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I can’t watch Bonds Beyond Time

because all I hear is this guy talking like this. Like, I almost literally cannot hear anything he actually says.

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Testing

With Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged

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Oh my gosh, so many stairs. I’d like to fight whoever invented the stairs, and push him down these stairs, just to show him how stupid stairs are. Then his legs will be broken, then he will no longer be able to climb the stairs anymore. It’ll be ironic. And then his wife will leave him and go be with the man who invented the elevator, because everyone knows that elevators are much sexier than stairs. And oh my gosh I’m not even close to being at the top yet WHY ARE THERE SO MANY STAIRS.

Seto Kaiba, Yu Gi Oh Abridged (via ladydidichan)

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I react that way when I see a computer.

Ooohhhh, Shiny!

I think most of us react this way when we see something shiny.

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Tristan: Joey, no! If you get too angry you'll turn into the Incredible Hulk!

Téa: Tristan, that's Bruce Banner.

Tristan: I thought it applied to everyone.

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Ha ha ha ha

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Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged Explaining the Show

What is it about?

Can you explain further?

And sometimes...

With  a side of...

But eventually...

What kind of stuff happens?

And what are the game rules?

Hmm, what was the motivation behind it?

Are you a good loser?

How do you celebrate after winning?

And here’s a bonus: Dark Magician as a vampire.

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“Who needs Donatello anyway? We can do our own handyman stuff!”

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“Finale” Wasnt and Will Never Be Canon

Note: Its not canon. Simple as that.

As to why ANYONE would want this finale canon is beyond me. I for one am glad its not.

Spoilers will be in this so I suggest if your going to watch and not want spoilers then dont read beyond this point.

Keep reading

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My verdict on the TMNT 2012 finale:

It can’t possibly be canon with the rest of the series.

And I’m not saying that because I didn’t like it or because it was too sad or whatever.  I’m saying it because it was so contrary to the rest of the show that it has to take place in some AU.

1. The character designs. The character designs are too different. I can reconcile Raph getting buffer, Mikey wasting away alone in a wasteland, Donnie taking after his Uncle Fugitoid, and Leo double-mutating.  The things I can’t reconcile are those fingernails! 

The turtles never had fingernails in this series.

And hair!

Were the turtles all shaving this whole series? And not just their chins, but their heads? And their eyebrows? We’ve seen them maskless. They did not have eyebrows. 

2. Renet

While it is true that we saw the turtles save the world many times over the course of the series, I highly doubt they would be celebrated in the 25th century if that mutagen bomb went off… not only because their previous world-savings would be meaningless, but also because Renet and many others wouldn’t exist to celebrate them. Raph said that all the humans died. Then where’d Renet come from? D’Hoonib? Is that the Fugitoid thing Ciro said he’s working on? Fugitoid bringing D’Hoonibians to Earth and restarting the human race that way?

Even so, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’d make more sense if Renet obsessed over Fugitoid, if this is the case.

3. That mutagen bomb

The Kraang have been defeated for some time. This story comes out of nowhere, as if it takes place in an alternate reality where the Kraang weren’t defeated.  If this arc existed in the same universe as the rest of the show, a lot more information would be needed, I think. Where did the mutagen bomb come from? Who set it off? Where’d they get all the mutagen? WHY did they set it off? 

4. The futility 

What was the point of telling a story for nearly five years about brave heroes saving the world if they didn’t in the end? If this arc were canon, everything Brandon and Ciro worked so hard to build would be meaningless. #Ecclesiastes1, am I right?

5. “offer glimpses of their possible futures.”

This article used the word “possible,” as in, not set in stone. If this arc were their official future, surely this article would’ve said, “offer a glimpse into their futures.”

6. “In this reality…”

Felipe Smith, a character designer for the show, said in a video interview that came out recently, “In this reality, there are no humans anymore.” If this arc were canon, wouldn’t he say, “In the future,” or even “in this future” instead of, “in this reality?” It sounds like this arc really does take place in an alternate reality.

In conclusion:

I really think that seasons 1-4 of the show were the main story, while season 5 was just a chance for a little epilogue work (the Kavaxas arc, When Worlds Collide, and the crossover), getting to do things they never got around to doing (Lone Rat and Cubs), and doing things they thought would be fun to do, like all the monster stuff, the Usagi arc, and this Mad Max thing. 

The Mutant Apocalypse arc doesn’t seem like the finale to the show at all, even if Ciro said they did this so no one else could go in and change the timeline.

