#But I really love both 03 and rise raph

[familyofpaladins]

11.) Which version of Raphael is your favorite?

thanks for the ask!! Great question!

OH MAN HARD TO CHOOSE

But I think I'm going to have to say it's a tie between 2003 Raph and Rise Raph!

Rise raph is great because he's the big brother. He loves his younger brothers so much and would do anything to protect them, even when they're annoying dumb idiots lol. He doesnt like being apart from them, sometimes so much it literally drives him crazy, or he makes him tie themselves all together in a giant turtle ball lol. He does also fight and tease his brothers but it's all done out of love. He's really just a giant marshmallow at heart and how could you not love him?

2003 Raph on the outside is grumpy and gruff but he really isn't nearly as angry as he appears! When he's upset over a missing Master Splinter he goes out to look around and cool off, and ends up helping a kid (who punched him in the face TWICE)! He sits and chats with a little old blind lady. He helps Leo reforge his swords after they got broken by the

He worries so much about hurting his brothers and Knows he had anger issues. When Leo is in his broody/angry/nothing-I-do-is-good-enough phase, Taph knows what it's like to be angry a

Like there are actually very few instances where Rpah is actually truly angry at his brothers. Most of his arguing is either tough love or teasing.

He loves his brothers. He may not really admit it in so many words but he shows it in actions. He defends them and has their backs and he'd do anything for them.

He's just so good okay

[yellowhollyhock]

Why March for Raph specifically? Isn't Donatello your favorite character? And your polls in the past have suggested Mikey is most underrated?

Well, imaginary person asking very helpful questions giving me direct opportunities to provide some exposition, let me tell you!

I'll explain below the cut because the point of this post is actually the link above (in red), and this is a non-essential lore drop for readers who want that for some reason idk I can't stay in character any longer

Reason 1: my beloved Raph friends

I know I talk a lot about Raph and say a lot about relating to Donnie, but really, I love all the turtles and Aprils equally and in different ways (Caseys and Splinters are different, another discussion altogether). I do identify the most with Donatello though, and that's important. I love the other characters through a loving Donatello lens.

And that's why Raph is so dear to me. Because there I am, a Donatello lover who has only ever participated in fandom privately or with occasional likes/reblogs, deciding to get into TMNT. Like actually get into it, be a part of the community, make some friends. Find my people.

And there are the Raph fans, especially 03 since that's what I was most into at the beginning (still? fluctuates more but it'll always be a fave). There was some discussion amongst that part of the fandom at the time of the difficulty in finding 03 Raph-centric content. Firstly, I was very invested in seeing takes on Raph that explored what I loved about him, took the angst deeper than canon (directly) acknowledged, showed the strengths that sometimes get overlooked (in canon and fanon). Secondly, I was posting about all the turtles and the Raph fans responded.

When you're brand new nobody in a fandom that feels huge in a franchise you're forty years late to? To have people express interest in what you're saying and share their ideas with you and follow up on your ideas? It's like

Imagine you're Donatello and all you did was make a small little thing that you wanted to make and had fun making. And then there's Raph. Obviously you're gonna love the guy

there are quite a few beloved friends who know who they are, and very especially @nightwatcherraph

Reason 2: check out the range

Raph is such an interesting character to use as a jumping off point for discussion of the whole franchise and how it's changed over the years. Out of all the turtles, he's the most varied in many ways

I attribute that mostly to Mirage and 1987. They're both just so iconic, and so different. It creates a fascinating split foundation for future iterations to draw from!

Reason 3: Rise

Hello Rise fandom. Immediately easy to find if you are first getting into tmnt, at first confusing because I was looking for 03. I love the rise show, second tmnt I watched and absolutely adored, and I'm pretty sure I'd written a couple rise stories already before March for Raph was born. But the amount of welcome that I've received in the Rise fandom while barely even being in it is like.. I dunno how to explain, it's a very nice fandom. Very very large fandom which is why I tend not to make much for it (crowds are intimidating) and in my experience so so welcoming. As soon as I posted about the idea for March for Raph first time, Rise fandom rose up 🫡 Really living up to the name of the show.

And Raph specifically is the perfect character for this because 1) by making him the leader Rise focused on Raph in a new way that highlighted personality traits which are oft overlooked in the red turtles, 2) Rise Leo or Donnie would have attracted everybody at once and I would be flattened like a beetle in a stampede, 3) I don't have a third reason but if I did you'd be like "that's a good reason"

I sometimes think that maybe someday I'll do events like this for other turtles, especially Mikey since he does so often under-perform in polls and I have very many thoughts about him that I haven't really posted about,, but one month out of the year comes up quicker than you'd think. also, idk. It's gotta fit, y'know? anyways y'all should @ me if you know of any Mikey events

[bambiraptorx]

Since you been watching 03 I know you are a rise fan so I am curious for each of the main cast what’s your overall feelings on them? I mean splinter and the turtles lol

I've been enjoying 2003 a lot! It's fun seeing how the characters have a lot of the same base personality traits, but they manifest differently, and how similar traits are given to different characters.

Splinter's definitely fun to watch. He's in an interesting space between largely being the Wise Old Mentor character but occasionally getting to also just be silly and tease his kids. I love it when he gets little stuff to flesh him out more like the fact that he's crazy good at poker. Realistically speaking he's also a better dad than Rise Splinter in the sense that he's more emotionally available/ involved in his kids lives (not to put down Rise Splinter because he definitely has his own stuff going on, but 03 Splinter doesn't have as much to cope with so he's more present).

Raph reminds me of those jokes about short people being angrier because their rage is more concentrated. He has Constant Emotions and all of them are on a scale from mild annoyance to Murder. His dynamic with Mikey is also fun to watch because it boils down to "Mikey says something dumb/annoying and Raph smacks him for it" a lot of the time, but it's clear that it's good natured. I also get the sense that Raph likes fighting more than his brothers? Like, they do it because they have to and/or it's necessary in a given situation. Raph just genuinely likes punching people. He and Rise Raph would probably get along over watching wrestling.

Leo is interesting because he's not nearly as Goofy Silly as Rise Leo tends to be, but he definitely has his moments. They both love their puns, that's for sure lol. I think he also goes through more over the course of his show than Leo does in Rise (because Rise Leo's Trauma Arc is mainly in the movie) so he ends up more serious as a result of that. Yes he's the responsible one in 2003, but he also is going through traumas big and small from episode one when his home is destroyed. I could easily see post-movie Rise Leo acting more like 03 Leo does, more serious and focused on being responsibility but also still open to joking and messing around.

Donnie is, at least outwardly, calmer and more restrained than Rise Donnie. He's not intentionally responsible like Leo is, but he also doesn't get himself into as much trouble the way Raph and Mikey tend to. He still ends up in wild situations of course but it's not really his fault, generally. He's definitely the Nerd One but it's done in a way that allows him to have other interests outside of his tech (and yeah his brothers tease him about things like his fascination with dinosaurs but it's good natured lol).

