn't like how brash he is. she doesn't stop him from acting out (doesn't really.. dissapprove of it? doesn't like the ways with which he goes about things, but, doesn't mind that he overall tries to do them? admires him a bit, maybe. but does think hes stupid and dumb). tries to help him after t2, but he'd propably go "psh i dont need your help" and, well, she wouldn't want to push her luck. she's injured herself, after all.. . does care about him and worry for his safety, though.

Kusunoki Muu pre-t1 results, aiko is too out of it to be annoyed with muu. tries to help her a bit at first, maybe, sympathises with her - but soon finds her annoying and stops trying to help her. after t1 results, she wishes muu would act towards her like she does to haruka, but, she doesn't. and. she was voted guilty, so! thumbs down. doesnt like her:( but . goes along with her schemes n such i think. relates to her also.

Kirisaki Shidou - suicide tw for this one hooo boy ok. this one is a big one. due to the nature of aiko's murder, she gets close to this guy. sorta. doesn't like him. so! aiko's murder. its more explained in the link, but, basically, tried to kill herself and.. huh? what?? how is she in milgram if she killed herself?? well you see, basically, i consider the milgram prison more of a concept than an actual prison in its universe. so. milgram just popped her conciousness out from her last moments and into milgram. idk. ✌️the explanation is too long for this but! so. a bit into t1 - either between her and kotoko's trial or after his innocent verdict - she goes to shidou and basically asks him "am i dead? can you do a check up please?" and, i actually think shidou would take her semi-seriously - of course, he knows she's not dead, but, is propably like. just worried for her. he's been declared innocent at this point, anyways - might as well help. so he tells her, "no, youre not dead." and she gets pissed and angry and upset and sad and depressed and doesnt talk to him again until kotoko attacks her. disappointed bc, if hes right, she failed. and. angry because he Must be wrong. he Must be. or. it all sucks and is shit.

SHIINA MAHIRU 🧡💛💗 likes her positive outlook on this. aiko is very 'love-starved', and, although i think mahiru finds her a bit creepy at first, they both warm up to one another:) theyre buddies... injrued buddies... tries to take care of her after kotokos attack, but, being injured herself, she umm can't that much. but they spend time together. shes very "our unlovable guilty verdicts... could be lovable guilty verdicts", and, just, rlly likes that mahiru is so lovely. she's so warm and always has love to give. and. aiko needs that so bad. it Is unhealthy, yes, aiko becomes sorta very dependant on her for most of her emotional needs... sorta like muu and haruka, but, not rlly, because, yuno is there to tell them "hey youre getting a bit too codependent" n keep them in line lol maybe a bit of girl yuri.. who knows

Mukuhara Kazui (why are all the guys blue?) kazui is the closest thing aiko has ever had to a father/parental figure in a long time, but, she will Not let him know she will Not she will Not let him protect her from kotoko because that would mean unraveling feelings and shit. so. yeah. thats all i will say about this. because. i am unsure if thats the path i will take she does dislike him tho. because hes 'stereotypical strong man' n she envies that she cant be that. and, again, the dad thing.. she doesnt like it. that she feels like that

Momose Amane 💛 Thinks she's silly:) likes listening to her talk about her religion pre kotokos attack- after, too, but the others probs kee the two apart (bc, amanes "you cant use medicine" actually works on aiko). but. yeah. feels bad for the kid, and, wishes she was in a better mental state to help her. at least recognizes shes unable to. doesnt stop her from trying to help her with the little things - which, amane does not like. bc. she feels like shes being treated likea little kid.

aiko mae herself:)

Yuzuriha Kotoko finds her intimidating. admires her resolve. rlly doesn't mind her attack all that much.. is a bit scared of her, but, dismisses it as admiration n such. really does Not mind her attack.

[adultswim2021]

Assy McGee #7: “Ring of Fire” | April 7, 2008 - 12:30AM | S02E01

I’d been told that Assy McGee got bad starting with season two, and it just so happens that my enthusiasm for the show waned just enough that I don’t think I bothered to watch any of this season. This episode is an unfortunate dud that did little to convince me that the detractors were wrong. If I’m to take this single episode at face value, I’d say Assy McGee has transitioned from a comedy show with an absurd premise and funny jokes to a comedy show that has an absurd premise and that’s about it. It seems to have joined the ranks of Saul of the Mole Men and Fat Guy Stuck in Internet of shows whose main joke is that they exist at all. I’m not being totally fair here; I still have (gulp) 13 more episodes of this season to consume before I can draw a reasonable conclusion. Also I haven’t seen all of Fat Guy Stuck in Internet, either. Maybe that show gets good? Not holding my breath on that one.

