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caterpillarinacave · 3 months

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I love Charlotte and Henry and they're super underrated. And I would VERY MUCH like to hear the headcanons whirring about in your brain.

Oh well buckle up cause literally all I think about is head cannons. Like, you know how cells replace themselves every few years? Mine have replaced themselves with head cannons. *Sorry it took me a hot moment to answer this ask, I was busy howling into my pillow whenever I tried to articulate thoughts.*

First of all, they’re very cuddly. They basically sleep on top of each other (Charlotte hasn’t needed a pillow in decades). Henry cant sleep well without Charlotte in his arms and Charlotte can’t sleep well anywhere other than Henry’s arms so it works out. Plus, they both do that thing where they jerk awake like the world is ending and scare the shit out of each other, so sleeping in a hug that basically pins them both down saves some energy at 2am. Henry’s perpetually cold and sleeps under like, four blankets, so Charlotte just wears summer nightgowns all year and wraps herself around Henry like a koala.

Naturally there’s an angsty side to the incessant cuddling because that’s just the way I role.

Charlotte sleeps with her head on Henry’s chest so she can always feel him breathing because, by the angel, she remembers when he wasn’t. She sleeps with a hand on his pulse point because she wakes up in the middle of the night and she’s still half asleep they might as well be on the floor in that mountain and she might as well still be desperately swearing she didn’t imagine his heartbeat.

While on the topic of soul crushing feelings of guilt, y’all remember from Clockwork Angel that Henry was the one who told Mortmain what a Pyxis was? And he wanted Charlotte to tell the clave that and she wouldn’t because “they already treat him so badly”? Because I do. And so does Henry.

(I’ve got a whole WIP that I love very dearly about this head cannon and this chess game hehe) There’s one random old tutor who goes to the London institute once a month-ish, basically to hand out a few weeks of homework to any shadow hunters who don’t have their own tutors. Most shadow hunters who live in a more rural area show up a few times a year so the clave knows they’re alive and at least somewhat literate. Charlotte attends them every month since, you know, she lives there, but Henry lives somewhere around Yorkshire so he shows up every few months. The professor is kind of a dick ngl. He doesn’t help Charlotte with any school why would a woman need to be so well educated? “Go on find a husband and stop worrying you’re pretty little head” sort of shit. Henry drives him insane because he’s a) some random kid who’s smarter than him and b) didn’t use any of the professors materials to get that smart. Professor Douche is constantly trying to get him to be wrong about something, or at least flustered about something and he doesnt ever do either of those things, and even more aggravating he refuses to get upset. (He honestly just assumed the professor wasn’t that smart.)

Charlotte’s a really good student of course, but she’s having a shit time with some mathematics and the professor absolutely refuses to help her with it. Eventually she asks Henry if he wouldn’t mind helping her with it, which he’s happy to do (once he figures out that’s what shes actually asking lol.)

Charlotte is incredibly distracted the entire time by Henry’s freckles (and eyes. And hands. And the way his hair curls on the nape of his neck. And the spots of gold and green in his hazel eyes that flashed as bright as the sun when the light catches them. And-), but they get through it in an hour or two which leaves them alone in a deserted wing of the institute. They end up playing a game chess. Charlottes a decent player and thought since Henry had never showed any interest in chess it would be a probably be an evenly matched game. She didn’t know what hit her. He beat her in like, eight minutes, eighty percent of which were spent on the last two moves by Charlotte who, upon realizing she was fucked, spent five minutes staring at the board trying to figure out when he even started beating her. She was sitting there having a whole crisis, (she’d been distracted by a man who probably doesn’t like her, and certainly doesn’t think much of her now after a pathetic loss like that and now she’ll have to sit hear and wallow in failure-) just preparing for him to start that whole smug gloating thing men do when they win and Henry you know. Didn’t. He just put the pieces away and thanked her for the game, in that very genuine way, with the gloomy London evening light casting a depressing shadow across the room, a shadow that he stood out against all gentle, kind, bright and brimming with a sort of barely contained passion. If Charlotte had ever doubted that shadow hunters had come from straight angels then sitting there, looking at a boy stained in soot, who she loved more than anything else to walk the earth, she would never doubt it again.

(It wasn’t until after Henry won and noticed Charlotte hadn’t said anything in a while that he remember people don’t like losing. Honestly he was playing just to be around her and he would have thrown the game if he could conceptualize how to do that on the fly. They spent like five minutes in autistic silence waiting for the other to stand up and declare newfound hatred.)

