I'm gonna need more red yarn

*Hands you a tinfoil hat.* Welcome to my cartoon theory sideblog! It's mostly Ninja Turtles, though you'll also find some Villanos, LMK, and others! ☠Creeps get blocked and reported.☠

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So I just watched the rise movie and head full many thoughts but here’s something that occurred to me halfway through ish

I think Casey’s memories reorganize themselves.

Okay, so— in the original timeline, the one that lead up to Leo and Mikey sending Casey back in time, they didn’t know what the Kraang key was, meaning they weren’t there to interfere. Leader Kraang calls out to Brother Kraang to widen the portal to fit the technodrome through, and, I think in the original timeline, they did.

But! In the movie timeline, the turtles interrupt, and it’s only after that that Casey tells them his childhood story about the tallest tower and the sky splitting open.

I don’t think this affects anything majorly, like, at all, but it’s a neat little detail, Casey’s memories changing to fit the altered timeline. (Coincidentally it was also around this point that I guessed who his mom was— if anyone was gonna name their kid after Casey, it’d be Casey.)

Ooo I really like the idea of a changing timeline causing a change in characters' memories! Though I'm not sure that's what's causing the "contradiction" between Casey Junior's story and what we see play out on Staten Island.

Pardon my Homestuck, but I'll refer to the timeline we see for most of the movie as the Alpha Timeline, and the timeline Casey Junior is from as the Doomed Timeline.

On Staten Island in the Alpha Timeline, our heroes attacked the Krang immediately after they came through the portal. Only then did Leader Krang command Brother Krang to bring the Technodrome through. Trying to see things from his perspective, he may have thought "we don't have the element of surprise here, our enemies have prepared for our arrival. We have no intel on how much time they've had to prepare or what kind of resources they have; for all we know, there are a billion of these pests out there with a bunch of missiles at the ready. We need to get the Technodrome through RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, to be ABSOLUTELY SURE we can counter whatever's out there". They of course failed because our heroes yoinked the key, but trying to bring it through on Staten Island seemed like a sensible choice in that particular scenario.

But in the Doomed Timeline, the Krang did have the element of surprise! Bringing the Technodrome through while on Staten Island would have lost them that surprise, since a portal that big is extremely visible. It's hard to say for sure, since we see so little of this timeline, but I'm speculating that just the Krang came through at first, and they spent a few days or weeks laying low, strategizing and gathering resources. Maybe they had the Foot sneakily pick off (or capture to transform…) some side characters who were allies of the turtles, or who they otherwise thought could be troublesome. Only then did they decide on Metro Tower as the best place to announce themselves. Thus CJ's story of: "and behold, from their perch atop New York City, the Krang ripped open the sky itself. What came out was Terror, and what rained down upon us was worse than Death."

Of course, this explanation relies on the idea that Leader Krang makes sensible decisions, and people who like to do invasions and genocides and so on typically do not make sensible decisions! Especially since he had been cooped up in Dimensional Space Prison for centuries and was no doubt especially antsy to Get Things Done. So the idea of this "contradiction" stemming from CJ's memories getting rearranged is still on the table.

And the implications of this for CJ are fascinating, like, would all of his memories of the Doomed Timeline be replaced one by one with memories that better align with the Alpha Timeline as the two continue to diverge? Or would he have two sets of memories, with one set being easier to access than the other depending on what circumstances might trigger them?

Or maybe he'd be at risk of his Doomed Timeline memories being overwritten, which would both (a) give him an identity crisis and (b) mean the team could lose valuable intel about the Doomed Timeline! So perhaps they could use some kind of memory magic like in "E-Turtle Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to stabilize those memories.

And maybe it doesn't work all the way! Maybe partial memory fuckery could just be A Consequence of Time Travel in Rise? Like, you can't really do time travel that much in a kids' show if using time travel requires a character to sacrifice their life to open the portal. So maybe they can magi-tech up a machine to do it for them, but in order to preserve the magnitude of Master Michaelangelo's sacrifice, there would have to be a limit of what the machine can do. Maybe it could only send them back in time an hour? (Or ten minutes, about the length of an episode XD) But if changing the timeline messes with certain memories, are we sure they'll be able to accurately remember what they went back in time to change...?