In this episode, Assy investigates a spate of boxer deaths at a particular boxing gym. We see one of them go down, the result of a boxer going crazy and punching himself to death. A sandwich place seems to be connected. There’s a scene where Assy and his sidekick talk to the police morgue attendant, who reveals that the boxers are going mad from polonium poisoning, an element found in uranium ores. All commercially available polonium is made in Russia. We find out a sandwich shop is to blame. Assy confronts one of their delivery men who is strapped to the gills. A shootout ensues and Assy comes out on top, like usual. Assy talks to the chief and says that there’s no secret plot or conspiracy at all; the sandwich shop poisoned the boxers from negligence and the boxers just happened to like this one sandwich shop. The Chief responds by saying “who gives a shit, as long as it’s over”. Seems like it was the writers’ mantra for this show.

There’s also a subplot, sorta, saying that the radioactive corpses have mysteriously disappeared from the police morgue, meaning they’re out there roaming around, maybe. Or, maybe not. We don’t see them, as far as I remember. George Lowe plays the morgue attendant, and he repeats that his guys have been “ganked”. It seems ad-libbed to a certain extent, but doesn’t nearly match the level of George’s ad-libs as Space Ghost. I can’t imagine Matt Harrigan enlisting George and asking him to stick to a script, especially one as under-developed as this one.

Example of the bad writing: the morgue attendant has a line about Assy’s sidekick Sanchez, it’s like “you’re the stereotypical sidekick. You’re going to get shot 2 days before retirement”. That’s about as stale as it gets, even in 2008. A polar opposite joke comes a little later, when the morgue attendant shows a slideshow and he lists off “terrorists” as possibly being involved, and the slide is just a crude crayon drawing of indistinct purple figures. It’s a weird, subtle, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gag, the kind this show can surprise you with. It’s a shame there’s only one in this entire episode.

I forgot to mention: this season is in 4:3, even though a lot of other series already made the switch to 16:9. It also features, I believe, the same exact car ad in the middle of the show. This series began as an experiment in building a quarter-hour show with a midway commercial break, like Space Ghost used to have in its earliest seasons. I recall a bumper explaining that they couldn’t find anyone to agree to be sponsored in the middle of the show about a walking pair of buttocks that shoots people. I guess they found one. The commercial is actually IN THE SHOW ITSELF; when you watch it streaming on Adult Swim it’s still there. It’s a unique ad and features Assy McGee pitching for the car. It would be sorta neat if they produced 14 different ones or maybe even just a few different ones and rotated them. But, alas. Alassy McGee.

EPHEMERA CORNER

Robot Chicken #4a: “Adultizzle Swizzle” | April 11, 2008 - 11:00PM | S01E18a

Making note for those who care: Robot Chicken first aired the episode “Adultizzle Swizzle”, which was a re-edited version of “The Sack”. The lengthy sketch “Stix are Intended for Children” is replaced with a sketch from the Star Wars special and a couple of previously-deleted sketches. According to the wiki, it sometimes shows up under it’s old name “The Sack” without any warning that it’s actually the edited version.

[lettersfromleslie]

Presenting “HALFWAY HOME”!

Chappies: "Halfway Home" been out for two months now! The release concert and the European tour are behind us, and before the dust has settled completely I wanna take a last look at the album with you here, add in a few last pieces. I've talked plenty bout how the project got started, how it got fleshed out, the people who helped, and how it all felt, but I haven't really gone into the meat of it, the songs! And now Bobby shall bear all!!!

