vulstare ☆

I was watching this video on the history of the trikes in the tmnt iterations. It was very interesting! If you watched tmnt03, then you get the gist of mirage, but the exception that Mirage later explores it more and introduces other trikes that seem to be based on other triceratops species. I recommend the watch.

Anyway, in this video, I see another shot of the Rise trike throne.

omfg i didnt know ther was another shot of the trike the krang has- WAIT AMINUTE THAT SHIT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS STRAPS ON ITS SHOULDERS, LIKE DONNIE BRO IT LIGHTS UP BY KRANG'S COMMAND

NOW, I'm a fan of some bad future shenanigans where Donnie stays as the technodrome pilot, stuck and fused to its fleshy controls, much like Mituna from Homestuck cough cough.

(ex. @pinetreevillain's donnie, and homestuck)

I'm just thinking that this is how that triceraton is there. It's dead, maybe half dead, and its brain, or even just whatever mystics it may have, is the technodrome.

(Which would mean that Donnie connecting to the technodrome might've connected to the trike as well?)

Having seen tmnt12, i know that the krang and the trikes there have a war going on. And with the trike head being displayed and sat on like a throne, I'm thinking there was a similar battle in Rise. That maybe the prison dimension in Rise is some old battlefield of the Krang vs Trikes. Or maybe the trike's garbage disposal. What if the trikes helped humans imprison them there with the key! What if the key is trike technology!

GODAMMIT THAT LOOKS LIKE A TRIKE FACE

But then why are humans credited as the banishers of the krang?

I wonder if the trikes had the technology but didn't have enough strategy? resources? power? to execute it. Maybe they needed earth mystics? Though the krang has a way to disable it.. Then again the krang are usually the fandom's origin to mystics? Cause of the Empyrean. It's responsible for originally mutating the Yokai.

What if the krang made the Kuroi Yoroi to turn humans to their side...

What if that is how the krang caught that giant trike. A deal with a mystic armor, that ended up sucking its soul and making a new entity, for the krang to control.

theres trike shit in the foreground, attached to the chains, HOLDING THE SHREDDER BACK

This, along with Karai's soul/ninpo, is imprisoning the shredder in season 1!!

From the wiki: "Approximately one thousand years prior to current day, the Krang attempted an invasion of Earth." "Five hundred years before the events of the series, the Kuroi Yōroi was worn by a leader of a clan called the Foot, Oroku Saki, after making a deal with an alien being in desperation to save his clan."

At least 500 years of war??

... Ok hear me out.

The history of triceratons video i mentioned at the start, mentions that the trikes were created inspired by samurai in the real world. Now, they dont have a source listed, but let's assume this is true.

Samurai were a thing from around 1000 to 500 years ago. Roughtly from the Heian period (700 - 1180 AD) to the Sengoku period (1467-1457). At least the traditional samurai we know of. 1586 and onwards, up to 1853 the samurai way basically died out.

That's a lot like the Krang's first attempt of invasion, as a catalyst. And in the end, the birth of the Shredder.

Trikes.. being a reference to samurai... in rise..... like they might not be actual stand ins to samurai in the Rise universe, but the years/eras match so uh, most likely inspired. Drawn parallels even.

I do wonder how all this came to be though. If trikes were involved, were they aliens to the Rise world, or were they part of Yokai kind? If they were Yokai, did they leave Earth? Became foreign to their own home? It would be interesting to play with this, with them being native, considering they're straight up triceratops. Even more if one were to implement Mirage ideas where there are other ceratopsians represented in their midst. Would they still have mystics? Would their culture have forgotten? Would they resent the krang keeping one of theirs as a tool? Would they be hostile? I wonder.

Have an extra screenshot.

On the Daft Punk album, the original has the masks being silver on the left and gold on the right. Since donnie’s is silver in the episode, i switched them up and gave gold to mikey, overall fits him better too. Also callback to my fashion theme drawing.

Ive always loved the Trigun OST album art. Augh the color combo and the pose are so good. I was between choosing normal donnie or bird donnie. While more complicated, i went with bird because it gave me his wings and tail to play with, where the original’s art used fluttering fabric i could use these instead! and! harsh shading to balance out the white. the original uses the character’s black leather clothes to do this, so i was left with having to add many shadows, which turned out great! And ofc i needed the gun.

For Porque Te Vas, i really wanted to pick a hispanic album, something I grew up with maybe. I had a few to pick from but ultimately the crow silhouette (drawn by @vulstare, thank you!) and clipped picture on it called to me. And! a cover of this song has been memed and popularized, meanwhile i think the original fits way better to what people are trying to convey. So i'm griping about it lmao by using it here. Have adult but disillusioned donnie with teen and worried leo for this one, from a certain au :)c