In true British fashion the a modern tea bag would kill them both.

When they were both 13 or 14 Charlotte mentioned she was dreading winter because it’s so bleak and dark (and her mom had died a few winters before, though she didn’t drop that in casual conversation). Anyways, come winter Henry brought her a marigold preserved in something like resin. She kept it in her jewelry box for years and after they got married she found out he had literally dozens of them. Whenever he came across a particularly bright flower he preserved it and set it aside. He was never quite brave enough to give them to her pre-TID, but he now leaves them for her when she’s particularly sad or stressed. She keeps them all in a drawer- they fit together like little tiles, and still look as fresh as they would had they just been plucked from the ground.

Somewhat surprisingly Henry doesn’t really lose stuff, with the singular exception being his own medical equipment. He’s lost the leg braces he wears every single day of his life before. Charlotte’s not usually speechless but she wasn’t sure what to say to that one.

Henry gave Charlotte a watch with a hands and numbers that can glow the same way a modern day one would. It’s absolutely beautiful, durable and accurate, even if Henry set himself on fire at least four times making it. (They can say with confidence that that watch is fireproof)

—-

Honestly, I could go on and on, then on some more, but technically I’m supposed to be writing a paper on gut micro biomes that’s due tomorrow, so I figured I’d cut myself of. In conclusion, I love them dearly, they love each-other dearly, they deserve the world, all I can think about is them, and the world can pry them out of my cold dead hands.

#My rough drafts are a goldmine #I’ve got basically a full novel of Henry and Charlotte in the form of random chapters scattered around a google doc #The second to last one might have come about because Ive always had an affinity for losing medical equipment #Yes it’s normally attached to my body no I don’t know where it went #I love so much #the thoughts are suffocating #My brain replays “they believed right then that Shadowhunters came from angels” constantly #It’s one of the lines I made up and lives rent free in my head #I direct everyone to Qui Voltum Tolt Vultum Perdit on my AO3 which will eventually be full of henry and Charlotte #That fic is a very articulate example of some of my thoughts #The bit about the marigold I mentioned is just the surface btw it’s so much 💅deeper💅#I didn’t even mention the snow scene on here (scene I made up. And only I know about)#Or the scars. Dhegvgfg the scar thing #One of my own WIPs that makes me cry because I need someone to love me that way #Also left out the pajama thing the baked good thing the boat thing the “teaching original London institute gang to swim” thing #The newspaper thing floor thing the triplets thing the Yorkshire thing the bathtub thing the tiny little children #The smell of air before a storm thing the lemon thing the piano thing the music thing ugh I could go on and on #Tid #thanks for the ask!#fairwell #…anyone got any good articles on the gut microbiome

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spiderwarden · 5 months

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Sometimes I want to write Act1 Unhinged Minthara.

Sometimes I want to follow someone’s Tav, or Companions. ( well? OCs, but I don’t like saying the word OC in BG3 it implies they’re not canon. they are canon to me.)

Sometimes I want to playfully send someone asks.

Sometimes I want to send memes.

Sometimes I want to playfully comment.

SOMETIMES-! I JUST -!!! WANT TO WRITE!! MINTHARA CRIME!!!

#[ 🕷️ ] —— out of character #[ but I cant ]#[ worse thing is I can’t remake with the same URL ]#[ GOOD NEWS THO I guess I can still work on drafts? I found this out this morning before sleep ]#[ so I might do that eventually I’m almost done with my homework ]#[ literally got 1 question left ]#[ so I’m gonna test that out after ]

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pinkcherryblossom18 · 1 year

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I just stumbled upon your page and saw that other persons ask about a siren Finnick. And that blurb was super good. Not to be a pain, but can I please request more siren Finnick? Maybe a full fic, or just a longer one? :)

Oh, it's fine sweetie, you're not being a pain.

Finnick's upset and his slight hatred of humans is restored for a moment. He never truly liked them in the first place, though his treasure had restored some love for them, the news he had just received had shown that the love was reserved only for you. Other humans, like these that are demanding and untrustworthy, would be drowned or have their things stolen of once he had a bit of a chance.

