I'm going to sound repetitive here, but I really, really hate Blended Family. You guys know those kids in literature? Like: Pollyanna and the girl from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm? Those sweet, precious kids full of love and goodness that warmed the heart of bitter, frozen spinsters and cranky old geezers and made everyone pull together in joyous harmony? Well, let's pretend these brats formed a Justice League. Let's pretend someone cloned them so there are actually two of each of them.

That's the Blended Family crew. I hate these guys.

So far, I'm counting four installments of this monumental Sue-a-thon. We have the first Blended Family, the second, where Leo is kidnapped and the two families need to work together to save him, and the third, which looked suspiciously like a Leonardo Is Buddha/God/Kung Fu-Action Jesus. I can't be having with that. I think I'd spontaneously combust. Maybe someday I will wade through Blended Family: Darkness and Light, but I am not yet strong enough, my pilgrims. Oh, no.

So, what I'm tackling with you here today is Blended Family: Same As It Never Will Be. All I can say to that title is: "Yes, THANK GOD."�See, I loved SAINW. Liked it. Loved it. Wanted more of it. Whenever I see a SAINW fic that is genuinely good, a little light burns brightly inside me and I am convinced that there is light in the darkness of the Pit of Voles. But throw me crap SAINW fic and that little light is pissed out by the elderly, stinking greyhound of disappointment. (Why a greyhound? Only elderly, stinky dog I've known.) This, my friends, is not of the good. This is badfic as only Blended Family can make it.

Fic starts out with all of them feeling all happy and sanguine, their lives working like well-oiled clockwork. Because, see, a family of seven teenaged males, six of which may as well be sets of completely identical twins, always have a smooth and balanced and completely unriotous lifestyle. The source of conflict is lack of Leo worship. Once everyone claims Leonardo as their personal lord and savior, they can achieve peace and harmony. Even if they're teenaged male ninjas who live in a small space together.

Anyway, some enchantress demon thing steps in. She sounds horrifying. Actually, I lie, she sounds like a female Anubis with anorexia, but there's the whole glowing red eyes and angry maw thing to contend with. She mentions a Lord Darktide, I'm guessing this is an old antagonist with a name like a brand of detergent. (Buy Darktide detergent for those dark jeans and sweaters you don't want bleached out. Soft and fluffy as the mattresses of Hell!)

Anyway, this thing is Malatempta, although I really think she should be called Cher and work for Presley, King of Demon Rock. It'd make me take her more seriously. Anyway, she's ticked off because Leo offed this Darktide guy with his shining Avatar powers.

Oh, you heard me right. I said 'shining Avatar powers'. Because Leo is the very emblem of all that is good, light, and wonderful in the entire universe. I'm not making a little joke here. All of this can be found out in the treasure trove of Leo worship that is Light and Darkness, which I'm still trying to work up my bravery to read properly. All you need to know here is that Leonardo is the Avatar for the Light, (Not the last Airbender kind, because Aang is actually cool and flawed and makes sense within his universe. Let's not mix up the two,) and that he has a blazing sword that cuts through, I guess, anything.

Anyway, before she gets smoten mightily by Leo's great epic weapon, she sends Don1 and Don2 to 'a place of great darkness where he'll probably die a whole lot'. This would be the SAINW universe, and the author killed any hope of the element of surprise there. I mean, look at the title. Of COURSE it's SAINW universe.

One of these days I will write a fanfic that looks for all intents and purposes, to be a SAINW fanfic. "Donatello is sent by the Ultimate Daimyo's son to a place more horrifying than he's ever imagined, where he's set to face a certain trial or he will never be able to see his brother again. Can he succeed?"

It'll be a Labyrinth/TMNT crossover. David Bowie's happy pants will scare him crapless. Now there's a story for you.

Anyway, now that Cher has served her purpose, she poofs into dust. Michelangelo makes one of his dust jokes, which I can understand. They like to inflict dead person dust on him, and hey, it's funny. Makes a person want to cremate Klunk and pour his ashes in his cereal, but I'm just morbid.

So they worry over the fact that their Don1 and Don2 are now gone. It's not too big a problem, though, she just sent them into another dimension. Jesus Leo can just make a portal, because he is just that good. It's not all that hard for him, too. Sure, it'll take him just a couple days to pin down their location, but making a portal? Piece of cake.

