#and i HATE the tiktok-esque feed like. a lot :|

[kirishwima]

finally playing through nightbringer and. idk if i like it so far :|

[reesespiecesofart]

i dunno guys, not trying to hate but going from rottmnt to mutant mayhem and tottmnt? crazy. wild. because rise gave tmnt fans something that we’ve been itching for since the shows started rolling out: a good backstory and balance between dynamics. rise addresses a lot of issues and has the five heroes archetype but does it in the atla way where atla (avatar the last airbender for those who don’t know) takes the five archetypes and mixes things around to confuse you which creates the perfect character arcs.

rottmnt does the same thing with our main four (five if you count april but it’s kinda hard to since she’s definitely not like? a part of the main subject group here) and it’s evident how much thought and care went into it. rise takes so many new elements and mashes them together beautifully in a way that feeds that worms in our heads that require good media.

and the origin story of the turtles and the coolest and most thought out by far (not counting idw or 87 because ik those are reincarnation and that’s an entire situation) for not just the turtles but splinter as well. i think rise came in and decided that they could add new stuff and still be successful (they were, in a way).

tottmnt and mutant mayhem feel like a parody to tmnt. it doesn’t feel like a real show. i’m not attached to these characters whatsoever. when i watched the rise movie, i quickly figured out what was going on and immediately latched onto the story. it was the first thing i watched that was rise related (i know i should’ve watched the show first but what can i say). rise still feels like an obvious version of the turtles. it’s not adding new things and making tmnt a joke or something. it added new things and made tmnt better.

tottmnt is trying to do what rise did but also trying to do what the older members of the fandom want at the same time. sorry, but it really doesn’t work that way. the tmnt fandom as a whole is fairly toxic, with each generation hating on the next one just because it’s new (that’s an entirely different topic). 03 hated 12, 12 hated rise, and now i see rise fans hating tales.

if the culture wasn’t so toxic, rise would’ve done better. sorry. just the truth. 12 fans should’ve been excited to see a new tmnt show coming out, see that tmnt was still going strong, but instead got pissed it looked so different and the turtles are different species and ew splinter! like, get over yourself. and rise fans, you’re no different. honestly some of you are worse. the amount of crap i see from rise accounts (mostly on tiktok so who knows) trying to beat down tales is insane.

this has led to directors trying to please the masses instead of make something unique that isn’t parody-esque.

(this is also probably because of seth rogan. sorry, but every movie he’s in and especially the ones he helps co lead just feel like satire.)

the mutant mayhem iteration is unique in its art style. i’m glad it leans into drawing all the humans super weird so the turtles are actually the only normal looking ones and fit in better to our eyes. i’m glad that it wants to include the turtles in nyc life and i’m glad that the movie ended the way it did. it’s cute, slice of lifey, even.

the one thing i expect (not hope for; expect.) from this show is character development. make me feel like this is truly an iteration of donatello, who feels like his only contribution is tech and feels overlooked by his brothers. don’t make this donatello just… the tech guy. give him dilema. give him an arc that isn’t just the b team sitting in the background getting a beat down while leonardo and raphael are in the limelight.

give me a michaelangelo that feels babied to the point of exhaustion. give me one that wants the others to listen to him and to take him seriously. don’t make him the butt of every joke. he’s not just the comedic relief.

give me a raphael that protects his family at all costs. give me the raphael that wants desperately to be recognized for what he truly is, instead of being called the hothead all the time. don’t give me a raphael that just has anger issues.

give me a leonardo with a reason. give him purpose. give him his family and tell him that he needs to fight for them. don’t give me the leader. give me leo.

i don’t want tales to just be your average tmnt show after the bomb that rise dropped on the tmnt community. rise displayed how to write a team, a real team, each with their own arcs and a big group one. sure, it got rushed towards the end, but that wasn’t avoidable. rise still did things in such a way that i don’t think other iterations have done before.

tales could be so good. like i’m really hoping it’s good. the movie felt shallow. mutant mayhem was… something. i did not connect with any of the brothers. “we need to be heroes”. no. “i need to protect my family.” this is what i want. tmnt fans watch this media because it’s a found family trope on a silver platter. don’t give me this situation that tales is suddenly in and expect me to be the number one fan.

that being said, i’m mostly just mad about the intro not having the theme song. fuck you, tottmnt directors. you better make me eat my words.