And Mikey. He's the epitome of Silly Goofy Comic Relief, occasionally Crouching Moron Hidden Badass, and canonically kills a man at least once. (Seriously. Most of the time 2003 tends to show people survive getting beat up by the turtles somehow but Mikey straight-up activated a grenade a triceraton had and then ran away as the guy exploded. That guy is *dead*.) His love of super heroes and comics is endearing, even if it meshes a bit weirdly at times with the fact that the heroes he reads about actually exist. Who is making comics and TV shows about those people. If he and Rise Mikey tried to hang out there would be so much chaos.

[taffycandyqt]

Who’s your favorite side character from a piece of tmnt media! (Or just a character outside of the main group!)

87' defiantly Casey Jones, i know in every other iteration his is apart of the main cast, but in 87' he is most defiantly a side character, but boi has my heart. then Mona Lisa, Irma, lotus blossom, and then maybe leatherhead. He's a silly guy.

03' probably angle and leatherhead, He's a silly guy in this one too but more of cutie silly guy ya know. Then Karai and Baxter Stockman, absolute bosses, they friggin ate.

12' would have to say ice cream kitty and chompy. I know they're both technically pets... but ya know they got some likeable personalities. then it would be mona lisa, she slays and i love her but her character really only matters when raph needs development of some kind. She's still awesome tho, which is why she stays.

from rise I'd probably say piebald, big mama, and Sheldon. These ones in no specific order. i just love <3

[yzafre]

What are some of your favorite character relationships/dynamics in TMNT, and why? Is there anything that you particularly like seeing explored with them in fan works (art, writing, comics, etc)?

Ooooh, great question!

Well, so far the shows I've watched are Rise, '12, and '03.

With '03, I think it was the first time I really got why the Leo-Raph dynamic was such a big deal in the fandom, in the way people talk about it. The City at War arc, man... not to mention Raph's unique perspective/understanding whenever Leo goes off the rails at different points... They don't understand each other while also fundamentally understanding each other. It's fascinating. Best Leader-Lancer relationship of the shows I've watched so far.

This is much less serious, but also in '03 the Mikey-Donnie relationship got me from very early on. That scene when they're setting up the lair, and Mikey comes to bother Donnie all "hey, hey, hear me ouuuuuut". And you just. You can just tell that he's done this for years, and that Donnie loves and hates it in equal measure. I was immediately charmed.

Also Leo and Usagi. I don't really care whether their friends or a ship, they're just fun. They genuinely just get each other, and enjoy each other's presence, and also hold a lot of the same values which is. Wonderful for Leo! I love watching characters who just obviously enjoy each others' presence.

As a more vague concept, I love how well '03 did at giving the turtles, like. Friends. Made them feel like they developed a real support network. Leo and Usagi, as mentioned. But also, like... Raph and that old lady (who I'm sorry he didn't interact with more). Donnie and the Professor. Mikey and the Justice Force! I like when they find people who actually click with a part of themselves their brothers can't, and I like the way it makes the world feel... bigger. More real.

In Rise I really enjoy the dynamics Mikey has with both Donnie and Leo (and am sad we never got episodes exploring what was going on with him and Raph!). Repo Mantis and You Got Served come immediately to mind. It's like - the Rise brother's are extremely Creatures of Chaos, but now Donnie and Leo have to also be Older Brothers, along with that. It's very fun.

Also! Splinter and April. I actually liked them a lot in '03, too - but the sense of camaraderie in Rise is a bit different. Their shenanigans in Shadow of Evil. Their entire episode together in Always Be Brownies! Like... Splinter is in many ways depicted as closer to April than to his sons, which is. Sad. But also fascinating! And they're genuinely fun to watch.

Now, I like fan-works for all of them, but I like seeing it most for '12, because, well. I'm on-record saying the writing of the show itself didn't do much for me on the character front. It was far more interested in its plot over it's character arcs/dynamics, which is okay, just...

They set up such! Interesting stuff!! And didn't do anything with it!!! '12 was constantly dropping dialogue lines or conflicts that modern cartoons have trained me to believe would get resolved later down the line. And then they don't. But if you start sort of. Jig-saw puzzling the bits they gave us...

Leo needs them to just listen to him, he's trying his best, but also internalizes everything way too much where sometimes things really just. Aren't problems he should be taking on himself. Raph genuinely needs everyone to be a bit more compassionate and patient with him when he's trying, and also has some bad habits and coping mechanisms. Donnie needs some fucking appreciation for carrying the team on the tech front, and also has. Well. The April thing. Mikey needs his brothers to listen to him and be a bit less condescending, and also needs to be more self-aware of the impact he has other people and learn to take up some responsibility.

And they all love each other. And they all struggle to understand each other. And the show didn't actually write any of it, leaving all these random hooks lying on the floor, mostly using it for jokes, and I love fan-works for properly exploring it.

This wasn't supposed to be a '12 rant. Where was I? Right, character relationships I enjoy. Genuinely, I find something to enjoy in every pair, but these are the ones that jumped to mind most immediately. It went longer than I planned, but character arcs/relationships are kind of my happy place in stories, so it was fun to talk about.

Thanks for asking!

[goodlucktai]

Didn’t want to overwhelm what I’m sure is a very full inbox, since I’ll admit I have submitted a few requests before — but periodically I can’t pass up the chance when you say they’re still open (pending your whim, of course, as it should be). so anyway. I ADORE your tmnt 2003/2012 crossover where the 12s are looking for their sensei, all from 03s POV. And then I ALSO ADORE the 2012/Rise, from 12Mikey’s POV about Little Blue. So — any chance you fancy a 2003/Rise crossover? Perhaps an 03Leo observation of the absolutely terrifying raw power these bitty baby turtles call ninpo? 03Donnie trying to make sense of RiseMikey yeeting a cargo ship? Rise boys pointing out 03Raph’s accent as the only new yorker? that’s a bunch sorry have a lovely day!

x

It happens on an unremarkable Tuesday night, as they’re heading home from a relatively quiet patrol. Raph is grumbling under his breath because he still has energy to burn, and one tussle with the Dragons was about one-tenth of the outlet he was looking for. 

Mikey’s natural state of being is still-has-energy-to-burn and he walks backwards to make a moue of false sympathy in Raph’s direction.  

“Aww, poor Raphie,” the little menace coos. “We’ll find you another head to knock, I promise.”

“Won’t have to look very far, there’s one right here,” the red-banded turtle growls, and dives after him. Mikey shrieks in combination terror-excitement and darts around the other side of Leo. Leo allows himself to be circled, looking as though he’s ready to go straight to bed when he gets home, where at least he won’t have to deal with any annoying little siblings for the next six solid hours. 

