So you’re making your own TMNT iteration. Here’s how to get started:
1. Choose who will be the comic books guy
1. This is usually Mikey but variance is allowed!
2. Comic books guy should have other unrelated nerdy intetests, ie Anime, horror films, unicorn onesies
3. Keep in mind at least one of the other bros should find this lame and obnoxious. Bonus points if they are a hypocrite
2. Place your Baxter Stockman on the “snobby wet cat” to “serious threat” scale. This will severely impact the way your plot develops.
3. The following characters, if included, are either friend-shaped or out for blood:
1. Leatherhead
2. Bishop
3. Utrom
4. Frogs
4. Customize your April! Choose her age, appearance, and backstory!
Backstory 1: turtles saved her life when she was running through the sewers to escape a serious threat, probably mousers
Backstory 2: she feels like a loser in school so she just made friends with these sewer creatures
5. Set the emotional intelligence meters on your Raph and Mikey
1. One of them has to be completely tactless
2. They both can be
3. One of them should be extremely empathetic to the point where it causes plot
4. They both can be
6. Customize your Splinter! Choose his species (original), connection to Hamato Yoshi, and parenting style
Parenting style 1: his life revolves around his kids, if he made mistakes he did it with love
Parenting style 2: his life revolves around his past with Shredder and his children are weapons for his battles
Parenting style 3: his soaps are on
7. Place your Shredder on the “babygirl” to “force of nature” scale. This will have minimal impact on your plot.
Congrats! You’ve completed stage 1! Take a breather, explore your style, daydream about what kinds of pizza toppings your boys like. In stage 2 we’ll be getting into the nitty gritty details, like Karai’s relation to Shredder, how Splinter actually learned ninjitsu, and yes, the unavoidable question, did any of the boys ever have a crush on April and if so how did that pan out. Relax while you can.
At this point some of you are wondering, shouldn’t I have decided on a tone? Is my iteration going to be silly or serious? Well, don’t worry! We’ll cover that in stage 4, right after we figure out how you plan to incorporate time travel.
A couple of my pens broke so I made them into a bisexual disaster zine with a nod to Keith Haring.
When I was younger I made a deliberately bad undertale oc to ragebait and so many people fell for it I had loads of comments telling me I was cringe and should die, and some long paragraphs of criticism. Kind of fascinating because not only is it so obviously fake, but I also have no idea why people were so mad like why did people act like this was some horrible crime to commit
i don’t know how to explain to my non-jewish audience what it means that two torah scrolls were destroyed in an arson attack but what i can tell you is that during the los angeles wildfires, three staff at the synagogue in pasadena made 4+ trips each back into the building to rescue torah scrolls while the fire was close enough that ashes were falling in the parking lot.
what i can tell you is that we have a holiday once a year where we hold the scrolls and hug them and dance around them. what i can tell you is that they are written with love by hand by trained scribes who take exquisite care to make sure each word, each letter, is perfect. when we read from them we do not touch the parchment directly so that it won’t be harmed by the oils from our fingers.
we make beautiful clothing for our torah scrolls, embroidered cloth coverings and shining worked metal crowns to sit atop them or carved wood cases plated with gold and silver. the torah is to us the words of the living God, the tree of life, the record of who are and where we’re going, and the torah scroll is our most holy ritual object.
the torah scroll never touches the floor. if it is dropped accidentally, everyone in the room must fast for forty days in mourning. the desecration of a torah scroll is the utmost level of desecration that can be done to a jewish community, short of killing its members. nazis burnt and destroyed torah scrolls as part of their campaign of terror against the us even before widescale mass deportations began. in ancient times, the romans wrapped the rabbis who led our community in torah scrolls when they burnt them at the stake.
this past shabbat, in the middle of the night, a synagogue in jackson, mississippi was intentionally set on fire. the library was burnt to ashes and five torah scrolls were damaged, with two of completely destroyed.
i don’t know how many books were burnt, how many jewish holy texts and how many stories of jewish life and philosophy and love and resilience flew up with the smoke. i do know that the library was where the congregation had shabbat services and torah study. it was a sacred space. this is not the first time that people who hate us have destroyed our sacred spaces and our holy texts and our torah scrolls in order to terrorize us. i dearly wish it was the last.
"i feel besquintled", said no one ever. because that's not a word.
okay nevermind it IS a word now and this is exactly what it means.
Club-horned Wasp - Sapygidae