And how might the divergence of the Doomed Timeline and the Alpha Timeline affect other characters? Is it possible that those who are aware time travel occurred would experience "ghost memories" of the Doomed Timeline? if Doomed!Splinter died on, say, March Third 2025 at 2:17 pm, would Alpha!Splinter feel a moment of panic when that time came around? Would he feel like he was being attacked, even though he was just sitting in the living room and watching a movie with is family? Would his heart stutter for just a moment?

Would other characters wake up in a cold sweat, every now and then, from nightmares they couldn't quite grasp? Would they feel distrustful of this or that mutant or yokai, because those people had betrayed them to the Krang in the Doomed Timeline? Would they feel nervous in the shadows of certain buildings, fearful of an imminent collapse that had never happened?

I am Rotating This Idea In My Mind now thank u Anon.

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Hello everyone, I'm still alive! Thanks for sticking with me through this blog's hibernation. I've settled into my new job and overall gotten my life together a bit more, so I'll be posting here again soon! 🎉

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THIS MOTHERFUCKER REALLY HAS THE AUDACITY TO THINK HE’S ALLOWED TO BREATHE, HUH?

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new icon to celebrate the teetles movie, i’ll post my thoughts once my brain unscrambles itself lol

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*cracks knuckles* all righty folks, one last theory before the trailer drops tomorrow.

Raph’s infection looks markedly different from those of the Foot Clan because it serves a different function.

The “spikes” on his shoulders are transmitters/receivers, and the goop eye covering his right eye is a camera.

Raph is being more actively controlled than the Foot Clan are!

The members of the Foot Clan are willing to serve the Kraang, or at least are weak-willed enough to be completely overcome by the infection because they’re just side characters/minions.

But Raph is a main character, and he is stubborn. Since this particular pawn isn’t behaving, one of the Kraang siblings has taken a more direct route in getting it to do what they want by using their biotech to hijack its nervous system and move it around themselves.

And of the three options, I think the aggressive, tank-y Sister Kraang who we saw so little of in the trailer is the most likely culprit.

Taunting/threatening the enemy is par for the course in a fight scene, but doing so using their own brother’s voice?! 🤌

It seems like Raph’s going to get freed via Heroic Willpower/Power of Family just before the final showdown with Leader Kraang. Aside from making sense narratively, it also makes sense physically- this whole biotech link thing means that killing Sister Kraang or tearing the infection off of Raph could very well kill him, and his family wouldn’t want to risk that! He needs his mystic power backing him up in order to sever the connection and free himself without McFucking Dying.

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The Kraang being siblings instead of just allies is probably significant; we’re supposed to compare them to the turtles throughout the movie. While the Kraang seem unified in the trailer, they’ll eventually fail because they can’t cooperate with each other. Conversely, the turtles aren’t getting along at first, but will pull together in time for the Final Showdown.

Leader Kraang (LK) is plain and simple hubris. He’s the first through the portal, he’s the one who gets the line about “making this universe in the image of Kraang”, he’s the one who’s mech has a royal look to it- the spikes on its head and shoulders are meant to evoke a crown and epaulettes.

He’s sitting on a goddamn throne in this shot; he was probably doing some Villainous Gloating before the turtles got their powers back.

While Leo is a hubristic little bastard child (affectionate), I don’t think he got into this 1v1 fight against LK by going “hey, do y’all wanna watch me 1v1 Squid Satan? Of course you do, here I go!”. It’s more likely that he made a bad decision earlier in the movie, the consequences of which eventually caused him to wind up in this situation. Perhaps he wasn’t taking the mission to stop Hypno and Warren seriously, which meant he got caught off guard when the Foot Clan swooped in to grab the Key.

In other words, Leo let his hubris get the better of him, which caused LK, the villain whose whole deal is hubris, to get the better of him. But while Leo will overcome this flaw and work with his team to win, LK will double down and act tyrannically, alienating (haha) his team and causing them to fall apart.

