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.
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Pearl and Gem glance at each other. Then, as one, they glance back at Tango, who is, evidently, not Tango.
“Do we have an amnesiacold on our hands?” Gem asks.
“Maybe,” says Pearl, glancing back at Tango again. “Tango, buddy, you feeling alright?”
“I—” Tango opens his mouth. Closes it again. “I mean, I’m a little under the weather, to tell you the truth—I ate a South African sausage and it disagreed with me.”
Pearl hums. “And it’s messed with your memory a bit, right?”
“Yes! I mean, no—I mean, how did you—?”
“Would you say that you have a bit of an amnesiacold, Tango?” asks Gem.
“Amnesiacold?”
“You know. Amnesiacold!” Gem says. “When you get sick and forget everything and feel like somebody else?”
“Ah.” Tango pulls himself to shore. Frowns. “It’s more of an amnesia-food-poisoning, if I’m honest.”
Pearl winces. “Your poor digestive system.”
“It’s not very nice Pearl, I’ll tell you that much,” Tango says, voice low, one hand pressed against his stomach as he pulls a face.
“Okay, that’s enough, I don’t need to hear about your gut issues,” Gem interrupts. “But—you have an amnesiacold! You know, I was an amnesiacold last season.”
“You mean, you had an amnesiacold?”
“No, I was one.” Gem winks. “Like—Tango has an amnesiacold. But you? You’re the amnesiacold. You know?”
Tango’s shoulders hike up with discomfort. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Tango. And I think you guys should—should skadoodle somewhere else. Should bother-someone-else-ificate. Begone.”
“I had an amnesiacold last season, you know,” Pearl says. “Gem was one. You can tell us, buddy, we’re not gonna tell anyone.”
“Promise,” Gem says with a nod. “This is a safe space! You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not with us.”
Tango stares at them for a long, long moment, then sags, face falling. He looks exhausted, suddenly, and Pearl feels a rush of sympathy. It can’t be easy, being thrown into the game halfway through, with no context for anything.
“It’s been rough, dudes,” Tango says, voice cracking. “It’s been really really rough. I forgot how hard it was to get anything done on this server! There’s so much chaos, and—”
Wait.
“Ren?”
Not-Tango grins. “In the flesh,” he says with a bow of his head. “Or… not my flesh, exactly.”
“Ren?” Gem asks, tilting her head in confusion.
“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never met…”
Gem and Ren peer at each other for a moment. “You do look familiar,” Ren says eventually.
“Yeah,” Gem agrees. “I mean, obviously you look familiar—you look like Tango!—but… yeah.”
They stare at each other for a moment more.
“Maybe we met in a dream?” Ren says at last.
Gem nods. “Sure. Makes as much sense as anything else.”
Pearl glances between them, rocking awkwardly back on her heels. She clears her throat, drawing their attentions back to her. “Welcome back, buddy,” she says to Ren. “Good to see you again.”
“I wish that I could say the same,” Ren says morosely. “I thought I was—I was done, Pearl.” Now that she knows it's Ren, she can hear his cadence in Tango’s voice, voice dropping rough and low with drama as he bows his head. “I was done. No more games, not for the ol’ diggity dog. And now… Here I am!” He laughs a little, stretching out his arms to indicate the server at large. “In a body that’s not mine, in a world I’ve never seen, in a game I do not understand.”
“Oh, Ren…” Pearl frowns. She doesn’t know what to say.
Gem jumps in. “Hey, it’s okay! It’s just one session, you know? You can do one session!”
“I suppose I must.” Ren looks up at them, jaw tightening. “If I am here—I suppose I must.”
“I’d never been in any of these games before I was Cleo for a bit last season,” Gem says. “So you have an advantage there! And, hey—maybe you can come back next season, and we can meet for real?”
Ren shifts uncomfortably. There’s something heavy hanging about him, something Pearl can’t quite understand. She remembers the last time she’d seen him, skull caved in from the dripstone spike dropped on his head. She remembers her own amnesiacold, the exhaustion that had dragged at her before it had settled in, the memories that had plagued her and just wouldn’t go away. And she wonders—
Just how exhausted would you have to be that your body would have to leave as well as the rest of your self?
Just how sick would you have to be before you didn’t want to come back?
Still, Ren steadies himself. Quirks Tango’s mouth into a smile. “Maybe,” he says, meeting Gem’s gaze. “That would be nice, to meet for real.”
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DMed a oneshot for the friendos and got a new achievement : making a player cry!
The premise was that a Hag pulled them into her domain which was shaped by their dreams and desires, particularly Blythes! So it was a big fancy Villa with a ballroom, opera haus, fancy dinner, everything - and immediately somethings were different.
Arameia woke up NOT a werewolf and Lorelai woke up a HUMAN and not undead. Rosy cheeks, freckles and all (she was very weirded out over not being able to hear or smell as good).