Maybe not... I'm aware that explaining things isn't always helpful. A song written right becomes a transferable thing, an incantation to be used by anyone. It's good to have a haze of ambiguity about the wee things. You can see hidden things in that haze, spontaneous images that a stark explanation cuts away. When "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was written in 1806 - bear with me - when that banger came out bout two hundred years ago, "How I wonder what you are" was a sincere wonder. As it had been for all of history. No one had any real idea. Holes in the firmament, ancestral spirits, cryptic clues to past and future events, all bets were on the table. Over the years a number of people put forward the idea that the Sun is a star, and stars are other suns, but it wasn't proved till the mid-1800s. And it was only a fair chunk into the 20th century - within living memory - that we were able to show that a star is a very hot ball of fusing gases, mostly hydrogen and helium. There you are. So now we don't have to wonder anymore. Which from a poetic point of view is honestly a bit of a drag, is what I'm driving at. Good science demystifies; a good poem does the opposite.

All the same, I reckon there's still a few things I wanna tell you bout this new  album of mine.

The first thing I wanna get across is that I put together Halfway Home as a whole, really as a story to be listened to in full. It's divided up into two halves - an inward-looking side on tracks 1 thru 6 and an outward-looking side from 7-11 (or 12, if we count ol Molson snoozing us out). "Chasing the Changes" is the pivot that starts the outside sliding in. There's a before-Covid and after-Covid divide: I began writing in November 2019 and finished around April 2020, and the writing followed what I was preoccupied with at the time. The project started out as almost a concept album, exploring the idea of "terrain vague" and the sorta phantasmagorical, outside-the-machine feeling of life on the outskirts of NYC, but because of how the outside world went all batty and barged in on us, some of the tunes ended up exploring more tangible problems.

You try to conjure pictures when you make music. Dragging out an inner world benefits from mixed media. So you package things. You hide clues in your artwork and videos. And so while you listen to these songs I want you to picture empty lots, weeds, rusted elevated subway tracks and the carved designs on old tombstones, as well as medieval block prints, the films of Georg Meliès, belle epoque theater sets, and Galileo's moon studies. If you're listening indoors, picture the people who lived in your room before you. If you're listening outdoors, find your nearest thin place, as the Celts called the places where you can sense that the distance between earth and the Otherworld is shorter, 'where the walls are weak'. Get good and mystical with me, eh? There's still room for it in this world. Let yer thoughts shimmer and waft about. Even the songs that are specific were meant to be indistinct.

They lead into one another: "Years Away" - conversation with past selves, stuck in the present with no turning back. "In the Rows" - present, adult world of love & building life. "Empty is the Colour" - dreams, fantasies of escape following those pressures, & waking again. "Halfway Home" - fear of the dark, headlong, thick, black vertigo love, a pit among the weeds, too deep to fall. "And It's Fine" - back to life, day-to-day, cleareyed sadness. "Chasing the Changes" - interruption! - crisis! - change!

Flip the record and the first thing you hear is the sound of a thunderstorm recorded in the first week of the Rona lockdown. "My Bananamoon" - goofy woozy drunken meandering across the empty streets, Pierrot's lipstick. "In Another Light" - the emptiness again but sober, & finding hope in the idea that things won't be the same. "Bye Bye Finchy Dave" - manic, chaotic riff on the end of a weird summer. "Cold Moon" - false peace of winter broken by dissonance, transference of pain. "The World" - to break open prior thoughts & float off free.

(And sending us back to our lives is Molson, the cat with the red sticker, snoring on our couch the night we rescued him from the shelter and the night before NYC's first Covid lockdown went into effect. Never caught him doing it since, as it happens. Poor lil fucker must've been beat!)

I love all my tunes, but I love these ones an unusual amount. They came out of nowhere, when I was worried I didn't have anything left to say. They sprung up after I decided that the confused jumble of my life was worth looking at after all, even if only for the sake of its own confusion. Realizing you can say something complete about a life that's incomplete. Halfway Home - dig?

I need to think of these songs as walking off by themselves, and that means they'll walk through you. I hope you take them to faraway places. I hope they show you pictures that no one's seen before. Plenty of mysteries still waiting out there! Flapping about like weird bats!!! Over & out, big grin, RL.

