I ramble about Turtles

Call me Mr. Isopod ♤ I'm just a cave hermit whose life has been consumed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. ♡ I write, sometimes ◇ He/Him 22 Please for the love of god ask me about tmnt

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

OMG THE AMAZONG DIGITAL CIRCUS THE LAST ACT WAS SO GOOD GUYS OH MY GOD

I watched it at the theather and I cried like a baby at the end, don't believe the people saying it is bad it was amazing, I will not elaborate because I have a headache but it was good

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Random thought of today:

It is really sad how fandom etiquette has sort of died

And what I mean by this is that somewhere in a distant path, you could have something akin to a deep discussion of different thoughts of your favorite piece of media with different people in the fandom. Was it always civil? No. Was it always kind? No. But I miss the long theory discussion style posts of different pieces of media that I loved here on Tumblr dissecting different character's thoughts and feelings, narrative theming, and what-not, with people adding their own observations and proof or points that add a different perspective to something you might not have considered otherwise

But nowadays, it feels like that is practically non-existent

Stating your opinion that hurts absolutely no-one about any kind of media has people pulling up pitchforks because you don't like their ship or you because you dare suggest that the multi-billion dollar company has the budget to create a better animation for their multi million dollar show (ifykyk)

And civilly disagreeing with people on their own opinions has people acting like you personally kicked their cat and spit on them, or creates discussions that spans several days of someone trying to "own you" for disagreeing with their take on a fictional character

Lots of people treat fanart and/or fanfic as content to consume and discard, no kudos to the author, no comments, no reblogs, just a like that leads the fanart to die into obscurity and then you see those same people entering pointless arguments and in the same breathe crying out about how there's no content for *insert character or show here* but those same people are part of the problem for why fandom feels so disconnected nowadays

I don't have a solution, I just wanted to complain, I love making art and talking to people but getting like 400 likes and 0 comments, or wanting to comment on someone's post, but fearing that your comment no matter how thought out will be misconstrued and have people accuse you of being mean or whatever, is just really isolating in a fandom that is already so old and I wish things weren't like this now :(

[confused-lil-bean]

I think everyone should be a creator of some sort of art if for no other reason, than to get a certain perspective.

Before I've posted stuff on tumblr or ao3 and just consumed, I sometimes wanted to say something but didn't know what, so I just scrolled past. I have to admit, I still do that sometimes but the more I think about the more I realize how not-right that is.

Even when a comment or a reblog 'only' adds hearts or a keybordsmash or anything that doesn't 'add onto' the fic or post I created, holy shit do I pop off! I love it because it is more of an interaction that just likes/kudos. Someone went the extra mile because they enjoyed what I made and didn't just like and move on with their life.

Similarly, I hesitate to post my theories of what might happen next in a fan comic or fanfic. I don't even know for what reason, but it's stupid and it gets me to not do that, which even more stupid! I love hearing what people think will happens next in my fanfics, and Im sure other creators do too.

Honestly, it doesn't really matter what ppl add, I always love it. And i really have to leanr showing my love for everything I enjoy.

Ig long story short, we should all interact more with the media that we love and show the creators that we love it, that we love spending time with it - analysing, spinning theories, laughing at details etc etc

It might not get rid of all the toxicity, but many creators will get the happy hormones and I think thats enough of a reason to do it.

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Exactly! And something that I believe contributes to this feeling of isolation in fandom spaces as well is that we are in the age of AI and bots and "dead internet theory" where unless you've interacted with someone for a while, you have no way to know whether they're a real person or an AI deepfake or an AI bot compiling data to feed into a new LLM or AI image generator

It might feel a little bit ungrateful of me, but I just don't appreciate or get that rush from seeing empty likes and/or reblogs, I think a lot of people sometimes think that because they are shy that it's okay to just give a silent kudos/silent like and always lurk within the fandom, but lurking right now is not the same as lurking 8 years ago! Some social media websites have as much as 70-80% of pure AI accounts

So if I see a like or a silent reblog, what guarantees that it's really someone who liked and appreciated my work and the time I put into it, and it's not just another bot compiling my work so it can steal it, or a bot that specifically wants to share my work in order to steal it for T-shirts, mugs, or even something worse?

