And I Carry a Bo Staff

[It's been an extremely frustrating month. First he was kidnapped and experimented on by the Malnosso, while everyone else in the village - as Don learned later - got to fly, with their own wings. As the long-vanished Raphael would say, "Turtle Luck runnin' true to form".]

[When the droids returned him, he was invisible for a week, and spent most of that time watching his partner have a serious substance abuse problem, while the Turtle himself was powerless to do anything about that or the underlying issues causing Robert's addiction to resurface.]

[When Don became visible again, Robert tried to explain himself, but the Turtle had seen too much of drugs in his own world to want to hear any more about it. As a result, for the past few weeks relations have been strained at best in the Hamato-Hastings household.]

[Today Don heads out to the beach, seeking to clear his head and reconnect with his Filial magic. The Malnosso's experiments had had strange effects on his control of the elements, and he thinks he'd better spend some time re-establishing his bond with the spirits, the true source of these abilities.]

[In the afternoon, he happens to check his journal and finds a long, privately-filtered written message from Robert: another attempt to explain his behavior. Part of Don doesn't want to read it, but another part knows he owes that much to his partner of over two years.]

[That doesn't make it easy, though, and Don can only stand to read the manifesto in small pieces over the next several hours.]

[When he's done, he stays at the beach, watching sunset, watching the stars come out. When night and solitude have made him invisible again, he opens his journal.]


Have you ever learned something... that made you change your perspective... on something you thought you would never change your mind about?

[Things have been remarkably normal for Don lately, a very tolerable mix of the mildly bad and the mildly good. On the one hand, he's coming down with a case of his annual flu, and he actually kind of misses his elf. On the other hand, his various lessons have been going well, he's enjoying the new toys Robert gave him for Christmas, and all the effort that went into creating the winter room has been entirely worth it.]

[In between keeping his hands and mind occupied, and lounging indolently just because he can for once, Don has made a habit of posing a random question over the journals every day. Today the low-grade fever is making it hard to think straight, so the question is a strange one:]

People. In Luceti. Are from different worlds. [Give him a minute, he's pretty sure he's going somewhere with this.] But. Some of us have a lot in common, in surprising ways. Who... Who in Luceti seems like, you know, like long-lost twins? Even if they maybe haven't met each other here yet.

Or. What combination of people here would just be... really interesting. I mean, if you put them together to make a new person. Who's different from anyone we already have.

[A long pause.]

I think I'm sick.

[He's going to. Um. Do something about that. Then he will be back to answer any comments.]



((I am Donatello-mun and I pre-approve all thread-jacking.))

[Don is feeling a little claustrophobic today. The number of vehicles he has stashed in his workroom has increased to five over the past week, and he's running out of room to build more. He'd been hoping that the wet, overcast weather would break so he could take his work outside, but that didn't exactly pan out. It is sunny today, but it's also unseasonably cold.]

[Determined to continue his work anyway, Don has shoved all the furniture out of the way and set up camp in the living room, surrounded by a mass of lightweight canvas and metal struts. Hang-glider Number Four is now Under Construction.]

[It's been quite some time since he asked a general question over the journals, so he decides to do so now. Companionable conversation is just what he needs to make the repetitive work go faster.]

If you had access to Shifting technology, and could change something about the world - what would you do? How long would you make it last?

[He also has some things he wants to talk about with Mike and Master Splinter - separately, that is. If they don't stop by while he's working, he'll be looking for them later.]

[Today was Donatello's first day back at school following Raphael's kidnapping and return. He came home with a long list of missed assignments, as well as returned papers from before his absence. His first real grades! Sooner or later he might work up the nerve to ask someone what "A+" means.

After putting his bag down, he went to check on Raph, and gave him a copy of the assignment list. Think about it? That done, he parked himself at the kitchen table and started working.

Now, as dinnertime approaches, his books and papers are spread out all over the place. Might be inconvenient for anyone who wants to, you know, eat anything. Among the scholarly detritus is his journal, which he's purposely left open so he can listen to the chatter while he studies.]

Is it really that strange to like doing homework?

((OOC: Other students may be interested in this thread, in which Don tells Raph to stop giving their classmates the evil eye, as it's putting a real damper on his social life. Feel free to use this ICly.))

Filtered to Molly || 100% Unhackable

Molly, I'm sorry. The playground designs are going to take longer than I thought. Logistics interfered with the creative process. I'll have them to you as soon as I can.

Filtered to Sokka || 100% Unhackable

Sokka. I'm embarrassed that I didn't ask you any useful questions last week, and I'm downright ashamed that I haven't made it to the smithy yet. I need to start making up for these things, and I'm going to do that right now, by asking - what kind of materials and facilities do you have?

Unfiltered

I'd - like to learn about magic. Not that I want to learn magic, but I've heard that's possible here, and... I just want to know... what kind of feats can be performed with these elemental abilities?

Also, if anyone here had magic in their own world, and their powers still work in Luceti - I'd like to hear about that too.