#s1 and 2 were 2012

[nyaskitten]

2012, 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2020 all had two seasons of television.

I don't remember the exact timeline, but usually a season SHOULD get about 2 years of development time. The set designers work with the show team to craft up ideas and aesthetics, based on proposed story ideas.

The sets will go on to influence the story (for example major locations, or how the ninja will get out of a certain situation presented in the story) while the story influences the sets (such as the existence of the Forbidden Five, which the writers and designers crafted together, but who didn't get featured in any sets until a year after they were first presented to us.)

An episode takes 9 months to write, revise, storyboard, voice act, rough animate, and then animate, and complete. This isn't even considering how much clear and intricate detail and attention goes into composing tracks and themes for each season.

I feel like there's something else I'm missing but... I don't remember lmao. Sorry if the wording is confusing at any point. Idk let me know I'll try rephrase it lol.

Stupid question, but a question none the less

Ninjago's been around for about 14 years, but there's 19 seasons?? How does that even work?? Have the animators just been grinding since day one?

[starsstillshine]

i, who has never seen hannibal, and my roommate, who watched hannibal while airing, are watching hannibal together. having the time of our lives tbf.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

The S1 Bentley is For Sale! 👀

link

from the description :):

Mary is a 1934 Derby Bentley Thrupp & Maberley bodied Coupe. BLE 430 – B 96 BN. Two were made but the other one has not been seen since WW11, so she is unique. She is also the only Bentley in the world to have been blown up twice on screen. She was owned by Speed King Donald Campbell in the early fifties.

I acquired her in 2009, to go with my 1947 Mark VI. Since then the engine has been completely re-built, including a new head and block, with a new clutch put in at the same time. She has also been re-wired, new kingpins, total brake overhaul, new radiator and fuel pump with suspension and one shot lubrication system overhauled. Also had the speedometer and rev.counter serviced in 2018. She runs superbly and has just had her annual service at AB Classics, who specialise in pre-war Bentleys & Rolls Royces. (He also looks after my 1936 25/30 RR ).

She is currently insured for £295,000 and I will be looking for an offer around £265,000.

History

Ordered for Jack Odling in September 1934. One of two 3 ½ lt Coupes made by Thrupp & Maberley. The other one has not been seen for several decades and presumed lost during World War 2. Not much early history but owned by Speed King Donald Campbell in the early 1950’s. We have a photograph of the car at that time being offered for sale, with silver wheel discs. His ownership is acknowledged by all the relevant history available in various publications and agreed with both Bentley Drivers Club & Rolls Royce Enthusiasts Club records. She went through three owners from October 1954 to October 1961. Next piece of history is she was acquired by a Mr Silk of Romford in 1973 and underwent extensive professional restoration up to 1994, with a mechanical overhaul in 1994. She was back on the road in 1998. She was then purchased from P & A Wood by Andrew Smith in August 2001. He kept her until early 2008 when he sold her to Brian Classic as he did not wish to re- wire her. I bought her from Brian Classic in April 2009 with money left to me by my late Mother, Mary. We only just made the 100 miles home with many electrical problems. I am glad to say that Brian Classic eventually made a substantial contribution to the re-wiring by Jeremy Padgett. The following year going into the RREC Concours the heating nearly went into the red so back to Jeremy Padgett to sort out. Result was a complete engine re-build by Ristes, also replaced the radiator core and new clutch plate. Finally back on the road in May 2012. Very expensive period. However, she is now in superb condition, being regularly serviced by AB Classics. More recently the carburettors have been re-built. Following an accident on set in 2017 she was sent to Steve Penny at Penny Vintage to restore the damaged door. Sadly this was one of his last jobs before retiring. What a superb craftsman he is, he made a fabulous job of restoring her. Needless to say she still looks superb. I have owned and enjoyed classic cars since 1969 and Mary must be my ultimate car.

TV & Film work

...

when the call came. Jeremy, I am looking for a 1926 Derby Bentley, preferably black. Can you find me one please. I explained that they were not invented until 1933 and that mine was made in 1934 and is grey and black and has not changed since Endeavour three years earlier. Half an hour later phone goes again, can you bring your car down for production to have a look at in Ealing early next week. Production were delighted with Mary, especially after a bit of a run round Ealing. At this point no-one would tell me what it was all about, apart from the fact that this was “The Big One”. Two days later phone goes again, she is going to be Crowley’s Bentley in “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. My wife quickly ordered the book and read it. The Bentley was mentioned almost 80 times. Can I please take her to a specialist body maker for her cab to be replicated for studio scenes. Can I find an interior etc. I phoned Hew at The Real Car Company, who was a tremend ous help. A complete set of instruments and a steering wheel duly arrived. Next, I was asked if I could take the car to Wokingham to be copied. Absolutely staggered to discover they wanted the car at Rushton’s Farm, where I lived from 1957 to 1963. Father’s chicken sheds had been converted into industrial units. A half hour drop off turned into four hours, as I took an old photograph album to show the current owners. The farmhouse had been separated from the rest of the farm by this time. A real trip down memory lane for me. Looking for a Derby body, seats etc, Hew recommended talking to Bob Petersen. He was stripping down a Thrupp & Maberley saloon to make one of his famous specials, so that was purchased complete with dash, seats etc so Mary could be well and truly replicated. Even changed the indicator switch so that both were identical. By this time the cast list had leaked out on the Internet. David Tennant and Michael Sheene are the main stars with others being added on a daily basis. I met many people but mainly worked with these two, especially David. He is one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet. Very hardworking but happily chats to everyone. I got Mary back from the farm in September, ready to start filming. The first scene was near Marlow for a two day shoot where I started to meet the cast and crew. 

Trying to teach David how to drive Mary was a bit of a struggle. Most people in their forties haven’t a clue about cars without syncromesh on all gears, and David normally drives an automatic! However, Rob, the stunt driver did know how to drive Mary and quickly picked up the fact that the clutch cannot be depressed for any length of time. The main problem with David and Rob changing over was about six inches in height. Don’t think the seat had been moved so much for years, with a gentle application of oil on the runners and avoidance of catching the carpet. During this period Mary used the registration NIATRUC, Curtain spelt backwards (the subject is the end of the world ). The Morris Minor had SID RAT , TARDIS spelt backwards. David was an earlier Dr Who! Being the grandad on set meant that I was well looked after by everyone, who made sure I had Mary in the right place and usually a radio as well. There is a lot of hanging about on set then a burst of activity. Some shots are repeated over a dozen times to get differing angles and eventually sort out which take will be used. Within a few days I was getting the hang of it, meeting the directors, the camera guys, the sound technicians, moving from location to location, usually in or around the M 25 then in central London. Naturally you can watch Good Omens on BBC iplayer and see how much Mary appeared. There are a few pictures of what it is like on set. 

[evedaser]

Merlin Spell Review

After rewatching the entirety of the show, some episodes more than once, and taking notes the whole time, I am so excited to finally present to you a full summary of the magical data* from 2008-2012's BBC Merlin.

*Specifically about the spells, therefore innate/passive abilities were not included! Morgana's visions, Merlin's Dragonlord commands, Anhora's teleportation etc DO NOT COUNT.

BBC Merlin contains 512 spells over the course of 65 episodes.

Characters

Merlin

Merlin cast 312 spells (60.9%) over the course of the show for an average of exactly 4.8 spells per episode. 112 of his spells were cast nonverbally, comprising 35.9% of his total magic usage. This proportion was at its highest in s1 (35.1%) when his magic was at its least refined and most instinctual, and s5 (71.2%) when his magic was at its most powerful.

(The other 39.1% of spells are divided between 41 other characters.)

He is the most consistent magic user in the series, being the only magician to cast in (almost!) every episode. There were 12 episodes where he was the only character to perform magic (including some surprising ones like s4e9: Lancelot du Lac, where Morgana's resurrection of Lancelot doesn't actually use any spells. In fact, Merlin is the only one to use spells in any of the three episodes named after Lancelot - s1e5: Lancelot, s2e4: Lancelot and Guinevere, and s4e9: Lancelot du Lac).

Season 3 Episode 8: Eye of the Phoenix is the only episode in the show in which Merlin does not cast any spells. He does still perform magic in this episode via the use of his Dragonlord abilities, however these were not measured in this tally.

Merlin did not throw anyone until Season 2, where he throws Jonas against the wall in a confrontation in Episode 5: The Beauty and the Beast I. The first time he threw anyone nonverbally was in Episode 13 of the same season, The Last Dragonlord, when, in a fit of anguish, he instinctively threw and killed the soldier who had just stabbed Balinor. In general his combat strategy tends towards using the environment (dropping tree branches, chandeliers, slamming doors) or the opponent's own equipment (heating sword hilts, breaking saddles, pushing weaponry against their will) against them rather than brute force, though he does transition more toward throwing in the later seasons. By the end of the series, he had used spells to throw people, either verbally or nonverbally, 24 times, still less than Morgana despite his head-start.