Before a like or reblog really meant a there was a real chance a person saw it and liked your thing, it really felt like 15 likes meant 15 people around you liked what you saw, but now it's like if you get 300 likes it just means that likely 300 bots just liked your work in order to feed it to a future image generator, and it makes me not want to invest time into making my fanart/fanfics/other fandom content public, since clearly no human appreciates it enough to spend 4 minutes into putting a tag on their reblog, or giving you their thoughts on a post titled "what do you think of X character from Y fandom?" You know

And even when people do engage it feels like everyone is living in their own bubble where if you don’t agree with all of their takes on a character you're a terrible person who deserves to be cancelled or immediately blocked in order to curate the perfect fandom experience, but the perfect fandom experience should be a community with nice people not an echochamber of headcannons and ship wars

So it's like, what's the point of posting a fanfic that will just be fed to an LLM generator and be sold as the next slop AI book when the actual work has 0 comments on it, you know? I've even seen some old fanfics for different fandoms of mine who were shared in some dubious looking websites, even though they never received any comments. At that point it feels like it's just better to keep your work to yourself, rather than have it in public and either be attacked for a different interpretation, or have it stolen by others

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Random thought of today:

It is really sad how fandom etiquette has sort of died

And what I mean by this is that somewhere in a distant path, you could have something akin to a deep discussion of different thoughts of your favorite piece of media with different people in the fandom. Was it always civil? No. Was it always kind? No. But I miss the long theory discussion style posts of different pieces of media that I loved here on Tumblr dissecting different character's thoughts and feelings, narrative theming, and what-not, with people adding their own observations and proof or points that add a different perspective to something you might not have considered otherwise

But nowadays, it feels like that is practically non-existent

Stating your opinion that hurts absolutely no-one about any kind of media has people pulling up pitchforks because you don't like their ship or you because you dare suggest that the multi-billion dollar company has the budget to create a better animation for their multi million dollar show (ifykyk)

And civilly disagreeing with people on their own opinions has people acting like you personally kicked their cat and spit on them, or creates discussions that spans several days of someone trying to "own you" for disagreeing with their take on a fictional character

Lots of people treat fanart and/or fanfic as content to consume and discard, no kudos to the author, no comments, no reblogs, just a like that leads the fanart to die into obscurity and then you see those same people entering pointless arguments and in the same breathe crying out about how there's no content for *insert character or show here* but those same people are part of the problem for why fandom feels so disconnected nowadays

I don't have a solution, I just wanted to complain, I love making art and talking to people but getting like 400 likes and 0 comments, or wanting to comment on someone's post, but fearing that your comment no matter how thought out will be misconstrued and have people accuse you of being mean or whatever, is just really isolating in a fandom that is already so old and I wish things weren't like this now :(

[sabertoothwalrus]

I DO think tumblr's dev team has been instructed to constantly implement new features and that's why they keep tweaking the UI in goofy ways. I imagine this is an upper management thing, so even if we say "well don't change anything and just maintain the status quo" they'll continue to make other changes anyway.

I will admit I REALLY like the recent improvements they've added to tumblr's search (you can exclude terms now!! you can search multiple tags!! and time frames!!) so it's not like they're incapable of adding useful features. it might be mutually beneficial for us as users if we were more vocal about things we want and don't want. Some features I'd like to see added:

spoilerable text

spoilerable images

the return of hover text!! remember when we had that?

ability to embed videos in reblogs

ANIMATED GIF ICONS!!!!!!!!!!!!

the ability to turn off other people's animated gif icons

the ability to filter original posts on a user's ENTIRE blog, not just a tag/search

more html support, like what if we could build tables

adding reactions to replies! I'm glad we can like them more but it'd be nice if we could take this further

embeddable tiktoks?? I don't even use tiktok but I remember trying to embed one in like 2020 and I'm surprised we still can't! even vines were able to be embedded

being able to search in your DMs. not being able to do this is why I tend to redirect mutuals to discord

MUTING USERS POSTS/COMMENTS WITHOUT BLOCKING THEM! just cause I don't want to see someone's posts doesn't mean I don't want us to never interact ever

a mutual-only dashboard feed

a feed for the blogs you're subscribed to

get rid of tumblr tv lmao I've literally never used it

"mark as read" button for communities without opening them

please dear god no AI shit unless it's a way for me to filter/block it easier

several of these I've submitted support tickets for under "feedback", and if there's anything you feel strongly about I suggest you do too!

