all the rise boys get done dirty on characterization by fandom in different ways i think. (not ALL the time every fanwork etc etc these are just like, trends i tend to notice?) every fandom suffers from losing character nuance.
- leo i’ve talked about plenty on this blog, how some of his canon traits (genuine belief in his skill and cockiness, capacity for joy, his manipulativeness whether for good or ill) seem to get watered down or wiped off the board and supplemented with generic sad boy. his struggles with purpose and identity and not wanting to fail somehow morph into “he hates and completely holds no value for himself”
- donnie’s canon personality gets blurred out and largely replaced with whatever list of Neurodivergent Traits. and i think there’s such a fine line to walk between exploring a character that’s been word of god confirmed as on the spectrum and overwriting what’s canonically there. it’s a hard needle to thread. it also feels like a lot of his canon emotiveness gets left off the table for some reason. bc he does have his moments of flat/deadpan delivery, but a lot of the time he’s honestly very emotive. he has the passion of a theatre kid and the vindictiveness of... also a theatre kid. and the mind of a scientist.
- raph loses so much of his rowdy teen boy energy it’s kind of wild? like interpretations sand off that he’s also impulsive and can be reckless and dumb and LOVES fighting and roughhousing and isn’t the most eloquent person. suddenly there’s this pitch perfect soft boy big bro who would never hurt a fly and always says the exact right supportive thing and singlehandedly raised his 3 brothers (which simultaneously sands off all the nuance of splinter’s issues emotionally connecting with his sons and how that affected all of them). and like i LOVE raph, he’s so full of love and care and anxiety, he clearly has learned to put a lot of work into being aware of his strength and size. but there’s a difference you know?
- mikey is like. where raph gets overparentified by fanon, mikey gets over “family therapist”-ed IMO. the impulsiveness, the goofiness, the powerful emotions including a VERY powerful temper, the flat-out dumb teen boy choices... they get ignored. suddenly there’s this only very sweet and earnest boy who has read a hundred psychology books and runs group family therapy weekly or something. he is crying in his room bc leo and raph are arguing about something. which is so. he IS very sweet and can be very earnest and is full of love! he HAS come in with his opinions and unsolicited advice a couple of times and life coached for the greater good. but there’s a difference between what he does in canon and the role he gets in fanon.
for the record even if ganondorf is irredeemably evil and tries to kill everyone i’ll still support him. he’s my boo. my cinnamon apple. my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy. he’s my babygirl, the apple of my eye, the reason i get up in the mornings. my forever galpal.
the reason tom blyth was so good as snow is bc he holds his jaw in this very specific way throughout the entire film that simultaneously makes him look annoyed, superior, angry, disinterested, above it all, like everyone is beneath him, judgmental, pretentious, like a little bitch,, and ik that’s not tom blyth’s resting face that was a very specific artistic choice and it was the right one
IMAGINE THIS:
Lil baby Damian, bored and being not quite old enough to start learning how to use proper weapons (curse these wooden ones, he wants true steel!) is wandering the base. This is not out of the ordinary, he’s the prince after all. What is out of the ordinary is that his shadow, his Akhi, is not here.
Technically, he should be napping, but he woke up and neither his mother or his brother- who is quiet but gentle and isn’t a good speaker (mother said it was from a head injury)- is there. Which is how he finds his way to the Pit, which he’s not supposed to be at. Or at least not alone.
But! His mother and Akhi are there! And- and Akhi is screaming and he’s never heard him scream like that, like he’s in agony- His eyes are green- they were blue, had, had Mother placed him in the Waters-
And then the pool is bubbling- he should be running away, get assistance or something, he’s five, he shouldn’t be running towards it when everything is screaming to flee. But one moment he’s at the doorway, the next he’s clinging to his akhi as something writhes in the Pit, a mighty bellow echoing even as the Shadows take defensive positions.
The water cascades, laps at their feet, splashes everywhere as a scaled form rises from the depths, wings like a bloodied sunset spreading as fur bursts into flames. Crimson eyes glare down at them all, pupils slits as they bare down at his Akhi.