He cast his highest amount of spells in s4 (69) and his lowest amount in s5 (52).

Merlin used magic to do his chores 9 times on screen.

The lovely @arrowlovesdragons asked that I note how many of Merlin's spells were for Arthur, which I did and subsequently turned into this graph:

The most common characters included in "Other" were Gwen and Gaius, Morgana in the earlier seasons, and very notably in s2 (hence the large increase), Freya. Any spells Merlin did for Uther were counted under "Camelot".

Or, if you want a simplified version (wherein I factored "Others" as Merlin's own desires, and "Camelot" as being for Arthur):

TL;DR when Merlin said "I use it for you, Arthur, only for you." he was blatantly lying. That being said, he still devotes almost half of all of his magic to just Arthur. In s5 when he makes that statement, it's more than half. Considering Balinor told Merlin that he is magic itself... well. Merlin wasn't too far off.

Morgana

Morgana is the second most prolific caster in the show, casting 59 spells (11.5%) across the 25 episodes she is magically active in for an average of exactly 2.36 spells per episode. She has the highest proportion of accidental casts in the show, the first in Season 1 Episode 12: To Kill the King, wherein her touch activates the Mage Stone, and the other 5 in Season 2 Episode 3: The Nightmare Begins, where she casts magic in a panic after being woken by nightmares.

The aforementioned artefact activation in Season 1 is her first specific usage of magic in the show, and if you would prefer not to count that, then the also-aforementioned panic-magic are her first spells.

Morgana had the highest proportion of magic intended for violence by a very large margin. 34 of her 59 spells (57.6%) were intended to cause harm to others (harm to others for the purpose of protecting someone not included - this is why Merlin's stat for this is so much lower). She also used throwing as her chosen method of combat magic more than anyone else in the series, throwing people a total of 25 times (38.5% of all person-throwing in the show). The first person she threw was Merlin in Season 3 Episode 5: The Crystal Cave.

In Morgana's final episode - Season 5 Episode 13: The Diamond of the Day II, where she casts 5 spells - her last four spells are used to hurt or kill others, but her first was to protect Mordred (albeit by killing the soldiers around him). All the way at the end, she still truly cared for someone.

Other High Priestesses and Servants of the Old Religion

Nimueh is the first recurring magic user, aside from Merlin, to appear in the show. She mostly uses her magic to be malicious and evil, but does take Merlin to the Isle of the Blessed and gives him water from the cup of life with which to heal Arthur. Her intentions around this are never made clear.

Despite 70% of her spells being used explicitly for harm, she never directly attacks someone until Episode 13, where she launches two fireballs at Merlin. It is also interesting to note that she is one of very few villains who never attacks Arthur. Her malice was always focussed on Uther and his kingdom, not misdirected towards his son.

Throughout her time on screen, Morgause was a formidable enemy. In her first appearance (Season 2 Episode 8: Sins of the Father) she performs 4 spells. She is the first person to enchant an animal (discounting Edwin Muirden's Elanthia Beetles because they operated more like magical items than natural animals) and is linked to both of Ygraine's appearances, with the spirit she raised in s2e8 and the mandrake root she enchanted in the first two episodes of Season 3. Like many more experienced magic users in the series, she relied heavily on enchantments to weave complex and manipulative webs of magic rather than brute force violence. In Season 2, she actually doesn't use magic for direct violence at all. The Knights of Medhir, who were meant to carry out violence on her behalf, were only shown to be responsible for the deaths of the knights Arthur took with him to inspect the fortress in the beginning of the episode. They did not kill anyone in Camelot.

That being said, she can be extremely violent when she so chooses. The first person she acts against directly is one of Cenred's guards, who gets little further than drawing his sword before she has thrown him across the room and through a table. In that very same episode, her soldiers knock Merlin out (for several hours), and she subsequently binds him in magical chains and leaves him for the serkets. Very friendly. Catching up on the violence I see.

Most of the other creatures and messengers of the old religion are bound to a specific purpose. Anhora, the keeper of the unicorns, only ever deals with matters dealing with unicorns. Grettir and the Cailleach are gateway spirits. None of them get to do many spells because, within their purview, there just isn't a need for it. The Disir do slightly more, but only slightly.

Fun fact, those were the only four I categorised under "Messengers of the Old Religion" in my spreadsheets. Anhora is from Season 1 and so cannot count towards this, however the other three are post-Gwaine, and all three of them use a spell to get Gwaine to lay off threatening them. For Grettir and the Cailleach, it is their only spell. The Disir's only other spell is summoning the rune mark that got them into the situation in the first place. That is a 100% pissed-off-by-Gwaine rate among the spirits of the old religion. I'm sure Merlin would be thrilled (he was there for all of them).

All of them seem to believe in Arthur's potential, but they are not as assured of his fate as Kilgharrah leads Merlin to believe they should be. The Dochraid -- who I included as a Magical Creature and not a spirit -- chooses to support Morgana and quite actively opposes Arthur, despite being a creature aware of Emrys, and, you would think, probably the prophecies too. She's not alone in this. That being said, the Cailleach seemed to derive some joy out of Morgana's fear in 4x01, and did refuse Merlin's sacrifice. To me, this shows that at no point in the show did the old religion itself "pick a side" in the war, it was only ever up to Merlin, Morgana, and Arthur to prove who was right.

I don't have interesting magic stats about these characters for you because they were usually too busy dealing with Gwaine to do any actual magic. My apologies.

Mordred

Mordred did very very little magic throughout his time on screen, especially in Season 5. In his three child episodes, he performs exactly one spell in each of them. The first is an instinctive reaction to Cerdan's execution in Season 1 Episode 8: The Beginning of the End, shattering Morgana's mirror with a mental scream, and the other two are both violent actions of self-defense when surrounded by Camelot soldiers. Poor kid.

As an adult, Mordred performs only three spells.

He throws Morgana at the Cauldron of Arianrhod after Merlin abandons him to deal with her on his own (5x09),

He screams, out loud this time, and absolutely destroys the dungeons around him as a reaction to Kara's execution (5x11), and

He performs the only cooperative spell in the entire show, wherein he and Morgana combine their powers to launch a gigantic fireball at Stowell (5x12).

As a child, he was built up as someone with a great deal of power dealing with an incredibly hostile world. We were led to believe he would grow into someone dangerous, perhaps matching even Merlin's calibre of sorcery. Mordred ended up growing into a world in which he suppressed his magic for the sake of laying low and fitting in, but when he used his power, he was unstoppable.

Sorry for the break from the stats there, there just isn't a lot to say about Mordred statistically, except that the only spell he ever performs verbally is that final one he does with Morgana. All of his personal magic usage is done without incantations, and half of it is pure instinct. It's understandable why Merlin was so afraid of him.

Guest Characters

These are characters who only appeared in one episode (double-parters not-withstanding) (or in Alator's case only cast magic in one episode).

The highest casting guest character was Edwin Muirden, who cast 9 spells in s1e6: A Remedy to Cure All Ills.

The lowest casting guest characters were Anhora (1x11), Cornelius Sigan (2x01), Jonas (2x05), Balinor (2x13), Taliesin (3x05), the Sidhe Elder who attacked Merlin in his chambers (3x06), Grettir (3x08), the Cailleach (4x02), Lochru the Vates (5x01), and Ari (5x12), who all cast only one spell in their on-screen appearances.

The median was represented by all the characters who cast 2 spells in their on-screen appearances: Sophia (1x07), Aulfric (1x07), Cerdan (1x08), Tauren (1x12), Alice (3x09), and Osgar (5x05).

Honorary mention to the only two on-screen sorcerers who went unnamed in BBC Merlin, both of whom were vendors who sold their enchanted items to extremely-obviously-evil people and were immediately killed. R.I.P these guys (1x02 and 3x04):

(There were other magic users who went unnamed, but they weren't human: the goblin in 3x03, the troll in 2x05 and 2x06 -- "Lady Catrina" was her DISGUISE -- , the Diamair -- more of a title than a name --, and from 4x08 you could argue 'Lamia' is her species and not her name, but she does introduce herself by that.)

Episodes

The episode with the highest amount of spells was Season 5, Episode 13: The Diamond of the Day II with 19 spells cast. This was split between Merlin, who contributed 14, and Morgana, who contributed 5.