[awkward-jester]

Every single tmnt original fan iteration I could find

Alex's iteration

AJ's TMNT iteration

All That Remains

Baxter Stockman's Mutant Turtles

Bunny's Iteration

Drag's Iteration

El Pada's TMNT

Elvish's iteration

Empyrean Chaos TMNT

Escaped the Ooze

Espresso's Iteration

Felya's Iteration

Flame's TMNT

Iennoganan TMNT AU

Indie's TMNT

Isopod's TMNT

Ju's Iteration

Lav's TMNT

Life of the TMNT

Meekusleekus's iteration

Meg's Iteration

Mini turts

Mundane's TMNT

Ninja Turtles Brotherhood

Patat's Iteration

Pizza Bagels's TMNT

Pumpkin's TMNT

Reborn from Dust

Rose's Iteration

Rox's iteration

Second Time Around

Sharkverse TMNT

Skool sux

Teenage Meddling Mutant Turtles

Teenage Mutant Nature "Turtles"

Teenage Mutant Ninja Rave

The Inferior Foot Clan (fic)

The Sensational Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Strength In Weakness

TMNT Abberation

TMNT Against All Odds

TMNT/ANCU

TMNT Burried Secrets

TMNT Colorcoded

TMNT Connected Wires

TMNT: Don't Forget

TMNT Doomed By The Narrative

TMNT Dusk and Dawn

TMNT Ephemeral Catalyst

TMNT Evergreen

TMNT Floriography

TMNT Gold

TMNT Hoppers

TMNT Hydroblade

TMNT: LOTB

TMNT Mutants In New York

TMNT Omniverse

TMNT Pop

TMNT: Project Underground

TMNT Repurpose

TMNT Splattered Neon

TMNT Through the Rift

TMNT VITN

TMNT What If

TMNT Zero

TMNT 04

TMNT 1999

TMNT 2k17

UUAU

What In The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Tarnation

ZMNT

Some of the iterations didn't have official names, so I just used the blog's name for it in its stead.

If you know about one I missed, pls lmk and I'll add it!

[ty-ty-the-tyler]

oh that's mine in there oh that's recognition oh that's a little scary but im okay with this

i made the pop iteration... hopefully i can work hard to keep getting more out!

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

What the heck that's my unfinished sketch over there lmao

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

So I'm a big Spider-Verse fan, right? Weekends means it's movie night and today's movie night is yet again another rewatch of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

And here's what I noticed:

This scene is from when Miles breaks the goober, but you can see that the numbers from the sign that Miles fell into are 4 and 2

4 and 2

42

FORTY-TWO!!! LIKE EARTH-42!! THE EARTH THAT THE SPIDER THAT BIT MILES WAS FROM!!

This is super minor but I like how it's a number that relates to Miles and not just any random number, the level of detail in these movies is insane man, I hope none of the people involved with these movies turns bald

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

I really gotta figure out a posting schedule, I really want to be more active as an artist, I'm thinking of using my vacation time to make some art and create a new tumblr for posting my artwork

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Random self indulgent thought about Maxine and Donnie's friendship and how having a female friend is what helps kickstart Donatello's character growth

Content Warning under the cut: Mentions of attempted Sexual Assault, mentions of men being creepy IG

So one of the core aspects of Maxine's character arc isn't about becoming stronger in the traditional sense. It's about overcoming the emotional constipation she has been in since the start of her introduction.

Being a relatively conventionally attractive girl, Maxine learned early what it meant to be perceived as a woman in society. How it meant being seen rather than understood. To be reduced to an object of desire before being known. Maxine grew up hearing from her mother that men only wanted one thing, and before she was even old enough to process what that meant, she was already living with the consequences of it.

Many friendships blew up the moment she rejected someone she thought just saw her a friend. Men would whistle at her on the streets when she walked without her father present. It felt sickening.