The creature- the dragon- dips its head down, its breath warm as it chuffs at his akhi, wings folding as though it is bowing. His akhi is clinging to Mother, shivering, several scars glowing as they fade and a burst of hair burned white.
had a human au thought of Barnaby and Wally. idk doing their taxes or going through bills together since they share a house & Barnaby going "hey we could get married for tax benefits and health insurance. wait no what if i want to marry Howdy someday? it's illegal to be married to two people." Wally goes "we could get divorced" and Barnaby gets legitimately sad like:
Fuck whatever DC is doing with the al Ghul's characterizations and story lines, I've decided that from now on the al Ghul's are gonna be DC's version of the Addams Family instead.
Now I don't mean just give the various al Ghul's the exact personalities of the various Addams and call it a day. That's boring, that erases all the interesting parts of the al Ghuls, that's just using "find & replace" and not actually adding anything. I mean give them the vibes of the Addams Family.
Keep the al Ghul's as the al Ghul's with all their scheming and machinations and world domination attempts but give them all the unhinged energy, the casually insane view of the world, the deranged levels of love and devotion for family. Make them that group where objectively they are batshit insane but also you cannot argue with the fact that they are indisputably the most stable and functional family in the entire universe.
They're creepy, they're kooky, they're mysterious and spooky. Ra's many opulent homes and impenetrable fortresses are a museum and the al Ghul's really are a screa-um whenever people come to see-um (or when they lay waste upon their enemies in a surprise attack that has been planned for months and is just the first domino in a series that will ultimately lead to achieving a far greater goal).
They all love each other and want each other to be happy, they express this primarily with stabbing and murder attempts (its fine, death is a thing that happens to other people).
And forget the League of Assassins being a cult. Just make the whole vast globe spanning organization a collection of cousins/aunts/uncles/dear old friends ect. No one (not even the al Ghuls, if they cared to keep track of such things) is sure who is actually related to them and who just got absorbed into the ever expanding family tree based on their vibes being right.
(Is Sensei Ra's father you ask? Well he's certainly someone's father - probably.
Anyway have you heard about Cousin Cheshire? Despicable poisoner of a young woman, capable of the most horrific things imaginable - yes she is the sweetest dear. Like I was saying though, she just had a baby!
Everyone in the family is just so excited to throw a baby shower to celebrate! Ubu has really gone all out with the spike traps, he does so love getting to welcome a new addition to the family.
Talia of course has cultivated a brand new strain of the most toxic plants imaginable to make a brand new kind of necrotizing poison. You know, as a nice little romantic gift for Cousin Cheshire and that young man of hers. It really is so important to make sure you take time for you and your partner to go on dates and have a few pitched battles to the death on dark rooftops in the pounding rain when you have children.
Now there is some to-do about it all of course, you know how family get together can be. Everyone is arguing over who should get to give little Lian her first weapon and what it should be. Nyssa is pushing for grenades but Ra's is insisting on a sword - he's traditional like that you know - but Dusan has the vote so far on throwing knives. You know the kind that have the little divots along the edges of the blades them to make it easier to get the poison you dip them in to stick.)
I'm just saying that the al Ghuls should be a delightful cross between the Bond Villains they were originally conceived as and the lovingly unhinged Addams Family. It just feels correct in my heart.
(Again keep the interesting aspects of the characters and the nuances of who each of them are like their drive to save the world through destroying humanity and their strong environmentalist leanings and their constantly playing 5D chess and everything, but like, take away the racism and the cartoonishly evil for no reason bullshit and give them some fun feral energy to go along with it).
Absolutely love the idea that it was April who got the boys super into snow days.
Like, pre-April, they probably would view the days as miserable, since as turtles they’re likely more susceptible to the cold and back then they probably had much less to keep warm with.
The cold altogether was just never good to them - and then April comes around and teaches them how to make a snowman. And when it’s done, she pelts them with snowballs. And suddenly, the cold is now fun, and they might still be shivering, but now they’re smiling too.
February 2014 (text from Mat Oxley's The Valentino Rossi Files: Everything I've ever written about VR: From 2008 to now):
During the winter the nine-time champ spent more time than usual thrashing round his dirt track ranch, keeping himself mentally and physically sharp and getting used to a motorcycle moving around beneath him. He knows that Marc Marquez’s ability to ride on the ragged edge with a more muscular, more sideways style is changing MotoGP, so he needs to change with it.
Rossi may never look as spectacular as Marquez on a dirt bike or a MotoGP bike, but both his former and current crew chiefs believe he can do better than he did last year, when Marquez made him look rather second rate.