“Hey, um,” Donnie says from somewhere behind them. “Umm, Leo? Guys?”

His tone draws Raph up short. He turns with the long tails of Mikey’s mask still caught in his fist, while Mikey continues to squawk and flail. Leo is already moving out from in between the two of them, abandoning the youngest to his fate and approaching Donatello swiftly. 

He doesn’t even need to ask what caught the genius’ eye. Donnie is staring at a bright point of light above the street. It hovers for a moment and then begins to open wider, warm and yellow and glowing. 

As Raph watches, something falls through. Someone. He barely has a second to make out the vaguely human shape of the body before the mask tails in his hand are yanked away and his smallest brother is racing forward across the rooftop like a bullet. 

Leo makes an aborted move to stop him, but there’s no point. Mikey has always been the fastest of the four and he has always, exclusively, only ever done what he wanted to do. Really, Raph shouldn’t even be surprised. 

Mikey catapults off the parapet, collides with the body before it can fall more than a few feet toward the unforgiving asphalt eight stories below, and brings it safely to the roof of an adjacent building, taking the brunt of the fall in a neat barrel roll. 

“Ugh, he’s gonna be bragging about that catch for weeks,” Raph mutters, keeping pace with Leo as they follow him over. 

Donnie is way ahead of them both, easing the body out of Mikey’s arms by the time the eldest turtles catch up. It’s a green-skinned teenager, with the oh-so-familiar built-in armor of a turtle shell. The red stripes on his face, and yellow ones down his arms and legs, are obscured almost entirely by grisly bruises and a not-insignificant amount of blood. Most tellingly, the kid is wearing a bright blue ninja mask. 

“Oh,” Don says, pausing in opening his medkit. He rubs one hand gently over the little mutant’s bruised forehead. “It’s another Leo.”

It says something about their lives that this isn’t the weirdest thing that’s ever happened on a Tuesday. Above them, the portal the kid came through is closing rapidly. The light goes with it, dwindling until it’s gone.

“He’s tiny,” Mikey says, all the joy and irreverence from a few moments ago blown clean out of his expression. Raph doesn’t like to see him look so worried, brow creased beneath his sunny orange mask. “And he’s hurt bad.” 

“What the hell happened to him?” Raph rumbles, arms folded tight across his own plastron. It rankles to see any version of Leonardo injured like this. “And where the hell are his brothers?”

“They can’t be far,” Leo says, because it’s unspoken that where one of them goes, they all go, no matter what backwards dimension they might come from. He kneels next to his younger brothers and looks over his small counterpart with grave eyes. “But there’s no time to wait. He needs stitches at the very least. Donnie, can we move him?”

Donnie finishes packing the sluggishly bleeding gash above the kid’s knee with a temporary bandage and tapes it down, then sets about the rest of his medical examination, brown eyes troubled. 

“There’s a crack in his shell that concerns me,” he says, probing around the kid’s neck with careful fingers. “And he almost definitely sustained some head trauma. I just can’t be certain about a spinal injury. I don’t want to risk permanent damage by manhandling him into the sewers. There’s also—oh.”

Donnie’s hands pause where he’d been feeling down the kid’s right arm. He pulls it out carefully from where it’s sandwiched between the kid’s side and Mikey’s plastron. Raph stoops to get a closer look at whatever got Donnie’s attention and then feels his chest go tight with rage.

They’re chains. Tiny, glowing links of burnished gold, almost translucent, wrapped firmly around the strange mutant’s forearm. And his fist is clenched around what looks like a piece of paper, but the chains are more concerning.

“Hey, uh, what the fuck,” Mikey says loudly. His hands on the kid’s shoulders tighten there protectively. “Can we get those off?”

“Let’s try,” Leo says, his own eyes whited-out and narrowed. He tests the chains with a touch, the way of someone testing the elements on a stove to see if they’re hot. When nothing happens, he grips one of the chain links firmly and begins to pull. 

Raph, Donnie and Mikey all jump at the same time when Leo suddenly yanks his hand away with a hiss.

“What?” Donnie blurts. “What happened? Did it burn you?” 

“No, it—it bit me,” Leo replies, shaking out his hand. 

The golden chains glow a little brighter as the brothers watch, and now there are bright purple sparks trailing warningly up and down the length of them like an electric current. Raph eyes the purple warily. It looks like it bites. 

“Try a knife?” Mikey says, tone upturned at the end because he’s as much out of his depth as the rest of them are. 

Donnie hums, brow wrinkled thoughtfully, and works a kunai out of his belt. He slides the edge under one of the chains without issue, but the moment he starts to apply pressure, the orange glow and purple sparks become limned with red, like some kind of armor. The chains constrict slightly, biting tighter into the kid’s arm. 

Back off, they say, as clearly as anything without a voice ever could. 

“Leave it for now,” Raph says. He won’t say it out loud, aware of how stupid it would sound, but that color combination alone soothes some of the jagged uncertainty he has about this whole situation. “It ain’t like Little Blue’s a prisoner. We can deal with the chains once we’ve dealt with the obviously broken bones.”

Leo nods, on the same page for once. “Can you wake him up, Donnie?” 

“Actually, I have just the thing,” Donnie says, like that’s some big surprise, hauling his satchel around and digging through it for a moment. That thing might as well belong to Mary Poppins, and he proves it nearly every day. Sure enough, Don emerges victorious with a container of tiny capsules. Shaking one out into his palm, he says, “Smelling salts. Sort of. My own spin, anyway. Mike, brace him as best you can, okay?” 

“You got it, Doc,” Mikey says, picking the parts of the kid’s chest and shoulder that look the least beat-to-hell and planting his hands there. 

Donnie snaps the capsule and waves it under Little Blue’s beak. It takes all of three seconds for the kid to give a violent full-body jerk, flailing wildly and going nowhere beneath Mikey’s steady grip. His eyes fly open, a burst of bright gold, and dart around frantically. The left eye is bloodied. Raph can feel his metaphorical hackles going up, because someone obviously beat the shit out of this kid, and he can’t be much older than fifteen. 

“Hey, easy,” Mikey says, in a light, breezy tone, “you’re okay, you’re safe.” 

“Okay, we can knock spinal injuries off the list,” Donnie says. He looks like about a hundred pounds of stress was just lifted off his shoulders. 

Little Blue squints at them, all woozy. When he finally finds Mikey’s face, probably little more than a green and orange blur from his perspective, he relaxes visibly. 

“Dee’s tryin’ to experiment on me again,” he whines. “Make ‘im stop or I’m telling Raph.”