Now, there are some lines that should never, ever be used seriously. EVER. Can't be done. One of these is 'that fateful night.' Another is 'that underhanded villain.' But this author uses something family special level of corny. She has Michelangelo say aloud that he hopes Don1 and Don2 will be alright, but he's sure they'll be fine as long as they have each other.

And then Leo goes: "Me too, Mikey. Me, too." I know that's supposed to sound languidly thoughtful and deep, but it just ends up as corn syrup. Bad author. No more Old Yeller for you.

Meanwhile, Donatello wakes up in the ruins of the old lair. Just like he did in the episode. No surprise here.

There's the first chapter for you. I'll be taking on this one chapter by chapter, since I think my brain will overload if I do it all at once.


So, last time we saw the goodhearted Olsen family and their Christ figure face down an eighties pop icon and get their mad genius clones teleported to another dimension. Sounds pretty awesome, but no, it's still a Blended Family fic.

I love this chapter title. It's called 'Horrible Parody'. It's genius. It's an infinitely wise insight into the true spirit of this fanfic series. That should be the actual title of this fanfic, because it's just gold. That's enough, author. It's perfect. No need to continue from here, just those two words say everything. Very avant-garde.

Anyway, Donatello is chilling in the wreckage of the lair, wondering where he is and what horrible tragedy could have befallen the turtle family who lived here. You know, by now, alternate turtle families should probably be no big deal to these guys. They could have a big fat turtle reunion. This whole fic probably IS a big fat turtle reunion. What I want to know is why no one shows any originality with these alternate turtle families. I mean, we could have an alternate universe where Splinter died when they were eleven and they carried on themselves and Leo actually *accepted* Shredder's offer and the whole family works for the Foot. We could have an alternate reality where Master Yoshi was, like, the world's best chef and they're a family of Iron Chef turtles. WHAT IS WITH THESE ANGSTY MOPETURTLES?

Sorry, went on a tangent there. Donatello is still in the lair, still clueless. He leaves the lair and notes the heavy destruction, and is still clueless as to what caused it.

And here is where the author loses even more points with me. This is where the originality issue once again surfaces complete with creepy Jaws theme music. This is what separates badfic from…uh…even more badfic, I guess. Even a crappy author can still think of their own scenarios. Think of it. She could have dumped Donatello ANYWHERE. He could have been on the Empire State building. He could have been in Central Park, or down on Delancey Street, because from the Bow'ry to St. Mark's there's a syncopated beat. I say woo woo woo hoo hoo. But no, she plopped him in the old lair, just like in the episode, and had him follow the exact same script the episode did.

That's right, the Shredder Gestapo and Michelangelo with a gun, and the lines: "So it's you. You came back."� Being the sick-minded person I am, I kind of wanted this to turn out to be some kind of regenerating pocket dimension that goes through the same tragedy eternally: a Donatello is always sent there in some way, and the turtles face the Shredder and die. This fractures the pocket dimension and it self-heals by returning everything back to the start point of tragedy, and the cycle begins again, only Michelangelo keeps the memory every time. "So it's you. You came back again. You always do."� Which is why Mike's NEVER all that pleased to see him.

AHAHAHAHAHA. But no, it's just the same old song, with a different meaning now that creativity's gone. Donatello tells future!Mike that he's so not his Donatello and in actuality I think everyone's kind of forgotten which Donnie goes where anymore. Mike doesn't buy this alternate dimension story, but takes Don off to see Master Splinter anyway. Got to follow the script, yo. It's taped to the desk.

Meanwhile, I SAW this episode already. I didn't exactly need a mini-novelization of it.

Next chapter I guess we'll see Donatello weep over Splinter's grave, and maybe find out where the other Don scampered off to. That sounds so thrilling, I'm a-quiver with anticipation.

*claws her way across floor, gasping for breath*

I LOVE you for writing these things, and I just had to tell you so. Only one problem--I can barely survive ONE Review Theater about every week or so because I laugh so hard. I mean, it takes my stomach that long to recover in between, and here you throw THREE IN ONE DAY!!! You clearly don't know your own power-- I barely survived, I was laughing so hard! Especially at this:

"Makes a person want to cremate Klunk and pour his ashes in his cereal"

You are a goddess!
KameTerra

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Aub