It would get him trouble if one of them did die, though they couldn't pin it on him he would have to stay away from land for a while and humans in general. He would be fine with that before, but now with these humans who would be invading both his and your sanctuary in the depths of the sea, more was on the line. Finnick wouldn't and he had told the humans such but he had warned them that if any harm would come to his treasure he could not be punished for his actions.

The humans had agreed to his terms, nodding to themselves in contemplation before their leader answered him. He could already feel himself growing annoyed at their very presence but kept up the good-natured act that they seemed to enjoy. Most of their kind did, not liking what he actually held within himself and he was sure that they would, as most humans do, consider him more dangerous than they already did.

You never judged him when he revealed who he was and what he was capable of, what he had done, and the horrors he had placed on your kind. Fear had not shone in your eyes when he revealed that and he was overjoyed with happiness when, without the use of magic, you excepted him as he was. Taking his hand in yours and demanding to know the full stories and not just anecdotes, no matter how long it would take him to explain everything.

This was one of the things that had pulled him into you more, had captivated Finnick into your own deep waters of secrets and shame that he had listened to and excepted just as you had with him. It was something that struck a possessiveness in him when you had done so, knowing how your kind would take that and use it to hurt you or use that and then throw you away when they were done with you. A human trait that was so ugly and hateful that it had become one of his reasons for the scorn he put on your kind.

He couldn't say that his kind wasn't without faults, him threatening the humans who will be staying with you both is a testament to that in grand. It wasn't so much greed that he had done so, not in the selfish tendencies that humans would do it. He had found the shiniest object in his eye, something that was so rare and so irreplaceable that he couldn't be blamed for not wanting others to touch it, for wanting to keep his treasure--to keep you away from others that would do damage to you without a single thought behind the action.

You had looked at him in confusion when he told you about the humans staying. "They won't be here long sweetheart," he cupped your face and brought you impossibly closer with his free hand, "only a few days and then their leaving. They won't hurt you, I'll make sure of that," he promised and felt his heart flutter when you nodded, putting all trust into him wholely.

#finnick odair #finnick odair x reader #i didn't finish it #but its been a few days and I wanted to get this out #because halfway through writing I got stumped and left it to rot in my drafts #sorry but I do hope you enjoy

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60inchyugiohheadcanons · 7 months

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On Jōnouchi's ADHD (1.39k words)

This headcanon is probably the longest on this blog; it's some compiled thoughts on how growing up with (undiagnosed) ADHD has affected Jōnouchi. It's halfway between headcanon and fanfiction piece, and was requested by @bloodyscott, whom I kept waiting for too long for a response. I apologise sincerely for the delay.

This headcanon begins below the cut, as it's obscenely long. You may find it more comfortable to read this from the blog page, or on Archive of Our Own (NOTE: tumblr is acting strange. To access the page, copy the link and manually remove the href.li portion and the second https), rather than on your dashboard/search, in terms of formatting and such.

From infancy, Jōnouchi wailed his way out of his crib, out of his room, out of his house—as a baby, he thrashed towards whatever freedom he could find. He loathed the four walls of the crib; he'd scarce room to move. A skin infection brought him, aged 4, to hospital, and the very sight of overrun grey plastic seats and skinny cubicles exhausted him more than his illness had ever threatened to.

In primary school, others’ desks would blend together in a whir. Here he was, stuck, dizzyingly sedentary—the longer he sat, the foggier the world seemed to grow. When he kicked and whined at other children throughout electric lunch breaks, and they shrank from his vitality, he learned to eat alone. As his peers trudged from class in packs, watching the pavement, he sat, sullen, as his father drove him home. Somehow, Katsuhiro had never trusted him not to lose himself in chasing his surrounds. The fabric of the car seat would bite into his shorts, and he’d squirm for the window, squealing towards the noise outside: Birds that cawed; scraps of paper that fluttered and choked on smog. That was a fragile era, when his mother still waited, with dry hands and chipped nails, at home. When his father already stank of beer, but still spoke loudly, deeply, boisterously. Again and again, Jōnouchi’s mother would sit her son down, and write his name, stroke by agonising stroke. She’d recite each mora in time with each character. Yet sound would cluster through his head, and his own name would dissolve amid his mother’s instructions, amid the blaze of sunlight trapped on the windowsill behind her. He would write, and the strokes would come out rushed, mis-ordered, lopsided.

Iro wa nioedo

chirinuru wo.