just to clarify, again, i am extremely excited for this show. i have high hopes and a lot of thoughts (obviously) but im a tmnt fan no matter what so im going to support this iteration as much as i can. love yall

okay tbh i feel like tottmnt is honestly the least… teenage mutant ninja turtle show of all the teenage mutant ninja turtle shows but that might just be me? the vibe is kinda off just from what i’ve seen and the intro doesn’t even have the theme song? i feel like it’s trying to be a revamp or like make tmnt better than it was but i think it was a perfectly fine franchise before mutant mayhem and tottmnt pulled up. just a small opinion, i still am in love with it and am excited for it (since its new tmnt stuff).

don’t @ me bro

[do-you-have-a-flag]

saw a video commentating on how toxic (buzzword, i know, but i want to capture the general sense of the term before it got overused) twitter is and while it was 100% correct in it’s points (addictive design, harmful culture, negative impact on mental health, encouragement of harassment, lack of control over how things spread ect) hearing this sort of stuff discussed over and over again is kind of repetitive to me and really reminds me that not everyone had the same internet experience i do

i have a moderately addictive tendency with entertainment, i know it so i am extra careful to moderate my use of online spaces so i don’t fall down hate motivated engagement too often (e.g: i will watch a carefully worded essay about an internet weirdo for the sake of curiosity, i won’t view or engage with direct bullying of that person) 

i spent a chunk of my teens in the 2000s looking at memes on one of the most extreme online forums and while it was definitely less consumed by actual hate groups then it still contained a LOT of horrible content so i quickly 1: got desensitised to shock images 2: got to see the risks of being a victim of online targeting 3: learned the syntax or tone of edgy internet humour/trolling. So I learnt how to spot certain patterns and be wary of certain types of people

the result of all of this is that even when encountering tumblr’s brand of harmful content (the sheer amount of E//D and S//H in the early to mid 2010s on here was atrocious) things like dogpiling and sock puppet accounts and drama provocation didn’t really phase me i learnt how to curate it and the same goes for twitter (although i have less control there of how much shit is promoted BY twitter trending)

so like i sympathise with criticisms of tumblr or twitter or tiktok or any other social platform because the attention driven infrastructure of these types of websites really accelerate the WORST messages and behaviours. but at the same time i kind of despair what i consider to be web literacy. 

Web literacy, for lack of a better term, is the kind of learned practicality in using online spaces similar to how people should ideally be taught to evaluate the news and media and social interaction ect. i’ve said it before but when computers became more household standard in the 90s there was a push for child and adult education that was primarily hard/software based, in the 2000s there was SOME online safety stuff introduced but it’s really not until now that the actual impact of the internet as a social space is discussed in how it effects culture. I feel like there’s a gap where older adults have little frame of reference to cope with the web, children lack the critical skills to deal with it on their own, and teens and young adults grew up having to figure a lot of this out on their own so there are gaps.

I wish there were more standards and oversight for how people are taught to interact online and what large web companies were allowed to do with their platforms. i wish other than grouping everything in with “bullying” cyber safety was paired with lessons in curation and restraint and critical thinking. i wish that the predatory and gambling-esque practices of bigger online companies in their infrastructure was restricted and penalised. I wish that the internet was treated as a utility and people’s information and attention weren’t bought and sold as products to companies. I wish a lot of things about how people behave and react online.

i spend too many hours online and not all of it is constructive or engaging with positive topics. but i’m careful about malicious content and negativity bingeing. i make sure that the online spaces i do frequent are wrangled either via algorithm or organised exploration into environments i find fun and engaging. mainstream media like tv and radio didn’t allow for the level of customisation we have now and i like to take advantage of that fact, i acknowledge that the way i engage with the internet creates a bubble.

but just because i am under-informed about the darker aspects of web culture at the moment doesn’t mean i take for granted the existence BECAUSE i spent my teens and early 20s seeing the worst of it. the last several years has been an eye opener in just how much online behaviour is not just an extreme version of real world behaviour but it also feeds back into irl spaces creating new and complex problems. the kinds of problems that MIGHT be less pervasive if we had more social structures to support digital literacy and critical media engagement. 

sorry about the essay but tumblr was originally intended as a blogging platform so consider this a semiformal blog post of my thoughts idk. internet’s fucked but no more than the rest of reality. I wish more people actively worked to make their online spaces pleasant for their own sakes at the least.