#BUT LIKE 2003 RAPH JUST MEETS THIS OLD LADY AND IS SO NICE TO HER

[deadwardianpoltergeist]

if Raph has 1000 fans I’m one of them, if he has 10 fans I’m one of them, if she has 1 fan it’s me, if he has 0 fans I’m dead

she genuinely is a good person, and I love 2003 tmnt for how they portray him

her anger is never demonized, and the way splinter handles it in 2003 is LIGHTYEARS better than how 2012 splinter does, 2003 splints reassures and comforts raph when she’s upset, because she actually understands why raph acts the way he does

versus in 2012, where splinter reprimands him and never actually helps her with his anger, only telling him to just control it, lest it destroys her, but never actually says how he’s supposed to do that

in 2003 raph’s character is so well handled and it’s what makes this show so special to me

the way they have tender moments with him and her siblings, the way that he’s shown being a genuinely compassionate creature, and most of all the way his anger in “Meet Casey Jones” is put

he loses her temper with mikey, who won’t stop fueling her irritation, until he completely goes red(haha, red) and almost seriously hurts angelo

instead of her siblings getting mad at him for losing her temper, they just pull him off mikey, and splinter simply tells raph to go above ground to cool off some steam

no “what the (s)hell is wrong with you” or “you need to just chill out and stop being angry” just them moving in to de-escalate the situation, while still having understanding

and then he goes off in the city, saying “what the shell is wrong with me” and it just. it’s so painfully real(other than the turtle pun but it’s a kid’s show), and then she sees casey and goes “hey this guy’s like me” and then tries to help casey, trying to tell her that, hey, you have to take a minute to step back because letting your anger get to you like that only hurts people, and hurts you too

and her temper never causes a rift between him and her siblings, only differences in mindsets in “A City At War” where raph is convinced they have no obligation to stop the gang fights(although that is weird because it literally is their problem, they help innocent people and innocent people are getting hurt in the cross fire) causes an big thing where raph won’t listen to leo

and raph and mikey still very much get along, even if mike is kind of an annoying little shit(/aff)

I love 2003 raph so much, even more than other versions of raph, which is saying something because he’s is my favourite turtle in almost every version

[legendary-defender-of-fandoms]

Some thoughts I’ve had while rewatching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012

Mikey is best babey & must be protected at all costs.

2012 Splinter is best Splinter! He’s got the best design, best voice actor, best storylines, and best Tragic Backstory.

Rob Paulson is a treasure.

Raph losing his shit & going feral when someone threatens his brothers is my jam! Also when he drops his tough-guy persona as soon as he sees one of his brothers is hurt.

The Kraang are both funnier & scarier than I remembered.

So, what determines which Mutants maintain their humanity, which ones completely lose their humanity, and which ones decide cannibalism is cool since they’re no longer human? Hamato Yoshi was a skilled ninja & master of mental focus when he was mutated, and the Turtles were babies when they became anthropomorphic & were taught how to adjust to their new human qualities by Splinter. But why did a couch potato like Spiderbytes keep his sanity while a psychologist like Dr. O’Neil became a feral bat creature?

And for that matter, what determines which Mutants get bonus powers? Dr. Rockwell & Dr. Falco were already experimenting with the mutagen to see if it could give one psychic powers when they were turned into the Mutants Monkey Brains & Rat King respectively, but why did a D & D nerd like Sir Malachi get illusion powers when he was turned into a sparrow & why did the pizza chef Antonio gain the power to make sentient pizza pies & brainwash people when he added mutagen to his pizza recipe & tasted it?

Knowing now what I know about Irma, her questions about April’s “mysterious friends” and Casey’s after-school activities seem much more suspicious.

What Leo told Donnie, about the Timothy/Pulverizer he knew being gone forever, twisted into the monstrous Mutagen Man, isn’t true. He’s the same bumbling doofus he was before he turned himself into a pile of barely-sentient goo - he’s just stronger & crankier now.

The homages. So. Many. Homages! Every frame of this show is a love letter to all the Turtles that came before. And I mean ALL of them! Every comic incarnation, cartoon incarnation, live-action incarnation - if it had turtles fighting ninjas, it probably got an Easter egg somewhere in this show.

Headcanon for the Turtles’s ages (but also based on what is canonically true) - Leo & Raph are Twins, perhaps hatching within seconds of each other. Leo probably started hatching first, but Raph totally trashed his eggshell & was free first. Donnie hatched third, more cautious as he poked his widdle turtle head through his shell & emerged into the world. And Mikey hatched within an hour of everyone else, possibly by doing that “Land Before Time” bit where his legs broke through first & he ran around the terrarium blind until he crashed into a wall & made a hole for his head.

I used to wonder how/why there was a tree in Splinter’s dojo. It was beautiful & really tied the room together, but I never understood what it was doing there. Now I realize it’s a metaphor for Splinter’s life - hitting a low point but still finding the beauty in existence, putting down roots with his new family in his new home, “life finds a way,” that kind of stuff.

Anyone else think it was weird Casey Jones got his “intro to the Turtles” episode right after Raph & Slash had their first falling out? It’s just, Raph & Casey always have the same dynamic - two hotheads who try to get each other to chill & re-evaluate their life choices before they hurt the people they care about the most, eventually developing an epic bromance of chaotic energy that terrifies everyone around them. And it’s the same dynamic here, which is totally fine. But Raph already had a “wow, I need to get my anger under control/maybe I don’t want to be a ruthless vigilante” episode immediately preceding this with his pet tortoise Spike.

Not really relevant, but I kind of wish we’d gotten an episode with a B story of Raph being unironically nice to someone for the whole episode. The 2003 TMNT had a great one - Raph found himself holed up with a sweet blind old lady & her cat for most of the episode, and he was just kind of chilling with her. Helping her with moving stuff, making tea, talking about how he’s a bit of a fighter like the cat. And he didn’t gripe or complain about any of it - he was just being a sweet guy. Then I think he & his brothers gave some recovered money to her to help her pay off her townhouse before the bank could foreclose or something.

Missed opportunities in this show - trying to buy all of Shredder’s cronies with promises of retro Mutagen if they turned on their boss, the real fate of April’s mom, meeting Casey’s dad & little sister, changing Timothy back into a human, talking about Kirby’s PTSD, Karai spending more than half an episode with Splinter & the Turtles before succumbing to Shredder’s toxic mindset of “I can’t be happy if my enemy is alive” and running off to seek revenge against the man who killed her mother, kidnapped her, and trained her as a living weapon