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#plus I am insane
topnotchquark · 7 months
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Uhhhh you guys want some Bezz x Cele fluff? Because I wrote 1800+ words of Bezz x Cele fluff. Yes it's Boarding School au man wtf we live in a society of course I wrote the Boarding school au.
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Bezz pokes at the scab just above his knee. It's freshly formed, he had absorbed impact from Pecco running into him on the field during practice yesterday. His kneepads had mostly protected him but caused the skin to rub off at that particular spot.
Bezz had always had the habit of picking at his wounds, more out of boredom than anything else. When Cele was around, he would simply ask him to stop torturing his own body like a little moth in the hands of a rambunctious toddler, but Cele had been away for three days from school for a family thing. The wedding of some distant cousin combined with some medical check that Cele needed in the city. His dad had come to pick him up and Bezz had walked with him to drop him off and to say hello to Cele's dad.
3 days shouldn't feel like a lot and Bezz had a thousand different things to do, what with the upcoming national level games season and schoolwork dictating his every minute, but he still thought about Cele. He missed sitting next to him for all meals, he missed Cele coming upstairs to see him after lights out, he missed how he would agree without much resistance when Bezz wanted to sneak out at night, he missed Cele foraging for fruits in the woods and bringing them back for everyone to eat, he missed running into him in the corridors during classes, and of course he missed him on the field because Jaume was too young to be a good practice session replacement for the team. 
Bezz is about to wreck carnage absent mindedly on his wound when Luca comes out of the phone room and pats Bezz on the shoulder.
The boys get to call home twice a week from a room divided into little booths, the attendant in the room sat there to note your name down and tell you to put the phone down when your time was up.
Bezz makes his way to the booth in the far left corner that Luca just left, he nods to Pecco in the other corner who is on call and dials his dad's number that he knows by heart. They talk about his preparation for the upcoming season and his dad tells him about things in the garage, next he calls his mum and she asks him about school and classes and practice and his little sister screams a quick hello to him and when he keeps the phone down with quick exchanges of "work hard" and "miss you" and "I love you" his heart feels a bit wonky. It's been years away from home but he still hasn't fully learnt how to squash that feeling.
Before keeping the phone down he makes a split second decision and calls Cele's mom, another number he knows by heart for some reason.
"Oi Bezzechi, you've been hogging that phone forever, put it down!!" The attendant shouts at him, his brows furrowed.
"Yes sorry please please please just one moment" Bezz quickly pleads as he waits for the line to connect. The attendant tells him to make it quick as Cele's mom answers. She sweetly asks Bezz how he's been doing as she calls Cele over to hand him the phone.
"Marco, is everything okay?" Cele's newly matured voice implores. 
"Uhh yes why wouldn't it be?"
"You're calling from school."
"Ah. Yes yes. Just wanted to tell you to, uhhh, yeah come back soon cele practice isn't great"
"Is Jaume not good"
"No no he's fine. Just. You know......"
"Hmmm. I get it. Listen Bezz, I need you to help me okay I have some stuff with me when I get back okay"
"Yeah sure. Listen I gotta go okay this man will cancel all my calls for the next month okay. I miss you, bye."
"I, uhh, I miss you too Marco, bye"
Bezz doesn't spend too much time thinking about Cele's request. He's probably sneaking some food into the dormitory which isn't allowed and the weird luggage checking procedure makes it so that you just have to be extra careful with the contraband.
The next day when Bezz comes down to dinner after practice and evening study he finds Cele already in the dining hall. He hurries over to him and immediately wraps him into a hug, slapping his back and ruffling his curls.
"I thought you wouldn't be here till tomorrow! Who dropped you off?"
"My cousin, he was on his way back to University so I came back early. Listen, Marco......"
Whatever it is that Cele wanted to tell Bezz is cut off by Pecco, Luca, and Franco gathering around him and asking him how was home and he better be up to speed for the morning practice tomorrow and what did the doctor say and if he found any cute girls at the wedding.
All throughout dinner Bezz notices Cele fidgeting nervously, pushing his food around as Luca talks about the rival regional teams they will be facing and the specific characteristics of every player he can recall.
