#Ghost of a Chance TMNT fanfic review | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

taraninja · 4 years

Text

Review of A Ghost of a Chance

Just in case my review is too long for fanfiction.net, I’m posting it here.

To start, I want to apologize for the tardiness of this review. I actually began writing it after finishing Chapter 34, but thanks to College finals and the holidays it’s only getting out now. I like my reviews to in some way reciprocate the amount of effort the writer/writers spent in their fanfic, so this was definitely a multi-day project.

Firstly, I’d like to go over the characters and characterizations. Others have pointed this out as well, but you truly do get their personalities down perfectly. There were multiple occasions where I was tricked into reading this as if it were an episode screenplay, which is perhaps the highest praise any fanfic could achieve. Master Splinter is as elegant and effervescent as always, but you delve more into his character than the mere surface level; he also shows off humor, worry, empathy, concern, and of course, the love he feels for his sons and daughter is truly palpable. A great example is in his dealings with the Lotus; he is able to disagree in a way which shows honor and maturity, and even when the Lotus leave, he does not press the issue but let’s both parties (Donnie/April and the Lotus) have their disagreement and move on. It sent a perfect message to Leo that sometimes, interference is worse than simply letting an argument run its due course. I wish someone had taught that message to 2003 Leo, so maybe he could have avoided getting entangled in the gang wars.

Speaking of Leo, there are several facets of his character which have been masterfully delved into here. Something I prefer in the 2012 show is how they show that Leo is much more than just a serious and dutiful leader; he can also be awkward and silly at times, and this is perfectly encapsulated in his conversations with Karai within this story. Instead of distracting from the main plot, it melded perfectly with it and even helped to add to the plot. Karai has trouble getting used to life in the sewer, but has no problems understanding Leo and getting him to hopelessly unravel himself when talking with her. In contrast, Leo seems unsure of where he stands with her, and sometimes doesn’t know what the right approach is. Should he flirt back, or would that be too forward? Are their conversations one big game, or do they mean something to her? And are her questions meant to be taken literally, or as part of a running joke? As a master of deception, I can imagine how confusing talking with her must be. But on Karai’s part, it must be lots of fun, since it’s really more like she’s gently prodding him into taking the first step. I can still vividly imagine the chapter where they spar together, both teasing each other and then that one moment Karai thought she might have pushed too far. The tension between them was so thick that I could feel it past my computer screen, and I inadvertently held my breath as Leo drew closer and almost, ALMOST kissed her, but then revealed that he had just been teasing her back. That scene was perfect poetry, and it really showed me that you get their dynamic. You understand how and why they work, and that’s always great to see in a fanfiction.

Of course, Leo and Karai aren’t the only two lovebirds who have amazing development here, and the next two I want to gush over are Raph and Casey. I’ll admit that I didn’t really ship them before, but after reading this, you’ve made me a believer! There are of course, multiple ways a gay romance can go wrong; it can either feel too pushy, or not pushy enough, depending on the way it’s written. However, I think it was perfectly handled here. Our titular Raph and Casey start as more on the ‘bromance with benefits’ side, which works; a slow beginning helps get new shippers like me to see just how it can develop. Both of them have very similar outlooks and personalities, so there’s already that common ground between them, and then the scene where Casey gets drunk allow us to see them acting uncharacteristically caring for each other. Seeing adult Casey and Raph making out is definitely a—unique way to kickstart the romance, and a rather believable one. As someone who’s bi, I’ll readily admit that curiosity is what often causes a spark in a relationship like theirs. And again, the slow burn is the smartest move when it comes to them. Their kiss was left open-ended, as you could say ‘oh, they didn’t like it’ and not ship it, or you could think ‘hmm, I don’t think their answers were all that truthful’ and continue to ship it. I personally count myself among the latter category, but either way, their scenes have been written exceedingly well so far and I can’t wait to read more of them.

And, of course, my personal favorite ship, the one that made me get off my butt and read this fanfic; Apritello! After Chapter 34, I was squealing for literally hours. It got so bad that my roommate, who is not even a little into TMNT, forcibly grabbed my shoulders and ordered me to stop jumping around like a ping-pong ball. So suffice it to say, I have a lot to comment on when it comes to this dynamic within your fanfiction.

