#caffeinated thoughts

It's perfect for my fanfic lmfao

You can find it here:

I finished 3 sketchbooks that I had been putting off for 2 years in a month.

That's 100+ pages.

I'm rewatching the show and it's so clear Master Splinter loves his sons very much and tried to do his best at raising them while still being grief stricken from losing his wife + daughter and then losing everything he knew in New York, he probably had an apartment, a job, friends, coworkers, all of which he had to leave behind when he lost his humanity and had to eat leftover food from trash barrels while taking care of 4 really weird mutant creatures that he feels responsible for

It's very clear that he raised his sons under the impression that their biggest threats would just be the human world and not necessarily need to fight aliens from a different dimension and their alien-made horrors on a weekly basis, plus being actively hunted by his old nemesis (that's if you ignore the Rat and the cubs episode, which IMO I don’t consider cannon because it seems like a retcon, it would make no sense for Master Splinter not to have any idea of who the Kraang were in season 1 if he was actively hunted by them for weeks/months when they first mutated, but I digress)

It's so obvious he thought their biggest challenges would be navigating life as non-humans, especially when he'd be gone, so of course he wouldn't know how to raise Raph to control his emotions, he never thought Raph would be around other people— other than his brothers— long enough for it to be a much deeper issue. Of course he wouldn't know how to deal with Donatello's borderline obsessive and weird crush on April, he probably didn't even give the brothers the birds and the bees talk, Donatello probably was the one who researched their biology anyway, how is he supposed to explain love to his non-human son without making him feel like he'll never find love because he is a mutant? Of course, he doesn't know how to deal with a hyperactive kid like Michelangelo, being raised a ninja in traditional Japan he likely doesn't even believe in mental health (apart from concepts such as inner peace and the like) and of course he doesn't realize how much he's favoring and parentifying Leonardo.

So it's no wonder why, let's say, he never thought about teaching all of the four brothers in all of their weapons (I'm currently rewatching S1 Ep 22 "Pulverizer Returns") because why would he? He never thought his children would be in such a position where their opponents are so much more stronger than them that being able to adapt and improvise could be the difference between life and death, he probably thought their biggest threats would be like, the US government trying to kidnap and dissect them for study

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

Can you guys tell where my favoritism lies?