Message delivered, he slumps back into sleep after that—apparently reassured by his present company, looming threat of unwilling experimentation notwithstanding. Donatello looks bewildered, and glances sidelong at Raph. Raph shrugs. Leo huffs out a laugh, sitting back on his heels. 

“I’d know that tone anywhere. If he’s not the youngest, he’s close.”

“He’s just like me for real,” Mikey pipes up, grinning widely. “Home?” 

“Home,” Leo confirms. “Can you carry him?” 

“Uhh, are you kidding? He’s probably about as heavy as a handful of grapes.” 

“We need to be careful with his arm. The, uh, unchained one. It’s broken in a couple of places. And try not to jostle his leg, either. And his shell—”

“Don, we get it,” Raph says, not unkindly. “Fragile, handle with care. Hear that, chucklehead? No razzmatazz.” 

Mikey makes an offended noise and Leo cuts them off at the pass with the grace and finesse of someone who’s been single-handedly dealing with their shit for the better part of twenty years. “Let’s go Mikey. We’ve been out here too long already, and that light-show might have attracted some attention. I’ll call sensei once we start moving and ask him to prepare the infirmary bed for us.”

It’s a group effort to get the kid folded into Mikey’s arms in a manner that doesn’t upset Donnie’s doctoral sensibilities. But he’s such a scrawny stringbean that Mikey carries him with the same level of effort Casey might use to haul around a couple twelve packs of Cherry Coke. 

Little Blue, for his part, only squirms to get comfortable and smushes his cheek against Mikey’s shoulder without waking. He’s clearly used to being hauled around. Raph won’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it, but he thinks Leo was probably right. That’s little sibling behavior if Raph’s ever seen it. 

Splinter takes the arrival of a fifth turtle in the lair like a champ. It’ll be a cold day in hell when they manage to surprise their dad for real. His aged brown eyes are gentle as Mikey sets the kid on the cot, and he lingers nearby as Donnie prepares the fiberglass for the arm cast. He’s probably remembering when Fearless was that small. 

Splinter manages to work Blue’s fist free of the paper he was clutching and smooths out the creases. It looks like it might be a photo. Whatever it is, it causes the rat’s eyes to get very old and very sad. He puts it back in the little mutant’s hand and closes his fingers around it again. 

Somehow Little Blue manages to sleep through the stitches and the setting of his broken arm. He doesn’t even stir as he’s tipped onto his side so ointment can be applied to the crack in his shell before the edges are smeared with epoxy and forced back together. 

He could probably use the rest—he looks like he just tumbled out of the end of the world. Donnie isn’t concerned about the prolonged stint of unconsciousness only because the kid was awake for a few minutes and coherent enough to form sentences, as confused as they were. 

The chains have dulled to the barest glow. Every now and then they light up like Christmas, but only for a minute or two. Mikey dubs it “energy-saving mode.” It’s remarkably un-reassuring. 

The whole clan eats dinner in the infirmary in a bunch of mismatched chairs, all of them reluctant to leave the battered child’s side. The second time one of his brothers starts to nod off, Raph makes the executive decision that he’ll take first watch.

Because none of his siblings know how to do anything the easy way, he has to all but run them out at blade-point. 

“I know for a fact that you haven’t slept in three days, Don,” Raph says mercilessly. Donnie withers like a little overwatered plant when sensei’s sharp eyes descend upon him. “And Mikey, you’re barely any better than him. I will gladly throw you under the bus next, try me.”

“And we call Leo the mother hen,” the youngest grumbles, only to squeak and dive behind Leo when Raph advances a single threatening step in his direction.

“C’mon, you two,” Leo says, herding them out. “We can have a sleepover in the den. That way we’ll hear it if Raph calls us.”

It’s an unspoken request for Raph to wake them if anything happens. Raphael salutes him only semi-sarcastically and takes up camp next to the cot. Splinter draws a chair up beside Raph’s, whiskers twitching with amusement as Mikey whines from the living room, “But I won’t even be able to sleep!”

“He’ll be out like a light in twenty,” Raph says dryly.

“Ten, if Donatello puts on “How It’s Made,”” Splinter replies with equal parts exasperation and affection. He puts one clawed hand on Little Blue’s forehead, and goes on, “It was good of you to bring him here.”

Wondering if he’ll ever outgrow the uncomfortable feeling he gets from any sort of praise, Raph spins a sai for something to do with his hands and mutters, “Well, yeah. Us turtles gotta look out for each other. It’s not like the humans are gonna do it.”

Splinter kindly moves on. “The boy’s qi is very bright, for all that something has recently attempted to snuff it out. I can tell he was raised in a home full of love.”

“Someone’s gotta be missin’ him,” Raph agrees. It makes his stomach sink to think of some version of his family missing their Leo. 

Reading Raph’s mind as easily as he always has, the rat transfers his hand to his son’s arm and pats gently. “We will make sure that he finds his way home. Now,” he adds in a brighter tone, “tell me about my two youngest refusing to take proper care of themselves. I need to know how many flips to assign.”

Grinning, Raphael settles in to spend these quiet early morning hours gossiping with his father. 

He must doze off himself at some point, because his senses kick him awake the second before a heavy thud would have. He jumps to his feet, but Splinter raises a hand to calm him.

“Our guest is up,” the rat says mildly. “Collect your brothers.”

Normally, Raph would have something to say about leaving his father alone with a potentially dangerous unknown variable. In this case, he catches sight of two very bright, very frightened gold eyes staring at him from behind the cot, and decides Splinter is probably on the right track. Surprise, surprise. 

So Raphael backs up toward the door, scrutinized every inch of the way. As he’s leaving, he hears the kid say, in a tone that’s aiming for demanding and landing somewhere around plaintive instead, “Who are you? Where’s my dad?” It makes Raph want to hit something. 

His little brothers are fast asleep in a pile on the sofa. Leo is also actually resting for once in his goddamn life in the armchair, curled up with his limbs all folded like a pretzel. The TV is still on, but the volume is turned almost all the way down. Raph makes it a single step into the room before Leo’s eyes slide open, meeting Raph’s unerringly in the low light. 

“He’s up,” Raph says plainly. “And he’s a little freaked out. Kinda got the idea that sensei wants us to make ourselves scarce for a bit.”

Leo nods. With his mask slung around his neck like a bandanna, the worry lines between his eyes are more obvious. 

“Let’s make breakfast,” he decides. “You and I can handle a few omelets.”

Mikey usually takes charge of meals, because the goofball has never really shaken off the idea that he doesn’t contribute as much to the general workings of their family as everyone else does. Which is a fucking joke. They’d probably last all of two days without Michelangelo, and they’d be the most miserable two days known to man. 

So his big brothers make it a point to wrestle control of the kitchen from him every now and then. Meals aren’t as good when anyone else is doing the cooking, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

As Raph is beating a big mixing bowl of eggs together, he blurts, “If you got flung into another dimension, I’d drag your ass back home first thing. You’re not getting out of this shit that easy.”