To begin with, I am SO glad that the music box was brought up again! When April pushed it aside in the “Bigfoot” episode, I felt so sad for Donnie and was more than a little peeved at April. It was no wonder that Donnie felt like ‘just a mutant’ with the way she was treating him; she pushed aside his heartfelt present, never lets him speak about his feelings with her, and yet continues to lead him on with hugs and kisses instead of actually being clear with her emotions. This is not to say I entirely faulted April, as having two boys crushing on you is never fun and is a situation I’ve had trouble with in the past. But nevertheless, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see the event be brought up and mentioned again between the two of them here. It gave the ship some well-needed groundedness and maturity, so that it could develop beyond just two lovesick teenagers. And oh, how beautifully developed it is! Of course, it begins rather bumpily (April, why d’ya have to take your anger out on Donnie? Him who would never fault you, ever?) with April asking out Casey for dates, keeping it a secret from Donnie, and then trying to get closer with him while not revealing anything to him. But there’s been tons of cute build-up too! The whole ‘evil scientist and best lab assistant’ bit has to be the most adorable love-speak ever, and of course, the silent glances at each other and the secret armor Donnie built is super sweet as well. And there’s no possible way I will ever forget when Future Donnie shook current Donnie to his senses and sent him chasing after April, which resulted in the most romantic scene of all time. Oh yes, it was certainly sappy; but it was a sappiness that felt VERY well-deserved and had been a long time coming. And I’m also really happy that you had Splinter inform and reassure Kirby on all the goings-on; I always feel bad for parents when their children hide things from them within stories, and it was yet another source of relief when Kirby was not only fine with April and Donnie but gave them the go-ahead. I knew he was a good father, but now I’m absolutely certain of it. And that means that April can continue her relationship with Donnie and the others without fearing for her father or focusing solely on college. Not to mention, dating Donnie can only mean good things for a future college career.

Oh yes, and then THAT ABSOLUTE BOMBSHELL in episode—I mean chapter (oh boy you know it’s good when I start calling it an episode!) 35, where April had to watch Donnie get knocked out in front of her. My heart definitely wasn’t shattering into a thousand tiny pieces at that moment (sarcastic tone intended). I’ll get into more detail later when I discuss the pacing, but man, did that scene hit like an oncoming bus.

Of course, I can’t leave out Mikey, the Future Turtles, or the Lotus from my gushing on the characterization! Mikey was at his most hilarious within this fanfic, and I’d even go so far as to say he was handled better within this story than in the usual 2012 episodes. Able to be light-hearted, a prankster, a gamer, and life of the party while still having a certain level of gravity and groundedness goes a long way to show that though Mikey may be the party dude, he has a charm and worth that is so much more than just cracking the odd joke here or there. While Leo and the others were certainly excited to have the Lotus staying with them, it was Mikey who went the extra mile to try and learn as many names as possible. And Mikey is the one who coordinated their family movie night to try and get ‘Karaiwa’ cheerful again. He’s an absolute gem who I want to protect, yet I also know that he is beyond capable of protecting himself.

I’ll admit that the Lotus took a bit of getting used to. When I heard there would be another ninja clan, my impromptu thought was ‘ah yes, the perfect way to insert OC’s’ because that’s usually how I’ve seen it handled within other fanfictions. But it definitely didn’t feel that way here. Though they were all original characters, they only served as big of a part as the plot required and were beneficial to the story’s development, instead of detracting from it. Hachisu-no-Hana served as a great parallel for Splinter, as both are heads of a clan who had been wronged by Shredder, but who took very different responses to said wrong-doing. Wakai wasn’t around long, but he emanated a youthful simplicity that made it hard not to like him, and of course Juro and Atsuko were easy to like as well. In the end I found myself liking the clan quite a bit and was hoping for their well-being just as much as I hoped for Karai’s.

Finally, we have the Future Turtles. It’s a bit harder to speak on their personalities, since they are literally different versions of the same characters within the story, but I think they were sufficiently developed enough to stand out from their current counterparts and show how the passage of time can truly make a difference. Leo has of course become a lot more serious, and along with all the other future characters, his moral compass is more black and white. Either you are on his side, or you are an enemy that deserves death; there is no in-between. This change is devastating to see when compared to how Leo currently is, and I would certainly be interested if you ever decided to do a spin-off fic detailing how the future turtles got to their current states. A lot of details have been divulged already, but like any good reader, that just leaves me wanting even more.

Future Raph and Casey seem to do a lot more laughing and have lot more fun than I would have thought, but it makes sense in the context of their relationship and is yet another great addition to their dynamic. Being in a relationship not only strengthens their bond, but themselves as people. Current Casey definitely can’t be described as sensitive, but Future Casey is not only willing but able to lend April an ear along with some solid advice. And Raph is seen helping Leo out more than arguing with him, which really warmed my heart. After Future Splinter’s death, I can imagine how hard it must have been for the turtles; but especially for Leo, who already had a heavy burden as the team leader, but with Splinter gone, that burden can only have hardened. I’m glad Raph decided to step up somewhat and help support him, instead of escalate their rivalry. It shows maturity and caring on his part, both attributes which I believe Raph already possesses, but doesn’t choose to emphasize.

