#tmnt discourse

Leo can’t allow himself to think logically about his time away, because he realizes that if he does, he’s fucked. He’s just gotta keep plugging away, hoping enlightenment eventually comes. He can’t allow himself to want the enlightenment, really, because wanting that doesn’t make him a Leader; it makes him who he’s always been. It doesn’t change him in any meaningful way to give into those feelings, the loneliness and sense of abandonment. 

And I think by the time April finds him, the tether to his sanity is so weathered that it just… snaps, and he snatches the opportunity he’s been waiting for to Come Back Home, even though he’s mentally still in the same place he was 3 months ago, 5 months ago, 24 months ago. Nothing’s changed. He’s just for one single solitary second allowed himself to give into a Want. 

And then when he does come back, Splinter immediately enables the behavior and gives him the congratulations he’d been trying to earn alone across the world for fucking? Who knows how long? And it confuses the hell out of him, because he doesn’t feel like he’s really done anything, but it emboldens him just enough to where he feel comfortable continuing this maladaptive pattern of convincing himself of the things he thinks need to be true in order to help him lead his family. 

So, Splinter says: you are much stronger; you have learned a great deal; you are honored as the leader of the clan. And Leo has to believe him because… Splinter isn’t wrong. Splinter’s never wrong about stuff like this. Maybe he sees something in Leo that Leo doesn’t see in himself yet. And even though Leo isn’t convinced, he has to get his brothers to see it, too. 

But Mikey and Don don’t need to be convinced. They’re both just happy he’s back; they barely cared about his personal growth, or his mission, or whatever it was he was doing out there. And they know it was important, of course (of course!), but they just wanted him back. They just missed him as a person, as a brother. 

Raph is the only brother who wants to know what the fuck he was doing out there, and Leo never answers him because??? Leo doesn’t have an answer! So, instead of finding an answer, Leo just lays out orders, projects all of that failure he feels onto Raph instead. He doesn’t mean to do this, but he is still too confused about his time away and he doesn’t understand why this isn’t a lot easier for him. He has to believe that he’s special, because that’s how he’s treated by Splinter, and Splinter is his church, basically; he’s the source of Leo’s entire belief system. 

His brothers have spent the last two odd years piddling around like they’re stuck in some dream world, seemingly doing whatever they want, and one of them is running around Breaking Rules. And Leo doesn’t break the rules. Leo always follows the rules—except for that entire time when he wasn’t (but that was different, right? That was because he was on a mission for something he never really found), so that has to mean that Leo is Right and Raph is Wrong. 

Leo can break rules, but Raph can’t. Splinter said so. And Splinter isn’t doing anything about the Raph Situation, which means it’s up to Leo to convince Raph to stop, to parent him, to be that guide for him (even though Leo can barely guide himself). 

Of course, it doesn’t matter how good at strategy Leo is; he cannot navigate them out of the struggles of young adulthood, because Leo himself has not grown the way he needed to. But, well, he’s still better suited for this than any of them. It’s obvious. Because what were they all doing while he was gone? Raph is going rogue, for chrissakes, and he hasn’t taken the time or done all the crazy amount of work that Leo has had to put in to accomplish that.

Raph’s not ready to try and change shit around the city, and, okay, Leo isn’t prepared to claim that he is either—but if Leo isn’t ready, then certainly Raph isn’t, right? Raph can’t be any more ready than Leo isn’t. 

So me and my little sibling were talking about the doc made on •Ocean_Dancer•/Miss_Jess, then they showed me this part I might've skipped.

And my braincells fucking died, because holy shit, how are you 18??? HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU 18-

At this point, you're only making up excuses to hate April.

A small handful of 2012- not that many really, compared to how many chill fans there are, but enough that it's noticable in the tags, have been posting hate about rise. In the #rottmnt tag. Which is our maintag for rise stuff.

I know not everyone loves rise, and some people think it's overrated and that's fine. Genuinely, I don't care if it's your least favorite, that's valid.

But please don't post stuff with tags saying you're glad it was cancelled in our tag?

It's just really frustrating to see this small group say how much rise fans as a whole suck, because some ao3 writers bash the 12 characters, and then go to Tumblr and post hate.