At 10, his father grew quiet, and his mother yet quieter. Silence took up like a plague in Jōnouchi’s head, and swarmed in shapeless formation throughout parched mathematics lessons. Times tables hurled themselves headlong into a skull full of fog, and burst on contact. Are you listening? a teacher asked. How could he listen with a head full of noise, of unspoken words billowing back and forth? He gripped his seat, and glared back. Why should I care, anyway?

When his mother left, his father stopped caring to chaperone him. It had taken Jōnouchi a decade to earn the right to shed his infancy. He resented that it had been this long, so tried to join the huddle of middle schoolers. He told odd stories, and took off, queasy, in front of them. They withdrew their smiles when he approached on the second day. He growled his plaint, and resentment drove him to take the opposite route. He explored back alleys, wallflower convenience stores and dilapidated cinemas; the faster he walked, the more clearly he could see each brick, and the brighter each fleck in the pavement glinted. At speed, he delayed the journey home, and set his eyes on a gorgeous early winter sunset. The colours bellowed, too bold for winter, ungainly and vain. They were glorious.

Jōnouchi came home late. His father glared; fog crashed back down on his shoulders.

Wa ga yo tare zo

tsune naran?

A week before she cleared out too few of Katsuhiro’s belongings and packed too few suitcases, Jōnouchi’s mother drove both children two miles to the optometrist. My son, she explained, reads slowly, yet resents reading; it seems he can’t see very well. My daughter’s sight seems clearer, yet she complains of pain. The optometrist forced Jōnouchi to read down a chart of letters; he fidgeted, and, consumed in memories of a lonely lunch break the day prior, passed with flying colours. When the optometrist flashed a light to photograph his eyes, whatever hideous miracle that was, Jōnouchi screamed.

Katsuya Jōnouchi, the optometrist surmised, had perfect acuity of sight. He sought attention, stimulation. Meanwhile, Shizuka Jōnouchi, who had sat entirely still throughout her examination, had more ragged, derelict peripheral vision than her family had anticipated. Untreated, both your children will get much worse.

And in the months after Shizuka Jōnouchi became Shizuka Kawai and Mrs. Jōnouchi became That Bitch Who Never Cared, Katsuya Jōnouchi became horribly aware of how little time he had to be lethargic. He had to survive this schism; yet as he was, he barely felt capable of thinking. He walked, fidgeted, paced to prove to himself that he was a moving, breathing organism. Yet his father’s frustration would brook no exuberance. Long before Katsuhiro fully committed to flinging glass and spurning his son’s misery, Jōnouchi began learning to move silently, slowly, around his father. He memorised which mats snapped and snagged, which bits of fabric hissed when stepped on. He noted which windows opened most quietly. And yet he never managed a perfect, quiet exit. He couldn’t help but be conspicuous; he could only hope to get out too quickly for his father to react. And, to lift the torpor that followed escape, he would run to school, and, after, run back. Never did the sun shine brighter than when he was moving.

Uwi no okuyama

kyou koete.

When he met Hirutani, did he become more violent? No; every punch he threw during his delinquency had waited, kinetic and desperate, for days, months, years. In classrooms, his sole responses to being ordered around had been sullen deference, with sullenness being his sole demonstration of rebellion. Now, threatened with the obsolescence of his ego, of his perceived freedom, he chained himself to violence, over and over. The first time he punched a man in the gut, he found himself shaking. And rather than sink into sallow, domestic remorse, he slathered himself in white rage. And he went back and he went back and he went back, helpless to his own instincts, trying to dredge the noise in his skull out through his fists. No matter how many punches he threw, and no matter how many he received, he could not stop his head from blazing anew the moment he walked away.

Did Duel Monsters afford him any peace? He would be no man’s losing dog; nor would he be confined to dull celebrity. To play as a strategist consigned him to sitting still, committing himself to gambits he could never entirely trust, to moves that demanded a clear head. To play too whimsically would doom him to inferiority. Thus, he gave half his heart to diligence, and half to sheer fortune. Nobody could idolise his kind of folly, nor devalue his kind of skill. This was Jōnouchi’s will—to eschew having to wait in the mire of expectation; to escape the fog of obligation to anyone’s morals but his own. Honour suited him, so long as it was on his meticulous terms. In games of Duel Monsters, he became a knight-errant of sorts: predictably unpredictable, unexpectedly canny, blindly faithful. With this relationship to his own fate laid out so, he could finally draw cards without fearing those next to come. And thus, hyperkinetic, he found a peace in the game. So he played and played until he forgot how long he’d been playing, and Duel Monsters became as second nature.