Also they’ve both got the red eye thing going on, in case the other parallels weren’t obvious enough. XD

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Sister Kraang (SK) doesn’t have a line in the trailer, but her intro speaks for her. She slams into frame, with none of the composure that her brothers show.

Her mech is more bulky than the other two, it’s clearly built to Fuck Shit Up. April’s having to fight her with a wrecking ball!

As the team’s heavy hitter, perhaps she’ll have similarities to Raph? If so, it’s very likely she and LK will butt heads. LK wants to make everything in the image of Kraang, which he can’t do if SK destroys those things. There are probably a few things he deems too inconvenient to assimilate, which he’s fine with SK destroying. But is that enough to satisfy SK?

“Sister, for Our sake, stop slaughtering the hominids en masse! If you leave us with a shortage of drones, it’ll take ages to subdue this continent, much less the planet!“

“Well I’m sorry to hear you’ve got your tentacles in a twist over that, boss-man. But have you considered that they taste too good fried in Kuvoxian oil for me to give a shit?”

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Brother Kraang (BK) is the most traditionally Kraang-y/Utrom-y of his siblings and the source of the Corrupting Goop. He’s probably the one who says “you’re more powerful than the people of this planet, yet you’re not human. What are you?”- it’s a new voice that’s noticeably different than LK’s, and since it’s a calm and masculine voice it probably doesn’t belong to their manic sister. It’s said in a curious tone, not an angry one.

His mech is the smallest of the three and has no claws, so it doesn’t seem built for combat.

He’s way in the back of this shot, where it looks like he’s put a bunch of Freaky Magic Science Bullshit between himself and the heroes, again suggesting he’s not much of a fighter.

Somebody has to be making this group’s batshit biotech, and all of the above suggests he’s the most likely candidate. As a scientist, he may not be on board with either LK or SK. If everything is in the image of Kraang, then everything is the same, and that’s boring! There’s nothing new for him to investigate! The same applies if SK destroys everything.

That probably explains why he’s always looking cranky in the trailer; as the (presumably) youngest sibling, what he wants is getting ignored in favor of what the other two want.

With that in mind, he might actually survive the movie! Since he’s not really benefiting from this whole invasion thing, he’s the most likely of the three to be like “actually? Fuck this, I’m leaving” once things start going south for the Kraang. If he takes what resources he can and finds somewhere to hide, he can avoid getting his ass kicked by the heroes and research this planet to his hearts’ content.

(And then use a bodysuit to disguise himself as a human named John Bishop and cause problems for the heroes later, should we be so fortunate as to get a Season 3.)

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(I have my suspicions about SK’s role in the movie, and if I’m right- well, it’d make sense why they didn’t show/suggest it in the trailer, as it’d be one hell of a spoiler! But that’s an idea for another post...)

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Leo’s mouth is full of paper in this shot, did Warren actually present his license and registration when Leo “asked for them”? And then shoved them in his mouth to distract him???

I’d probably do the same thing if the little bastard (affectionate) jumpscared me like that. Warren is driving, Leo; that’s not safe!

[rolanslide]

@screenshotsofdespair​ but it’s Rise Of The TMNT

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I’ve got a new header image in celebration of 400+ followers! Where did you nerds come from?!

I’m kidding, I know it’s from all the turtleposting. 🐢

(For those of you who followed me for LMK, Villanos, etc.: I’ll come back around to them in time! Thanks for sticking with me until then 🐒🧸)

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Ok so when Small Kraang infects the Foot Clan, it seems like they’re turned almost immediately, and the effects are pretty extensive: eyeballs, tentacles, gutmouths, etc.

We saw in the previous teaser that Raph also gets infected at some point, but it’s comparatively minor; there’s some Goop and spikes on his shoulders, his right eye is covered by a Goop eye, and his left eye is pink.

Naturally we’d expect the infection to get worse over time, but... it doesn’t.

We see him rid himself of it near the end of the trailer, when they get their powers back and are no doubt about to fight Leader Kraang. It doesn’t look like it spread at all!

So... what’s the difference? Why does Raph only get a superficial infection while the Foot Clan are practically turned inside out?