The runner up was Season 1, Episode 1: The Dragon's Call with 17 spells cast. This is split between Merlin, who casted 12 times, and Mary Collins, who casted 5 times.

The episode with the lowest amount of spells was Season 5, Episode 11: The Drawing of the Dark with only 2 spells cast. This was split between Merlin and Mordred, who each casted once. Mordred's spell was instinctive, a wave of destruction following his anguish at Kara's death.

There were 2 other episodes that shared such a low count. The first is Season 1 Episode 11: The Labyrinth of Gedref. Anhora's teleportation and the curse itself both were not counted as no deliberate spells were involved. One of this episode’s spells didn't even happen on screen, we only saw it being cast (Merlin used magic to kill the rat in Arthur's chambers, though we never saw exactly how). The second is Season 2 Episode 2: The Once and Future Queen.

The median was represented by all the episodes which had 7 spells to their name, listed as follows. s1e8: The Beginning of the End, s2e11: The Witch's Quickening, s3e4: Gwaine, s3e5: The Crystal Cave, s3e9: Love in the Time of Dragons, s4e2: The Darkest Hour II, s4e12: The Sword in the Stone I, and s5e8: The Hollow Queen.

As a bonus: The most common spell value per episode (the mode if we're talking stats, which we are) was 5. 10 out of the show's 65 episodes (15.4%) contained exactly 5 spells.

The average spell count per episode was 7.88.

Spells

The most common type of spell cast in the entirety of Merlin was Telekinesis in both verbal and nonverbal forms. It comprised 108 spells, or 21.14% of all spells shown on screen. That being said, if you separate verbal and nonverbal forms, the nonverbal Telekinesis becomes the second highest usage of magic, and the verbally incanted Object Manipulation becomes the fifth. It is bearing that separation in mind that I give you the following spell type top 3:

Enchantment. The big catch-all. 97 spells, 18.98% This is a big one, it accounts for every spell targeted on an object or a creature, provided they didn't belong to other categories*. It included enchanting poppets, amulets, bracelets, potions. It included all the love-spells, applied directly or not. It included the one other instance of mind-control, it included the GPS function Morgause installed in Arthur's horse, it included the spell Merlin used to clean the stain off Arthur's shirt. It included Morgana's blatant Darth-Vader rip-off force choking, and plenty of other things. Huge catch-all, very common. Merlin used enchantments 46 times.

Telekinesis. Classic. Non-verbal only. 62 spells, 12.13%

Elemental. Also classic. Verbal only. 61 spells, 11.94% This is another category that is split between verbal and nonverbal. If you combine both types of elemental spells, it comes out as 86 spells total (16.83%). The vast majority of this is flame and heat magic, but Merlin also uses wind several times throughout the show (he's the only one to do this) and, on occasion (literally only where his loved ones -- Arthur -- are in mortal peril -- 1x13 and 5x13 only), lightning. He is known to be able to cause rockfalls (also done by only Merlin) and precisely one time causes a full-scale earthquake. No one uses commands elemental water magic at any point in the show (spirits who happen to live in lakes/rivers doing magical things do not count, it has to be related to the water. Merlin does use magic related to water a couple times, but it was always categorised under other things).

Honourable mention to Violent Telekinesis, the term I used for the nonverbal "throwing people" spell, which came in 4th with 51 spells (9.98%). It's higher if you combine it with its verbal form, which I literally had to title Throwing (14 spells, 2.74%). That means that on 65 instances was magic used to throw people with an intention of causing harm, which averages out to exactly once per episode.

* There were two types of spells that were definitely enchantments but which I chose to separate into their own categories. The first of these is Artefact Activation, which is when a spell is used to activate a magical item that has already been enchanted. A good example of this would be the entirety of Gilli's magic, all of which was done via the use of an already-magical ring. Another good example is in s4e5: His Father's Son, when Morgana uses a nonverbal spell to activate the curse she placed on Arthur's sword the night before. The other of these categories is self-explanatorily named Locking/Unlocking, and I separated it simply because it was so common and I was curious.

Seasons

Seasons 3 and 4 are tied for most amount of spells cast, each with 108 spells in their 13 episodes. Season 1 has the least, with only 96. Overall, the show was pretty consistent with the amount of magic it did, with the average sitting mostly within the 7.5-8.5 range at any given time whilst I was constructing these tallies. The top five episodes of the entire show are a perfect distribution action the seasons, with one episode from each (1st. 5x13, 2nd. 1x01, 3rd. 4x06, 4th. 2x03, 5th. 3x06).

Season 4 has the highest lowest-episode spell count at 4, whereas s1, s2, and s5 have their lowest at 2, and s3's lowest has 3.

Most of the data on the spreadsheets were not organised by Season, though many of my physical tallies were. If you're interested in how the seasons compare, send me an ask or a message and I'll happily fish that information out for you. Otherwise, most of the data about the individual seasons has already been uploaded under other posts, so I won't make this section any longer.

Fun/Opinions

I'll do my narrative analyses later on a separate post, but just know it's so important to me that the top two episodes are the finale and the pilot, and the lowest is The Drawing of the Dark. At the top, two episodes that are so quintesentially about a magic boy in a world where his powers are desperately needed, Merlin (Arthur) at his very beginning and at his end, and at the bottom an episode that really was not about magic at all. The story of Kara's death was never a story of magic. She was not condemned for her sorcery, she was condemned for her murder. She was both caught and treated like any other criminal. 5x11 is fundamentally about people, about loyalty, about how our choices shape us. Mordred saw it as if it was about magic, and it was this misunderstanding which turned him away from Arthur for good.

Anyway. Silly spells (with references)!!

Merlin trips Arthur twice in the first episode.

Merlin successfully lures guards away from their posts using dice in the first episode. The second time he's shown using telekinesis on dice is when he's cheating in a gambling game against Arthur in 5x12.

Merlin uses barrels to distract guards on two separate occasions (2x04, 4x10). On the first one, he knocks them out.

Merlin slows time four times throughout the show (1x01, 1x07, 3x06). One of them is in order to observe Grundhilda's massive purple frog tongue.

Merlin uses magic to wind a rope discreetly up his pant leg and around his torso (2x08). This has a verbal incantation, which means someone either made a spell for this, which would be absurd, or Merlin is bastardising the hell out of someone's real actual sorcery that they wrote down formally.

Merlin once uses magic to put a princess to sleep and stuff her into a cupboard, which he then seals shut with magic as well (2x10).

Merlin uses magic to pull down people's pants. Twice. It works perfectly for his plans both times (3x07, 4x04).

Morgana also has an elderly disguise (5x04)!!

Sorry that they were mostly all about Merlin, everyone else in this show is so serious about magic. For other magic users who get silly with it, just rewatch Season 3 Episode 3: Goblin's Gold. I couldn't make up half the things that guy does.

I do have Fun/Vibes as a 'Purpose' category. It's populated mostly by Merlin, but also by the Goblin (3x03), Edwin Muirden (who lights a flame in the opening shot of the episode for the purpose of looking spooky and magic to the audience, and also who does some telekinesis just to show off to Merlin) (1x06), and Gilli (who activates his ring once in the opener of the episode purely for the benefit of signalling that it's magic to the audience) (3x11).

And no, I'm still not over the toad in s2e7: The Witchfinder, and I'm certainly not over the use of the Sidhe staff as a TAZER in s3e6: The Changeling (See the posts for Season 2 and Season 3 for elaboration on those).

Data

I am human, I have biases and make mistakes, I oversimplify things, I have a preference for viewing certain characters in certain ways. If you thought I was disingenuous, or wasn't clear enough, or have some other issue with this post, or otherwise are curious, the raw data I collected is now yours!!

Do with it as you wish. If you do end up using any of this for something, I would really appreciate a credit. This took me a very long time to put together.

Tally A list, with descriptions, of every spell in Merlin by episode.

Spreadsheets The numerical data in a variety of different tables and graphs.

Please note that I know there are mistakes in this dataset and I will be continuously working on fixing those. If you have need of the data, always refer back to the original post/document/spreadsheet. Reblogs do not update when previous posts are edited.

If you notice a mistake, even a minor one, please let me know!! And if you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. Thank you for your time <3 I really, really appreciate it.

[squishycat330]

Bebop & Rocksteady

Bebop & Roackstedy 

Slowly I’ve been watching season 1 of the 2012 series watching episodes in chunks, and it never acured to me ‘hey where are those to dumbos?’ ‘Where’s Bebop and Rocksteady?’