In contrast, Future Mikey and Donnie seem much more solemn than their current selves. Mikey still has that fun-loving spark, but through his calmer mannerisms and way of speaking it is evident that the future events have tampered him down just as thoroughly as they tampered down his brothers. And while Donnie’s seriousness could be attributed to the important matter at the forefront of their time-traveling visit, I believe there’s more than the fate of his family which keeps him grounded. He’s always been the problem-solver of the group, and his brother’s reliance on him can only have escalated after Splinter’s demise. Plus, he lost the ‘best lab assistant in the world,’ so there has been an additional mental and emotional burden for him to carry. And though you didn’t go into the repercussions for this in too much detail, I imagine it must have been absolutely soul-crushing to see Casey go from dating April to Raph. The thoughts of “April is so great, I would have done everything in my power to make her stay,” “how could he abandon her like that?” “Maybe April feels the same way; maybe she was never into guys” and even “maybe she only dated Casey so she could finally get away from us mutants, and now that she has, she doesn’t care anymore.” I don’t know if he’d actually think like that or not, but I can envision him doing so. It must have caused at least a temporal shift between him and the two lovers and cooping himself up within the lab has obviously become a habit at this point. If he still remains within the lab while brought back to the past while his father is alive, then there’s no stopping it at this point. But hopefully he pulls himself together in a similar fashion that current Donnie did, and fixes his relationship with April. That would certainly be an ideal ending, if not an altogether realistic one.

Alright, now to more boring aspects of the story. First off; Grammar! While this has for the most part been on-point and smooth, there are some small things which could have been better to give the story a better flow. Most of these are nit-picks, because there aren’t many faults within this fanfic, but I think they bear mentioning. There were some misplaced words here and there, like “to” instead of “too” (slightly hypocritical since I KNOW I’ve probably made a similar mistake in this review alone) adjectives which were repeated three or more times in a paragraph, and one particular (and this is the most nit-picky comment of all) word phrase which stuck out and really bugged me, which was ‘portable portal.’ I believe the first time you used it, you had just described how the portal was transferrable, and my first thought was “well, if you wrote a whole section describing it as mobile, why did you describe it as portable again?” And then I saw that phrase repeated more than five times, which just led my OCD brain to go crazy. It might also have more to do with the fact that both words have a “po-“ beginning and an “able” or “al” ending, so it sounds like a repetitive description word, but nevertheless that’s more of a me problem than an overall issue.

Next, there is the plot. I read somewhere that the best plots can be outlined in a sentence and described in ten paragraphs, which I believe definitely applies to this story. While my descriptive powers are not great enough to fully divulge ten paragraphs, I shall do my best to review it properly.

It starts out simple enough; Donnie gets a message from his future self and learns that not only can he communicate with himself past the bonds of space and time, but eventually he can meet his future self without the fear of a time paradox. As Donnie and his brothers prepare to meet their future selves, they meet up with a fellow ninja clan who also has a beef with Shredder, and multiple cases of drama ensue as a result. However, there is so much more than that to pick apart in the plot. There’s action, mystery, romance, secrecy, plus a lot of confusion and mixed feelings which help to add tension and character development. And all the character dialogues don’t seem abrupt, out of place, or like mere exposition; they all blend perfectly together to give the story the feel of a big mixing pot, with multiple themes, characters, and motives blending together to give the story/soup an exquisite taste.

I could be wrong, but I think the main message behind this story is that ‘it is not our actions in the past that define us, but our actions in the present.’ In the very first chapter, we see a lot of characters mingling together who all have argued or slightly resented each other in the past. There’s Splinter and Karai, who used to believe she was Shredder’s daughter and wanted revenge on Hamato Yoshi; Casey and April, the former who used to see Raph as a villain, and then later saw Donnie as a romantic rival; the latter who blamed the turtle’s for her father’s mutation, and avoided them for weeks afterwards; and though it’s more minor, the turtles have all had big arguments with each other in the past. But the fic starts with them all united, sharing ‘Sensei Day’ together and really rallying together as one big family. Yet even though they’d love that moment to last forever, it can’t. There’ll be new hardships, arguments and struggles they’ll have to go through, and sometimes it may seem that the bad outweighs the good, like when Karai leaves the lair to go with the Lotus. But if they don’t keep striving for tomorrow, to make the best of fate while at the same time carving their own destiny, then they’ll never know just how beautiful life can be. This is the message I think Future Donnie learned when he urged current Donnie to run after April, and what all of the Future turtles realized when they learned they could time travel to this point. It may have happened in the past, and it might be too late for their happy ending; but who says they couldn’t help bring a happy ending to other versions of themselves?