Post dinner, the boys walk back to their house building in a group, Cele quickly dipping into the dormitory on the first floor as the rest make their way up to the rooms.
Before Bezz can go back downstairs to ask Cele what's up, Pecco reminds him to finish his trig homework lest he be skinned alive by the teacher and Bezz enlists the help of both Luca and Pecco to get through the exercises.
It's an hour past lights out when Bezz is finally done and before he has a moment to lie down Cele comes into the room. His eyes look a bit crazy and the pockets of his jacket are puffed up weirdly but before Bezz can ask any questions Cele starts yanking at his arm to get up.
"hurry up Marco!!!" Cele hisses, straining to keep his voice low
"Okay okay damn let me put on my shoes"
"Take the torch please" cele whines.
Bezz raises his brows but doesn't protest much. Torches are reserved for the big expedition sneak outs, the ones you have to plan for, the ones away from their usual haunts, torches are a liability, they draw the attention of the school guards. Bezz still takes his and hides it in his pocket.
They silently get out through the windows on the ground floor, holding their breath and watching their step so as not to alert the guards. Bezz has been sneaking out since pretty much his first year in school, so much so that he can navigate most paths in pitch black darkness. When Cele and Bezz became friends he started bringing him along, gently teaching him to be mindful of his arms and head and stepping around in a way that makes less noise. Cele wasn't the most graceful when it came to slinking around, but Bezz was okay with that as long as they were together.
The moon was shining above their heads, almost fluorescent in its brightness.  Bezz glances over at Cele's determined face, his lashes casting spider leg shadows on his cheeks. Cele's pale skin and dark hair seem almost ghostly and Bezz's heart feels so funny. He swallows to keep his wits intact and focus on the path.
"Wait Cele are we walking towards the lake?" Bezz realises that he's been straining a bit to keep up with Cele.
"Mhmmm"
"Wait wait wait no you have to tell me what's up you've been acting too weird."
"No Marco we can't talk here we will get caught please we have to go" Cele pleads with him and suddenly takes Bezz's hand in his to rush him along. Bezz feels too shocked at Cele's sudden gesture and simply can't find the words to protest. They walk for a few minutes where all Bezz can think about is the warmth of Cele's soft hand in his. Bezz thinks self consciously about the calluses on his palm and whether they feel weird for Cele to touch. Cele's plam, soft and smooth and warm and alive and real to the touch and somehow Bezz feels that whatever is real in him is emanating from that part of his body that is holding on to Cele.
"Here. Come." Cele lets go of Bezz's hand Bezz feels a little deflated. Cele walks near a tree and picks up a cardboard box and brings it to Bezz.
"I have rabbits."
"......you...what" Bezz thinks he hasn't heard him right. 
"There were rabbits at the wedding venue but I don't think they were being treated right so I picked them up"
"Cele what even.... how did you even steal them and oh my god is this area even safe"
"I didn't steal them Marco!!!!! They are young, kind of, I think they are almost babies, it was just three of them"
"Diobono three is a lot! Have they eaten?"
"I had left some lettuce, and I have more, I need your help feeding them"
"Okay okay fine, let's find a place to sit"
Bezz finds that inside the cardboard box there is a little pet carrier covered with a blanket. Cele pushes in some food through the metal gate grills but the bunnies seem to be asleep for now. 
"What's the plan cele?"
"There archery lawns have a place for rabbits. I will leave them there. I trust the school gardener, we used to have rabbits in my first year at school, he's good with them."
"You think nobody will notice three rabbits appearing out of nowhere."
"They will but they won't know it's us"
Bezz can't help smiling at the response. Cele trusts it will all be good so intently that Bezz can't help be infected by the same disposition.
"Do you want to hold them?" Cele offers.
"Uhh yeah okay yeah."
"Just be relaxed, okay"
Cele opens the metal grate a little and ushers Bezz to put his hand inside.
A warm delight runs through Bezz when he touches the soft fur. He feels them moving with their breath and gently gently strokes the fur. A smile breaks out on his face, wide and luminous under the moonlight.