“Language,” Leo says without looking up from the bell peppers on his cutting board. There’s a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth. “And I know you would.”

There’s a thump from the general area of the den—presumably a turtle falling off the sofa—followed by the low tones of Donnie and Mikey arguing sleepily. Raph’s heart does this big warm stretch in his chest as they amble into the kitchen, something he would never in his life admit to out loud. 

Mikey’s mouth is open to protest this shameless coup of his kitchen. Raphael points the whisk at him warningly. 

“One word and I’m tossing onions in here,” he says. “A whole bunch of ‘em.”

It’s as much of a threat as it needs to be. Mikey’s beak wrinkles but he only circles around the table to start the coffee for Don. 

They return to the infirmary armed with plates and drinks. Little Blue is sitting on the edge of the cot, watching them with obvious wariness on his face. When this version of Mikey who isn’t his Mikey approaches him, Blue’s expression does something it hurts to look at. But he musters up a smile anyway and takes the plate and mug he’s offered. 

The plate goes to the side right away. The mug is turned around and around in his hands. It’s a start.

“Um, hi,” he says. His voice is a shock to the system. He sounds like a childhood memory. “I guess introductions would be kind of redundant, huh?” 

Donatello smiles. “That’s right. Do you already have experience with other dimensions?” 

The kid’s hands go white-knuckled around his drink. “Not till recently,” he says woodenly. “And not like this. Donnie loves to talk about the multiverse theory, though. I’m an expert by proxy.”

Raph recognizes it when someone is on the brink of a panic attack and keeping it at bay by the skin of their fucking teeth, and his family sees it, too. He can practically see Leo reshuffling the course of this gentle interrogation, bypassing the obvious next question of “what the hell happened” for something a little safer instead. 

“You were pretty banged up when we found you,” is what he lands on. “Do you feel alright?” 

Leo’s tiny counterpart doesn’t seem to know what to make of him, equal parts awed and troubled. He glances over at Raph quickly, something of a knee-jerk reaction, and his face creases a little when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. His eyes fly to Donnie next, where they only linger for a second before falling to his lap. 

Raph can’t imagine how alone he must feel.

“Think so,” the kid says by way of answer. “I mean, my entire body feels like one big bruise, but I didn’t die. So I’ll take it as a win.” He blinks. “Unless I did die and this is a really weird afterlife. Or my brain is in that pre-death electrical storm and all my cells are depolarizing en masse and this is what it cooked up for me to go out with.” 

Okay, the kid is beginning to sound more like a Donatello than a Leonardo now, but the way his voice is getting tighter and faster is all Mikey when he freaks himself out.

“Hey, hey,” Raph says as he stands, shoving his plate towards Leo blindly and lifting his empty hands. It doubles as a ‘slow down’ gesture, and also as a means to grab Blue if he passes out. “Cool it, kiddo. We’re not a—a brain tsunami or whatever the hell you just said.” 

“That’s probably what a brain tsunami would say,” Blue says faintly. 

Raph takes those few steps to the kid’s side, coming to stand between him and Splinter. He reaches out to tap the bottom of the mug Blue’s strangling. 

“Drink,” he orders. “You’re safe here. If you need someplace to panic, or scream, or throw things, I’ll show you my wreck room. But you’re not allowed to see it at all if you pass out again.”

The kid obediently lifts the mug to his mouth, mumbling a petulant, “Okay, mom.” 

It’s the exact same tone of voice that Raph, Mikey, Donnie and even Casey have used to say those exact same words to Leo. Raph’s shock must show on his face, because Splinter lets out a quiet huff of laughter. Leo’s laugh, somewhere behind them, is louder. 

The miserable expression on Blue’s face clears after the first sip. Leo’s favorite drink when they were little, before he started to abandon childish things and mold himself into the shape of a leader, was strawberry milk. From the way Blue lifts wide gold eyes towards Mikey and holds the mug closer to his center, it’s his favorite, too. And it’s a piece of home he wasn’t expecting to find in this weird place. 

Mikey winks at him and a line of tension in Blue’s shoulders fades away. For the second time since waking up, Blue smiles back. It comes a little easier to him this time. 

Raph isn’t surprised. A Mikey makes everything better. 

“While I can understand why a wave of short-circuiting neurons in your brain might seem like the most logical explanation for this,” Donatello says, which makes goddamn one of them, “I can promise you that this is real. You fell through a portal in Brooklyn.” 

“A portal?” Blue asks. “A yellow one?” 

“Yeah! You remember?” Mikey says brightly. 

“I remember the light,” he replies slowly. He sets his cup down, and his hand drifts over to the crumpled-up photo sitting on the cot beside him. He doesn’t lift it or look at it, he just sets his hand on it, like he’s taking strength from its existence. “It was so dark and cold, and then the sun came out. I think I reached for it. I don’t know how I ended up here.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Leo says firmly. “And those chains, too.”

“Chains?” the kid asks. 

“The ones on your arm,” Donnie says. “You don’t feel them?” 

Little Blue looks down at both his casted and his whole arm, frowning. He lifts the whole one closer, turning it, and Raph catches the faint glimmer of those stubborn chains before they explode into burning gold. Blue yelps in surprise, and Raph’s brothers fly to their feet. 

“Did that hurt?” Mikey says all frantic, flapping his hands. 

It’s a fair question. Little Blue’s eyes are still wide and stunned, but now they’re filling rapidly with tears. He touches the chain the same way Leo had, like he’s testing something. It’s on the tip of Raph’s tongue to warn him not to, but it turns out not to be necessary. 

That aggressive show the lights put on for Raph and his siblings is nonexistent. Those purple sparks circle Blue’s fingers harmlessly. The red glow is a steady, unfaltering warmth. The chains themselves cinch tighter, resolute and unbreakable. 

Donnie’s mind is racing behind his brown eyes. He’s putting together what Raph’s heart had already figured out back on that rooftop. 

Wherever one of them goes, they all go. It didn’t make sense to find any version of Leonardo by himself, because his brothers would never have let him go without a fight. The place he belongs to would fight tooth and nail to keep him. 

Sure enough, Little Blue hugs his arm against his plastron and whispers, “Thanks for holding onto me.”

Then he’s in motion. He knocks back the rest of his strawberry milk like he’s a character in a Western film throwing back a shot of rye, crams the photo into the pouch at his waist, and hops off the cot. He staggers immediately, catching himself on the arm of Splinter’s chair. The whole thing is not giving Raph a whole lot of confidence in whatever this kid is planning, but he gets the feeling that trying to stop him now would be like trying to stop a trainwreck with his bare hands.  

Blue points at the butter knife on Leo’s plate, there because he eats his omelets like an old man. 