For Arameia - the dream manifested her parents, alive and well, and her pet dog Lancelot, no longer geriatric. The horror of becoming an orphan never occurring. For Lorelai, it took away her vampirism, and the root cause...her father alive and well - though distant. It wasn't that she wanted to see him...but rather proof of wiping her sin away. For Eirwen, it wiped away her Sharrian past, and the tattoo that came with it, and gave her more friends, so she'd never be lonely. And for Raha.... Well let's just say he folded like a lawn chair in a hurricane.
Upon meeting her the gang had a lot of discussion as to how & why, though the concept of a motherly Blythe left everyone...concerned.
Since the party was a bit of a pickle not sure where to find Raha or Blythe since they're the only party members they haven't met up with, a certain special someone made an appereance...in the form of a kitty cat!
Theta explained that the dream is made up of Blythes wishes and desires : to have her friends with her and never die, her favourite food, a library full of artifacts, an extravagant villa with ballrooms - and the little changes to them was the Witch tapping into their own desires to keep them placated and comfortable...so they may just decide to forego reality and dream...like Blythe and Raha have. She does not want her precious petal just slowly withering away, being a meal, in another Witch's domain, that's her job, so she gives the party hints on how to break out before the Witch zaps her the hell out (she couldn't just enter as Witch's power is absolute within her domain, so it would take a lot longer for her to wiggle in strong enough to do anything substantial)
She introduces herself as Wunsch...the party can deduce she is a Night Hag (this is where I say I just made her Fae and idgaf) (as per my fae characters, she has freaky eyes...in this case it's a starry sky instead of pupil!) . She asks the party if there is "anything else she can do"...the party notices little things change around the dream, like suddenly even more food, some of their favourites, or new faces.
In order to find Blythe they needed to restore stopped time, and find the three clockhands for a magical clock...1 of them was behind some riddles, the other one, behind a test of friendship where they had to answer 3 things correct about the person in front of them. The last key, most horrifyingly...was inside Arameias parents.
THIS IS WHERE I MADE THE PLAYER CRY HEHE....Arameia decided she will do it herself, as she already buried them once...she does eventually manage to kill them (it was very sad because they did not Want to Die), and get the key...but not without a lot of heart ache and tears....Thankfully Lorelai was there for plenty of hugs...
Then they finally meet Raha! Who has fully drank the kool-aid and started dreaming, and he stands before them...he doesn't want them to break the spell. He fights for Blythe's dream...and his own...unwilling to let them take way her or his daughter....and that he and Blythr have nothing in the real world, no family, no home. Just hardship...and eventually he'll just die, and leave Blythe all alone.
After defeating him, the Witch takes matter into her own hands, as the party falls into the "bedroom" where Blythe is sleeping & have to fight the actual Hag herself in her true form...or rather wake up Blythe until the clock strikes 12 and the dream is fully manifested and unable to be stopped.
Wunsch's true form is a giant marble like lion with white feathers and a 4 armed upper body reminiscent of a sphinx. In the cracks of the marble a night sky can be seen, she doesn't particularly have many offensive spells, mostly relying on her enemies being slowed/confused/held/dominated until the timer runs out. (All the reflective shards were of Blythes &co's dreams and nightmares...the party gone, Raha withering and dying in bed, Theta, herself becoming a true hag ... or happy family for Arameia as an example...Eirwen surrounded by friends and Lorelai laughing with the party)
But the party manages to wake Blythe up using all that they've learned!! That yeah she wants these magical tomes and artifacts...but everything in here would have been things she's already found...she can never 'discover' anything new in a dream she's created, so let's go adventuring!
How she's always wanted to try Tarrasque steak but without trying she could never imagine the taste...so why not come with them and kill one?
That she's not safe from Theta in here, and if she was able to get in once, she can get it in again...so lets get out of here and break your curse!
That yeah they'll live eternally, but they won't be 'them' anymore...over time they'll have their edges smoothed over and it won't be the same people because we don't get to grow and experience new things...That Raha loves her the way she is...and that she's not a hideous monster...
When the party awakens, completely normal with..all the curses and stuff, they find out that time hasn't moved since they've fallen asleep, and immediately run to find Blythe and Raha...who don't remember anything that happened, and assume that maybe some ghost got them into a nightmare but they broke out of it. Arameia/Eirwen/Lorelai decided to keep some facts to themselves, like the presence of the child or fighting Raha.
Hilariously, they assume they had too much 'willpower' to be got by such a spell, despite in actuality being the only ones to fold. The gang did have a newfound appreciation for them realizing that yes...Blythe does love them a lot and that they don't know much about Raha and haven't been very good friends.
BUT IT ALL ENDED BITTERSWEET.,....with the gang now being sure all of them love each other and they can move from confronting their trauma and go forward...with fwiends :)
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