"It's nice, no" Cele says as he watches Bezz's face.
"Yes, I didn't expect them to be this soft"
They sit a bit longer, trying to feed the bunnies, talking, trying to come up with stories about these rabbits that will convince people to keep them. 
Bezz asks Cele to hold on to the box and make no noise as he navigates a path to the Archery Lawns. Cele takes a minute to leave them in the enclosure, worrying about them. Bezz's reassurance a little ineffective as he says his goodbyes, leaving more lettuce and some broccoli in the carrier.
When they finally start walking back towards the Dorms, Bezz takes Cele's hand in his, his confident decisive gesture in sharp contrast with the nerves he feels inside. Cele offers no protest and holds on. Bezz feels breathless thinking about how similar Cele's beautiful hand feels to the soft rabbits he just held a while ago. 
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mynqzo · 10 days
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gripping my table. ough no sleep ohgh stay awake to fix sleep schedule ohghh
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lilybug-02 · 3 months
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Maybe the soul as an organ could’ve ancestrally evolved in your AU world’s vertebrates as a filtering organ, like a kidney, that sat over the heart and filtered blood of toxins and what not. Then it could’ve evolved in humans and monsters to also regulate magical energies. Which is why soul entities can possess human souls, because they already act as a storage for magical forces.
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OH. MY. GOSH. This is an amazing theory! KWHFSdkjadnfgl And it even lines up perfectly with what I theorized on how (in this AU) Magic is toxic in concentrated amounts!!! It's literally a gosh-dang MAGIC FILTERING LIVER!
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Dr. Carb is very excited about this new development in fictional evolutionary biology.
The soul probably looks quite different when its inside the body. Its physical- but it is not as "physical" as some other organs. And since filtering magic is so crucial, the soul is closer to the heart so it can filter magic directly from the bloodstream. Yippie!
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if you would all allow me to be delusional for a moment - so i went back to staring Very Hard at the neighborhood map and. um. well. im chucking my marbles out the window! as always take all of this with a Hefty grain of salt!
i thought i saw a weird pixel in Frank's window so i zoomed in. then i took a screenshot, and fucked with the contrast/brightness settings. and uhhhhhh
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UHHHHHH
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FRANK??? HELLO???? HE'S IN THERE? i'm pretty sure im Not seeing things bc that is definitely a vague gray tube-outline with a yellow spot in the shape of Frank's nose. hidden in the dark. and i might be seeing things but in the pane next to his face it kinda looks like his hand is on the window? but! Frank's in there! what the fuck!
so naturally i slowly scrolled through the neighborhood Zoomed The Fuck In. obvi there's nothing in Home's eyes, and Barnaby's & Sally's single visible windows(?) are closed. I couldn't find any out-of-place pixels in Julie's or Poppy's.
but! Eddie's kinda freaked me out a little! look at this shit!
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on the top left pane... are those fingerprints pressing into the glass? and in the lower left, is that a fucking Face peering out? a creepy ass face that almost looks like some sort of mask? there seems to be another Shape in the upper right... another face perhaps?
and then there's the weird window shine in the lower right (along with maybe Another face...). it almost looks like a string of letters. there isn't a single pattern/design like that anywhere else in the neighborhood. what's up with that....
oh and also, just went back to double check the post office's display window
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there seems to be another face - all the way to the right in the darkness. judging by the shape of the paler (yellowish?) pixels between what must be eyes, i think that's Eddie. and i think i see ears and a hat... not sure though. this one is really tough to see but it's There
(side note: Eddie is totally fucked, isn't he? between the faces(?) and hands behind his door, Home sitting in his display, and the hyacinths by his building, the emphasis on his memory (or lack-thereof) in a project that is, in a sense, About memory... i'm concerned! and eating it tf up! hell yeah lets get funky!)
now i couldn't see any, like, concrete Faces or anything in Howdy's store. but! you can kinda see inside! observe~
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in the big open window, you can kinda make out some sort of container on a counter and what might be shelves or a kind of brick pattern. and then above the 100% sign... hold on are those fuckign Eyes? lets take a look zoomed in & without the image adjustments!