“Can I borrow that?” 

“Uh, sure,” Leo says, standing up and passing it over. 

“Thanks,” his young counterpart says with a winning smile, just seconds before it lights up in his hands and changes shape. When the bright blue glare fades, there’s a katana in the kid’s hand where a butter knife used to be. 

“What the fuck?” Raph and Mikey shout at the same time, though Mikey’s is more of a delighted shriek. 

Blue is blinking rapidly, like he’s trying to clear his gaze. He’s swaying where he stands, and Splinter’s brow is folded in concern, but before anyone can stop him, he lifts his shiny new sword in front of him and slashes down through empty air. 

Right away, a small cyan portal opens in front of him. It’s charged and electrified, a playful spinning thing. Raph’s heart is racing, and he puts out a hand to keep Mikey firmly behind him. Similarly, Leo has a solid grip on the leather strap across Don’s plastron, because their little brothers are both the same type of idiot in opposite directions when it comes to sparkly unexplainable things. 

Little Blue, for his part, looks disappointed in his portal and in himself, and it bleeds quickly into frustration. “Come on,” he says, shaking the sword in his hand. He forces the portal open a little wider, gaining a few inches in diameter. It’s still not big enough to be anything like a door, or even a window. 

“Your qi is exhausted,” Splinter says gently. “It will take days yet to build it up into even half of what it should be.”

“I don’t want to wait days,” Blue grits out, hand white-knuckled around the hilt. “I want to go home.”

The chains on his arm begin to unravel, elongating impossibly, becoming bigger and denser. Now they more closely resemble the heavy-duty chains Don uses in the garage to lift engines above his head. Two loops remain around his wrist, and the rest of it goes flying into that portal. 

For a moment, nothing happens.

And then, to put it in scientific terms, the portal fucking explodes. 

What started as the size of a dinner plate is now easily big enough for the Battle Shell to barrel through with plenty of clearance on all sides. It stands almost as tall as the ceiling and just as wide. And it barely has a chance to exist in this state for more than a second before multiple bodies come hurtling through from the other side at break-neck speed. 

“LEO!” three young voices scream, and Little Blue drops his sword to meet the chaos with open arms. 

“Took you long enough,” he says warmly. 

[terrah-lee]

12. which version of donatello is your favorite

21 what is your favorite story arc

29 what is one headcanon you have

12.) If I had to pick overall I think I’d have to say Rise Donnie. He has a very sarcastic, deadpan type of humor I find incredibly entertaining and he’s the only version of Donnie who has managed to win vs. Raph as my favorite turtle from an iteration. He spent two entire seasons building a drill with one purpose, which ended up being my favorite running gag in the show. Absolutely love 03 and Bayverse Donnie as well, though. Both of them are super sweet/calm most of the time and then they’ll do the weirdest shit out of nowhere which I find hilarious.

21.) Hoo boy, favorite story arc… this might really be more of a character arc lol, but one that is particularly interesting to me because it kind of happens in the background is just everything going on with Raph during the early part of 2012 season 3. There’s just a lot of scenes where it seems like Raph has taken on a lot of responsibilities to take care of everyone. Multiple times he’s shown being the one to clean, it’s kind of implied he might be the one making sure everything around the house gets done (“whoever gets caught first has to clean the chicken coop”), he tries to get Mikey and Donnie to train, *and* he’s the one we see helping Leo start to regain his strength when he wakes up. It’s some very interesting character development and a lot of it is shown through one-off lines or short scenes. For being the ‘rebellious one’ Raph seems to be surprisingly responsible lol.

29.) One of my favorite headcanons I have for Raph is that he’s naturally a pretty clean person. This goes for multiple iterations, but mostly 03 and 12. Both of them are scared of bugs and live in the sewers… their rooms are probably clean as hell just out of fear. Also when we get a glimpse of Raph’s room in 12 it doesn’t seem to have a ton of clutter (I looked it up to check and he literally has bug spray in there this poor kid save him). Otherwise I just think it’s a fun flip of what is probably expected from Raph as a character.

[bluepeachstudios]

Favorite headcanon you have for each turtle? (Both the Rise and 03 sets I’d love to hear them both). Also do you have any really niche or ridiculously specific headcanons that you don’t see a lot of other people having but personally adore? Be it events, character traits, backstory quirks, etc.

Personally for me I like to think that Draxum bred/hatched turtles in his lab so he would have perfect specimens for his project. As a result, the turtles actually have recorded hatch days in addition to knowing their mutation day, which they probably found out once they were on better terms with him.

Leo and Donnie hatched on the same day. Donnie is never living the twin allegations down. His compensation is hatching five minutes before Leo did (and being very disgruntled when he was only minutes old and suddenly had another baby turtle climbing all over him)

(Keep Scrolling anon)

God I literally have so many headcanons I can't even sort them properly in my head?? I love these headcanons though, very cute.

I've talked before about my 2003 Age Role headcanons. I have a headcanon that was originally @pileofpawns (I BELIEVE???) where 2003 Mikey couldn't figure out his music player so he's just been jamming to royalty free music that was already on the player this whole time. I find that amusing. I like it. Very Mikey-esque.

I headcanon 2003 Leo as absolutely horrible at cooking, 03 Donny also is (apparently canonically he cannot work a cooker to save his life which I found out recently) though I like to believe Donny got banned from the kitchen because he kept taking stuff apart instead of cooking. I see him more of a baking boy.

2003 Raph is an extrovert and no one will convince me otherwise !!! As much as he wants to be a lone wolf, he makes literally the most amount of friends in the show besides Mikey. LEO'S THE LONE WOLF IRONICALLY? I headcanon that it has something to do with the fact that he was manipulated by Shredder at the beginning of the show, and has a harder time trusting others unless his brothers do first. Donny's pretty friendly and makes a lot of friends as well.

2003 Donny has autism, Leo has OCD, Mikey has ADHD, and Raph has intermittent explosive disorder. Raph's far-sighted. They're all ace! Raph and Donny are both aro. Mikey's pan and Leo's gay. I generally headcanon Raph and Leo as cis, Mikey as genderfluid and Donny as nonbinary (usually agender). I do absolutely. LOVE trans Raph, "Ell" though, by @20s-turtle-posting. That's not really a headcanon I just love Ell.

For Rise, I feel like I have a lot of the usual ones? Like, Donnie's the older twin, Leo's the team medic (and also still can't cook), Leo's got insomnia, they basically all have one, the other, or a mix of adhd and autism.

I also have Raph's got dyslexia. I don't have any specific queer headcanons because I like a bunch of different ones, it tends to switch around depending on the vibe.

I haven't rolled the Rise boys around in my head for as long as 2003 so I don't know all of my headcanons for them fhgjdgh they pretty much all pop up in GitS though.

