I honestly love the clothing styles of each of the turtles in this show and I love how these styles really incorporate their personalities as well.

Like, obviously Donnie has the best sense of style, yeah? Think that’s something pretty agreed upon here. Everything we see him put together is very meticulously crafted and clean. That goes with his personality because Donnie is a very meticulous person in general, and he knows what he likes very, very well, and knows how to flaunt it in turn. Him commenting on colors he enjoys or disapproving of outfits that the others see no problem with also shows how he just generally has an eye for this kind of thing. He doesn’t just know what looks good on himself, but also what looks good on others - and I think this ties into his love of gift giving too. Donnie also has a flair for making sure that his things have his “mark” on them, and his clothing is no exception. All that he wears and how he wears them screams “Donnie.”

Mikey is really fun because his styles are honestly a pendulum between super simplistic and incredibly out there. And often, you’re going to see a lot of color or patterns to both. And in my opinion I think that all reflects really well on Mikey’s character - he’s got a colorful personality but even more than that he’s incredible sure of who he himself is. Mikey’s style, I feel, is less what looks good as clothes and more what sparks joy in Mikey himself. His bright stickers he wears are a testament of that! He’s comfortable in his own skin and his style reflects this perfectly, whether he goes for a more out-there look or a more toned down one.

Now, for Leo. Okay, I think I’m actually in the minority here I feel because Leo’s style isn’t really that bad? Hear me out- if you actually look at what he wears, try taking out, like, one accessory. Suddenly, that outfit works! He even manages to put together many good outfits in the series, but his “bad” ones are the ones that tend to stand out, alas (just like how his mistakes tend to be big ones oop-) Basically, my personal look at him is not that he’s inept at styling at all, but that he has a “too much” gene. And like everyone else, this sense of style is completely like him, too. Going too far to impress when all he needed to do was slow it down some to think things through. (And funnily enough, a lot of his outfits take random aspects from his brothers too - “nothing without them” huh?)

For Raph, I feel bad for him since pretty much all of his clothes are inevitably going to be ripped, but he makes them work pretty much each time. Like Leo, Raph tends to go more sporty with his looks, but I also noticed that his stuff often goes in that in between of comfy, cool, and cute. His pajama suit in particular comes to mind in terms of “cute” as it’s more something you’d see younger children in rather than older kids, and I think it can be a subtle nod to the fact that for all Raph tries to seem older, he’s still just a kid too.

I could probably go on, but these are just all off the top of my head - I love how the boys’ personality’s come out in so many different ways.

Now that Halloween is coming up, who should the Losers cosplay as?

aaaah i'm actually not one to dress up for halloween, but i do love thinking about my favorite characters' halloween costumes <3

richie: i've said it a thousand times, but werewolf richie will always be my fave! i also love han solo richie; he would beg for eddie to be his leia or luke haha! richie also would be the perfect candidate to dress in a punny halloween costume like cereal killer :)

eddie: i've also said it a thousand times, but vampire eddie is another fave! i adore eddie being spiderman or luke skywalker too! and since he had such an obsession with cowboys as a kid, cowboy eddie is another costume i would love to see him in!

mike: ok, so in my head, mike is the biggest weeb of all, so i think he would definitely dress up as an anime character! i'm thinking someone like naruto, because he's also sunshine, or someone cool like gojo! if you ever seen @wisdm8 on tiktok, i totally envision mike to be like him: adding a stylish spin to a regular cosplay!

bill: he would probably do something super artsy and pretentious like dressing up as andy warhol and carrying a campbell's soup can around or being bob ross like lexi was in euphoria haha! he's kind of a wild card though, like he could have a very meta and "deep" costume like dressing in all black and saying he's "darkness" or a black hole lol, or he could be completely stupid and dress up like a minion. it's really a mystery!

stan: he's like me and goes for very basic low-effort outfits. he doesn't buy anything new and uses stuff he has on hand to make his costume. i can see him dressing up as a "bird watcher" which would just be his regular daily outfit lol or putting a sheet over his head to be a ghost. but i think once he gets together with patty, he'd totally be up for doing couple costumes with her!