When I think of these two I think of the 2012 series the one I grew up with. I was talking with my brother and realized they hadn’t appeared yet and it was already at episode 22 of season 1 and I ended up looking up the two of them, I saw Bepop didn’t appear until Episode 20! Of season 2! And mutated in season 3 E 10, I looked at Rocksteady and he appears in S1 E20 as the Russian man, (muted S3 E10 as well)

I know that at the start of season 3 their at the farm house and stuff so that doesn’t necessarily give these two much time to be around, based off what I know at least’ 

I remembered these guys as staple characters, ones that where always there I thought they where in season 1 but they don’t really become anything until far later, 

I’m gonna assume the reason I thought this was because I was really young when the first few seasons came out and only really started to actually remember the series around season 3 (2014/15) and season 4 (2015/17) which happen to be when the Michele bay movies came out,

 Maby thats why I remember them so much is because of those movies and them being prominent in them (the second one) and I gaslit myself that is was the 2012 series because that’s what I thought of when I thought of the turtles, that was My turtles and it was the only series/media I’d seen of em. 

Also once I started thinking about it I also remember fishface and dog pound being prominent but again normally it was Bebop and Rocksteady that I thought of not those two, it could also be because their names are fun to say and easy to remember because of that, (I’d also like to point out here that I hadn’t seen the 1987 iteration of them at all)

And generally speaking it’s odd their not as prominent as they vary much were in 1987 they where staple characters appearing in almost every episode in that series and I know 2012 did a lot different then the older ones but still. . . I also don’t know their status in 2003 that one being the series I have No knowledge on due to it being nowhere but peramount+ (or dvd’s worse quality then 1987 box set released in the early 2000’s) 

Generally speaking my memory of the show was faint and I can tell you a select few things i remembered before watching again, and most of it is from the later seasons 3 and 4 

Leo’s broken leg, the farmhouse, splinter dying to shredder, the space arc, ice-cream-kitty (who i still haven’t seen yet) fishface and dog pound Maby, bebop and rocksteady, it’s a good bit but I don’t remember any prominent events, it’s odd and honestly makes me kinda sad, 

But the more of season 1 I watched the more a remembered and even then it still has A Lot of somewhat shocking things in it, Heck I saw a picture of Shinigami and was like WHO THE HECK ARE YOU! My older brother new her vaguely but I had absolutely NO memory of her

(Also I want it to be known before I was talking to my brother I was trying to work on Donnie so like what the heck! Every time I try to work on Donnie he’s done something to interrupt me! I love him but gosh I just wanna finish Donnie!) 

(Also apparently these guys become good in like the vary last episode or something so thats neat. I thought they where always dumb and goofy but apparently Rocksteady was smart in 2012) 

This was all a byproduct of midnight to 1AM/2AM rambles 

Addition info I got for this, mostly from the Wiki

Rocksteady / Ivan Steranko

He describes himself and the Shredder as "old friends." He seems to take great pride in his collection. Steranko is rude and humorless, but is willing to be reasonable and make deals when the opportunity presents itself. He is also shown to be very intelligent and more focused at current tasks compared to Zeck, a trait that carries on when they are both mutated.

As Rocksteady, he is even more aggressive and develops more fighting skills to match his new form. However, he is shown to have some redeeming qualities. He even likes the name Michelangelo gave him unlike Mikey's many other foes.

As shown for 1987 TV series Shredder and 1987 TV series Krang in his resumé in Wanted Bebop and Rocksteady, Ivan Steranko fought as a volunteer during the wars in Iraq (1986–1989), Yugoslavia(1991–1997) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (1998–2001) and then again in Iraq (2001–2003) before joining the Foot Clan in 2013. How he came in contact with Oroku Saki as a business partner is largely unknown. Steranko revealed in Serpent Hunt that he and the Shredder have known each other for ten years.

In "Enemy of My Enemy," He first appears to be close to the Shredder, given an offhanded mention that they're "old friends." He is first seen talking to the Shredder, albeit left unnamed, about a weapons deal. The Shredder does have the cargo searched just in case Steranko pulled any tricks. During the Turtles' fight with the Shredder, he is knocked unconscious by the weapon that was meant to incapacitate the Shredder.

In "The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto." Steranko is revealed to collect ancient artifacts and is shown to have Excalibur and the Spear of Destiny in his collections; he also has the ability to tell the difference between a fake and real artifact. He was revealed to have some past history with master thief Anton Zeck, who at that time he was helping him with a vaguely defined job (allegedly accidental), and also is who shot out Steranko's right eye. Steranko hires Zeck to steal the Shredder's helmet, the Kuro Kabuto, from the Shredder to add to his collection. When Zeck meets up with Steranko in his helicopter, they discover that Leo had swapped it out with dirty diapers. Upon discovering this, Steranko vows to hurt Zeck for it.

Appears in 

S1 E20 ‘Enemy of my Enemy’ (debue) (1

S2 E20 ‘The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto’ (2 E23 ‘a Chinatown Ghost story’ (3

S3 E10 ‘Serpent hunt’ (4 E11 ‘the Pig and the Rhino’ (5 E15 ‘the Noxious Avenger’ (6 E18 ‘the deadly venom’ (7 E21 ‘attack of the mega shredder!’ (8 E23 ‘the fourfold trap’ (9 E26 ‘annihilation Earth! Part2’ (10

S4  E15 ‘city at war’ (11 E16 ‘broken foot’ (12 E20 ‘The Super Shredder’ (13 E21 ‘Darkest Plight’ (14 E24 ‘Tale of Tiger Claw’ (15 E25 ‘Requiem’ (16 E26 ‘Owari’ (17

S5  E3 ‘Heart of Evil’ (18 E4 ‘End Times’ (19 E18 ‘Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady’ (20 E19 ‘The Foot Walks Again!’ (21 E20 ‘The Big Blowout’ 22

22 episode appearances 

Anton Zeck / Bebop

Zeck normally talks in rap while making funky body movements. He also tends to show how slick he is when he steals and enters areas where he is supposed to commit a robbery. In contrast to his 1987 counterpart, Zeck is more intelligent and competent at his job but his talkative nature regularly backfires on him. In contrast to his partner Ivan Steranko, Zeck has more common sense and a realist. 

At some point in his acquaintance with Ivan Steranko, Anton Zeck shot the Russian crime boss in the eye - supposedly by accident - resulting in Steranko adopting his trademark diamond eye.

In "The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto", Steranko later offered Zeck a chance to make up for his error in the past by stealing the Kuro Kabuto, helmet of the Shredder, so that Steranko could add it to his collection of artifacts. Zeck successfully broke into the Shredder's lair and stole the helmet despite running afoul of Rahzar and several Footbot Soldiers, but while invisible was hit by the Shellraiser. The Turtles got Zeck's bag and the helmet, but Zeck managed to plant a tracker on the Shellraiser and later knocked it over with a bomb. Zeck avoided getting involved in the fight between the Turtles and Shredder's hench-mutants, but in attempting to retrieve the helmet from Leonardo, was soundly defeated. Leo returned his bag, but damage from the night's adventures left Zeck unable to cloak himself. He was rescued by Steranko, but then discovered that Leo had taken the helmet from his bag and replaced it with dirty diapers taken from a city dumpster. Steranko vowed to hurt Zeck for this.

In "Serpent Hunt", after The Kraang took over the city, Steranko and Zeck had been stuck in Steranko's hideout for months with nothing left to eat but cockroaches and ketchup. They came up with a plan to get out of the city, they would find the Shredder's daughter and trade her with him for a safe way out of the city, as the last thing they wanted was to be mutated by the Kraang, like the other humans in the city. But the plan did not work as intended, as the Turtles released Karai, and Steranko and Zeck were punished by being turned into two hideous mutants. Zeck was mutated first for his attempted theft of the Kuro Kabuto and is pushed into the mutagen vat by Fishface. After Steranko was mutated, Zeck stated that the Foot Clan turned them into "freaks" as they both bellow in pain, anger, and confusion.

Appears in 

S2 E20 ‘The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto’ (debue) (1 

S3  E10 ‘Serpent hunt’ (2 E11 ‘the Pig and the Rhino’ (3 E15 ‘the Noxious Avenger’ (4 E21 ‘attack of the mega shredder!’ (5 E23 ‘the fourfold trap’ (6 E26 ‘annihilation Earth! Part2’ (7

S4  E15 ‘city at war’ (8 E16 ‘broken foot’ (9 E20 ‘The Super Shredder’ (10 E21 ‘Darkest Plight’ (11 E24 ‘Tale of Tiger Claw’ (12 E25 ‘Requiem’ (13 E26 ‘Owari’ (14

S5 E3 ‘Heart of Evil’ (15 E4 ‘End Times’ (16 E18 ‘Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady’ (17 E19 ‘The Foot Walks Again!’ (18 E20 ‘The Big Blowout’ (19

19 episodes Appearances 

. . . . . . . . .