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yeah those uh. i think those are eyes. Wally-esque eyes peering out of the darkness. though they also mildly remind me of eyespots on insect wings. butterfly eyespots, perhaps. inch resting indeed...
WAIT I LIED!!! there DOES seem to be another string of letter-like symbols in the neighborhood, not just the post office's window shine. now it could be just a wild coincidence, but at the same time it seems kind of... purposeful. like that's not normal shading/coloring.
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check out the blue window border on Howdy's Place, next to the apples. the lighter blue pixels seem Arranged. i think i see a clear N, and either an R or a P... along with some other symbols that i don't recognize as anything. the lower ones look kinda like faces? what could the top one be? is any of it anything or am i looking too hard?
in short: they're watching us watch them and there's way more to the map than initially meets the eye....
(edit: i've added a reblog w/ the images outlined! badly outlined but a clearer View of what i see nonetheless! + some notes on more little things outlining helped me notice)
#throttling my laptop WHAT DOES IT MEAN??? WHAT DOES IT MEANNNNNNN#got a little spooked there ngl....#noticing the faces(?) in eddie's gave me a lil startle. got a little chill up my spine#I LOVE IT!#im gonna be reeling over this all night....#the implications! the arising questions!! the Choices!!!#frank and eddie being the only ones with their faces in their windows (plus a couple extra)#eddie and howdy having letters/symbols(?) on their buildings#THE EYES IN HOWDY'S STORE!!!#i feel like these are important misplaced pieces of a puzzle i havent even opened yet#god and like. tiny home in eddie's window yeah but that With the eyes in howdy's store?#both buildings - both Stores! - seeming to have hidden letters on them??? WHAT DOES IT MEANNNN#of course i could be just plain insane and seeing things#but some of it.... ough i dont think i am fellas#welcome home speculation#wh speculation#homebogging#ive been meaning to Examine the updated map.... not much Changed or caught my attention but a few things did#why does barnaby have a carton of milk outside his house? something to do with the phrase 'no use crying over spilled milk'?#the flower patch behind julie's house is Oddly green.... kinda reminds me of a body dump#that plus the red thing next to the bowling ball (a ribbon? scissors? something else?) makes me Suspicious#along with a mildly delusional Theory i've had since my first good Examining Of The Map (before the update!)#but thats not what this post is about#theres just. theres interesting things in there!#thank you for reading! i need to go Think about this all....#im feeling the urge to up the contrast/brightness of Every Single Slightly Dark image on the site <3
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stormyoceans · 2 years
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EVERY SINGLE BL PRODUCTION COMPANY REALLY SAID 2022 IS THE YEAR WE'RE MAKING THESE BOYS GET MARRIED AND THAT'S ON GOD
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sergle · 7 months
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has the huggable twee irritation always been a Thing or did it evolve in response to like, "you're not ugly. i'd fuck you" type comments? like in your personal experience
god, I'm not well spoken enough to describe it exactly the way it Registers In My Brain... but like. It's not the "you're not ugly, I'd fuck you" genre, and that type of comment is so easy to immediately dismiss because it always comes from a certain type of man, and it's like yeah yeah, I could throw a sandwich and you'd fuck it before it hit the floor. But also, that one's so specific, it's a bottom-of-the-barrel "compliment" that dudes will give when a woman has actively said something about feeling like she's unattractive.