ben: he also keeps it simple imo. i can see him being a cowboy like eddie. ben's super creative and very hands on so i think he would build his costume if possible, like using cardboard to make a lil horse he carries around lol. or since his canon fear was a mummy, making real paper mache to make the costume instead of plain toilet paper!

bev: omg bev would loooove halloween and dressing up! like ben, she's hands on and it's canon that she's a designer, so i definitely think she makes her own outfit. i love the idea of her being a witch, i know she would add a cool spin to her costume to make it unique. but i mostly love the thought of her having a costume that transcends gender stereotypes, like being a knight or a pirate! she would look amazing in those especially if she added her creative designs to them!

finally, i do see them doing group outfits as well like maybe dressing up as marvel/dc superheroes or the scooby doo gang! i think halloween would be their favorite holiday because they can pretend to be something they're not so they're free to have fun and be as carefree as they please :')

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age Part 2 - Balthier, Ashe and Vayne + Overall Review

I am surprised at the assassination of Emperor Gramis, and I’m not sure what to think of it. I wouldn’t discount Vayne from being capable of killing his father, since really, killing him presents more pros than cons, especially considering his old age and his alignment with peace (like Larsa) rather than war and military might (that Vayne grew up with and believes in). In addition, with the greedy Senate constantly trying to put Larsa as a puppet on the throne, Vayne needs to solidify his rule if he wants to protect Larsa and the Empire imo. Tbh, with how Vayne seems to be, I feel like he wants to do all the dirty work and then have Larsa get to live peacefully or something. On the other hand, Gabranth seems rather loyal to Gramis, since he was giving him updates on Vayne. He also seems to be aligned with Larsa, it was kinda hard to watch him have to kill the other lady Judge that was on his side to prove his fealty to Vayne though.

Who would have thought that Balthier was once upon a time a judge for a brief time? And to think that his father is the Cid guy at Draklor lab obsessed with nethicite. I think it must have been pretty disheartening to see his father like that and even have to make the choice to run away instead of staying with him. I think I can kinda understand better why Balthier chose to continue to go on this journey with everyone. He’s been running away from everything all this time, he probably thinks that it’s about time he faced it all, especially when despite all his efforts to escape from his father etc, in the end he gets roped up with Ashe and them anyway. It was nice of Balthier to tell Ashe his story hoping that she wouldn’t follow in the footsteps of his father, and be obsessed with the powers of a stone to rule Dalmasca. Cid seems pretty interesting! Not only does he have Venat (one of the Occurians, a heretic though) beside him, but I thought his plan to lead the party to Giruvegan to get the nethicite/treaty sword was smart. Well, the party don’t really have a choice either way though even if it’s a trap, since they do need the power, and only Ashe could have been chosen by the Occurians to wield it (due to her having the Dynast-King’s blood). I have to say though, Giruvegan was an annoying place lmao, I honestly didn’t remember anything much about FFXII, but I definitely remember summoning Belias to get through, and I probably got lost the first time as well, because dang were those areas a hassle to get through lol. But seriously, you can tell with how the Occuria acted with Ashe that they see humans as beneath them, and they just want to use Ashe to destroy the Empire because they’re trying to forge a future without their “guidance”. Yay, I always love guests so it’s nice to have Reddas join the party to venture to the Sun-Cryst. It’s kinda interesting how big of a decision Ashe will have to make when she gets there though. Will she choose to destroy it and all the nethicite or will she choose to break a piece off of it to make nethicite strong enough to fight against the Dawn Shard etc? It’s kinda nice but also saddening that Balthier is leaving the Strahl (his airship) to Vaan if anything were to happen to him…