This is also what kicks into gear the domino effect in Maxine's life back in Brazil, when she rejected someone she trusted and asked to just stay friends back when she was 16, she didn’t just lose him. She lost everyone. She wasn't "so much different from the other girls" and "fun" and "so cool for liking video-games and comics", she became "stuck up" and "arrogant". Suddenly Maxine was the villain in someone else’s story just for rejecting a guy, and having to go through the emotional whiplash of having a guy she thought was her best friend call her names, insult her, make up rumors about her, while everybody else is talking about how he is "such a nice guy" and how "Maxine you should just give him a chance."

So as a teen Maxine is going through a really hard time as a teen trying to wrap her head around her social life being over and all her friends hating her just for saying no to someone she didn't like. Something I see a lot in media that tackle similar themes is the girl having a moment of weakness and going "maybe I should have given him a chance", but Maxine is stubborn and doesn’t fall down that rabbithole, instead she felt some sense of righteous anger, she was right, this guy flipped on her just for hearing a no, why is everyone else calling her the bad guy? Can’t they see a guy who flips on a girl like that never really liked her? Or is everyone else too stupid to see that?

So Maxine carries that anger home, and when her mother starts her usual ragebaiting Maxine can't actually stay quiet that time. So it turns into an argument that turns into screaming, screaming that turns into Maxine being an "ungrateful bitch" that causes her to fire back with more hurtful words at her mom and then that escalates into violence, and Harris coming home just in time to stop something horrible happening to Maxine.

Then, in the United States, Maxine feels like things are somehow worse. Not that they were the best in Brazil, but the hypersexualization of Black women in America was definitely a lot harsher of a shift in Maxine's perspective since that was the first time when she started getting part time jobs and interacting with adults without her parents a lot more often.

And then two very important things happen: Nathan, who also liked Maxine, is mutated because of Maxine's poor planning during a mission, and then when Maxine dates Kay, eventually he sttempts to press Maxine into having sexual relations which Maxine does not feel ready for, which leads to a fight, which leads to Kay trying to force himself on Maxine, which leads her to reacting and kicking his ass so bad he was hospitalized and Maxine almost goes to jail for it.

And as if that wasn’t already enough salt being rubbed into the gaping wound, during Maxine's 18 year old birthday party someone invited Maxine's mom without her approval. Maxine tries to be civil, but eventually another fight breaks out between them and ends with Maxine's telling her, with deliberate cruelty, that her suffering would have been justified if Kay got what he wanted, yikeeeers..

So all of those events combined basically solidify in Maxine's mind two things: all guys who like her will eventually turn on her, or they are doomed to get hurt and horribly mutated just for associating with her. Therefore Maxine comes to a conclusion: she is doomed, and not worthy of love. She will either hurt those she loves or they will try to hurt her, and she would rather remove herself from that equation.

But the unfortunate truth is women don’t get to stop dating and remove themselves from those types of situations. So eventually when Maxine convinces the guys to go to a halloweeen fair under the idea that they could use disguises and could easily pass as just high quality costumes in order to give them some sense of normalcy, Maxine meets Kay again— who, still holding a grudge for geting his ass beat, wants some revenge. TMMT shenanigans happen and Kay ends up mutated, tries to kill Maxine, April and the guys, yadda yadda, they eventually defeat him and all is good right?

Except Maxine is very shaken up by it. Maxine does not cry, even when faced with the Kraang or talking about her missing and mutated friends, Maxine has only ever cried in front of the guys one time by this point, and almost immediately put herself back together when she noticed it. But after almost getting killed again and almost dying, alone with Donatello she just breaks down about all of her insecurities and fears and it's ugly and it's awkward and it's tragic, and when she notices Donatello's horrified face that such a beautiful girl feels like she is doomed not to never find love, but to be constantly pursued and subject to violence from men that it has warped her perception of herself. And it hurts him, because they're friends, this isn't true, why is she saying that about herself? But also, it kind of is true, he can't say things will be alright, and it also forces him to start thinking about how his own actions have perhaps made April uncomfortable.

And I dunno, but I just find it really bittersweet that one thing that could get Donatello to reflect on his own creepy behavior is to see firsthand how much this kind of behavior hurts the people he cares about, and having to grapple with the fact that he also needs to change. And for Maxine to feel safe enough with Donnie to vent to him, but also the dread of opening up about something like that to Donnie who has also made April so unbelievably uncomfortable, and not knowing whether to open up or shut down.