The HUGGABLE THING. The oooh squishy marshmallow somft huggable mom shaped 🥺🥰 She looks like she gives GREAT HUGS. Those comments are UNPROMPTED. I'm immediately like. Every keyword you say, I kill another hostage. I will blow up this whole building and everyone in it. Because it is SO FUCKING WEIRD. And I have heard it one million times. And I see it on every drawing of a character who's even remotely plus sized. These comments would not fly for a thinner person, they'd be rightfully received as weird. People aren't gonna comment on a picture of Ariana Grande going omg she's sooo huggable mom friend shaped. WHAT. Simultaneously are desexualized and sanitized to a weird degree in that uwu language way, WHILE also being creepy. Like, why are you describing what you think I'd feel like if you hugged me? Like the only positive thing you can think of to say is that I look like I have some give. As strangers. I'm not going to hug you, I think you're a creep and I think you're giving yourself a big pat on the back for complimenting a fat person. What are we doing I'm arguing at the air. Where am I And you're just supposed to go oh thank you that's so nice, because as a fat person, you gotta take whatever compliment you get, even if it is actually not a compliment. And that's the thing, there are SO MANY ACTUAL COMPLIMENTS TO PICK FROM. But people settle on huggable and somft. Was this person pretty? Were they hot? You could say gorgeous? Handsome, beautiful? Elegant? Stunning? Sharp? Sexy? Stylish? Are you trying to say that you're attracted to this person's body? Are we being horny? Do you think they just look nice in general? Can't we think of anything else to say? Or are we just gonna sit here and say they fuckin look like Santa Claus. Huggable like a pillow. Girl what the fuck
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mobius-m-mobius · 1 year
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We can speak to the highest bidder right now, it's a Mr... Michael Sheen.
DAVID TENNANT being sold (to a very familiar buyer 👀) on The Last Leg (03.02.2023)
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lively-run-away · 2 months
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these drawings were done like a year and a half ago. like 2 month or so after the ultra deluxe version released. i was too busy doing assessments but i needed to draw him to cope with the work.
i kept thinking " ah i'll sketch it down and redraw a better version of these jokes" and then i never did so here you go. mostly just me making fun of the limitations that stanely must face as a little video game guy.
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starrysymphonies · 6 months
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AAAAA THEY FINALLY GOT THE IMMUNITY COOKIE THEY DESERVE!!!!!!!! COMPENSATION FROM EP 13!!!!!!!
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Vincent Price as Robert Morgan
The Last Man On Earth (1964)
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jessieren · 24 days
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Slightly blurry but OMG look at the adorable cuteness of this photo with the softstache™ 🥰
Happy moustache monday everyone
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spidergrotto · 6 months
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throw out the field trip trope and introduce the peter parker doesn’t like the idea of zoo’s gets really emotional at the concept of keeping animals contained starts wondering if he’s betraying his animal kind by letting them sit in zoo’s and subsequently steals multiple … helicopters and trucks and cargo container ( a shopping cart somehow got involved )
he releases all of the animals carefully moving them into the cargo bins before hiring people who drive them out to their respective habitats.
tony isn’t sure what to do with this situation considering all of it happened in the span of two days and peter hasn’t mentioned it once.
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squeakadeeks · 4 months
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moodboard for this past week ❤️
#they should invent a grad school thats not fucking insane#i'm hanging in there but im the most unwell i've been in AWhile#this week was just horrible#there was already the freezer food incident but it also started off with a very severe pain episode thats putting me in constant woe#even mundane motion has been agonizing which is McAwesome bc we had a lab inspection which involved moving hundreds of pounds of equipment#during which we found a blackwidow and rats which we had to deal with and was a whole thing psychologically on top of the physical toll#the new class fiasco is still popping off and i had to respond to at this point over 400 emails in the fleeting moments outside of lab#AND A STUDENT TRIED TO FINANCIALLY BRIBE THEIR WAY INTO THE CLASS ? ?? ?? ?????#then the instructor wanted to use me as a guinea pig and i had to test new circuit boards but I wasnt given any time to do so properly#i had to test them plus get them operational and deal with my incoming students all in a frantic 10 minute window#im in charge of running our meetings too but the instructor was interrupting and having side conversations that made it really hard-#to train the other people on the new equipment in a smooth manner#which meant that a bunch of people had to keep me after to ask questions which made me late for my drs appointment#where i found out i cant get the new covid vaccine bc my heart and blood levels arnt stable enough#and joanns lost an expensive+critical fabric order of mine+i had to give a big presentation this week on my research that was stressful#and my inbox is still blowing up from being needed all over the place between teaching lab and classes and yall i am. so so tired.#im in so much pain and so stressed out#debating the ethics of turning into a pile of lint to escape my responsibilities and mortal frame
