It *is* a problem that charismatic species are often focused on for conservation at the expense of less charismatic but important species, but threatened species that are the subject of a lot of public outreach and education are also typically strategically selected.

I suspect that monarch butterflies are an example of this. Milkweed is a highly valuable plant for pollinators and a host plant for like. 400+ insect species. Getting people to plant it to save monarchs is funny because you're essentially finessing people into saving a ton of other insects that they wouldn't ordinarily care about

The tendency for the TMNT franchise to focus mostly on Leo and Raph really does go right back to the beginning. It's not that the Mirage turtles don't have individual personalities, but Raph and Leo get quite vivid personalities, even from volume one where there's not a whole lot of focus on anything except action, while Donatello and Michelangelo get much less. It's not until they break into the TCRI building that Donatello gets anything more than "knows some computer programming" and Michelangelo is still, by the end of the space arc, mostly defined as the other turtle with a lot of energy and therefore Raph's buddy in roughhousing.

The funny thing is this A-team/B-team split isn't a thing at all in 87. Raphael gets a very different personality (which is interesting since he's the turtle with the most defined personality already in Mirage), Donatello and Michelangelo have their personalities made up mostly out of whole cloth, and then the four of them get very even focus. It seems like the tendency to focus on clashes between Raphael and Leonardo while Michelangelo and Donatello are less involved was reintroduced by things going back to Mirage for inspiration.

Turtle lock its a turtle lock y'all!

Mirage turtles are just as likely as 03 turtles to have an adventure happen because they saw someone and decided to protect them immediately.

Mirage!TMNT is a lot more fun than I expected. I don't think Turtles Forever really did these guys justice either. They do kill bad guys very casually but aside from that they're not really mean or anything.

I'm only a few issues in but it's much more action-packed than grimdark and at the moment a lot like reading a speeded up version of 03.

Don's pigeon puppet for covering security cameras is Mirage canon.

Sunset Duo ‘87 Version 🧡❤️

Colored that traditional sketch from earlier with a new rendering style vv happy with it! :]

Natural rainbow Iris agate.

I like the idea that they're about the same strength as Rise, we do see them do similar things - with a similar level of "is this cartoon logic or are these turtles really that strong?"

03 and 12 definitely aren't as strong/tough largely because their genre leans more towards making even human enemies a more serious threat to them.

Yeah, outside pure strength Rise definitely have some advantages even without ninpo. Their shape gives them more reach and makes them less throwable, they are faster, and they are (aside sometimes from Leo) better at keeping their feet under them.

I really like Rise going with Krang turning the sky red! It's such a fun way to make "the sky going red means things are more serious now" diagetic.

I wonder who is strongest, the 87 turtles or Rise?

Once ninpo is in the mix it's definitely Rise, but without ninpo I've never seen them casually tear through sheet metal. Or lift a van over their heads with one turtle at each corner.

Raph definitely could throw the couch for a joke if he wanted to, though.

Yeah, that looks like they might reasonably have what real turtles have, which is loose enough skin to tuck their heads down into little pockets.

@iztarshi @snoftshell-snurtle This animation is better

Oh no. It may well be.

My complaint about 12 can be summed up as "their shells have the consistency of a wellington boot". If you have turtles doing ninja moves you're going to have to fake it and make the shells flexible sometimes, but 12's are modelled as flexible all the time. They'll be running along with their shell visibly twisting over the hips and it's not even an action scene.

Huh. So they can go into their shells completely. I thought it was just partly/their head. Still kind of cursed though.

"don't mass reblog/like :/" coward. fool. somebody just went through and liked and reblogged 64 things from my blog in the span of half an hour at most. and i've never felt more alive in my life

I’m so emotional about dinosaur stuffed animals,,, there are these creatures, extinct long before any of us were alive, but we found their bones and their eggs and their footprints. And we made drawings and models of what they could’ve looked like. And we made them into stuffed animals so we could hold them. We made them soft so we could love them. I’m sobbing

#this is one of my favorite donatello moments. recorded in my notes simply as ATTABOY#it IS cursed. they don't HAVE full shells their flanks are just squishy turtle skin and yet.#i do love the little mask tail bow sticking out#1987#donatello

This is also just incredibly not how it works even for turtles that DO have full shells.

Turtles don't have an individual hole for each limb and one for their head. They have a shell that goes around the sides, with a hole at the top for the head and front legs and a hole at the bottom for the legs and tail.

Rise and 12 get it right. Batman vs tmnt fakes it really well for turtles without a full shell by having the side kind of close up.

When 87 duck their heads in they do get it right, by having them able to duck their heads in a really long way but not having a hole open up between their shoulder blades.

Realistically for 87 they'd just pull their limbs in really close to their sides so they're protected by the carapace and plastron despite the missing/vestigial bridge. But treating them as squishy and letting them pull their legs into themselves without visible little round holes opening up would still be better than this!

ETA: On further thought, maybe treating them as squishy would be more realistic than just pulling their limbs in close? Their bridges might be vestigial, but they'd still have to be there since that's, y'know, their rib cage. So basically you have to think of them as able to put their arms inside their rib cage.

Huh. So they can go into their shells completely. I thought it was just partly/their head. Still kind of cursed though.

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Yeah, that sounds right!

87 tend to take it on the shell, they don't get their heads bashed in and walk it off.

I wonder who is strongest, the 87 turtles or Rise?

Once ninpo is in the mix it's definitely Rise, but without ninpo I've never seen them casually tear through sheet metal. Or lift a van over their heads with one turtle at each corner.

Raph definitely could throw the couch for a joke if he wanted to, though.

Coral Reef Textile Art // Evas Doodlings

Huh. So they can go into their shells completely. I thought it was just partly/their head. Still kind of cursed though.