[myownprivatcidaho]

im am not the master kf putting two & 2 together

[insomniactalks]

I have about 10 different asks sitting in my inbox regarding the “leaks” for S3, and I finally found some time to address them today. Instead of answering each ask one by one, I’m just gonna address all those concerns/questions in this post. If you are one of the several anons who’s sent me an ask about the “leaks,” and have been patiently waiting for an answer, keep reading! This is the only time I will address the “leaks” b/c I think it’s best to just wait and see what happens at this point. (Typing this up from my laptop, so I apologize for the length of this post...hehe) 

To start, I’m so sorry if you’ve been waiting a while for a reply. July has been hectic for me. Thank you for ur patience! A few things before I start: I won’t tag Ricky and Gina’s ship in the main tag b/c I assume they may not want to read my thoughts on the matter (which is totally fair! LOL) I think I’ll start tagging Gicky instead from now on b/c that’s also a combo of their names and so I can keep my own blog organized in some way. Also, my thoughts on the “leaks” are less from a Portwell stan’s point of view and more so from my thoughts as an English major in undergrad and grad school. I will try my best not to insert my own bias here. I’m simply looking at the story that’s being told on the show and the evidence.  

Yes, I have seen the “leaks,” both the Twitter thread and the screenshots/“script” from back in April/May. And no, I will not share any of that with anyone b/c I promised the person who was kind enough to share it with me that I wouldn’t do that. That being said, lemme get into it! 

Is anyone really surprised S3 would have another semi-formal event given S1′s HoCo episode (1.05) and S2′s quinceñero (2.05)? We all shoulda known S3 would follow that trend, so I’m not surprised by 3.07 apparently being another dance/formal event, “Camp Prom” I believe is the name. What corroborates “Camp Prom” is the actual evidence to back it up. The screenshots for this are actual pics from crew on set while they were filming, which show colorful 70s-themed décor. It’s not just someone’s words that’s taken as truth, there’s legit posts from crew on their Instagrams. All that confirms is that there will be a dance at camp (which seems so fun! Can’t wait to see it.) The only reason the “leaker” was right about that is b/c of the crew’s behind the scenes pics.

The “leaker” claims Ricky and Gina “have a great moment together” in the prom episode and that they “make eye contact across the room” at some point. I can see how one would easily assume this scenario to mean something romantic for Ricky and Gina, but just b/c 2 characters “share a moment” together doesn’t inherently make it a romantic scene. BTW, the “leaker” never claims Gicky “almost kiss” at prom, they only said what’s stated above. There’s a screenshot of part of the alleged script for “Camp Prom” that claims they “almost kiss.” I have several issues with this “script,” starting with the font used. I’ve seen plenty of official scripts from other shows (Riverdale and SPOP in particular) and even from Tim himself. They all have the exact same font and font size (no idea what that font type is called, but all shows/movies in the industry seems to use it. It must be standard practice b/c that font is sorta boxy and spaced out, making it easier for actors to read). Tim’s even shared part of the script for 1.06 before, and the font used is very different from this “script” from 3.07. I’m not claiming Ricky and Gina won’t share a moment in 3.07, I just highly doubt it’s an almost kiss. This “script” goes from Jet and Maddox on stage, to the coat check area where Gina “spills her bag” before her and Ricky allegedly almost kiss. There is no description for what Gina does after her “bag spills.” It just says she and Ricky “almost kiss” immediately after that. That makes no sense. Any person would be fumbling to put stuff back into their bag if everything spills out. This “script” is missing so much context, on top of being the wrong font and font size, that it makes me question it’s legitimacy. Seems pretty fake to me. Also, anyone notice how none of the “leaks” have ever stated anything specifically about Portwell? All these “leaks” seem to be in favor of only one ship (Gicky), yet official releases for S3, such as posters, the trailer, the “It’s On” music vid, etc, have continually presented Portwell as a team. I’m not saying Gina and EJ won’t be dealing with couple drama in S3, of course they will, but I doubt S3 will be the end for them.