Maxine's character arcs are so tragic but still grounded in relatively realistic problems. As much as I like TMMT 2012 it really upsets me that they didn’t explore more "normal" people problems with April and Casey, it was a real missed opportunity, instead it's all aliens and mutants and mutant moms and that's cool but what about the normal horrors? The horrors of growing up? I would have liked arcs that are more grounded in real problems, the mutant and aliens shenanigans could still be there, but as symbolism for the problems the characters are facing, not always being the core root of the issue themselves you know?

Man I miss TMNT 2012....

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Hi 👋 I was wondering if you roleplayed?

Hello! Yes I do Roleplay!

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Dr. Falco couldn’t read Mikey's mind and he was the perfect turle to beat him and that's why he was knocked out at the start of the battle not because Michelangelo doesn’t think when fighting, but because Michelangelo cannonicaly has ADHD and thus, Dr. Falco would not be able to discern Michelangelo's fighting intent between Gangman Style blasting 24/7 in the background, alongside Nyan cat, him being hungry, and his hyperactive imagination, in tjis essay I will—

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

I'm cooking something

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Markiplier's movie is actually so good what the fuck?

I knew it was gonna be good but I didn’t expect it to be THAT GOOD

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

I want to yap! Favorite and least favorite episodes/arcs from 2012? Or other versions?

Omg yes! You've just unleashed the beast, I love yapping :)

Favorite episodes/arcs from TMNT 2012

Okay so this is really hard to answer? The show has so many episodes and so many arcs that are so good I don't even know where to start, but in order to make it simple I'll do a favorite overall arc and then a favorite episode by main character. And by main characters, I mean The guys + April.

Favorite Episode: Leonardo

Fungus Enormus.

I love this episode for Leonardo. It is pretty good, I'll try to keep these short for the favorite episodes because I yapped a lot for the least favorite episodes, and I plan on maybe one day making an analysis for each of the boys, but in general I really like how this episodes tackles each of the characters fears, I love episodes where the antagonist messes with the character's mind, and it's really smart that Leonardo is the one to defeat the fungus because he is the only one who faces his fears every day.

10/10 episode.

Favorite Episode: Raphael

Slash and Destroy.

I love how this episode goes into Raph's anger issues again. I think Raph's anger issues weren't always well utilized in the show, but in here it really shows how Raph has been so angry for so long that it started to seep into how Spike/Slash saw his brothers.

It reminds me of when you have a friend, and they have a boyfriend/girlfriend who they are very much in love with, but they only talk about their partner when they're complaining about them, to the point that you get a horrible idea of their partner, because the only time you hear about them is when your friend is complaining about the terrible things they've done. So it comes a time where you will start telling your friend that maybe they should break up with their partner, or even treating their partner badly, because in your mind they're a terrible person and you can't understand why your friend is still with that person.

Slash is basically in that position, because Raph's anger issues meant that he was very... creative when ranting, and the mutagen probably warped Slash's mind. So instead of telling Raph to "break-up" with his family he just decided he would kill them instead.

In general, I like how Slash is basically Raph's anger issues incarnated and he has to fight Slash in order to prove that he loves his family, and how he wins the fight against Slash by using what Master Splinter (his family) taught him.

10/10 Episode

Favorite Episode: Donatello

Mutagen Man

This is a hard one to choose because I like every episode that is Donatello centric for the most part, but the reason why I like Mutagen Man Unleashed is because of the potential it had.

It establishes April + Casey as a possible couple. It establishes how Donatello's obsession with April is unhealthy, and how it hurts April in the form of Mutagen Man, whose idea of April becomes warped because of Donatello's constant rants (are you seeing a parallel with Slash and Destroy?). It also establishes how Donnie wanted to find the retromutagen so bad and exposes a lot of his insecurities, and it is so tragic that by the end of the episode he basically has no choice but to "kill" Timoth.

I think this was also the perfect episode where Donatello could have gotten over his crush on April, thematically speaking, it's what makes the most sense, but uhhh nothing's perfect right.

9/10 Episode.