Option 1: Small Kraang completely covers the Foot Clan in Goop, so they are quickly and completely transformed. He only manages to put a small amount of Goop on Raph, so the transformation is much slower; perhaps it would eventually overtake him, but the process would take days or weeks rather than moments.

Option 2: The Foot Clan worshiped the Shredder, and so turned to worshiping the Shredder’s creators after his death. They’re actually on board with Small Kraang transforming them; Raph is naturally resisting with every ounce of stubbornness he has, which is slowing/halting the transformation.

Option 3: The Foot Clan goons are all human (presumably). Foot Brute and Foot Lieutenant are human (kind of). Raph is a mutant. He was made with mutagen. The key ingredient in mutagen is empyrean. Empyrean is from Dimension X. The Goop can’t quite “recognize” him as a foreign entity to overtake because he’s not quite a foreign entity! Obviously it’s messing with his brain, but it’s not messing with his other organs.

Options 1 and 2 could very well be factors, but they’re a little generic to be the main reason(s) Raph isn’t overtaken. Option 3 is more unique to the setting, and gives a possible explanation for why we see the turtles covered in Black Goop near the end of the trailer. At least one of the Kraang is interested in the turtles past “ugh we need to kill these meddling terrapins”; ”you’re more powerful than the people of this planet, yet you’re not human. What are you?” is said in a curious tone, not an angry one. Perhaps he’s intrigued by Raph’s unusual state of infection.

Curious Kraang is probably scientifically inclined, given all the bonkers biotech the three have at their disposal. Perhaps the Black Goop is Goop 2.0, which he made to try and overcome the turtles’ resistance to the regular Goop- it’d certainly explain the Resident Evil-esque mouth latched onto Mikey’s left shoulder! Killing such fine warriors would be wasteful, after all. Why not put in some extra effort to make them in the image of Kraang?

This could give us an opportunity to see how the extended cast is faring against the Kraang invasion; if mutants (and presumably also yokai) are resistant to the Goop, they’ll be on the front lines fighting off the Kraang drones and infected Foot Clan! We already know Hypno and Warren are in the movie, perhaps they’ll take a page out of Draxum’s book and use their charisma and showmanship to rally others behind them?

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hehe 🅱️enis

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Hey could this pic be hinting at how the Leo vs. Raph conflict will go? Mikey siding with Leo and Donnie siding with Raph isn’t new.

We’ve seen it before, all the way back during “Shell in a Cell”!

Y’know, that one episode where Raph was taking something very seriously, and Leo wasn’t taking it seriously at all?

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So when Leo came out ahead anyway, Raph was naturally pretty mad?

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And it certainly didn’t help that Leo decided to be a hubristic little bastard (affectionate) about it?

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Raph got Leo to see his point, but it wasn’t really a victory since it was a dumbass thing to be fighting about in the first place.

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Raph’s priorities were all screwed up during that fight, also the real villain messed with his eyes, which was probably symbolic of how he was blind to the reality of the situation or something.

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But once he snapped out of it, he and Leo each acknowledged what the other had to say, and worked together to defeat the threat.

Also the whole leader thing is fUCKING STUPID, OKAY, LISTEN, whoever is “in charge” at any given point in time should depend on whose strengths can best address the problem at hand, slapping the label of “leader” on one of them just puts a bunch of pressure on him and creates unnecessary friction between him and the other three, they should be an AUTONOMOUS COLLECTIVE-

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@nerd-from-the-abyss​ the odds are good that I just have my tinfoil hat on too tight, lol. I was looking at it in a more symbolic sense: Leo and Mikey are on one “side” of the pic, and Raph and Donnie are on the other “side”.

Mikey’s a bit more flexible, so he wouldn’t mind the change in power so much. And if Leo messes up, well, it’s a learning experience!

Donnie, on the other hand, is more insistent about Things Being Done Correctly, and would be more critical of Leo.

And now that I’m thinking about it, Splinter’s in the middle; his arrival clearly halted the fight. That makes sense, obviously a dad’s gonna try to keep the peace between his kids. But we could say he’s also “in the middle of the fight” in another way; it was his decision to make Leo the leader. This conflict would have manifested on its own eventually (ex: Bug Busters), but it’s happening now because of him.