Out of 124 episodes in total They appeared in 19/21 

[dysfunctional-doodle]

now i WOULD go rest after the whole ypi business HOWEVER. is there any way to convince you to watch it because OH MY GODDDDDDDD THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SERIES EVER!!!!!!!!!!! it’s certainly not the best written tmnt series out there (ESPECIALLY with the romance…. shudders)

HOWEVERRRRRRR there are a lot of awesome things about it i really like….. i think one thing i like the most about this iteration (besides the very obvious obsession about sunset duo) is THE VOICEACTING. in a tmnt voiceacting teirlist i would put almost every rise character in s tier and yet STILL, despite the fact i put donnie in b, 2012 IS MY FAVOURITE VOICE ACTED SERIES. the original ask includes the giant navy battleship line and. yeah. sean astin’s delivery makes it a kajillion times funnier to me. IDK MAN THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT SPLINTER’S VOICE THAT IS SO SATISFYING TO ME. AND THE WAY SHINIGAMI LAUGHS???????????????? HRGHHHHH

also a big fan of the dynamics between the turtles…… the absolute brothers of all time. sobs (again it’s very obvious which duo is my favourite hfhdbsjbsdj)

also this might be a slightlyyyy controversial take but mikey’s adhd is written really really REALLY well in my opinion. like ok donnie said he hasn’t matured since age six and infantilisation is a big problem with neurodivergent people HOWEVER. a big part of mikey’s character is that he doesn’t like being underestimated and wants to prove he is capable but also. as a person with adhd. YEAH I TOO FEEL LIKE THE PERSON IN MY BRAIN IS A SMALL CHILD. the reason i peaked in primary school is because, back then, i was only slightly less mature than my peers. now as i’m in secondary school i realise i am like a TWO YEAR OLD compared to these people. when i was in s1 i would call myself the twelve year old toddler because that was essentially how mature i felt i was. SO THE STRUGGLE IS REAL. maybe there are times he feels slightly stereotypical but hey, everyone has their stereotype moments, right??? (as cliche as it is i feel like everyone has had a “hey, look, squirrel!” moment in their life). yeah i just relate to 2012 mikey on a spiritual level. like every time he’s on screen he does something and i think WOW. that is LITERALLY me (which is why i’m surprised that one poll i have more people think i’m like sonic than mikey?? but i’m not complaining, sonic is super cool)

the 3d animation is cool (the increase in skill is very obvious as you progress further through the series) and the fight scenes are just. MWAH. SO satisfying.

also SOME of the romance is pretty ok! raph and mona lisa are great. also arguably raph and casey (but we’re not ready for that conversation i think).

i have a full disc set of all five seasons that included a list of all the episodes and whenever i finished an episode i REALLYYYY REALLY enjoyed i would highlight the name in pink sharpie… here are all the episodes i marked :3 (i might need to rewatch some of these)

the pulveriser

cockroach terminator

parasitica

the good, the bad, and casey jones

plan 10

a foot too big (i’m actually not too sure about this one right now, might need to rewatch it)

journey to the center of mikey’s mind

revenge of the triceratons (this one is only half highlighted for some reason)

bat in the belfry

tokka vs the world

requiem (sobs. sobs so so hard.)

end times

when worlds collide: part 2 (i think this one is where the giant navy battleship line comes from)

it’s ok if you don’t want to watch it or you’re not able to watch it but if you can and you don’t end up liking it THAT’S OK I TOTALLY GET IT THERE ARE A LOT OF PARTS THAT SUCK

erm anyways that was my strange ramble. sorry for invading your ask box 👍🏼

(oh yeah, the comics are pretty cool too)

(guess who michalina’s favourite character + duo is challenge (impossible))

Ok I will say oddly enough I’ve read the comics for 2012. Weird, but I pirated found them and enjoyed reading them, they were fun.

I have watched a few episodes - I did like the speed demon episode (I love the dynamic of 2012 donnie and Casey mirroring the 90s movies even down the name insulting scene where they are going through the alphabet) and I like parasitica a lot. I have watched others like journey to centre of Mikey’s mind, Buried Secrets, and the usagi episodes, and also the final episodes of the Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (? I cannot remember the name, but the one with the insect guy as the villain who’s name I can’t spell and can’t be bothered to Google lol), that one where Donnie becomes dumb, the vampire ones, but that’s it.

What puts me off is the romance and the (in my opinion) partial butchered character Donnie has due to it. He’s genuinely creepy and it makes watching it uncomfortable and wildly out of character compared to what I’m used to. I’ve never been a fan of romance, and I expect ally despise the whole “main character has a crush on someone else but is so nerdy they don’t know how to approach them” trope. The whole love triangle and the poorly written “love at first sight” which most the romances in the show are just put me off completely. I genuinely have tried other episodes but I cringe every time the Donnie/April romance happens. It’s a shame because when they let Donnie move on from April or not be simping after her I really like his slightly sarcastic, blunt yet sensitive nature.

I’ve heard they kind of throw away the romance at season 3 but it’s having to watch this until then tbh. Maybe one day I will give it a go if people really say it’s worth the suffering of my least favourite trope. You seem to like it a lot so maybe :)

[em-harlsnow]

the shameless character ages drive me crazy! I made an age chart a few years ago for a fic I never published and managed to kinda make it fit? The major hiccup I found was that the lip/ian Irish twins popular trope doesn’t work because lip mentions in s1 that he’s 17 (which would also make mickey at least 17 because they were in the same classes). so I kinda concluded from that that mickey’s birthday was actually august 93 and lip’s was march 94. ian’s was may 96 which means he turned 15 between seasons 1 and 2. 1.12 - 3.01 takes place over the course of a year - s1 must end between lip’s march birthday and ian’s may birthday of 2011 and 3x01 begins Easter of 2012. this works with mickey turning 18 in 2011 but still returning to juvie because some youths can apparently stay in juvie in illinois until they’re 21. I think I ended up figuring out that the first 5 seasons happen over the course of 4 years and the rest happen over the course of around 6 years (from debbie’s pregnancy to just after franny’s 5th birthday). sorry this whole ask is chaotic af 🤣 but I thought I’d add my 2 cents

my one point of issue with this - although it's all opinion based so you could be right - is that Lip and Mickey can be in the same class and be different ages. Mickey can still be 16 when in Lip's year or grade, since he's born in August. he's born just before the cut off (at lease the cut-off that I know of would be September) so he can be in the same grade and just be one of the youngest. I might be wrong, because the season is set in winter so I guess Mickey's bday must have passed, but idk. I don't remember seeing Lip say he's 17, and when I looked it up google (which is very easily wrong about these things) said he's also 16 in season 1. I'm not sure though, if you know which ep/scene he says it that would be helpful.

also, sorry to go on, but if mickey's birthday was august 1993, he would be in the year above Lip, because he'd be just before the September cut off. There's a chance he was moved down to Lip's grade or I've heard of people born around august/September getting to choose which grade, but I think it's more likely that it was 1994.

also, I've heard from most people that season 1 and 2 take place over a year total, so I don't know what you mean with the '1.12-3.01 taks place over the course of a year'. I was always under the impression that 1.1 - 2.12 took place over around a year. I could be wrong, though.

another reason I think mickey is younger for longer, is that Ian is meant to be 17 at the start of season 4 and 15 at the start of season 1. this seems pretty fucking impossible to be honest, and I'll try and figure it out when I do his ages next, but it doesn't make sense for mickey to go up about three/four years in age while Ian only ages 2.

my theory may not be entirely accurate, but I tried to tie it in as best as possible with juvie and other characters. as for being kept in juvie over 17, i researched it and someone can be kept in juvie until they are 18/19, but if they break the law when they are over 18, they will not go to juvie. I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but here's a quote 'Someone is a juvenile in the criminal justice system if they broke or attempted to break any Illinois law before they turned 18 years old. '

I found about it.

So I don't know, maybe you're right, I definitely didn't rewatch the whole of shameless and analyse every scene so it was fully accurate, I very well could be wrong.

thanks for sending an ask about it :)

[contritecactite]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Thank you for the ask, Quoth! I think you'd be pleased to know that I had trouble narrowing things down (they're all my favorites today), but I got there eventually.

1. Promised Me a Feeling

Ace Attorney, T, 2.8k, klapollo

Post-AA4, Edgeworth accidentally invites himself to dinner with Klavier and Apollo. It's painfully awkward, but it helps him find the courage to take the next step.

I took a huge internet break years ago (my own 7yg hehe) and only returned to fandom in 2021. "Promised Me a Feeling" was the first time I felt genuinely confident in my writing again, so it holds a special place in my heart.