Asaki yume miji

ei mo suzu.

Two weeks before Jōnouchi’s graduation, Shizuka invited him to her place to dine. Their father was not to join them. Jōnouchi protested, and his desperation died in a pinprick throat. Wisteria spilled itself over the footpath. Each step threatened to plunge, vertiginous, to the ground.

When Jōnouchi saw his mother, his throat turned to sandpaper. She looked so old.

You cried so much as a baby, she told him. Kicked and screamed to see the world. You weren’t comfortable waiting in your crib—I’d end up coming to you at 4AM, walking you around the perimeter of the house till my heels burned. And you seemed so afraid of all the noises of the night—groaning engines, singing birds. Now, look at you—you’ve grown up so terribly fast.

Could he afford to tell her how even now, he bit down the urge to kick and scream, to launch himself, all fists and sparks, onto his tormentors? No; so, all night, he gripped his glass as tight as he could. The cold lingered and itched on his palms for days. Holding onto things, it seemed, was not so difficult as he’d once believed.

#couple of notes: i tried to write jōnouchi as also possibly having some form of conduct disorder that did not progress to aspd.#as i have neither conduct disorder nor aspd – i can't promise it's entirely accurate #and i apologise sincerely for any serious mistakes. i've tried to avoid stigma but i know i've a hell of a lot more learning to do #jōnouchi is meant to have combined-type adhd here. i have adhd but no diagnosed subtype #however i'd generally say i have an extremely different experience to jōnouchi here. (i'm either hyperactive or combined)#i've tried to stay away from stereotype while also focussing on how a young child might be both overtly and internally hyperactive #and how the display of symptoms might change with circumstance.#moreover; shizuka's eye condition in the anime is left vague and (probably unrealistically) curable #i went with some kind of glaucoma (probably open-angle but i really don't know enough to say).#she probably stopped losing vision after surgery but i doubt she actually got her peripheral vision back #the japanese poem interspersed throughout is the iroha. it was more significant to early drafts and i'm too sentimental to take it out.#i named jōnouchi's father katsuhiro (克弘) because calling him 'jōnouchi's father' got too cumbersome #i didn't really show jonouchi hyperfocussing much or write about his experience of time.#but since he's an esfp i probably need more time to work out how Se dominance could interact with time blindness #anyway. i'll shut up now.#yugioh #yu-gi-oh!#YGO #Yu-Gi-Oh #yu gi oh #katsuya jonouchi #katsuya jounouchi #jounouchi katsuya #jonouchi katsuya #shizuka jonouchi #shizuka jounouchi #jonouchi #城之内克也 #tw domestic violence #cw domestic violence

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jovenshires · 7 months

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gang im gonna start posting polls for these guts songs i am running Out of ones i feel strongly about

#esp the like. romantic interpretation ones. im like ive got so many options. this is what my multishipping ass gets--#personal #i think we've got a couple left that im like Yes it must be this person #i have one in the drafts but i try to space them out a little until i've got my next idea down at least so. expect polls coming soon

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yzafre · 2 months

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Trying to wrap my head around my thoughts re: 2012 and Rise, and how they hit my brain, and it’s like...

The things I think these two series are missing/needed to improve on are what the other series did really well? Like, each show would be enhanced by borrowing from the other (an impossibility in one direction due to the linear nature of time, but you get me).

And now I'm going to post about it to hopefully trick my brain into thinking I talked to someone about it so that maybe it'll let me think about anything else.

Uhhh putting a read more because this is mostly just a brain-dump ramble to free my mind from the topic-loop and it got. Long.

Okay, exposing my biases ahead of time: while I very much enjoyed both series, I will admit that Rise appeals more to my personal taste. I do also like 2012! I liked it a lot, it’s just that, you know, I’m easily drawn in by cool 2d animation and anime bullshit, and also Rise’s humor matches mine better, which means it's the one I’m more likely to re-watch. However, that doesn't mean I think Rise is perfect.

Also, for the sake of this rant, we’re going to be ignoring the circumstances surrounding production. Yes, yes, we all know the executives specifically asked for Rise to have a much lighter tone, and that it got cut really short, and that affected how things panned out – but I don’t know enough about 12’s production to compare them fairly on that front. So.