And tbh... could he be doubting his choice? If the turtles are indeed fighting because Leo caused problems by being a hubristic little bastard (affectionate), then perhaps he’s having second thoughts about shaking up the status quo. Splinter is no stranger to mistakes, after all!

If Leo’s hubris has major consequences for the plot (maybe Raph gets infected because of him?) and/or he catches wind of Splinter’s doubt, he may start to doubt himself... but ultimately, he has to shape up and be the leader because Raph isn’t available right now.

I assume things will resolve at the end with Leo staying the leader but being more chill about it than he has been in previous iterations, less “listen to me because I’m in charge” and more “listen to me because I’m the strategist”.

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So I was watching Man vs. Sewer again (surprise surprise) and I realized the goof at the beginning was actually foreshadowing.

The frame-by-frames in this show are pure gold but jiminy crimbus, Raph, that sure is a facial expression you’ve got there.

One of the reasons people like Rise is because the brothers don’t smack each other (especially Mikey) around nearly as often as in 2k3 or 2k12, so that Raph yote the phone hard enough to knock Mikey over was noteworthy, especially after we got this tidbit from Raph’s voice actor:

This scene is also noteworthy in that Raph is only afraid for himself in this situation, unusual for a character who is the oldest, the leader, and a big ol’ softie. When his brothers showed up, he didn’t say anything like “Is everyone okay?” or “I was worried about you guys!”. Instead, he became defensive and pointed out that the others know he “gets weird”, lowkey placing the blame on their shoulders.

“You know Raph gets weird when I’m left alone.” I stg I’m half-considering going back through the series and analyzing when Raph uses the third person/talks to himself/his speech deteriorates, because it seems significant.

This also foreshadows Leo’s concern, since he’s the one who tells Raph to relax and then changes the subject to something less stressful.

Anyway the pattern this establishes is: Raph starts freaking out because he’s alone -> someone scares/threatens him -> this provokes an aggressive response.

The first iteration is minor: Raph starts freaking out because his brothers are five minutes late -> Mikey scares him by shouting -> Raph yeets the phone at Mikey.

The second iteration is serious: Raph starts freaking out because he’s lost and alone -> the Sando brothers appear and threaten to eat him -> Savage Raph switches in and wipes the floor with them.

The Rule of Three is a near-universal storytelling tool, so we can be sure this will happen again, but even worse. :) And then we’ll get some answers about this whole situation.

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@rolanslide​ do u get neck pain from holding up that massive brain of yours?

Okay let’s break down (the relevant parts of the trailer):

One of the Kraang does the power-nullifying scream thing, Raph uses the last of his power to protect his bros. Given that he’s got his back to the Kraang and the area around them is becoming all goopy, this is probably when he gets infected.

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Then we’ve got this group shot, featuring Leo looking Severely Traumatized. We don’t see Raph here, so maybe Leo’s just gotten back from his fight with Raph that we saw in the previous teasers.

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“They’re on the move!”

One of the Kraang seemed curious about the turtles (”what are you?”), so it’s no surprise he’d grab Raph and take him to a lab-ship for further study. Obviously the Freaky Brainwashing Kraang Goop isn’t going to get a full grip on Raph’s mind; he may “willingly” let Scientist Kraang put him into containment, but after that? Clock’s ticking.

The rest of the heroes are in hot pursuit, so Scientist Kraang notices this and is like “ugh! Minions, go deal with them, I mustn’t be interrupted as I vivisect this specimen.”

Hearing that produces the last bit of terror Raph needs to temporarily push past the Goop and process "IF (allies_not_found AND location_unknown AND death_imminent), THEN (run(Savage_Raph.exe))”.

Scientist Kraang has his back turned, organizing his various tools and notes. He ignores the screaming and thrashing from the cell behind him; he’s long since learned to tune out such irritations. His pursuers are gradually making progress mowing down his minions, so for the sake of distracting and demoralizing them, he begins broadcasting through every screen and speaker the Kraang have in the area. “Greetings, terrapins and company” he says smugly. “It seems you have foolishly chosen to continue resisting the inevitable.” He revs a sawblade. “Perhaps with this, I’ll be able to get through your thick skulls and teach you the consequences of refusing to submi- what?!”