2. Third Time Charmed

Ace Attorney, G, 3k, Maya

Maya visits the building for the "first time" three separate times. Whether it's housing Fey & Co. Law Offices, Wright & Co. Law Offices, or the Wright Anything Agency, it always manages to be just the opposite of what she's come to expect.

In a lot of ways, this was a celebration of being part of a fandom in which I'm "allowed" to enjoy female characters and to place value on non-romantic relationships. Those were two quick ways out the door in my 2008-2012 spaces.

3. And a Borrowed Car

Good Omens, T, 3.6k, A/C (ambiguous)

Aziraphale falls asleep in the stolen Jeep, Crowley remembers that his flat could use some cleaning, and they end up sharing a very nice room somewhere and talking about things they've lost and time they've wasted. It turns out all right in the end.

An attempt to integrate some details from s1&2 into book canon. Casual intimacy, only one bed (because it's what they wanted), soft with an aroma of their inherent angst. Feels like some of my best characterization, but I could be wrong.

4. Anthems of Joy

Ace Attorney, T, 17k, FranMaya

When Maya and Franziska's intention to get married is made public, they get railroaded into using their wedding to generate good press for the district prosecutors' office. Over the next few months, Franziska finds that her relationship with Maya isn't the only one that gets strengthened in the pursuit of happiness. Also, I wrote what feels like half a Sesame Street episode for this. You're welcome/I'm sorry.

A weirdly personal fic that was a long time in the making. I don't know what I can say about it concisely except that I hope someday I can let go of as many hangups as Franziska.

5. Competitive Inhibition

Good Omens, M, 15k, A/C through the ages

In biochemistry: a phenomenon in which a molecule is blocked from binding to an enzyme by another molecule with a similar structure—like a demon preventing an angel from binding completely to Heaven or, more to the point, doubt and fear keeping an angel from wholly welcoming a bond with a demon. Or: The ups and downs of sharing 6000 years of life on Earth with an angel who wants desperately to be doing Good.

Written for a gift exchange, this ended up being a long series of vignettes that alternate between good times and bad times (with a hopeful ending). I even did some (very) cursory historical research! I'm very proud of it despite it apparently not having very broad appeal.

[lalunameli]

I'm late in the game for Taibani merch even if I originally watched S1 back when it aired (around 2011/2012). It was during a time when I had stopped collecting anything animanga related and was primarily purging my existing collectibles. Obviously Yuri (who was my fave even back then), has made me start collecting shit again.

The 2022 reprints of the Sakakibara manga along with the Sakakibara artbook and Limited Edition original printing of the Vol 5 tankoubon featuring Luna/Yuri arrived today. They were supposed to be a Christmas present from my hubs.

I also previously acquired a set of the Rascal x Taibani acrylic mascots because this set came with 2 Rascal Lunas. One for my keys and one to keep mint and sealed. I stuck one of these Bunny's(?) on my spare keys to my Mom's place, because there were 3 in this lot.

Finally the Lunatic S.H. Figuarts and the DXF Figure 5 who are currently displayed with some of my older Shaka gashapons I kept and the Anime Heroes release.

I'm currently waiting on shipments for a bunch of other stuff I've ordered like 2 of those adorable TB2 mochi mochi plushes, and the Luna and Yuri plushies released during the rising as well as a bunch of stuff from the Summer Resort collab, TB2 Museum fine art board, but I'll post them once I receive them. This is all I currently have onhand.

[whatudottu]

Something about Altered Loyalties CYLAS just really makes me want to include him in the first place but also makes me really really REALLY think that with the more supernatural elements of AL based off of the original TFP pilot (or just first episode/s?) that CYLAS as a ‘dead man walking’ would actually let him stay around longer AND also be a very significant contributing factor to Megatron’s downfall in Decepticon favour!

Of course it’s not as if I have the pieces of the TFP rewrite au firmly put into place, CYLAS in canon shows up just over halfway into season 2, and many of my most established changes occur in the first like… including all the parts of ‘Darkness Rising’ 8 episodes of season one; I have no idea if the environment CYLAS presents himself in is the same one canon CYLAS does.

But with the dubiousity between s1 e8 all the way to s2 e19, I’ll establish the basic context… I think in story mode maybe…

Looking at the general timeline for the Aligned Continuity, it says that the first contact of cybertronians on Earth is dated to about 500 years before the show, give or take a decade. I’ve been listing Skyquake’s little EHP pitstop to have existed at least 50 years before the war reached our planet, but what if I pushed it all the way back to 500; if a vorn is 83 years, that’d be about 6 years on an entirely different planet not knowing truly if your twin is going to make it, a planet which by the way presently has no established radio systems that it’s horrifically quiet for a terrestrial environment.

That means that Skyquake’s EHP Comms Array has been transmitting a signal long before humans had developed radio, which also means that what might’ve been blatantly an anomaly in the system if discovered 50 odd years previous to 2012 (which would’ve been in the 60s give or take which would not have been good in the literal middle of the cold war era) has been going for centuries because it had always been there, there is no anomaly because it is a signal that has existed ever since humans were able to manipulate radiowaves into sending messages and translate them into detectable noise. It helps that cybertronian language and code (both code lang and like literal programming code) is a system unknown to humans developing their own language.

And you may be asking, why did I divert this post from talking about CYLAS and how he’d outlast his canon alternate to radio shit? Well, if you were a paramilitary organisation who is pretty good at erasing signals and you discovered a signal that has been actively running for the entirety of human radio has suddenly been silenced, what would you begin to suspect at that?

Aliens may potentially be a stretch but MECH didn’t just name themselves after the cybertronians fighting war on their planet, and once the cybertronian conflict touched down on Earth, the Decepticons hadn’t a need for an intergalactic communications array and in fact was specifically instructed to switch it off in an effort to prevent the Autobots from using it. That would’ve been about maybe 6 years ago for the show (wow just enough equivalent time to match what Skyquake felt he spent grounded to one radio tower look at that) and though MECH would not encounter their first cybertronian until ‘Convoy’ (haha wait that’s s1 e9 the next ep to cover - if necessary - for Altered Loyalties lmao), they would’ve had 6 years to find that missing signal and stumble across some very definitely alien technology.

That is one of the reasons why the rewrite of ‘Masters and Students’ which is less masters and students focused - rather the point is Skyquake, a team of Nemesis stationed vehcions and Starscream investigate the comms array and set it up manually - why the radio tower wasn’t switching on from a remote position.

The other reason was because the Guardian unit stationed at the comms array - the very ones that had accompanied Skyquake all those stellar cycles ago - had gone missing. Why?

Because of Megatron’s flagrant use of Dark Energon.

Points 1 and 2 listed above leads to the explosion of the comms array, the death of Skyquake, and MECH either being alerted to the point of alien contact or just in general going to the site for more study only to find a dead specimen. After the discovery of the Autobots with the body of Skyquake, MECH begins their initial study and dissection of cybertronian physiology, though without a live subject they couldn’t exactly see what parts function in what way, especially the t-cog.

The discovery of Skyquake led to the discovery of terrorcons which lead to the discovery of how to take down a cybertron and how to take it apart without it screaming. MECH would learn the programming of a cybertronian through vehicon terrorcons since, even with DE corruption, their processors are still somewhat being maintained. While probably not able to access memories (they are fickle things, memory centres, easy to damage storage or to corrupt files) there are still systems responsible for pain and other more processor based responsibilities that aren’t centred in a physical organ that reads in fine print it’s function.

Breakdown being MECH’s first fully functional living mecha for their study is so exciting for them (even if Breakdown is very much less enthused) because they can put what knowledge they’ve pieced together to be far more efficient with their time and focus on the elements they could not decipher from either corpse or zombie and potentially try and prod at Breakdown’s brain for some cohesive coding. Good think Bulkhead still shows up when he does even with Breakdown walking away with the dreadful thought of ‘how the hell do these fleshies already know so much’ boring into his head… mainly through the optic that was still drilled out-

Whether or not MECH needs to get another living cybertronian to get caught up in their understanding of the biomechanics of them (aka would 'Operation: Bumblebee' take place as it does) or they skip right onto making a remote control Prime having gotten a headstart on their knowledge and scaring the scrap out of any bot unlucky enough to be unconscious around them, eventually Silas gets smooshed and MECH scientists are reliant on their alien dissections to get the human puree back to the land of the living.