One of the anons bring up Channing and Corbin filming Gicky during rehearsals for the musical for the documentary, and EJ possibly seeing that footage as the director. That’s deff a solid theory b/c the show could do that to add more drama. But here’s the problem. If Gina and Ricky are the leads in the musical, they would be playing romantic interests. Just like in S1, EJ will be in the exact same position in S3 where his girlfriend is playing romantic leads with a guy she has/had feelings for. By S1′s finale, EJ accepts Nini’s decision in choosing Ricky and truly lets her go (which is a moment he’s “really proud of” (2.10)). He learns a lesson in S1 about letting someone go and putting their interests before his own. In 1.04-1.06, EJ was still trying to win Nini back and hold on to their relationship, even when she was clearly done. However, thanks to character growth (and a certain someone! *ahem* Gina) EJ does the right thing. What would be the point in having EJ placed in the same situation as S1 again, where his girlfriend and the guy she has a past with are playing romantic leads, and have him go thru that rejection again? With the same other guy (Ricky) no less? There’s no point in EJ learning the same lesson from S1 again cuz he already went thru that. Don’t ya’ll think the writers know this? I think the more likely story that will be told in S3 is EJ having to confront his past insecurities with Nini, and how that affects his present relationship with Gina. The writers may have set up what seems like the same story from S1, but I’m pretty sure there will be a different outcome in S3. Doesn’t make sense to repeat the same lesson of rejection for EJ’s character in S1 in S3. There should be another important lesson to be learned here for EJ, such as someone other than himself actually wanting to “hold onto what they had over the summer” (1.04). Nini couldn’t do that for him unfortunately, due to the feelings she clearly still had for Ricky in S1. EJ was always gonna be a rebound for Nini b/c she was just trying to move on from Ricky over the summer he broke up with her. Gina, on the other hand, waited several months, during which she was actively moving on from her romantic feelings for Ricky, before she even considered being more than friends with EJ. 

That doesn’t mean Ricky and Gina shouldn’t have a convo or two in S3 to clear the air b/t them, and work on rebuilding their friendship. This may very well lead to Gicky sharing moments this season, but I’m not convinced they'll be romantic moments. Every time EJ witnessed or suspected s/t going on b/t Ricky and Nini in S1, he was actually right. While he did NOT handle it in the right way, his suspicions were correct (esp in 1.02 w/ Ricky and Nini sharing a moment on stage/voicemail and even in 1.04 where Nini and Ricky almost kiss the same day she broke up with EJ). Having already gone thru that with Nini and Ricky, why would the show make EJ live thru that again with Gina and Ricky? Unless....there’s a different outcome! (That being EJ seeing Gina and Ricky interact and actually having to confront his insecurities this time instead of just being on the defensive. Who’s to say this won’t lead to more honest conversations b/t Portwell? Better yet, EJ and Ricky having the conversation they never really had in S1, where Ricky really overstepped certain boundaries in EJ’s relationship and Ricky comes to terms with that now. What if Ricky acknowledges his wrongs in the past and chooses to want a more genuine friendship/comradery with EJ this time? Just a thought.)

Last thing, S3 is confirmed to be only 8 episodes. The writers spent 8 episodes in S2 having EJ and Gina just flirt with each other. I doubt Portwell will date and break up (and stay broken up) in the same season they just started dating. They even set up the strong possibility for a Portwell love confession someday b/c of the following allusions to love in regard to Gina and EJ: (2.06) EJ would ask his future self if “he could learn to love anyone after Belle,” then takes a seat right next to Gina [visual foreshadowing]; (2.08) Howie singing, “No lesson could teach me how I could have loved her and make her love me too” as EJ takes care of Gina while she sleeps by placing his Duke hoodie over her; and (2.11) Ricky and Ashlyn singing “Something There,” a love song about 2 ppl unexpectedly falling for each other while Gina and EJ send e/o hearteyes thruout the performance (at least 3 times!). When writing a story, like the writers for the show, you include these subtle/indirect hints, like love in relation to Portwell in S2, in order to bring that concept back up again in a more apparent way. I couldn’t help but notice the set up in S2 for a Portwell love confession, but there’s a clear lack of a set up for an EJ/Gina/Ricky love triangle. By S1 finale, we knew Gina still had feelings for Ricky, hence the somewhat awkward moments b/t them in the dressing room after “Stick to the Status Quo” performance and their hallway convo before “Breaking Free,” which was the writers setting up Gina’s storyline for S2. She was obviously still grappling with her feelings for Ricky, hence the S2 promo posters placing Ricky b/t Nini and Gina b/c he was gonna be an important part of both their stories that season. It was a love triangle -adjacent situation. In contrast, S2 does not set up a Gicky/Portwell love triangle by the finale. The writers have already set the foundation for a Portwell love confession and a long-awaited conversation b/t Ricky and Gina to restart their friendship. I am hoping that happens with Ricky realizing how poorly he treated Gina in S2, apologizing for it, and wanting to be good friends again.