That doesn’t make sense though, since this arc does change the timeline of everything they had built. It even changed the turtles’ fingers! Maybe this is just to deter less analytical people from making sequels while really they just wanted to do a Mad Max thing.

The future arc may have been last in the production order, but the Crossover arc will be the last one to air on Nickelodeon. In that sense, the series will end with Bopsteady riding off into the sunset and April kissing Donnie in a non-canon but still adorable music video. 

Or, you could choose to view “Owari” as the series finale with some of season 5 being a bit of an epilogue. That works, too. Or even “End Times.”  There are a lot of episodes more like a finale than the Mutant Apocalypse arc.

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Really weird to me

It’s really weird to me how some fans are really, really clinging to authorial authority as a determinant of canon, insisting that “this is just the way it is, you gotta accept it” and “this is what they wanted, so that’s the canon.” 

Uh, no. You don’t just get to wipe away previous canon (the Kraang’s destruction, Renet) so you can decide that your NEW story is the REAL canon. That is the sign of extraordinarily bad and lazy writing, as is negating the entire POINT of the series for no discernible reason (why should we care about the Turtles saving the world for five years… if they’re just going to fail and all they did was postpone the inevitable?). When something happens that contradicts canon, IT is considered the bad and non-canon event, not the preceding canon.

And if you can only justify those events by going against canon or trying to wallpaper over the inconsistencies (”Maybe Renet’s not from the future, but a parallel world!”)… just don’t. A good, canonically sound work wouldn’t need that.

Canon is not determined by authorial decisions alone. And just because it’s darker and a downer ending or similar to the comics or whatever shit… doesn’t make it superior or “right.”

And are you really so married to Ciro Nieli’s vision when he basically set the show on fire and ruined everything we loved… because he was paranoid that Nick would do that? Because that was his stated reason, folks. Apparently he don’t give a damn how we feel, because he’d rather destroy what we loved about the show and make everything about it pointless.

Finally, to anyone who is clinging to the Apocalypse arc as the canon finale, please stop telling others that they have to accept the Apocalypse arc as the real ending. There’s more than enough From Upstairs (Brandon Auman, official TMNT twitter, etc) to suggest that it is NOT canon, so it’s at least a valid viewpoint on what is canon, not just a headcanon.

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An open letter to Ciro Nieli

I know people are probably sick of my rantings about the topic of the finale, but since we now know that Ciro Nieli or someone one close to him reads some of these postings, I felt like it would be best to write an open letter talking about why I’ve responded this way to the finale. I don’t expect anything to come of it, but I need to express myself.

To all others, if you agree with what I say, feel free to let me know. it’s rather long.

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Dear Mr. Nieli,

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t understand you at all.

The first four-and-a-half seasons of the TMNT 2012 series are one of the best combinations of action/scifi, family drama and comedy that I’ve ever seen, and you reconstructed the TMNT characters in ways that felt fresh and engaging. I really liked this series, and best of all it seemed to have a pretty steady balance of everything that made it appealing throughout the series.

That’s what makes the entire Mutant Apocalypse arc so painful. And this isn’t a good kind of pain. It’s the difference between a muscle aching because you ran faster than ever before, and a painful crack on the head because someone threw a lump of cement.

Simply put, I do not understand crafting likable, well-rounded characters that people identify with, and then inflicting unspeakable loneliness, desolation and loss on them for the rest of their lives. I’m fully aware that lots of creative types enjoy inflicting a certain amount of misery on their characters, and that is healthy for storytelling. You don’t want the characters to have an easy time achieving things, and the bigger the struggle, the more rewarding the payoff. 

But there’s no payoff here. No light at the end of the tunnel in this arc is even CLOSE to big enough to eclipse all that pain. Other losses in the series made sense within the story, such as Splinter’s death. Not this.

We like to see some kind of importance attached to suffering, especially when it takes up almost the characters’ entire lives. It would have been more acceptable if they had somehow been able to put the past world to rights, or even had a glimpse of a possible future of that sort coming from their pain, but… no, there isn’t really anything to show for it.

Similarly, I don’t understand crafting a long, complex tale of hard-fought victories against the bad guys, and subsequently making all those victories… completely pointless. Again, struggle for the characters is healthy and right, and not every battle will be won. But the finale showed nothing the Turtles did - saving their friends, saving humanity, fighting the Kraang, battling Shredder - actually mattered in the end. Had they done nothing, the same outcome would have come about, just a little sooner. 