A thick wet tearing sound prompts him to whirl around. What he sees has him fleeing from the lab as fast as his little tentacles can carry him, increasing the range of the broadcast as he shouts “I need backup! All local drones: converge on my location now! The terrapins have deceived us, they are still powerful even without access to their “Ninpo” energy. The walls of that containment cell are tri-collagenex; no Earth creature I’ve studied has ever been able to bruise it, much less rip through it like wAUGH-”

The video mercifully cuts out, but more screaming and tearing sounds come through the audio. One Kraang Boss down, two to go.

As they enter the ship to search for SR, Future!Casey speaks up. “If- I hate to say it, but if the infection’s that deep in his head, are we gonna be able to save him?”

There’s a hiss among his companions, offended and frightened that he would outright voice their fears. But before anyone can snap at him for it, Leo realizes Casey has misunderstood the situation. “That’s, uh. Not the infection, bud. That’s just how Raph is when he’s alone for too long. Was future Raph not like that?”

F!Casey shrugs, bewildered. “I dunno, I was pretty young when he... passed. Is it a mutant thing nobody ever told me about? A turtle thing?”

“If it was, Donnie would have eaten us all in our sleep ages ago. Nah, Raph just... gets scared, sometimes. Or gets weird when he’s stressed out, I guess. He’s always been like that, it’s not like anything ever happened to hi-”

Splinter holds up a hand for silence, ears rotating forwards and backwards. His expression is grim. “We can... we can talk more about that later” he whispers. “I hear him”.

Leo, Donnie, and Mikey made a bad impression last time, Casey is a total stranger, and April is holding too many weapons to set them all down quickly and quietly. They hang back while Splinter goes on ahead to try and calm SR down.

And it almost, almost works. Splinter has just about managed to convince SR that he isn’t a threat when the drones that Scientist Kraang summoned arrive and overwhelm them with sheer numbers. They knock SR out and drag him away, leaving the others back at square one.

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That’s why this group shot doesn’t have Raph either, the other two Kraang take notice of their sibling’s death, realize the turtles are a Genuine Threat, and decide to use Raph as bait to lure the rest into a trap. They’re probably keeping him in the tower that’s below the portal. Unfortunately, the Technodrome(?) coming through the portal is no doubt throwing a wrench in the rescue plan.

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Then we have yet another group shot without Raph, I’m getting a “storming the Final Boss’ castle” vibe here. This is probably the part where the mission goes horribly wrong and they all get captured.

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Once the turtles are all hooked up to the black goop, it looks like we’re gonna get a Heroic Willpower/Power of Love/Anatawa Hitorijanai situation where they get Raph back on board, get their powers back, and defeat the Leader Kraang- who seems to have a more advanced version of the Shredder armor, so I’m excited to see how that plays out!

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TL;DR Nickelodeon needs to put me in the writers’ room. *SLAMS HANDS ON DESK* I JUST WANT MY FAVE TO HAVE SEVERE PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES RESULTING FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND THEN RECEIVE SUPPORT AND HEAL, OKAY? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!

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Since Raph’s whole situation is reminiscent of 2k3′s Good Genes Arc... is it possible the team will have to cooperate with a villain to get the resources they need to cure Raph?

It’d probably be the Kraang, since they’ve got advanced technology and are the source of the empyrean in the first place. They’re also pretty likely to double-cross the team, so the team will be able to defeat them and not have to deal with any long-term consequences from cooperating with them.

On the other hand, if they have to cooperate with the Council of Heads or members of the human government, then perhaps there will be long-term consequences, which we could see play out should we be so fortunate as to get a Season 3.

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Hey could this pic be hinting at how the Leo vs. Raph conflict will go? Mikey siding with Leo and Donnie siding with Raph isn’t new.

We’ve seen it before, all the way back during “Shell in a Cell”!

Y’know, that one episode where Raph was taking something very seriously, and Leo wasn’t taking it seriously at all?

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So when Leo came out ahead anyway, Raph was naturally pretty mad?