MOVING ON FROM THAT.

Let’s start with ROTTMNT. I love Rise, love a good shenanigan, but... can you really deny that it would have been nice to have a more even split between pure shenanigans and more serious episodes? Even just getting closer to 50/50?

Don’t get me wrong, the shenanigans absolutely have their place and actually contribute to what I like about Rise’s writing (which I will talk about in the 12 section), but the overwhelming amount of them really messes with the pace of the show overall, and with the escalation of tension.

Obviously, you can’t have every episode have the spectacle of an episode like, say Many Unhappy Returns, I'm pretty sure animating that shit's expensive, and early on it’s not like they really know what they’re slowly being dragged into, but... post Shadow of Evil, you’d kind of like them to acknowledge the stakes more, right? And even before the turtles themselves know, you’d like the slow build that only the audience is getting to be a bit more consistent, right?

You’d like the weaving together of the plot and character arcs episode-to-episode to just be a bit more well-thought out... wouldn’t you?

And that is what TMNT 12 is good at.

I personally think 12 peaked in season 2 (I was so engaged with that season, the buildup was phenomenal), but throughout the entire series it is obvious just how much effort they are putting into developing these interweaving plots, and it pays off. Every episode is a self-contained story, true, but even from season 1 you can see how even the most one-off episode is putting at least one thing into the Rube Goldberg machine that’s going to go off at the end of the season. It honestly impressed me how they balanced “you can watch any episode on its own because tv has re-runs" and “every episode leads into the next until everything blows up”.

The end of season 2, when the tension they've been ratcheting up inch by inch nearly every episode finally releases, and all the dominoes start falling and danger is coming from every direction? Mwah. Stellar. Like, devastating cliff-hanger of an ending, but also the satisfaction of seeing it all fall apart? It's gripping.

Also, they acknowledge the stakes. 12 is obviously going for a much more serious tone, and covers some heavier topics like revenge, obsession, healing, ect (in a kind of surface level way for young kids, yes, but this is a nickelodeon toy-selling series. Genre and intended audience matters). I may not always agree with the answers they come to, but they are trying! As opposed to Rise where the enemies feel... kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind, in 12 the Shredder, and occasionally the Kraang, are a constant threat that they are always aware of.

While the setup is different (12!Shredder wants them dead specifically, whereas the Rise boys don’t really know what the Shredder will want other than mass destruction when the armor is complete), you kind of feel like the danger could have maybe been a little more acknowledged in Rise.

And like... the move into season 2 had them getting the Shredder armor "contained", which they used to go so far backwards on stakes which is... I mean, there were other choices they could have made.

You can argue that many shows reset the stakes when you beat the season boss at the end, but... Rise specifically went straight back to "straight shenanigans with little awareness of the outside world", repeating the "occasionally things are happening to build up to the end outside the turtle's awareness" and it's. It's a pacing and escalation, issue, again. And yes, we got some of my favorite episodes out of season 2! Season 2 had some good episodes! But also... I would have liked the stakes to progress just a bit?

When you finally had such a huge shift in the plot, and then suddenly you go ALL the way back down the where you started in stakes and tone it can be a bit... jarring. It's a pacing and escalation issue, again.

Also, if we’re going a bit more abstract, Rise could have had more serious episodes relating to their main theme/focus.

2012 was obviously focusing on their plot, and specifically the history between Splinter and Shredder, and the concepts of revenge and obsession. And it came up a lot! It was threaded through the majority of the episodes. I might not always personally agree with the conclusions they came to, but I can’t deny they treated it with gravitas.

Rise seemed to be focusing on family bonds and family baggage. And it's woven into a lot of the silliness. And there are also some episodes that address it seriously! And they’re GOOD! But, uh – there could definitely have been more. Especially for the Splinter-children relationships.

They went with a very risky play for Splinter and his arc, and while I personally liked the shape of it, I can understand the people who take a very negative interpretation of this Splinter because there were not enough episodes dealing with reconciling his relationship with his kids. They made a point to show that things were strained, made the theme family bonding, and then... didn’t put in enough episodes to finish off their main theme.

Don’t get me wrong, what Rise does have for their characters is very, very good. Again, I’ll be talking about it in the 2012 section. It’s just... the pacing of it all.

