I usually comment the same day the chapter is posted, but yesterday for some reason I lacked so much energy, But here I go.
FINALLY THE MEME IS FULFILLED!!! I was already wondering how the heck it would go by this point, although Bishop was more upset than I imagined.
Whoa! The agreements and rules between Yokai/humans are tighter than I imagined, nice Worldbuilding!
I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS BISHOP!!!! I imagine you're leaning more towards Artificially Enhanced Human/Cyborg. But I'm curious if there's something else in there.
Ok, so Freddy Mercury was a Siren and The Boys have official middle names!!!! Pff Splinter giving Leo the name of his lawyer, though considering the amount of crap he probably had to deal with, I think it's a compliment. So now Leo has Latin, middle eastern and Japanese names. Can we know the other guys' names?
I ADORE the Big mama dynamic with leo, this is what you meant by Being the Cersei to her Sansa? (I didn't watch Game of thrones) I love it. I think it's better than I imagined with Bishop.
You were right about the Donnie part. Still, I hope it's Raph who rescues them first.
I really look forward to seeing what happens from now on. Don't be discouraged sometimes people have time to read everything right away. Plus unfortunately it's all about the algorithm these days. You have to keep posting if you want people to keep coming. At least you still have an audience that will be here no matter what.
(this was sent two months ago and I keep forgetting that I have asks in my inbox)
Yeah I was having a pretty bad morning two days after posting the last chapter. Turned into a pretty good day, I visited my cousin and got to meet her babies, who were just the cutest. (also like hot damn the oldest isn't even two yet and she's speaking in full sentences, guess that's what happens when your mom is a teacher) But I was very cranky for a while there.
Sal's name was stolen from @audioeidolon's Little Scraps of Wisdom series (with their permission) and he may make an appearance in Book 4, I'm not sure. Sal also named his own daughter Violet Louise, in honor of his missing friend. (neither of them would ever admit they sort of named their kid after each other) I also want to slip in eventually that Violet is currently attending Columbia, because Sal is supposed to be from NYC himself and she would be about college age. Him wearing parachute pants is no reflection on him, those were just in style in the late 80s when the tabloid photo Leo is thinking of was taken. (I also just realized I never credited the author for Sal, I'll fix that)
I mention what everyone else's middle names are, Donnie has Splinter's mother's and Raph and Mikey have his grandfather and grandmother respectively. Great-grandma Hamato is never named, I don't believe she's even directly referenced in the show, and I just didn't make up a name for her. In my canon she passed when Splinter was quite young, maybe a year or two before his mother, so he remembers her quite fondly. And then obviously he's not going to use his father's name for his fourth son, Splinter never met his father and holds a very low opinion of him when he bothers to think about him at all. (which isn't often-slightly more once he became a father, but mostly just in disgust because the thought of abandoning his babies was so abhorrent to him)
This also means that Donnie and Mikey both have girl middle names, but considering the Japanese generally don't use middle names I figured Splinter just went "fuck it" to all the established naming rules once he saw Big Mama was giving him a middle name.
The Big Mama-Leo parallel to the Sansa-Cersei thing is pretty complicated without knowing ASOIAF, but I'll try to condense it. Cersei Lannister-played by Lena Headey, who also voices Big Mama-is Queen of Westeros during the events of the main ASOIAF series and is the one the speak the titular line "when you play the game of thrones you win or you die. There is no middle ground." I wouldn't really call her a 'power behind the throne' because she isn't using her power to influence the ruling of the realm, (and when she does rule as regent for her son she really doesn't care about policy or anything) but she makes ample use of her power for her own gain. She's extremely gifted in court politics, skullduggery, and subterfuge, and her actions influence pretty much every major event of the story. She's also a supreme narcissist, to the point where it actively interferes with her plotting because she can't second-guess herself, but that's besides the point.
Sansa is betrothed to Cersei's eldest son, the Crown Prince Joffrey, and very much serves as a reflection of Cersei at her age. Both are considered incredibly beautiful, and both are the daughters of extremely powerful lords. Sansa comes into her engagement very innocent and naive, believing it will be like a fairy tale. The guy who writes her is literally credited for establishing grimdark as a genre, so obviously that didn't go over well for her.
Cersei really doesn't like Sansa, (mainly due to a prophecy that she would be cast down by a new queen younger and more beautiful than her, but this isn't a factor in the parallel to Big Mama and Leo) but she still serves as a sort of unintentional mentor figure to her. Sansa sees how Cersei works, how she manipulates her situation and those around her, and uses it for her own survival. Specifically show Sansa-book Sansa I don't think really takes after Cersei much at all, she's still faffing about in the Vale and is leaving all the plotting to Littlefinger, plus I think Sansa will die before the climax of the story. But show Sansa uses what she learned from Cersei to survive her own marriage and garner power. She's ruthless, manipulative, and is shrewd enough to see what resources are available to her and make full use of them. And when she takes power for herself she acknowledges that while she still hates Cersei, she learned a lot from her.
That's the parallel I really wanted to make with Leo and Big Mama. That they both have very similar talents and Big Mama's skills would be incredibly useful to Leo, if he were so inclined to use them. But to utilize them to their full extent would also require him to embrace a lot of the same attributes that he finds so repulsive in Big Mama. So while Leo is definitely smart enough to see the value in learning from Big Mama, he's also very careful with what he learns. Because he knows it could turn him into someone he doesn't want to be.