Finally, I don’t understand crafting a story in a franchise as old and beloved as the TMNT, drawing in new fans and old with such obvious affection for the various previous incarnations of the story in the past, and making people feel such a strong empathetic bond to the characters… and then inverting their love for the show, hurting them in the process. I believe that fans should be rewarded on some level for their love of a property, shown respect and appreciation, and yes, even consideration for what would make them happy in the end. Obviously a series shouldn’t be just about what the fans want… but it shouldn’t totally disregard them.

This is especially true because I saw the interview with you where it was revealed that the motivation for setting this a half-century ahead, in a Mad Max-land, is just to keep anyone from messing with continuity (even though I doubt anyone would, since a new series is starting soon). The best finales, in my experience, are ones done with love and appreciation, both for the fans and the characters. 

A few seconds of serenity at the end doesn’t erase everything that came before it - fifty years of misery, the pointlessness, and the impression that sticking it to Nick was the priority over fans.

I don’t understand any of these things.

You may feel that I “don’t get it” or that I’m missing the subtext and messages that were in the MA arc. I’m not. I see it. I get it. I simply don’t feel that it was well done as an ending; I feel that what we got was wildly ill-proportioned to anything that came before, and was done without respect for the fans. I’m not the kind of person who accepts the idea that fans should shut up and accept what they’re given, and that gratitude for the good means that you shouldn’t protest the bad.

If I may speak about myself for a moment, I have had bad experiences with television series in the past, and have gotten my heart broken by needlessly loss-filled, tragic endings before. For many years I swore off watching any show that hadn’t ended yet so I could see whether it would do the same. I took a chance with TMNT 2012, and it bit me on the ass.

And in all honesty, I cannot bring myself to watch the show now. 

Every time I try, all I can think about is how sad, hopeless and hollow it all seems. The MA arc is infecting the rest of the series like a virus, making me constantly remember that these lovable characters are doomed to several decades of misery and/or death, and that nothing they do will end up mattering in the long run. 

Maybe that thought doesn’t bother you, Mr. Nieli. But it does bother me. 

I know I’m not alone in this sentiment; I’ve seen other fans who are devastated by this, such as a fan artist I heard about who is stopping because the finale hurt her so much. I know that it may seem like overreacting to you, but it’s a genuine feeling that should be examined and respected just as much as the positive reactions to the finale - if not more so, since criticism is needed to show any creative types what goes wrong in their work.

I can accept the MA arc as an alternative universe story, or a what-if scenario, or as the prelude to some story involving Renet or Fugitoid doing some time-bending to avert the disaster - any of those would work, although I suspect you’d never do the last option. But on its own, it makes me miserable and unable to enjoy the series that made me so invested in the first place. 

Had I known how viewing the latest one would end up, I honestly would never have started watching it in the first place. I’ve not only seen an episode that was unpleasant for me - I lost a show I enjoyed.

I’ve started watching the old 2003 animated series recently, and though I’m fully aware of its flaws, it has a definite advantage over the 2012 one: it is completely over and I can appreciate it and enjoy it without fear of being rewarded with more pain when I get attached to the story and characters.

If by some minor chance you see this open letter, please do not dismiss my thoughts on this matter, or think I’m taking it all too seriously, or that I “don’t get it.” Please consider them, and attempt to understand them. 

Yours,

A onetime viewer

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An interesting detail

I’ve been seeing people arguing that Viacom/Nickelodeon doesn’t have any right to determine to what’s canon in TMNT 2012, and Ciro Nieli does. Usually using terrible comparisons like comparing the show to a book written straight from an author’s brain, rather than like a franchise material using stuff that already existed, like a Star Trek spinoff.

Then I found this.

http://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/ask-pl-15.html?showComment=1461119941525#c2929140688557061094

Methinks the actual co-creator of the franchise and characters has more right than a show runner to say what is and isn’t canon in the continuity he created, but he acknowledges that the franchise canon belongs to Viacom. 

QED.

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On TMNT and intellectual property

Rant alert. 

I’ve seen some knuckleheads at the Technodrome forum declaring that Viacom/Nickelodeon declaring the Mutant Apocalypse arc non-canon is null and void, because they’re a “soulless” corporation and Ciro Nieli is the one who made the series and decides what’s canon.

Uh, no. Not at all. The fact is, NICKELODEON/VIACOM get to determine what canon is because the property is theirs. Not just TMNT 2012, but lock, stock and franchise. It all boils down to one thing: intellectual property.

Keep reading