So, what I think Rise needed is what 2012 excelled at – pacing and interweaving of the plot, proper escalation of stakes, and time spent highlighting their main theme in more serious episodes.

Now, the other half of the equation: 2012.

I mentioned earlier that 2012 was going for a more serious tone, and that it was focused on the plot. And they did it well! It paid off! I just maybe, personally, think that came at the cost of the character writing.

It’s not that it’s bad. They’ve got a strong sense of character voice for their main cast. It’s just that when you go anywhere beyond that it’s really... average for a kid's cartoon, and when compared to the obvious effort they went to when weaving together the plot it sticks out. Of course, authors are allowed to lean into plot-based narrative over character-based, and this might just be personal taste again, but...

I’m going to put in a reminder that everything in this rant is based on how the writing hit my brain specifically. Different people will experience the same story differently, yes? Yes.

That being said, the character writing for 2012 hit me weird. There were “character episodes” in between the plot ones, yes, but they didn’t feel... connected? If the pacing of the plot in Rise felt weird and disjointed, the character arcs, if I could find them in 12, felt the same way. It’s like they would drop in a really interesting nugget for a character into a single episode, and I’d be excited to see where it went – and then it would either be shoved way in the background from there on out, or dropped completely. It often left me feeling like I’d missed a step going down the stairs, when I expected them to start working on a character arc and they just went back to the status quo. That’s not uncommon for a kids show, but... they put so much more effort into the intricacies of the plot!

What ended up feeling missing was a development of the characters from an internal perspective. That is, hm.

I mentioned earlier that there were narrative benefits to the shenanigan structure of Rise. The first half of this is because it lives and dies by its characters. They can’t depend on an engaging plot to capture your interest long-term, because the plot is only in select episodes, so by god you better be attached to these characters. While part of the humor is, yes, the situations they get into, the other part is the character dynamics – both the friction between them, but also the positive synergy between them. That’s not to say 2012 doesn’t have character interactions – they've got their banter – it's just that it doesn’t have to carry the episode the way it does in Rise.

The other half of the narrative benefits is that more episodes can be motivated by the character’s internal desires, rather than external forces. Stepping outside of TMNT to reference everyone’s favorite cartoon, Avatar, for every, say, Avatar Roku, you’ve gotta have a The Waterbending Scroll.

2012 is largely driven by its plot – which is a good plot! But what felt like, eh, 90% of the time? Everything that’s happening is motivated by what the antagonists are doing – the Kraang/Purple Dragons/Foot are doing this bad thing, or coming after us, and we have to stop them, because we’re the good guys/they’ll kill us if we don’t. Not bad, objectively, it certainly raises stakes! But also, it doesn’t really let us in on, like, the character’s internal world or what they want.

With Rise’s shenanigans...

Origami Tsunami happens because the boys got a taste of fighting and want to chase that high. Shell in a Cell happens because Raph loves wrestling, his brothers seem to like it well enough or otherwise want to hang out/humor him, and Leo is feeding his ego/fighting his insecurities. Repo Mantis is because Donnie and Mikey were hanging out while Donnie collected resources(?), saw something they wanted, and went balls to the walls to acquire it. The Purple Jacket happens because Donnie wanted to experience toxic academia and fashion. I could go on.

My point is Rise leaves more space for the episodes to be internally motivated, and that ends up telling us a lot about their characters! What did they want? How did they specifically go about trying to get it? Did they involve others? Who did they involve? It adds depth to them, even in the silly goofy show!

There is also one specific writing trick Rise uses which I wish could go back in time and be implemented into 2012, and that is: “line played for laughs in one episode” > “oh wait they were serious”.

I’m talking the “my first positive reinforcement from a parent-aged adult. EVER.” to Turtle-dega Nights pipeline. Minotaur Maze to Many Unhappy Returns for Leo. Arguably Pizza Puffs to the series finale for Raph, if you follow me. Reparin’ the Baron to Hidden City’s Most Wanted.

Even in the jokes, the throw-away lines, Rise is exposing what makes the characters tick. And then when it hits, it hits. This is why, while the Rise arcs are kind of incomplete, the writing still feels more consistent to me and I find it easier to see the intended arc they were going for.