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And it certainly didn’t help that Leo decided to be a hubristic little bastard (affectionate) about it?

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Raph got Leo to see his point, but it wasn’t really a victory since it was a dumbass thing to be fighting about in the first place.

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Raph’s priorities were all screwed up during that fight, also the real villain messed with his eyes, which was probably symbolic of how he was blind to the reality of the situation or something.

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But once he snapped out of it, he and Leo each acknowledged what the other had to say, and worked together to defeat the threat.

Also the whole leader thing is fUCKING STUPID, OKAY, LISTEN, whoever is “in charge” at any given point in time should depend on whose strengths can best address the problem at hand, slapping the label of “leader” on one of them just puts a bunch of pressure on him and creates unnecessary friction between him and the other three, they should be an AUTONOMOUS COLLECTIVE-

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Okokok I think Raph’s plastron being cracked at the left shoulder and the two cuts over his right eye are from a fight that happens during the movie, rather than some point after Season 2 but before the movie.

We can’t see his full design in this clip, but I think it’s notable that the clip puts focus on his left shoulder and right eye! Those injuries are the source of this infection!

As for how he got infected... while I do think it’s Kraangian (Kraangite?) in origin, I don’t think they directly caused it.

Y’all remember how the Shredder dumped a bunch of empyrean (y’know, the main ingredient in mutagen) into the water supply during the Season 2 finale?! Not to mention that the Shredder damaged the Crying Titan’s right eye to do so, and Raph’s right eye has the cuts and is more messed up from the infection. However, I don’t think Raph got infected via getting dunked a la Bradford/Dogpound/Rahzar from the 2012 cartoon- again, his injuries are the source of this infection. We’re going farther back: this is some 2003 Good Genes Arc content, baybey!

That the water supply is contaminated suggests Raph is far from the only one who’s been infected. I think the turtles fight an infected villain in the beginning and, as the team’s tank, Raph naturally puts himself between the villain and the team and takes some hits on their behalf. He seems to be doing okay in the first image, so I imagine it’ll take some time for the infection to kick in and mess with his head.

As for who this villain is- Raph’s right eye is green, with a red slit pupil. And I believe we’ve only seen this detail in one other character!

Raph was injured by none other than an infected Warren Stone! Which explains the gooey-ness on Raph’s body, it’s worm flesh!

Warren just can’t catch a break, can he? He's finally a genuine threat to the turtles... except “he” isn’t truly the threat, as he probably isn’t in control of his actions at that point.

The main plot of the movie is the Kraang invasion, so perhaps there’s a silver lining to it. If the team can get their hands on some of that advanced technology, they can make a cure for Raph. And once he’s cured, he can rejoin the team for the final battle against the Kraang Leader.

Not to analyze every single goddamn frame of the clip but:

It’s pretty dark in this area, and Leo’s opponent has its back to him. Leo has a serious expression, but otherwise seems calm. It looks like he’s managed to sneak up on his opponent, his kick taking it by surprise.

Leo seems to smile as the kick connects and successfully knocks his opponent over! Hooray! :)

It’s only when he stops and takes a good look at his opponent that he realizes he just attacked Raph! And in the state Raph’s in, I have no doubt he’ll retaliate...

The movie’s only 90ish minutes long, so I doubt he’ll outright put Leo in a coma, but hurting him badly enough to knock him out is still on the table. Meaning it’ll be a bit before Leo is coherent enough to communicate to the others what he saw, meaning Raph could move to another location in the meantime, meaning the team will spend precious time tracking him down before they can cure him. And if they’re really taking inspiration from the Good Genes Arc here... a second mutation is too much for Raph’s body to handle. His cells are breaking down. The team doesn’t have much time to save him.

Perhaps the new Casey Jones we see is from a bad future...

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

NEW RISE CONTENT OH GOD OH OFUCK

YEETS LMK IDEAS ONTO THE BACK BURNER IT’S GONNA BE ALL TURTLES ALL THE TIME FOR A WHILE BAYBEY!!!!!!!!

i’ll tag the teaser bits as “rottmnt spoilers” in case you wanna go into the movie blind skldfjsl;adfkjsl;jsdkgadlfjg