I'd assume that this was the case in the original since if Silas' biomatter was able to be collected from a pile of robot drone induced rubble the RC truck would've been able to be recovered as well, but MECH discovers that using Nemesis Prime as a lifesupport system does not work given all it's functionality is focused on visually replicating another cybertronian, rather than using it to create life. There's a lot of parts and systems to a cybertronian's biological ecology that wasn't put into consideration for a mimic toy that prove detrimental to creating a suitable ah... skin suit essentially for Silas' blood pudding, but MECH has an abundance of corpses ready and raring to be used just so long as they piece them back together again.

Amid MECH's collection would no doubt be a mass of vehicon bodies - some untouched by energon others taken down explicitly by MECH because they were terrorcons - some terrorcons made up from the bodies of the previous conflict pre-show (and not just a hypothetical ancient war, but explicitly the conflict that culled a lot of Autobot and Decepticon officers amid the show expected vehicon death), and the very first cybertronian sample they started studying, Skyquake himself! Being at the origin of the blast at the EHP Comms Array he wasn't kept in perfect condition for one, the arm he loses as a terrorcon in the Shadowzone is still lost - it's been buried under rubble after being severed with radio tower pieces - and the monochromatic glass over his optics has long since been shattered so you can see the 'pupil' aka sensor, but seeing as how CYLAS makes Breakdown's corpse somehow look worse than what Airachnid left it as MECH probably has to suture that fucker back up because there's not way his organs have been left untouched!

And once CYLAS has been successfully integrated into his new cybertronian shell (some sort of arm, either being a loaner from another corpse or straight up just one MECH invented, it could even be a copy of the missing arm but where's the fun in that) instead of getting all high and mighty about 'being of a superior species' Silas actually bloody thinks on MECH's plans going forward. With a literal army of paramilitary personnel, from the scientists that melded human flesh with cybertronian wires to the average grunt soldier fighting between the battles of iron giants, CYLAS has something that Megatron (at least the Altered Loyalties Megatron I have written previously) has wanted from the start of the series...

An undying force.

For as large as cybertronians physically are their numbers can never match the scale of humanity, I can't remember if the books mentioned only thousands of the dead or up to a million over the course of like... a long fucking time but, that's not even the number of the human population if you're caught up with the number (nearly 8 billion alive today). And with the dead of previous battles already roaming the Earth, in a world where Megatron still being only like one dude can't command a planet wide population of zombies, the only reason he doesn't turn his blade to the weakest denominators of his forces in his plagued state is because their conscious decision to serve him is worth more than mindless servitude.

CYLAS introducing himself and MECH as a solution to this issue, and providing a show of bountiful body horror, makes not even the Decepticon high command quite as safe as they had been; not that it's been proven to be safe standing by Megatron's side given his track record of wanting his SiCs beaten or killed but...

The fact that CYLAS just so happened to have given and then promptly brutalised Dreadwing's hope that Skyquake may have been actually alive, just severely damaged (and, bond weakened from distance and prior injury, clinging to the last shreds of 'my spark didn't kill me with him' reasoning) and broke him out of the spell of blind loyalty to his once great leader.

CYLAS in this version has a little bit more longevity to his existence within the Decepticon forces, not actually a Decepticon soldier as the canon CYLAS pledged himself as but 'The Human Factor' the episode so calls itself akin to the way the American government and the human children are to the Autobots, but being able to physically go toe-to-toe with cybertronians. Megatron might be a little tired of dealing with independents after Airachnid's escapade (I do intend to make her more into a poacher/torturer type character than another Starscream so she might act out a little differently), but Silas isn't one for licking boots anytime soon and as CYLAS, Megatron is no different; you'd think he wouldn't have even done that in the first place given he's already an ex-military 'take-no-nonsense' bitch, but the Breakdown in him probably made him a lapdog...

Anyway that's a whole big post about Altered Loyalties CYLAS... or at least the in depth reasoning behind why he could still integrate himself into the story and why he'd probably have more opportunity to lasting- i prommy it's not bc i like torturing skyquake likers *wink*

I guess this is now a canon event or at least I'll try to make it canon ;)

[zponds]

Two weeks ago, I made a post showing my OCs from the (USA) Southern Railway. Now this post will go over my OCs from the third and final railroad that formed Burlington Northern; the…

Now these engines make up BNSF’s Great Northern heritage fleet…

and they’re only found on railroad lines and territories that were once owned by the Great Northern Railway.

Otis, the 2-8-2 class O8 #3388

Nancy, the 2-8-2 class O8 #3399

Anita, the 4-8-2 class P2 #2523

Kai, the 4-8-4 class S1 #2555

Sir Ibex, the 4-8-4 class S2 #2577

Ed, the 2-8-8-0 class N1 #2012

Edd, the 2-8-8-0 class N1 #2001

Eddy, the 2-8-8-0 class N1 #2005

Ned, the 2-8-8-0 class N1 #2020

Jessica, the EMD E7 #501 (the 1st Empire Builder engine)

Toad, the EMD E7 #504 (the 2nd Empire Builder engine)

Nya, the EMD E7 #503 (the 3rd Empire Builder engine)

Wilbur, the EMD F7 #352(a) (the 1st Western Star engine)

Lennon, the EMD F7 #361(a) (the 2nd Western Star engine)

Helen, the EMD F7 #365 (the 3rd Western Star engine)

Terk, the EMD F7 #274

Kala, the ALCO FA-2 #279

Daniel, the EMD GP35 #3022

Margret, the EMD GP35 #3031

Charlotte, the EMD GP35 #3034

[mathmusicninja]

Fun facts and little details about my fic "Wow, What a Coincidence" (part 3)

(part 1) (part 2)

(spoilers for WWAC under the cut)

Mikey to Big Raph: “Pretty sure you’re just reconstituted mutagen and moss, bro!” is a reference to tmnt 2012 s3 e1 “Within the Woods”

When Dee got spooked at Run of the Mill in chapter 20 and he started pacing next to the exit, Little Raph assumed it was because he wanted to leave asap, and that was part of it, he also wanted to be close to his Pop’s picture on the mural. Otherwise he would’ve left the building entirely

Lee mouthed off to Old Hob the instant he met him, and in that moment, Hob decided that if he had to leave one of the turtles behind it would be Lee

When Grampa Splinter came to visit, he stopped by the front desk first and did it all properly—he told them there was a family emergency and he had to see Angie immediately. The camp night staff were the ones who texted Big Raph to let him know Splinter was coming.

SAINW goop stuff—the blue goop healed their wounds. The first yellow orb restarted the heart and lungs, and the second restarted the rest of their insides. The third one, on their temples, restarted their brains. Yes Old Don has personal experience with all of this. No I don’t know any details about how that happened yet.

When Raphael was looking for Dee in the crowd at the end and caught a glimpse of the wrong shade of purple, it was actually a very brief look at Donatello from behind. He didn’t recognize his turtle shape because of the business suit :D

Michelangelo doesn’t know that Lee already had an invisible blaster :D

Leonardo’s comment about Señor Hueso’s hat is a callback to tmnt ’03 s1 e18 “Shredder Strikes Back Part 2” when all his brothers get to tell a bunch of Foot elite “Nice hats!” but Leo was busy being unconscious/severely injured to say it, too, and I thought he deserved the chance :D

The first time Michelangelo painted a set of turtles in his mural (the little ones on the pier), he had the orange one sitting apart from the others, alone and sad. When he looked at it again the next day, he came to a decision that he didn’t want to remember his brothers that way, so he painted over it and had them all together and happy.

The Franch theory dialog was a last-second addition, but it's one of my favorites since we see the whole Rise family break the 4th wall on several occasions

“Dad wouldn’t come out of the bushes!” is one of my favorite random lines XD

Another favorite random line: “Did someone say bugs? Don’t worry, I’ve got a blow torch—!”

[enthblaze]

the 2012 season 2 finale is my fucking roman empire

i dont think anything can top the way that finale changed the trajectory of my life

like yeah. okay. s3 and s4 finales are quite...something, and s1 was pretty close too, but s2 was just soooo

SOOOO...

you get me?

i have so many words to say about it but also nothing at all. maybe it was the sheer hopelessness, maybe it's the fact that when it aired, young me was convinced they'd save the world. because they were heroes and the heroes always win

but then Leo was put into a coma and Splinter was thrown down a drain pipe and the Kraang successfully invaded and the gang had to leave the city and-

something about that specific defeat clings onto me til this day. it's sometimes all i think about

[the-bitch-files]

Top Rated of 2024

Welcome to 2025! Here I'll be counting down my best TV shows, books, and films of the year. In the film and book categories, they were first watches/reads for me, so not necessarily released in 2024. However, for the TV shows, they were either first released or returning in 2024.