[unluckilylvcky]

Could you rank your favorite to least favorite turtle for each iteration?

That would require an INSANE AMOUNT OF RANT JUICE out of me, but I'm up for the challenge

For the sake of my sanity, I'll limit it to the 4 cartoon iterations and keep the descriptions minimal (otherwise I would just. Yap). You're welcome to ask for any other iterations if you so desire ;]

Starting with ROTTMNT

Donatello

Raphael / Michelangelo

Leonardo

1st is a given tbh, I just love his vibe and Josh Brener fucking killed it as his va. Raph and Mikey usually switch places depending on the mood but ngl, rn Raph is winning. Nothing against Leo tho, I love messing with his character, I just happen to like the others more.

TMNT (2012)

Michelangelo

Leonardo

Raphael

Donatello

This iteration is a weird one for me (in a /pos way), I don't think this list quite explains how I really feel about each turtles. A more accurate one would be condensing all 3 into 1 place and keeping Donnie in 2nd but I can't quite do that to my baby 😔🫶

TMNT (2003)

Donatello / Michelangelo

Leonardo

Raphael

Remember when I said I love Rise Donnie's vibe? Man I think I love '03 Donnie's vibe even more. They're LITERALLY polar opposites and here I am fawning over both.

I can't separate Mikey and Donnie even if I tried. Love them both very much, its not a competition. Leo's character is just great, especially during S4. I just wish Raph had more solo episodes but he's still a great character nonetheless.

TMNT (1987)

Raphael

Leonardo

Donatello

Michelangelo

Theyre just so so silly! Sarcastic characters are always a plus for me, which is why Raph takes top place. Leo and Donnie switch places depending on mood as well, but I'm more comfortable putting them in separate spots. Controversial opinion with '87 Mikey I feel, I just didn't match with his vibe. Sorry dudes :( ✨

[hermit-searching]

TMNTposting, Michelangelo edition:

I still have favs, but I would love nothing more than to talk about the boy in orange. Michelangelo is such an interesting character, development-wise in the series. While Leos and Donnie's usually end up developing more negatively (like the emo breakdowns and all that) Michelangelo and Raph seem to always be the ones that make positive growth. And I love it. We love to see that here.

All Michelangelo's are pretty silly and goofy. They're the most laid back of all the turtles, mostly due to the "youngest brother" dynamic he has with the rest of the turtles, Rise being the most obvious one of all. With 87 Michelangelo, he's more of a chill party dude with an unyeilding optimism despite the circumstances in the later "Red Sky" seasons of TMNT 87. He's the only one of the turtles who genuinely still saw the good in things, and tried to revisit the old dynamic they had even though there was a massive hate campaign against them, and getting double mutated...among many other things. This dude, this little guy, was able to keep a steady girlfriend through all this which is insane (and adorable).

Some of the other cute things I remember about him is:

-he remembers their time being regular turtles.

-he normally sides with Leonardo whenever theres an argument (usually started by Donatello)

-the little alien star child in season 7 could have destroyed the planet but he still decided to be nice and comfort him anyways.

Also random fun factoid about the memory of being a regular turtle. Both he and Donatello or Raphael have mentioned before they spent half their life at the bottom of a glass bowl, in the pet shop. Which either implies they lived in a tiny fishbowl for a really long time, or they were really young when they mutated. The implication seems to lean more towards the latter, and the turtles mutated straight into being teenagers. It's entirely likely the 87 turtles are technically young kids stuck in the bodies of teenagers. Enjoy the nightmares thinking about that.

Now for 03 Mikey. I want to chefs kiss the writers because this series was when they started the "kinda annoying younger brother" trope for him, but somehow still managed to handle his development with absolute grace. The Battle Nexus arcs are some of my favorites in TMNT 03, personally. Both because I'm a sucker for 03 Leosagi, but also because they showed everyone just how smart Mikey can be, and that he is perfectly capable of handling a fight on his own. He's been named Battle Nexus champion, not once, but twice. The first time was more circumstance, but don't let that distract you from the fact he outsmarted Raph in a fight and still won the tournament.

And the second time? That time, he was cursed so any injury he sustained couldn't be healed and he still won! The second time was entirely on his skill and fighting alone and he won.

Despite rubbing it in his brothers faces, he genuinely didn't believe he was capable of winning the Battle Nexus tournament and I LOVE the writers for giving me that. 03 Mikey is a loveable menace.

fun things I love about 03 Mikey:

-he literally saves Klunk because he liked her vibes. on Christmas. good for him.

-despite how often they bicker, he's Raph's best friend.

-the whole thing about him (and his brothers) helping the homeless people in the Garbageman episode.

I don't really have much to say about 2012 Mikey tbh. He sure is a guy who exists. It is cool he survived in Dimension X for a few months on his own though. Good for him.

And finally, I'll leave the Rise ramblings to the other TMNT blogs out there. Because everything I say is something someone else definitely has before. And I mostly want to make these posts for the people out there who never watched the older TMNT series.

[mousermayhem]

I realize people talk about Leo and Donnie or Leo and Mikey it’s they get along. but when they talk about Leo and raph it’s the two being at each others throats. I mean I blame the writers for that they pushed the Leo raph rivalry too much. It’s makes me sad like these two clearly love each other but Leo is pushing raph away with his I rather be your leader then brother.

On one hand you are so absolutely right. People tend to focus on Leo and Raph butting heads or fighting. But I think the issue with that isn’t the fact it’s pushed too much, but the fact there’s rarely a satisfying conclusion where they actually work things out.

Like, take the 03 series. And also Rise cause I’m gonna do some comparing. I feel like more than most others, 03 Raph and Rise Raph are, at their very core, the same. They love and would do anything to protect their families but Rise Raph is the oldest in his iteration. He gets to call the shots, more or less. 03 Raph is stuck as almost a middle child. He’s not the leader, and never was. And what creates the tension more than anything between 03 Raph and Leo is that they are like. Two sides to the same coin. Raph is more gung ho about going after things that hurt his family right away, but he’s also less likely to trust others especially if there’s history there. Meanwhile Leo is generally more cautious about running into things but also more willing to trust those that have hurt the family before. Both of these viewpoints have benefits and weaknesses, and they’re different enough that it’s easy to see why they fight.

And you’re right I think a lot of their fighting is because as the 03 series goes on, we see Leo out of Leader Mode less and less. Though while I do think it would benefit him, and also his relationship with ALL his brothers including Raph, to get out of Leader Mode I also think that he doesn’t necessarily need to for their conflict to have a resolution. Take the Rise Movie. Towards the end, the initial conflict between Raph and Leo is concluded when Leo as a leader finally listens to what his brother was trying to tell him. But we never really get anything like that in 03. It’s usually framed that Leo is Right and Raph is Wrong. Ideally we would have gotten Leo finally listening to and taking into account what Raph has to say, and the concerns he has. And honestly just being listened to probably would have made Raph more willing to accept Leo’s decisions, because he would know his concerns have been heard.