I thought it was pretty cool to see how so many people around Ashe were trying to influence her decision, especially with the appearance of Gabranth revealing why Reddas decided to come here with them; it’s because he was also an ex-Judge, and he used the Midlight Shard once upon a time and destroyed Nabudis. It was because of that, he wanted Ashe to not repeat his mistake. Cid is certainly pretty out of his mind due to his research and will to experiment, it’s kinda saddening that Balthier and the others had to kill him in order to stop him. At the same time though, I feel like for Cid, he feels sane whilst insane? Haha. Is this the first time a Cid in the FF games has been evil though? How interesting~ Didn’t think the Sun-Cryst would go crazy like that though, it was disheartening to watch Reddas sacrifice his life to break it using the sword, never really realised that anyone could wield the sword to break it though, I thought it had to be Ashe lol. Either way, a difficult end, but something that one of them had to do. To think that the Sun-Cryst awakened Bahamut though! That is something to look forward to. Terrible that the impending war is now practically happening now though, and Dalmasca will be the battleground. Larsa’s heart is in the right place, but Vayne is right, if Larsa wants to show and prove that Vayne’s methods are wrong, he needs to muster the power to show him that his way is right then. Vayne is ruthless but that’s how he’s survived all this time and protected Larsa. It’s not easy when he has to put his guard up against most of the people around him. It was pretty brutal when Vayne shot that laser and destroyed a few of the Marquis’ ships, the Marquis honestly really doesn’t have much of a choice but to rely on Ashe and party to stop Vayne from inside the Bahamut tbh. I guess it’s good that Larsa is helping them out lol.

Well that last bit leading to the ending wasn’t long at all! Legit just defeat Gabranth and then killed three forms of Vayne and you’re done! Anyway, I’m not sure how I feel about the ending because it felt kind of rushed. But I guess I didn’t mind it either. I really liked how loyal Gabranth was to Larsa, so it was kinda saddening to see him die, but I think it was great to see Basch fulfill his dying wish by succeeding him as a judge and thus supporting Larsa’s rule. I think it’s really interesting how they truly are twins in the sense that even though they were on different sides, their loyalty to their liege was very similar throughout the game. Honestly though, it’s hard to think of Vayne as an “evil” person, like yes, he’s done terrible things that has caused people to die, I don’t doubt that, but I think you can really understand his motivations? He’s always been protective of Larsa, so a lot of my impressions of what Vayne did kinda felt like he set up everything that came to be through his regime of violence was so that he could give the best setting for Larsa’s idea of peaceful negotiations between countries to come to be. With the state of the Empire as it was when Gramis was alive or even when he died etc, it was obvious that Larsa didn’t have the power and influence to achieve what he wanted, but through Vayne’s actions, people were able to see the contrast between them. Also, Vayne needed to ensure that the Occuria who still think they have the right to interfere and rule over humans had no more power in doing that, in order to ensure that Larsa in the future wouldn’t have to encounter such problems. Destroying the Sun-Cryst fulfilled that and I’m happy they were able to free humanity even if their methods were questionable. I think Vayne underestimated Larsa’s strength and conviction though, but I think he’d be happy if he was wrong about that imo. 

Anyway! Seeing Balthier the leading man protect Dalmasca by directing the falling Bahamut elsewhere with Fran was awesome! I knew he wouldn’t die, but I found it hilarious how later on, he just randomly took his Strahl back from Vaan and Penelo who were maintaining it hahaha. I also found Penelo’s new look really cute! Much better than her old look haha. It would be nice to see it as a costume in DFFOO! I find Ashe’s ending rather lonesome and saddening? She did everything to reclaim her throne and her people, and yet in the end, she loses the people she journeyed with to become Queen. I guess it’s normal though, and I guess like Penelo, I do hope that Basch can one day go back to be beside her. It’s nice to see that Vaan and Penelo get to be like Balthier and Fran, and travel together as sky pirates haha. I wish we actually got to see Balthier and Fran again though. Oh well.

Overall, honestly FFXII kinda renders the same feelings I did when I first played it, maybe it’s a bit more positive this time though! Like, really, I did enjoy the story but I definitely found the characters and their development lacking, mainly everyone aside from Balthier, Vayne and maybe Ashe, but then Ashe only really drives the story and doesn’t really thrive as a character so hmm. I feel like they could have added more scenes to really develop the others because I felt that I was just following along for the story, but didn’t really care for the characters. I still really liked Balthier’s personality and his background though and I find that the highlight of FFXII, especially when he interacted with Ashe and kinda told her about his past. But yeah, there were a lot of scenes I liked and I did enjoy it overall, but I’m not a fan of the gameplay either, so I kinda gave up on the side missions hahaha. I honestly took so long to finish the game because I just couldn’t get into it lol. BUT, I love how customisable the gambits are omg! It’s so crazy how much time I put into experimenting with them haha, but despite that, I found the gameplay rather tedious so I just went through the story. And yes, the story is really short imo, it felt like it would have been a great movie instead haha. Also yes, if FFVII Remake had even a tiny bit of these gambits, I think I would have cried in frustration less lmao. Anywho! Nice story, execution kinda choppy and short but still good, gameplay average, and characters just a means to an end. 7/10 imo haha.