When I talked in the notes of one of these posts (a pretty civil debate with someone who wasn't the OP) I was told that rise fans are doing the exact same thing in the 2012 main tag. I checked. I did not see a single hate post about 2012 for as long as I scrolled, which was around a week down. (I used some of those polls as benchmarks.)

Meanwhile, in the past few days I have seen three separate posts either insulting fans of rise in general, or outright hating on the show, all in the main tag.

I know it isn't everyone. Hell, I follow a few 2012 blogs that are super chill! But to that small handful, please stop.

We're all fans of the same franchise, and infighting sucks.

Author’s Note:

Alright, I had been really, really hesitant to post this, because I honestly feel like I have done too many of these (even though I have only like, done some posts and rb’s on this kind of stuff.  And usually spaced apart too, but whatever), and because some of the stuff I am saying, I see even creators that I like sometimes say, and I don’t want to seem like I am mad and that kind of stuff at them.  Even with creators I like less or I am more neutral towards, I don’t want to seem mad at them or too mean and stuff like that, you know?  

But I came to the decision to just post this.  Largely because I just really feel the need to say this, and because someone I know on here helped me give the courage to go ahead and post this.  Thank you that person a lot btw!

Alright, now that my AN is done and out of the way, let’s get to more of the actual contents of the post itself.  Starting now:

Like, I can not fathom, how people complain about the Rise turtles being nerfed, and will hold up certain fics/comics/whatever and say they love those fics/comics/whatever because they don’t nerf Rise, but usually/most of the time, those same comics or whatever that supposedly nerf Rise, will nerf the other version instead (usually 2012.  Though sometimes other versions like 2003).

So nerfing u hate when it is done to Rise, but other versions, it is a-ok!, to nerf them!  Wow okay, just wow.

And on the topic of Rise being nerfed, I won’t say it never happens, it does.  But I honestly don’t see that much myself.

And I honestly, at this point, I more so see Rise getting so hyped up to (sometimes) ridiculous amounts, than I see them getting nerfed.

Rise are better, stronger, smarter, more amazing and awesome TMNT (and not just in ability/powers/strength/etc., but character and/or etc. too).  They are also more violent and scary when they snap.  And/or could be more scary when they get violent and/or snap.  And I am not saying they couldn’t and/or wouldn’t be so.  But that is REALLY downplaying other versions when you say stuff like that. Like, some of the other versions can be so violent and murderous and completely terrifying when they snap (and/or you just know they would be utterly terrifying if they completely snap) too.  

Moving back to what I was saying before/earlier, not only are they better and everything I say above in the beginning of the last paragraph.  But they can also beat any other version no matter what in anything basically.  Because like, the TMNT Fandom(s) (or at least some parts of it/them) has now became the Shonen fandom where we argue about what, for example, our usually favorite person or group of ours can beat another person or group or whatever.  This coming from someone who actually likes Shonen.  But God, do I find power scaling, and “x can and/or can’t beat x” arguments to very annoying, stupid, and pointless most of the time, and usually just detracting from actually just talking about story, or character, or themes, or/& etc.  And they are just tiring honestly.

Putting the rest under a cut, because this post gets long/is getting long, and some of the stuff below is the stuff that was making me worried about posting this.  So I am putting this under a “read more” cut due to long, and in case people don’t want to read some of the (other) stuff I have to say here.

Me: Ohhhh honey I won't even give you the satisfaction of answering from the ask box but I will laugh at you a lot. Fuck off.

Me: TMNT 2003 is a wonderful show. I have serious issues with the writers for making certain characterizations. I am not alone.

If you, a fan, are not emotionally resilient enough to read other fans' realistic discourse and critiques in the tags without feeling rage and yelling at them for not adoring what you adore, that is your fucking problem and you really need to figure out how to interact with other fans. I will "clog up the tags" and you can block me or something. We're not children, but we can sure act that way.

This goes for 2012 too. Example: Just because I don't ship Apriltello does not mean that I think it sucks. I ship polyamorous Shiniangelo and Shinirai and still somehow get told it's wrong.

I am detail oriented, and when I complain it's about very specific issues, which means I can love a thing generally while pointing out flaws I see.

Would you guys like it if we posted a calendar here of fandom events? 

altho the fact that we got confirmation is like?? still a big slap in the face despise everything

like HEY let’s ignore the fact that an entire generation grew up w it and even BETTER let’s not even make more money bc of our childish attitude and opinions lmao