Best TV Shows of 2024

Rivals

Only Murders in the Building S4

Sweetpea S1

The Outlaws S3

English Teacher S1

9-1-1 S8 (ongoing)

Cobra Kai S6 (ongoing, parts 1 & 2 released)

The Bear S3

honourable mention: House (2004-2012)

Best Books of 2024

The White Album - Joan Didion

Zodiac - Robert Graysmith

The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides

Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen - Brian Rafferty

A Killer By Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind - Ann Wolbert Burgess

Best Films of 2024

Priscilla (2023, dir. Sofia Coppola)

The Iron Claw (2024, dir. Sean Durkin)

Longlegs (2024, dir. Osgood Perkins)

Oppenheimer (2023, dir. Christopher Nolan)

Kinds of Kindness (2024, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024, dir. Tim Burton)

Lisa Frankenstein (2024, dir. Zelda Williams)

Everybody Wants Some!!! (2016, dir. Richard Linklater)

Conclave (2024, dir. Edward Berger)

Trap (2024, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

The Holdovers (2023, dir. Alexander Payne)

Klute (1972, dir. Alan J. Pakula)

Hit Man (2024, dir. Richard Linklater)

May December (2023, dir. Todd Haynes)

[5-v-five]

dimension x doesn't make any sense to me (and no, i'm not talking about the physics of that dimension - that's actually really cool and i'll talk about it later)

we all know the hc that mikey really spent weeks/months/years alone in dimension x, and truly, it's a fun, angst-inducing hc

BUT

there are just way way way too many pieces of conflicting evidence for me to really accept that hc (for myself at least).

for one, in s2e12, "the manhattan project: part one," when the bros first go through a portable kraang portal, the portal ends up closing right behind them due to an earthquake knocking it down/shutting it.

when they go through the portal, though, they end up sort of in limbo, where they can see different worlds through different Kraang portals. one of those worlds is, ofc, dimension x.

looking through the portal, you can tell that the limbo-sort-of-place is on the same time schedule as dimension x, as it takes a normal amount of time for the kraang to attack them

however, the limbo place is also on the same timeline as their original dimension, because as soon as the portal falls in that dimension, it closes behind them in the limbo one (if that makes sense).

but if the limbo dimension was synced with dimension x, then wouldn't they have more time to go back to their original dimension before the portal closed?

MOVING ON

ok so i'm not really sure which came first (i'm rewatching 2012 rn and i haven't gotten there yet) but there are two more instances i would like to point out: when the bros team up with the mutanimals, and leatherhead

let's start with the bros all teaming up with the mighty mutanimals. don't ask me for the exact context yet (again, i'm rewatching and haven't gotten that far yet) but i do remember that the bros were all in dimension x while the mutanimals distracted the kraang on earth.

in that episode, there is no way that the bros are in that dimension for weeks/months/years, even though the mighty mutanimals distract the kraang for (maybe) a few hours on earth. it just doesn't make any sense.

finally, moving on to leatherhead. we know that he went to dimension x around the end of season one, and he makes an appearance again around the end of season 2, in the episode "into dimension x." when the turtles reunite with him, he tells them that he's been in dimension x for "many decades."

now, i estimate that each season of tmnt 2012 takes place about a year apart (so if they're 15 in the beginning of s1, they're 16 in the beginning of s2, etc). if leatherhead leaves at the end of s1, and comes back around the end of s2, then he's been gone for about a year for the turtles (again, based on my estimation). i also estimate that by "many decades," he means around 6, or 60 years (according to google, the average lifespan of an alligator is anywhere from 30-50 years, but who knows what mutagen does - i said he spent around 60 years in dimension x bc it seemed like a good estimation).

so, with that logic, we have 1 year on Earth = 60 years on Dimension X.

that also means that 1 second on Earth = 60 seconds on Dimension X.

let's go back to mikey's adventure in dimension x.

the bros go in just about two seconds after him, which would mean that mikey was alone in dimension x for just about two minutes.

but how do you explain mikey's immense knowledge of dimension x in only two minutes? i have two very, incredibly reasonable explanations for this:

1 - mikey is a genius / incredibly adaptable / terrifyingly competent - this one just kind of makes sense to me, even if he doesn't act that smart in the regular show. i really think that mikey is incredibly smart, just not in ways most people recognize

OR, my personal favorite...

2 - dimension x doesn't operate on a linear timeline. i mean, think about it - it's physics are all messed up, so why wouldn't its time be? it's very possible that dimension x's timeframe shifts occasionally / randomly, and there's no real way of predicting it. idk if i'm explaining this right so let me elaborate - if dimension x speeds up or slows down at random moments, then it could be that mikey spent years in dimension x in the two seconds that his brothers were on earth. it's also possible that, much like how gravity affects time in our solar system, certain people perceive time in dimension x differently, if that makes sense. (this is where it gets a little murky, so bear with me). without his brothers, mikey could very well have felt like he was trapped in dimension x for hours or years, but once his brothers got there, it slowed down for him. leatherhead could have felt like decades went by while he was fighting/in captivity of the kraang. time in dimension x could be influenced by your situation

*all of this is not to say that i don't like the mikey-angst-dimension-x hc - i just think it's really interesting how dimension x relates to earth in the show. i also think that a lot of these uncertainties come from lazy or inconsistent writing, but the writing of 2012 does leave a lot to be desired sometimes (but that's a whole other rant).

anyway, i definitely didn't mean for this to get so long, so thanks for reading all of this!! :)

[ivysangel]

Omg I’m watching yj rn cuz I haven’t seen the show since maybe 2012 or 2013 so it’s been a while for this girl and I have no one else to talk to about this.

~Mild spoilers ahead for those who haven’t caught up~

But I just have to say that the writers are gonna be fending off more then just these hands for the bloody time skips they did. When s1 ended I was so excited for season 2, and then after a quick recap of the new years scene we get blasted 5 years later!!!?!?!?! uHMMMM HELLO?!?!???? WTF IS THIS ??? I WAS EXPECTING TEAM BEHAVIOUR AND THIS IS SO NOT TEAM BEHAVIOUR!!! I WANTED GROWTH!! I WANTED TO GET TO LIKE THESE CHARACTERS MORE AND UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIPS!! And they hit us with the oop aqualad is now an enemy, yeah Tula joined the team but died, Dick and Zatanna aren’t together but he’s with Barbara now, Barb is also disabled, Jason was a part of the team for a while but of course died, etc etc like it was huh after huh after HUH cuz a lot can happen in 5 years and I’m cheesed we didn’t have season 2 to ride the wave a little longer with the team while they were midteens before we got a switch up and suddenly they’re in their 20s and mentoring, and we got introduced to a new team like 2 or 3 times

And with each time skip I’d just get more and more steamed cuz this feels like when you have a friend that you’ve known for ages but suddenly decides to drop new lore and you’re like 👁️👄👁️ what do you mean you were pregnant at 15 and found out at a Wendy’s bathroom????? Like it felt like being hit with a truck hearing all the things that happened during the time skip cuz as of right now I’m on the latest season and there’s queer relationships that were dropped like a bomb. Don’t get me wrong I’m not mad about it at all but with kal I was like who?when?? And with Lagoonboy I was like aww he looks so happy with her! Wait did she just say husband??? But that’s not….. omg this dude is a home wrecker!!! ohhhhh ok he’s in a poly relationship…. WAIT A MINUTE A POLY RELATIONSHIP??? It was just coming out of nowhere unless I missed hints being dropped in earlier episodes or seasons. Probably the sap in me but I would’ve liked to be introduced to these other characters and see how they caught feelings and got together instead. We’ve had a few episodes about Halo figuring herself out both with sexuality and gender preferences, and her religion as well which does make sense when you were previously a living machine. But nothing for Kaldur or lagoonboy???? I would’ve loved to have seen that unfold instead of some other episodes that were more of a snooze fest for me

hihihi sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for so long, i got this crazy influx of yj related asks that were all so long so i've been spacing out my responses!!

but you are so right, the time jumps are so heinous because half the time we don't even get flashbacks to supplement any of the missing plot. they fully just drop bombs on the viewers and expect everyone to just accept it. it's very jarring to get attached to a team and then see the whole team split up the next season with absolutely no warning.

(also idk why this just came to mind but does anyone else remember when orm was camped out in that house trying to kill everybody at that birthday party???? what the fuck was that about??? was that crucial to the plot...did i miss smth)

BUT YEAH. there's a whole lot of "did i miss something"s floating around for s2-4. i would literally sit in front of a paused screen and try to figure out if any dots connected bc i was so lost.

i also really liked how we got halo's sexuality and gender identity arc but i do wish they had done the same for kaldur since he's such a massive part of the show. i wouldn't be mad at one for lagoon boy either, but his plots generally don't mean as much for me since he was really only there as a piece of the m'gann + conner plot.