Hey, RoL anon here. I KNOW you're a terrible enabler. I really want to watch Black Sails now, simply because of the gifs you've been reblogging :D I really don't know if i'm going to like it tho, I'm weird about shows. Pro and contra arguments for watching it? Anything I should be aware of? :D

Being a terrible enabler is what I do best, dear anon. :D Black Sails is an amazing show and I can't recommend it enough, but of course I don't know what you like or dislike in shows. I'll list some things that I love about it or that I know other people love about it, and some things that I imagine might be off-putting. Putting this under a cut because it got long:

Pros:

- lots of interesting characters with interesting character dynamics; one thing I especially like is that relationships change over time and characters' actions have consequences - people work together and then betray each other, people fall in and out of love, if one person fucked another one over, the other one will resent them and this will colour their interactions in the future etc.

- morally very grey characters and no protagonist-centric morality: everyone is fucked up, everyone makes mistakes or bad decisions, everyone does awful things for various reasons; nobody is the heroic good guy who's always right; but at the same time all the characters are sympathetic and complex and even when they do horrible things, they have reasons for them

- really great and varied female characters who have their own storylines, their own goals and motivations - a show about pirates could have easily been all men, but instead you have several extremely important, well written female characters who are as central to the story as any of the men

- it's so entertaining: scheming! betrayal! cool fight scenes! pirates! angry arguments! shifting alliances! heartbreak! more scheming!

- the writing is so strong, the story is always engaging and often unpredictable, the dialogues have both humour and incredible badassery

- so many hot people; Flint is obviously the hottest of them all, but the entire cast is smoking hot

- canon m/m and f/f, and not of the token gay character variety: the main character, the badass pirate captain everyone is terrified of, is revealed to be gay well into season two, and several of the main female characters are bi or gay; there are also canon poly relationships; the canon het relationships are well written and believable and not just "this random man and random woman are in love now because we needed an obligatory het romance"

- generally lots of shipping potential, m/m, f/f, m/f, threesomes, cute loving relationships, fucked up violent relationships, sad heartbreaking relationships, complicated relationships with a lot of history - whatever you're into, chances are you'll find a ship that works for you on this show (although, come to think of it, there’s a sad lack of incest potential on this show; the closest you get is a mentor/mentee ship with strong paternal vibes and lots of “he’s like a son to me”)

- it's utterly  gorgeous: beautiful sets, costume porn, hair porn, beard porn, and an amazing soundtrack to top it all off

Cons:

- it's very violent, if that's a problem for you

- there's a rape storyline in season 1 that I know some people found hard to watch

- there's a weird asymmetry between the m/m and f/f ships: f/f gets explicit sex scenes, m/m gets a kiss; we get one gay male main character whose romance happens in flashbacks, while three of the four female main characters are bi/gay and their relationships get much more screentime. It's kind of jarring, but at the same time, it's a pirate show that made its badass main character gay and his romance with another man the most life-changing, important event in his life, so it's still more than just about any other show out there has done.

- in the last two seasons, there's one character the show seems a bit too enamoured with for my taste and it hurts the writing, imo, but most of the fandom adores that character, so maybe it's just me

- everyone can die: to me that's a pro because it's one of the only shows out there on which I genuinely never know what's going to happen next, but at times it's really painful to watch when one of your favourite characters murders another character you love ;)

TLDR: it's a great show and definitely worth watching; even its flaws are fairly small compared to most other canons. Unless you have a big problem with violent scenes or don't like canons with morally grey to very dark characters, I'd say give it a try at least. :D