Favorite Episode: Michelangelo

Parasitica

I like this episode because it has the Best Team (Donnie and Mickey) and Michelangelo is the one that saves the day at the end of the episode. One of my gripes with the show is how it had a tendency to infantilize Michelangelo and make him out to be stupid, which is not the truth.

Michelangelo is incredibly talented and smart, but he has a tendency to not take things seriously and tune out, I think Michelangelo episodes are at their best when they show Mickey's potential.

Also mind control, one of my favorite tropes

10/10 episode

Favorite Episode: April

Buried Secrets

So this one is hard but for different reasons, if you search for my blog, you will realize I have several thoughts about April, and most of them are negative because I have a hateeee for cannon April lol, she was done so dirty but she lowkey sucks so bad???

But anyway, I really like the episode Buried Secrets, I think because it's the first episode that actually delves a little bit deeper on what happened to April's mother and it poses a challenging question to April, does she want to go with her mom, or does she want to be with her friends?

Does she value the life she can lead with her mother, or does she value saving New York alongside her friends more?

I also really like how the episode also has mind control bs and body horror, the Donnie-Kraang thing that they did??? I wanted more of it

7/10 episode

Overall Favorite Arc:

I would say my overall favorite arc was the mutagen spill arc during season 2, it was so fun seeing the different monsters of the week and waking up early on saturdays to watch the newest episode, I still remember when I was 10 and the new episodes were coming out on Nickelodeon, I'd make a bowl of cereal and sit in my pijamas, it's one of my nicest memories. My only gripe with this arc is that I believed that since the turtles finally find the retromutagen during this arc, that naturally meant they would turn all of the mutants back into people, right??? Well...apparently I was wrong, but I still think Season 2 is the best season of the show.

Least favorite episodes/arcs from TMNT 2012

I'm a simple man, I see April and Donatello centric episodes, and I hate it.

I also hate a lot of episodes after the midpoint of season 3. For me, I don't really have a least favorite episode per character list as much as I have a list of overall episodes that I believe didn't add anything to the show/were overall detrimental to the show or the characterization of several characters. So I'll just say my least favorite episodes are:

The Noxious Avenger

This episode is so bad that the Noxious Avenger guy, whose name I don't even know and can't be bothered to search up (I think it's muckman? I'll call him muckman) doesn't even appear in the show again other than, I think 2 minor appearances where he doesn't even have voiced lines.

I remember seeing somewhere that this episode was so weird because it was around the turning point when Nickelodeon was pressing the TMNT Writers/Creators to appeal more towards a younger public in order to drive up toy sales, now I don't know how true that is, but it does seem very likely.

This episode honestly makes every single character on screen look bad, the turtles look stupid because they end up getting recorded and put on TV (some ninjas am I right) and then at the end there's a whole thing about Muckman becoming a hero after like one act of heroism...? I hate this, it's not funny at all, it's migraine inducing. You also cannot pay me enough to convince me the turtles would like this guy, I think that one thing people forget about the 2012 boys is that they are lowkey kinda mean, one of the first things they do in the show is beat up Snake and then threaten to mutate him in the middle of the street, they constantly make fun of Baxter Stockman, and many other things, they are precious but they are not precious beans if you know what I mean lol.

Point is, this episode does not add anything to the show. It's not funny. It makes all of the characters look stupid. I don't like Muckman. And I always skip it on rewatches.

Foot Too Big

I absolutely despite foot too big, every time I rewatch TMNT 2012 I skip it.

It's a terrible episode for April and Donatello's characterization. The time that Donatello is finally ready to get over his stupid idiotic crush on April and is like, yeah, I understand how you feel now... is the time that she decides to kiss him?

I'm not going to lie, and I'm completely serious when I saw that episode is an incel's mysoginistic wetdream, where the guy is depressed and sad because he is so terrible because of *insert insecurities here*, and then he's wallowing in his self pity of oh, nobody will ever like me because of *insert insecurities here* but it's okay that nobody will ever love me because of *insert insecurities here* and then the girl character is like noooo I like you because of *insert your insecurities here.* And then kisses him.