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soldier-poet-king · 6 months
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Turns out I don't hate my tattoo I was just tired and overhwlemed and my immune system was in shock and there was a degree of psychological shock because it's this major change despite being a change I want. It's maybe not perfectly what I imagined but that's life in general, and it's still in progress!!! The edges are weirdly cut off BC we haven't done the wrap-around portion yet! Some small details can be added to balance it esp around the small filler buds. The contrasting shades is bc one is fresh and one is not, it won't be visually jarring once it heals!!! Mostly I just feel stupid now!!!!! Issues w control, commitment, anxiety, perfection, etc etc etc
Ft. The addition of sunflowers, a bee, and lilies, because I've never been even remotely subtle about the things close to my heart
Also tumblr murdered the already poor phone camera image quality rip and wet hair makes me look like a drowned greasy rat double rip
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freakadr0id · 1 year
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Addendum to Donnie's Fight Style Analysis
I'VE BEEN INSPIRED. Okay, okay, know it's been over four months since my last analysis post, but life got really crazy and I had to deal with some major stuff and a huge loss of motivation afterward. However, after getting into LMK again, I finally felt motivated to properly come back to these and finish a few posts I've had in the works for ages. Admittedly, this is not one of them.
This is a minor continuation of my original Fight Style Analysis post for Donnie. This is something that occurred to me some time after completing it, but I figured I'd talk about it because I do think it is worth mentioning. Just as with the previous analyses, there is a bit of a TL;DR at the end because WHOO this ended up way longer than I thought it would.
[Donnie Fight Style Analysis]
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A little bit ago, I decided to go through Rottmnt again, just for fun, but upon getting to the final couple of episodes and the movie there was something about Donnie's fight style that really started to bug me. I couldn't place it at first, but about a week ago I realized what it was.
Donnie does not appear to improve his fight style by the end of the show.
Let me explain:
As I stated in my original analysis, Rise of the TMNT is generally pretty good about demonstrating the growth of the characters' abilities over the course of the show (and movie). It uses its composition, animation, and choreography to increase the complexity of fight scenes, not only making them more exciting and entertaining but to show how the skills of the characters improve to allow for these more complex fights. Rise also shows the growth in characters' abilities this in a more explicit way by providing the audience with a specific focal point for comparing the eventual growth of each character's skills.
In "The Shadow of Evil" Splinter verbally states the deficiencies of each turtle's fighting abilities - Leo's is cockiness and arrogance, Raph's is impulsiveness, Mikey's is inexperience and ignoring fundamentals in favor of flourish, while Donnie's is his reliance on tech. They are deliberately telling us, the audience, what exactly to look for as we watch the fights and to compare how they fight at the start of the show versus the end.
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For the most part, Rise seems to make good on that source of comparison. Leo is less cocky and arrogant in fights, Raph doesn't rush in as much, and Mikey is a bit more practical in his movements and attacks (although he still has his razzmatazz).
Donnie, however, doesn't seem to get the same treatment. Yes, he very clearly improves as a fighter, but his fundamental weakness remains unchanged and unaddressed. He still relies heavily on his tech by the end of the show, arguably even more after he gets his Ninpo (for the sake of clarity, yes, his mystic tech counts in this as well - it serves the same purpose). In the finale and in the movie, he's constantly using his mystic constructs in fights, with the show even portraying this as something cool and victorious.
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THIS FRUSTRATED THE HELL OUT OF ME. If everyone else displays noticeable growth in overcoming their weaknesses in fights, how did they stumble so hard on Donnie's character? Why was Donnie the exception? I must have missed something.
Yeah. I did.
Donnie's fight style does improve over the course of the show, it just develops in a more subtle way.
The show claims, as stated by Splinter, that Donnie's greatest weakness in a fight is his reliance on tech ("Do not rely on your tech, funny one"), but that statement isn't quite right.