And I so so so wish 2012 had that kind of thing, or ANY more focus put on character development, because, not to harp on this again, but they’ll drop in this one really interesting line or action from a character in a single episode focusing on them, then never mention it again or develop on the concept, and it kind of makes me feral because, like -

I want to gather up all these weird little scraps they give about these characters and pin them up conspiracy-board style and go: why didn’t we get a plot line about this? Or this? Did you notice how a lot of the time Raph is pushing for more action against their enemies, he brings up that they’re out there hurting more people? And that could indicate a unique empathy for the victims, which would have been an interesting expansion on the vengeance theme of the showing, looking at justice v vengeance when ti comes to people without the ability to fight back? Leo has a lot of tension between wanting to be a good leader and wanting the freedom to make impulsive choices and chase what he wants, which is interesting when you also look at moments we see with his two role models the sci-fi hero (who is kind of an asshole) and Splinter (who, while wise, has baggage that sometimes affects his decisions), and it feels like somewhere between all that there could have been an expanded storyline that actually resolved that tension between responsibility and personal desire that would have lead to his own version of leadership? What about getting a focus on the few lines Donnie gives about his insecurities/stress re: his scientific abilities/role, rather than dragging him into his extremely bland romantic b-plot? Can we address the weird way Mikey did chemistry magic two or three times but it’s never brought up outside that, or that one line by the anger-persona in his mind explicitly saying he tries to repress his anger because he doesn’t like the way it feels, or, or -

Why do they keep dropping these really interesting inciting incidents for character arcs and then not going anywhere with them I am losing my mind I am shaking the writers why do you keep teasing me like this -

Ahem.

Additionally... well, I mentioned above that Rise has a main theme of family bonds, where... 2012 kind of struggled to convince me of any relationship. Or, no, that sounds harsher than what I really mean.

I also want to clarify that I am not saying I think they dislike or don't care about each other, or any of the extremely negative takes I’ve seen thrown at the 12 characters dynamics. That’s not it at all. It’s just that they all felt... very surface level? Sometimes it felt like the show wanted you to just accept that the characters were close without putting in the work to really show it. And definitely not to explore it in depth. (And I know, I know, I know! It’s a Nick kids show! But! They put so much effort into the plot!)

Again, I think this is affected by the lower usage of internal motivation for episodes. Characters doing things because they want them, then seeing how those different desires interact, gives you a better view of their relationships than just seeing a team work together because they have a common enemy.

Again, it’s not that 2012 never does this. We see glimpses of them playing around – competing to do flips when running the city, watching their tv shows, playing pinball (was it pinball? Or an arcade game?). It’s just that the emphasis on the plot (not an objectively bad thing!) leaves less room for episodes based on them just... doing things together, because they want to. And less room for engaging in personalized interests together, rather than separately, and seeing how that plays out.

I think I’m devolving into senseless rambling at this point, so to sum up:

2012’s emphasis on plot – which it generally excels at! – leaves less room for exploring stories based on internal motivations, which I find necessary for consistent character arcs or relationship development and are the elements Rise kind of lives on when its plot is running thin.

Hopefully none of this is taken as an attack on/dislike for either iteration. I like them both! It’s just they both drive me a little bit crazy with what could have been!

Of course, this is all down to personal taste and interpretation. I am fairly aware of my biases, I think. I am very much attracted to character-driven narratives, and even in plot-based ones I have a tendency to care more about the character implications than the plot itself. There’s a reason Days (the oops all character writing game) is my favorite Kingdom Hearts story!

(I do, also, really, really like anime bullshit, so do with that what you will.)

I am also aware that I binge-watched this series as an adult years after it ended, and that combination of factors may affect my reception. (Admittedly I did that for both series, but). Your experience might be very, very different, but I’m trying to understand the way these two shows are hitting my brain.

Thinking it over also gives me a hypothesis (which other people have probably already figured out) of why certain people are drawn to one series of the other: 2012 probably appeals more to people who are engaged by continuous, interconnected plots and careful pacing in a story, while Rise probably appeals to people who are more engaged by pure character pieces (and anime bullshit).

#maybe if I get this out of my head #my brain will clear and I can finally get back to work on my kh fic #I've got less than 10 chapters left to draft but turtles Will Not Leave Me Alone!#rottmnt #tmnt 2012 #yza talks about a thing #not posting this mean my brain continues to spin in circles as the thoughts are trapped...#but contemplating posting all these opinions is making me queasy...#fuck it post it and immediately walk away #like you do with scary work emails #go straight to bed do not pass go do not collect your anxiety #tmnt

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