I'm not saying the trope above is inherently bad, because like all tropes they can be done well or they can be done badly, but I am saying that if a girl constantly rejects a guy, dodges letting him confess, and is very clearly not into him in a show, and then she does THAT, it doesn't read as a sweet moment where she realizes she actually really likes him and the traits that he thinks make him less are actually what attracts her to him uwu, it at best, makes April look stupid, and a poor writing device in order to further a stupid love triangle, and at worst, it makes April look HIGHLY MANIPULATIVE!

I used to give April more goodwill, but after rewatching the show 5+ times I realized I was being too nice to her.

Why? Well, because as a weird teen the majority of friends I had were girls, so I am 1000% confident when I say I have met girls that acted like cannon April, they would reject a guy who liked them over and over, and when the guy was ready to get over that rejection they would pull them right back with some affection in order to continue to receive their attention. I have had women straight up tell it to my face that they didn't like a guy, but kept talking to them because they gave them gifts/attention and would push the guy aside when they actually wanted to commit to something. I have a great friend who during our late teens to early twenties was even trying to encourage me to date older guys because they were usually the ones who gave them more gifts and such while not wanting anything with them, which, fuck older guys preying on young people, but stringing some teen guy along just to get attention? I'm sorry but that's pathetic.

April doesn’t come across as a sweet girl who just realized she looovvveees Donatello because he is her mutant, she comes across as a manipulative twat 🙄🙄🙄

This episode is also the second reason I don't like cannon April. Do I think she was done dirty by the writers of the show? Yes. Do I like her as a person based on her actions in cannon? Hell no. If we take a Watsonian perspective of April, rather than a Doylist one, this is the turning point in-universe where she goes from maybe an awkward girl whose friend has a crush on her and she doesn't know how to deal with that, and starts to comes across as a terrible person. And being 16 doesn't excuse that kind of behavior. This fandom sometimes seems to have a really big problem where people want to hold Donatello accountable for his bad behavior without recognizing that April also had her fair share of bad behavior in the show, especially towards Donatello. (I have my theories for why this is but I'll keep it saved for another post) Teenagers are stupid but they aren't children and their bad behaviour should be called out— that's how one grows into a better person.

There's also the fact that this episode basically depicts a grooming situation with Donatello, which I'm not going to say doesn't work for the episode, but it was definitely not handled with the level of seriousness it should have been.

In general, this is an episode that takes everything it adds to the show and Donatello and April's characterization and then dumps it into a river, I think the whole Donnie and April situation would have been more bearable were it not for this episode, which shows us what could have been (aka Donnie finally having some character growth) and then dumping it to make us suffer through 2 more seasons of this stupid love triangle ahahshaiabnabsjsjsb

The power inside of her

Look I hate the power inside of her for similar reasons, in that it has to turn April into a complete moron for it to work.

Remember when during the filler and silly episode Pizza Face, April has a bad feeling about the Pizza she got and immediately threw it in the trash? Remember when April was supposed to get "these feelings" that made her be able to track down danger and other telephatic stuff?

Well, the writers clearly didn't!

This episode only works if everybody, both on Fugitoid's ship, plus on earth, is too much of a scaredy cat to tell April off on her bad behavior and notice how the crystal is affecting her earlier.

April also legit kills Donatello, there's like a good 5 minutes where Donatello is DEAD. I don't buy the "moleculary scattered" excuse that the show uses to keep it's rating for children. The implications of being molecularly scattered is death. You're dead. Your body does not exist anymore. We know spirits exist in the TMNT universe, so Donatello's spirit might have been around somewhere. But his body? Dead. Donezo. Technically inexistent.

And once he's brought back, everybody immediately forgives April because it's not her fault.

Not her fault?

NOT HER FAULT?

It absolutely is her fault! Once someone finally has the guts to start calling her out on how the crystal is affecting her, April lashes out at everyone, including Master Splinter. She had several chances to let go of the stupid thing, by the show's logic she should have gotten a "strange telephatic feeling" the moment she received the crystal and NOT!! PUT IT!! ONNN!!!!

