#(And instead of repeatedly saying)

[ilk-insolence]

Raph Is A Great Strategist

Numerous times in the show Raph has shown to have a preference for straightforwardly punching his problems away rather than think up a more complex solution. Like how his immediate fix to getting Mayhem out of the mirror in Mystic Library was to punch everything in the bathroom but the mirror. However, when Raph understands the situation requires more in depth strategy, he’s shown to be an incredibly capable tactician.

(long post ahead!)

In nearly all the plot heavy episodes like Shadow of Evil, Many Unhappy Returns, and the season finales, Raph gets moments where he’s highlighted for his strategic thinking. In Insane in the Mama Train, he’s the one who figures out which eyeball-button goes to the front car with the dark armor, because “‘it was the only button [the Foot Clan] didn’t want me to press!’” [21:05]. He’s also the one who came up with the scheme to defeat all the (known) combatants in the train, with Leo specifically attributing Raph as the deviser during their mind meld [19:46]. In Many Unhappy Returns, after spending a single night waylaying the Shredder, Raph formulated a plan using all the tricks the team learned, seamlessly transitioning the mystic collar Leo acquired into it [19:53], to defeating the Shredder. Additionally, he’s repeatedly called for a retreat during fights, like in Shadow of Evil, Shreddy or Not (Finale pt 2), and the movie, when he can tactically recognize that a battle couldn’t be won. Each time, the show/movie implied that that was the right call, for the family to lose the fight but win the war.

And it’s not just that Raph is good at strategy when he’s pushed to be more serious; the show characterizes him as passionate about creating plans, he enjoys doing it. Literally in the first episode, Mystic Mayhem, after the turtles’ initial plan failed of getting Splinter out of the living room to touch his Do-Not-Touch Cabinet, Raph immediately started devising a new plan that involved “ten chickens [and] a gallon of rubber cement” [9:35]. It was convoluted, sure, and they didn’t end up using it, but it was inventive and the opposite of reluctant. This is also shown in Bug Busters, where Raph planned out dousing Mikey in honey to attract the oozequitoes [2:52]; Snow Day, with the idea to freeze Ghost Bear like in Jupiter Jim Pluto Vacation 4; and Raph’s Ride-Along (and also Bad Hair Day), where Mind Raph created multiple schemes to get the criminals arrested. The show wouldn’t have made Raph be so creative with his plans if they were trying to characterize him as someone who didn’t like strategizing.

So does why Raph do stupid shit sometimes where he doesn’t think things through at all? Well, even though Raph is good at strategy and enjoys doing it, it’s clear his immediate impulse is still “punch the problem in the face”. In fact, all the turtle boys contain the fascinating dichotomy of being incredibly smart in some areas, and the dumbest teenagers alive in others. Just look at Donnie. It’s also how Raph is a loving protective older brother, and the guy who shoved Leo into a wall so hard he disappeared in one frame for shits and giggles (The Mutant Menace x). None of this means that Raph is bad at strategy though.

tldr: Yeah, Raph has a lot of dumb and, frankly, insane moments in the show, but he’s still an incredible tactician who’s plans consistently saved his family and sometimes the world. He's a great strategist.

[britomartis]

becoming a misandrist again due to the actions of cis men in my life at every fucking turn

[nerdstify]

day in

day out

likes do nothing!

[andiv3r]

Having to block everyone who has "wincest dni" in their bio not because I ship wincest (because I have come to the conclusion that I actually don't) but because I do think it'd be fun to poke around at the very real weirdness of their relationship that I've noticed in the show so far. And I'm 99% sure that my poking around will get seen as shipping.

[stormgated]

i too would like to do some pirating in mooshu

[moongothic]

[faeryton]

"this haunting video of human screams in the middle of the night is still unexplained"

> looks inside

> coyotes

[dailykugisaki]

Day 251 | id in alt

Oopsie. Well it's off the technical college grounds so.....

[gay-kurapika]

It's been extremely fun that I've had night terrors where there is definitely something shadowy standing over my bed multiple times this week and typically three or four times a night. But I'm definitely okay lol

[shrinkthisviolet]

Caitlin Snow for the ask game, pls? :]

How I feel about this character: I like her overall! She's fiercely caring and protective over the ones she loves, and I am very compelled by the "ice queen melted by the power of love" character archetype when it's done right, and imo it's done very well with Caitlin (platonically with Barry and Cisco, and romantically with Ronnie). However, there are a couple moments when I dislike her, and those are mentioned in “unpopular opinion”

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Iris and Ronnie! Sometimes Cisco (I will always have a soft spot for Caitlin/Cisco). Also sometimes Lisa, though more in a Killergold/Goldenfrost way than a Goldensnow way

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Barry! Also Cisco (they're labeled “ots” for a reason 😅 I go back and forth on how I ship them). The three of them are a brot3 for me, but I do also love her friendships with them both individually (her friendship with Barry is especially underrated due to the fandom preferring them romantically)

My unpopular opinion about this character: People tend to gloss over two important flaws of hers: her classism, and the fact that she was once a human trafficker.