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Splinter's words in this scene give a supposed indication as to the way Donnie's fighting style will improve by the end of the show. By stating that Donnie should not rely on his tech, the audience expects that, by the finale, Donnie won't use his tech as much and will become a much better fighter through traditional techniques. However, that doesn't happen, with Donnie still using his tech as a fundamental part of his fight style in both the final episode and the movie. This is why it appears that Donnie doesn't develop his fighting skill much throughout the show when this couldn't be further from the truth.
The phrasing used here is misleading. A better way to describe Donnie's weakness is that he uses his tech improperly in battle.
When stated in this way, is easier to see how Donnie improves his fighting by the end of Rise. It shifts the audience's expectations as to the trajectory of Donnie's growth as a fighter and provides a better point of comparison for how his fight style changes.
At the start of the show, Donnie uses his tech as a crutch, a fallback when he thinks traditional techniques won't work. There are several instances in season one and early season two where Donnie relied on his tech instead of utilizing traditional techniques (Yes, I see you "Many Unhappy Returns"). This can be a critical mistake as it changes up his attack pattern (ahem, Glass Cannon) and it leads to him losing the advantage in a fight. THIS is Donnie's biggest weakness when fighting - not the fact that he simply uses his tech in battle.
With this perspective, Donnie absolutely improves and grows, just as his brothers do. Instead of reducing his reliance on his tech, as the show's phrasing implies he should, he adjusts the way he uses his tech by applying it more effectively and strategically. He stops relying on it as a fallback and begins using his tech in ways that fit the situation and limits his vulnerability. In the last few episodes of the show, Donnie tends to keep his distance when he needs to use his tech and waits for a better opportunity to attack, instead of just using it because he can (except for his hammer, which makes sense since it's intended for melee combat). In the final fight with Shredder, Donnie keeps his distance from him after attempting an initial hit with his bo. Once realizing he can work off of Shredder's arrogance ("You think your puny mystic weapon can harm me?") that's when he uses his tech and lands a stronger blow. It's a more strategic and calculated use of his drill than what he would have done (or did) at even the start of season 2.
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The same applies to the fight with Krang in/outside the Technodrome. Donnie uses his mystic construct to fire a barrage at the Krang from a distance so that he doesn't put himself at risk with the absence of his battleshell.
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Donnie's tech is a deeply ingrained part of his character. It's his passion, his source of expression, and his legacy. Heck, he already wears a tech shell every day and in nearly every battle. To separate the tech from the turtle, especially in a fight, would be doing the character a huge disservice, and Rise does seem to recognize that. They even emphasize this in End Game when Splinter regrets dismissing their unique strengths which, in this case, would be Donnie's tech.
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While perhaps poorly stated within the show itself, they clearly do not make an effort to reduce Donnie's usage of tech in battle (again, Insane in the Mama Train aside), instead demonstrating the growth of his fighting style through the more subtle applications of his tech.
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[TL;DR: The show deliberately states the weaknesses each turtle has in battle in "The Shadow of Evil" and, while Leo, Raph, and Mikey all have notable improvement in overcoming those weaknesses, Donnie doesn't appear to. The show suggests that Donnie's weakness in battle is in his reliance on tech, making it seem that his fight style doesn't improve as much since he uses his tech from the start to the end of the show. However, Donnie does actually improve in his fighting style throughout the show as his growth as a fighter is actually dependent on how Donnie uses his tech, instead of reducing his reliance on it altogether.]
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There's a strong chance I'm simply reiterating things other people have long since noticed, but this was something I felt could have, or should have, been addressed to some degree in my original analysis. I'm ashamed that I missed this in my initial observations because this feeds into a crucial part of Donnie's character, that being his confidence in his tech and the arrogance that comes with that. I feel like it is important to mention these sorts of changes in the way each character fights in order to fully understand what it is about the action and fight scenes in Rise that make it so special.
There are a few other things I do want to cover, but because of how spotty my motivation and schedule have been, I make no guarantees as to how long it will take. Sorry about that. I hope people find this interesting, at the very least, because I really do enjoy making these silly little things.
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hechiima · 1 year
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It's already so tragic that Holmes and Watson get separated for three years in the original stories and then dgs was like alright well we're gonna make it ten and make them both single dads. So. I'm sure they're fine.
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