I'm sorry, but these episodes are the telltale signs of the favoritism the writers gave April and how she isn't a character, she is a plot device. She can never act consistent, she can never be held accountable for her mistakes, she can string along Donatello even though she gives all of the signs that she doesn't like him, she can even literally kill one of the 4 main characters (even if temporarily) and not even get off with a slap on the wrist. Other characters were treated with far more scrutiny for not doing even half of the things April did in this episode! And it doesn't matter that she's their friend, for a good 5 minutes the turtles thought Donatello had DIED and it was because April was too obsessed with the crystal to listen to anyone!

I know some people try to excuse this because she was mind controlled, but the truth is April wasn't forcibly mind controlled like other characters, she was slowly influenced by the aeon crystal, at any point she could have fought harder against it and she didn't, I would have given her more grace but cannon April is just like that. She is so stubborn that she is always putting herself into danger and this is not the first time, and this time it didn't just put herself in danger, it legit killed (even if temporarily) one of her friends!! And nobody is pissed off at her!!!

This episode could have been fixed if April was just held accountable, but everything is brushed off wayyy too quickly.

I'll stop here because otherwise I'll go on an Anti-Apriltello and another cannon April rant but I think I already made my point, lmao

Not so honorable mentions are Eye of the Chimera, Battle for New York I and II and Journey to the Center of Mikey's Mind.

Least favorite arc was the one with Kavaxas because....what was that? Lmao. Also Kavaxas was very clearly modeled wayyy later than the original models/other characters, so he very clearly looked....overmodeled? Compared to the other characters, he looked like he came from a different show. As an artist I assume they might have used a different(superior) engine/3D modeling app, which is why there's this visible difference. I also didn't like the whole plot of reviving the Shredder....again. And it made no sense that Tigerclaw was the one who tried to bring the Shredder back, since he was a gun for hire, he wasn't loyal to the Shredder, it should have been Chris Bradford, if they really needed/had to bring the Shredder back AGAIN.

Anyway, enough yapping, thanks for asking!!

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Is it alright to dm and ask for the user who is making the AI content? I'd like to block anyone using it, esp in the tmnt fandom

Yup, that's fine by me!

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

God I miss the pre-AI era, when things were actually made by human hands and human minds, it's so disheartening to see a new interesting TMNT fanfic idea, and then halfway through it's like...this writing style is too familiar, too perfect, and then there's a description of Donatello's ears going red or some other super obvious AI tell and it's just...sigh

[ash-fall7]

it’s super disheartening, especially when it’s a new blog and actively posting so i think i’m going to get fun, new content of my favorite turtles and within five minutes of checking it out it’s obvious the whole blog is AI generated shit and it immediately upsets me

it’s at the point I’m going to revert to my middle school self and start writing my own. i’m so sick of the AI.

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

Right? It's so sad when it's for one of the turtle iterations that doesn't get much love currently too, and then halfway through you realize the characters are OOC, the descriptions don't make sense, the setting changes every 3 sentences and it's so sad 😢 but then you post your fanfics and want to talk about the characters and writing with real people, and they like and move on, while posts wrotten by AI are getting hundreds of notes like, what??

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

27 for the TMNT ask game!!

Thanks for the ask Anon!

27) What is something you love to see in TMNT art/fics?

Oh there's so much lol, but in general I just love reading/seeing art that explores the relationships of the characters in the show in an interesting way.

So for example, exploring a character's psyche when they didn’t have enough time to shine or be explored in the show, "fix-it" fanfics that actually understand what the creators were going for and why they failed so they can properly fix the issues in the show/episode without entirely changing the premise of a character/plot point (god I hate when people take April and try to "fix" her by completely changing her personality), and sometimes "what-if" scenarios, where different timelines or turn of events are explored.

Currently my favorite TMNT 2012 fanfic is @rheadanai 's "The Road" fanfic, which follows Donatello and Raph's journey after the initial M-Bomb drops over New York, as they try to find their brother's/friends while Donatello slowly gets sicker and sicker, it is so tragic and makes my heart genuinely ache to see the journey of these two brothers, broken and bruised, trying to find their purpose after losing everyone they knew.

[mrcaffeinatedisopod]

God I miss the pre-AI era, when things were actually made by human hands and human minds, it's so disheartening to see a new interesting TMNT fanfic idea, and then halfway through it's like...this writing style is too familiar, too perfect, and then there's a description of Donatello's ears going red or some other super obvious AI tell and it's just...sigh