And of course, this message is closely intertwined with Splinter, Karai, and Oroku Saki. Shredder chose to follow in the footsteps of his former clan; to carve for himself a path of bloodshed and vengeance, which would dictate all the future choices in his life. Splinter had the choice to follow a similar path, but instead took the path less traveled on; the path of peace. This has opened new options for him, as he gained a new family, obtained happy memories to replace the bad, and got to know many amazing people he wouldn’t have otherwise. Who knows if he would have met April, Kirby, Murasaki, Leatherhead, or Kurtzmann if not for his sons? And while Splinter tries to tell Karai that to choose peace is to choose the higher option, Karai has been raised by the Shredder for too long, and her thoughts are obviously tainted by her false father’s teachings. After all, surely someone who hides away from a fight is the bigger coward…? Surely more honor belongs to the man who seeks out his opponents and does away with them…right?

This is all part of why the Shredder-Splinter-Karai relationship is so compelling. Karai is literally the gray line, separating Splinter’s white and Shredder’s black; she has parts of both of them within her, which makes her choices and actions truly interesting. Someone who is neutral is more relatable than someone who is wholly good or wholly bad, and (at least for me), we want to see what she does because we want to know how we’d react in those same situations. Personally, I can’t fault Karai for a single one of her actions and could see myself making the same mistakes. Even if every part of my rationale told me to trust Splinter, I wouldn’t be able to wholly turn myself away from someone who’d raised me from birth. I’d want to cut off that wrongness, that falseness from my life so I could truly feel free, and that perfectly describes what Karai does. She can’t separate what happened in her past, so she wants to cut it out; even though Splinter and the others don’t care about her past, they just want to help and support her current decisions. I hope Karai comes to realize this by the end of the fic, and that her bond with the others becomes stronger as a result of this whole experience.

For the final tidbit of this review, I’d like to go over the pacing. Like everything else within this fanfic, the pacing has been very smooth and well-handled, with one event following another like dominos falling one after the other. The first chapter starts with a peaceful scene, which leads into a comedic scene in the next chapter, which in turn leads to a romantic scene gone wrong in the third chapter. The progression feels very natural, and the slow as syrup beginning is perfect to help ease the reader into the action. I described the fic as a screenplay earlier, because the events really do take place in a movie-like pace. The tripartite structure has long been lauded as the perfect story system, and that still holds true to this day. Having three big acts which are either followed or preceded by a consecutive list of smaller acts is the perfect way to hype up your big scenes and give them more weight, which your fanfic certainly did.

I promised I would go into a little more detail for Chapter 35 and go into detail I shall. At this point I think you have the three-part structure down so well, that you’re even starting to instill it into your chapters! The first act starts out peacefully, if slightly tear-jerking; the Future turtles say good-bye to Splinter for the last time, and he had some great advice to give the four of them. Once again I found the fanfic hitting close to home with me, as my grandmother has Alzheimer’s and I know any day could be the last day I say bye to her. I swear, your fanfic is going to be one of those I return to over and over again just for the little personal tidbits of emotion it gives me!

Anyways, returning to the topic; the second part of the chapter sees the different groups initiating their plans. Leo, April and Mikey taking the secret passage by the church catacombs, and Donnie, Raph and Casey entering through Baxter Stockman’s lab. Of course, things don’t start out well for either group, as Leo’s group/Team Nerf gets the ceiling caved in on them, and Donnie’s group/Team Roof has some mutated human kids attack them. I was thinking this would be the point the Future Turtles come in to help, but since they don’t I’m sure there’s another aspect to the plan that the Leo’s are looking out for. Perhaps they realize that Karai would have split off from the main Lotus group and want to save some man-power to help her when the time comes.

And then, the third/final act of the chapter comes and gives me a minor heart attack. Three mutants aptly named Lock, Shock and Barrel enter the fray thanks to Rahzar, and don’t only injure most of the main fighters; Barrel knocks out Donnie as well. The turtles, Casey and April barely manage to defeat Barrel before the focus returns to Karai, who places herself straight in Shredder’s den amidst a throng of enemies. While cliffhangers aren’t my favorite things in the world (again; intended sarcasm), I do think it was perfectly timed here. Any more action taking place would just be too much, and at least you ended it in a way that reminded us readers of the important stakes behind their battle. Even though the turtles may be beaten and battered, it is imperative they push on; not just for their sakes, not even just for Karai, but also for the Lotus, Future Turtles, Splinter, and everyone else the Shredder has hurt. While it is true they can’t turn back time and reverse all the evil he has done, they can at least stop his hand right now, and save those that matter most to them. And that is truly the most important cause the turtles could have for their fight.

#@suthnmeh #Ghost of a Chance TMNT fanfic review #super long post #I come back from the dead just to reveal I've become another filthy fanfic reader

34 notes · View notes