Bottom-line, let’s all stop acting like the writers are gonna fuck it all up just for the sake of drama. EJ and Gina’s stories (both individually and together) have been wonderfully written so far (the writers going as far as paralleling PW’s first moment ever in 1.01- with EJ watching Gina from the wings with mutual respect for her as a performer, to their 2.11 moment- with EJ proudly watching Gina from the wings, tenderly admiring the kind of person she is. See here for gifs!) This show even brought in not one but two different guest stars to help further develop Portwell’s relationship in S2. Just sayin’. 

I see it this way: Gina and Ricky should be having positive interactions again in S3, esp after S2, and I’m hopeful for their renewed friendship again. And, if EJ and Gina don’t have their love confession this season, that’s deff something to look forward to in S4! Let’s face it, PW love confession is on the horizon, and the writers have set it up that way.            

[hypnotised-hazard]

Could I just say something here considering the rise movie is coming up and shit I wanted to share my predictions since it's just a week away. So yk how everyones going on about this being similar to mutant apocalypse from 2012 and considering a lot of 2012 references and hell even va cameos in rise I find it fair to draw from that conclusion

BUT being the zany little 2003 tmnt fan I am I have found a few things that REALLY SPEAK TO ME and some 2003 fans may know exactly what im going to touch on. Which is the season 3 episode "Same As It Never Was"

Before we unpack I would like to say spoilers for 2003 tmnt and I 110% agree you should REALLY CHECK OUT THIS SERIES it's highly underrated okay ON WITH IT!

First off im going to be pointing out the obvious the apocalypse like future [because imagine if I had a nickel for everytime thats happened in tmnt.] There's a sorta form of opposite into how the future is told but they are both alternate timelines were everything is taken away by a krang/umtron antagonist of the present dimensions time which...

Both take the role of a very familiar guy we all know and love.

And weight is on one person who wants to defeat it and therefore has to come up with a plan to stop them or else everything they know will be destroyed that person probably knowing they could lose something in the process.

And while I'm on it I wanna address some speculation I have about that whole machine Leo's coming out of in that shot. He looks heavily traumatised by what he's seen in that pod of some sort with the whole plot line about the apocalypse future I wouldn't count it out of the question that he's seen the future Casey's from or something similar to that and he could've seen that he's lost almost everyone and probably due to him being the leader this weight has been put on him even more because everyones looking towards him for advice and more amplified by casey being his student he doesn't know. So if they lose he truly believe its his fault. it's absolutely similar to Donnies experience in 2003, were the whole world goes down the drain just because he went missing so theres this giant burden on Don were he tries to fix everything hes supposedly done in this alt universe only for his plan to kill his brothers in the process going back to his dimensions brothers traumatised.

So that's lovely two traumatised turtles who definitely aren't scarred for life.

There's also some smaller similarities I've found between the two like

-A future were at least one or more of the turtles are dead [rise please have the balls to kill raph and don on screen like 2003 /j]

-uh oh looks like someones lost an arm

-present Casey dying [or at least its most likely that rise Cassandra has died as Casey was named after them and we didn't see her anywhere in the trailer and probably if your grandson is basically going back in time to save you and your family you'd probably be there lmao.]

-April's a commander and alive [listen rise future April isn't seen in the trailers but I presume shes alive because she's greeted by Casey meaning Casey knows her and Casey also looks like they see April first rather than the turtles because he's probably looking for his next instruction. Even though its a bit of a stretch why shes not in the trailer is probably because she's kinda doing the same as 2003 april in same as it never was which is running camps or forms of rebellion camps and probably is why shes stated as a commander.]

Okay again some of these are speculation but GOD DAMN a lot of these can definitely be classified as similarities and damn as a 2003 fan I can see where they're going with this and even though same as it never was is literally the greatest tmnt episode of all time HOLY FUCK it's a mental RIDE and going into this movie is definitely kinda like how i felt going into same as it never was for the first time everything seeming perfectly fine THEN BAM HIT THE FAN this movies truly gonna be awesome I can feel I'm not ready