She was classist towards Jax in s2, and we don't talk about that enough. No, she did not treat him poorly because of her grief for Ronnie, because she was all for Henry Hewitt (an established scientist, and very unlike Ronnie in both field of study and temperament) being Stein's new partner. She treated Jax poorly because she judged him for not going to college and scolded him as if she had any right. I know she apologized, and I'm glad she did, but...she attributed it to grief, when that is absolutely not the case. It was classism on her part, and she should've fully owned that (it would've been such an easy dialogue tweak too! Just change a line in her apology scene!).

She was a human trafficker between s3 and s4. A lot of people in the fandom wanna be mad at Iris for saying “where have you been the last 6 months again?” but...let's not forget what the answer to that is: Caitlin was the right-hand woman of human trafficker Amunet Black, making Caitlin one too. Killer Frost may have been the actual muscle, but Caitlin chose to seek out Amunet and take her offer—Killer Frost herself confirms that in Girls' Night Out. This is, frankly, incredibly OOC for Caitlin—considering she spends s3 terrified of her powers overtaking her, terrified of hurting people with them...the fact that she then agrees to work with someone who trafficks metas is wild. They could've easily spun this into Caitlin's way of atoning: trying to take down Amunet from the inside. But no. They made her a human trafficker, and then they made Amunet into funny comic relief to cover it up.

Don't get me wrong, I still like Caitlin, as I said initially. There's a lot to love about her, I have a lot of hcs about her (that I've talked about in prior posts), and I don't agree with a lot of the criticisms against her. But I like her in spite of those two things I mentioned, and the common fandom perception that Caitlin has never done wrong isn't true.

Also: she was assaulted by Hannibal Bates in 1x19, and anyone who uses that as shipping fuel or proof of Caitlin loving Barry romantically should forfeit their Caitlin fan card 🫶 people can ship them all they want, but romanticizing assault is not a flex, ever. Caitlin deserves better than having “fans” like that.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: As mentioned in the prior question, I dearly wish Caitlin working with Amunet had been a front, a ruse, while she secretly takes her down. Like in this fic, by @fezwearingjellybananas :D it's still one of my favorites in this fandom

I also wish she and Killer Frost had stayed the same person. It was very clear that the writers liked writing Killer Frost more than they ever liked writing Caitlin Snow. A shame honestly, because Caitlin has sooo much interesting potential to dig into, but the show was rarely interested unless it served their “Killer Frost foreshadowing” agenda.

character ask game!

[blunderpuff]

idk, i think the Yemen sitch and the Columbia sitch are the same thing: rabid insane jewhatred that was given permission to fester without intervention bc it was politically inconvenient to intervene... and now the yeehaw dumbfucks in charge of the country are looking at this low-hanging fruit (that should have been nipped in the bud) and they're dealing with it in the stupidest, most objectionable ways possible... but at least someone is fucking dealing with it

[pikkish]

Yeah we've already talked about how outright stupid the lore n writing for modern Doom is, but tbh I can understand why they had to do something with Doomguy, why they had to make him The Specialest Boy instead of Just Some Guy. Do I like how they did it? No, I would've taken it a different direction. Do I think that hugo could've done it well even if he took it in the direction I would've? No, I have minimal faith in his story writing. But realistically, how many times can a guy singlehandedly accomplish the impossible before you have to acknowledge he's very much not Just Some Guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time? I think that, with how every single other person on the Phobos UAC base were killed in Doom I, doomguy stopped being Just Some Guy the moment he decided to do anything other than just lie down and die.

[soupmanspeaks]

silly salvaged and its greg interviewing everyone (all the animatronics) for a marketing class at school or something

[goldentigerfestival]

(Sorry Flynn is a Commandant already; I accidentally left a title on him when I carried over to a new game LOL)

Yuri's sheer calmness in this scene is one of the things that has me at the dub's throat. He's not mad at all. He's not annoyed at all. The dub just likes making Yuri angry where he's literally not, and it makes me even more annoyed because like... Yuri gets it. He knows the circumstances. He's not mad at Flynn for it. He even says he doesn't mind (punishment for committing actual smalltime crimes) and that he just wants Flynn to wait for a minute (to hear him out).

One thing I love that unfortunately has to (understandably) get lost in translation is the way Flynn starts referring to himself as "boku", his usual way of referring to himself, but corrects to "watashi", which is more befitting of his station in this situation as it's a professional circumstance (despite the fact that he has very little reason to correct himself here because nobody would really mind and would understand, but he still corrects himself). I also love the way you can hear the pause as he realizes it and doubles back.

Also? The sheer panic in his voice when Sodia raises her weapon at Yuri (that the dub also removed)? The pause he has as he gets her reaction and calms down and corrects her?

God I love this scene.

[cosmogyros]

.

[xpiester333x]

Idk how to tell some people this. It's okay to dislike things for whatever reason, but repeatedly stating your opinion like it's fact just makes you sound ignorant and annoying.

Example:

I don't love playing Samurai. There's not really a particular reason, objectively it's a great DPS, the rotation is fine, but it doesn't click with me. If anyone ASKS ME if I dislike a class I might say "eh I don't really care for SAM. Just isn't for me."

I do not jump on my Samurai and start telling anyone and everyone REPEATEDLY "ugh it's just such an awful class, idk how anyone would play it" unsolicited. It's annoying. Doing so does not make my opinion correct. People didn't ask and it becomes really unlikeable really fast.