Rossi on inviting Marquez to the ranch:
"Yeah, for sure, a lot of time. But I think that Emilio [Alzamora, Marquez's manager] is not very happy that Marc come because he said that after we make a race and maybe it's dangerous." (x)
A Sideways Glance at Misano 2014, including pre-event karting on Wednesday night where Marquez reportedly struggled:
Misano 2014 (text from Mat Oxley's Valentino Rossi: All His Races):
^ Márquez won the first ten races of 2014 and this was the first time all year he was beaten in a straight duel. He couldn't handle Rossi's pace at Misano, so he ended up losing the front and falling.
Valentino was fast throughout practice and secured his first front-row start of 2014. [Rossi was asked after qualifying about the threat posed by Marquez and Lorenzo, identifying Lorenzo as the favourite before adding, "But you never know with Marc. He's a bastard."] In the race he rode better than in years, hanging his upper body inside the motorcycle more than ever before to increase turning.
He snatched the lead from Lorenzo and then fended off Márquez, who struggled to find enough grip to match Vale. At one-third distance the world champion pushed it too far and slid off, so Vale cruised home 1.6 second ahead of Lorenzo. His crew had done a great job of creating maximum grip via adjustment to chassis balance and electronics set-up.
His 107th GP victory showed he was once again as fast as anyone, because when he won at Assen 2013 he didn't have to beat Márquez, Lorenzo or Pedrosa, who were all injured.
"It's fantastic to come back to victory again," he beamed after his first win with [new crew chief Silvano] Galbusera. "I knew we could fight and I pushed from the start. I always work hard and never give up and trust that days like this can happen."
^ The breakthrough win at Misano. For the first time since his return to Yamaha he had gone head-to-head with Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Márquez and beaten them both. From this moment another world title was a possibility.
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Aragon 2014 press conference:
Rossi: Revenge at the ranch! No, first of all, we enjoy a lot, because have a lot of riders and also from superbike and a lot of bike on the track and was a good day, yeah. Marc was very fast, already fast like me at the first time, as always, and I think he did the best lap time but I won the race so is 1-1, so is... come si dice, pareggio pareggio [tied].
Marquez: Yeah, yeah, was really nice, you know, I was really [impressed] to see his circuit, his home, because in the future I would like to have, because was impressive and riding there was all the riders was really nice and... like Valentino says, we were there fighting together like in Misano race more or less, but yeah... the important thing is that we enjoy it and was really nice to ride there with him and also with the other riders.
Ok I know I'm heavily biased here but like I kinda love that Astarion's romance is one of the few in this type of video game where you basically end up canonically unmarried and childfree in his "good" ending? Just travelling the world??
Like it's honestly the millennial dream lmfaoo cannot believe i chose what would undoubtedly be my favorite option, first try
sunday, the insecure dom who needs your consent to everything he plans to do with you. but you can’t say no to him, anyway — but you don’t even want to because he’s whispering sweet praises against your skin, convincing and luring you into his paradise. just be his and he will ensure every part of your body to be equally worshipped. tell him that you love it, that you agree to it, that he’s doing everything right. let him…
a desire for dominance born not out of the wish to control you, but because he wants to spoil you with his feelings, his touch. he knows what’s best for you… let him do it, let him guide you, let him be your sun — be the warm light that makes you happy, the only one you need…
Edwin Payne is a dweeb who gives terrible weak comebacks, who can be unnecessarily petty, or overly smug, who is inordinately pleased with himself when wearing detective gear and using scientific gear, the thought never crossing his mind that he might not look as cool as he thinks he does, who carries a continual and utter absolute delight at acting like the characters he loved to read about, who was enthralled by his magazine detective and adventure stories and who wears a similar smile when he sits on the bed watching Scooby Doo with Niko, 'these detectives are terribly clever,' whose board game collection is mostly variations of Clue, who requires payment (because any good detective is worth some kind of payment) but whose idea of payment is whatever interesting object the client offers to add to his collection, who has encyclopedic intelligence he clearly dedicated hours to learning, who has a particular way of acting and speaking like everything is of vital importance, because to him, it is.
New illustration by the current AA art director, Takuro Fuse, to celebrate Edgeworth, Phoenix and Apollo wining the top three places in the Apollo Justice Trilogy popularity poll