Anyways. TL;DR if 03 had given a good resolution to Raph and Leo’s issues with each other I don’t think them having prolonged issues would have been nearly as much of an issue.

[mistressoftherant-blog]

TMNT and Responsibility

I've posted a couple of TMNT thoughts on here recently that have been surprisingly well received, but I think this might be my most divisive so far 😅 I want to take a look at responsibility in relation to Leo and Donnie. This crosses most iterations, though I have made notes where there are exceptions.

A lot of people (both within the shows and within the fandom) tend to put quite a bit of emphasis on the weight that Leonardo is under as leader of the team (this is a little trickier in Rise due to Raph initially being the leader as well as being the oldest, but even in the Rise fandom there is a lot of focus on the pressure that is unexpectedly put onto Leo).

Now, I want to make a distinction here between the responsibilities of being the eldest brother, and the responsibilities of being the team leader, because they are not the same thing. Every Leo (barring Rise) is the oldest son for their entire lives (obviously😅). As the oldest, they are held to certain standards and expects to watch over their younger brothers. However, their brothers aren't that much younger than them even in Rise (and even though the fandom loves to baby all of the Mikeys, though that's a rant for another day), and so the responsibility is more along the lines of setting an example and helping Splinter out a bit more.

He is also usually more dedicated in his training than the others, though he enjoys training so this is also seen as a hobby until things get serious.

They only really become team leader when they are in their teens (I'm pretty sure every show has a moment where we see the teenage Leo accepting or asking for the responsibility of being in charge, though I'm not too sure about 03). This is an immense burden, putting the lives of their friends and family directly into their hands and forcing them to make tough choices. However, as mentioned, this burden is placed on them when they are teenagers. I am not dimishing that it is awful to expect a teenager to make plans that may include sacrificing themselves, their family, and/or their friends for the greater good, but up until their mid teens, when they start going to the surface and fighting enemies, their responsibilities are primarily more geared towards being older siblings (providing comfort, discipline, etc)

Now, this is the part where I am expecting some people to get angry with me. Unlike with the Leos who get the majority of their burdens acknowledged by the shows and the fandoms, Donatellos', for the most part, seem to be ignored, and even when the pressure they are under is acknowledged, it tends to be brushed off later on or is given a one episode focus that doesn't end up alleviating any of his duties (in 12, Leo never apologised for what he said in Fourfold Trap and I am still furious)

As the second youngest, Donatellos are still seen as needing to protect the youngest sibling, and also receives far less protection/leeway than Mikey does (that isn't to say that his brothers never protect him or show him any younger brother privileges, but Mikey tends to get away with far more than Donnie ever would, as I mentioned in a previous post, Mikey generally gets far fewer consequences for his actions within the narrative of multiple iterations).

Don also has the most responsibilities out of the entire team (this is again a little bit harder to say for certain in Rise as no team medic is confirmed, though I personally believe that Rise Donnie is the medic seeing as he is the one who brings up Raph's allergy, and having Leo be the medic when he was also going to be made into the leader doesn’t make sense to me).

He keeps everything up and running, the electricity, probably their clean water, their vehicles, their phones, their recreational tech, their security, etc. He's usually an emotional sounding board for the team (especially Mikey). As stated before, he also tends to be the team medic, and usually serves as a second in command to Leo, helping him brainstorm/finalise plans, and also often taking over as leader in Leo's stead when Leo is unable to lead, or when the mission relates to one of his specialities. Poor 07 even has a job on top of his usual responsibilities whilst trying to be leader.

And the Donnies have probably been handling most of this since they were pretty young (though, like Leo, their responsibilities do ramp up when they are teens) When their responsibilities increase, their brothers' lives are constantly placed into their hands. If their vehicles don't work, they can't make an escape. If their security fails, they might not be prepared for an attack. If they can't figure out a solution to a number of issues on the fly in the middle of some seriously stressful situation, the mission fails and the people that they care about could suffer for it. If they can't figure out how to patch them up, they die.

It just annoys me a little when people go on and on about how Leo has been martyred his entire life, sacrificing his entire childhood when, for the most part, his childhood was the same as his brothers up until they were teens, and Donnie probably had more responsibility as an actual child.

Although they would have had some responsibilities as the oldest, it was probably nowhere near as much stress as the fandom likes to portray. Rise Raph is a bit of an exception to this as their Splinter seemed to be a lot more neglectful due to his depression, and so Raph probably had more responsibility in raising his siblings.

So, as a sort of conclusion to this long rambling post, I just wanted to acknowledge that, although most of the time Leo is viewed as the brother under the most pressure, I fully believe that Donnie is a strong contendor for the title of brother with the most responsibility. An awful lot of their day to day life and their missions depend on Donnie being able to fix things or whip up a miracle. Also, like Leo, Donnie is often put on the spot, forced to make split second decisions that could tip the balance either for or against them.

[istherewifiinhell]

okay apropos of nothing. these idiots

[ID: Rise turtles screenshot redraw (from ep: mystic library) with 3 mutant-sonas, all looking up in apprehension in front of a help desk. They are: a red half mask wearing caimen (a small crocodilian) in dark and light green, a green eye mask wearing snapping turtle, in tealish tones, and blue masked... thing, with reptilian features and antenna, in mint green and warm beige. END]

da dipshit brothers <-collective gendering leave me alone

weep whomp bullshit be below

goes like this

ID: discord msg from: Stop. eating. THE POISON! (green): (going through screenshots) look it us

[ID: Og rise screenshot, the turtles are leo, raph and don. END]

see no mike shot cause we dont have a mike. if ur a mike type and sad abt it idk get urself adopted?

attempt one:

ID: message from: keep it down Vomitello (blue): (RED) mutant sona. NOW image attached is the green and blue characters in sort of proto designs, more 'rise style', lined and coloured, over the screenshot. the red one sketched in with only the expression and a blob of colour. text with an arrow points to it as "YOU GO HERE" END

fugging guy doesnt even have a mutant sona. ridiculous

an aside about styles:

[ID: msg from green: Yours is too cute that’s not fair (edited) blue: JUST CAUSE" i cant draw ur guy aswell rise style harrrrrd look practice sketch came out looking like 03 jhbdjhfg. myyyy bias attached sketch of the green turtles head more in line with 03 shows turtles (smaller eyes, diff head shape) END]

ID: msg from: beautiful birthday baby (red): Oh oof you can't just put me on the spot like that green: yes we can blue: im sorry u havent THOUGHT ABOUT IT. fucked up of u END]

Red: Leatherhead but not as big or smart Blue: HMMM which kind of crocodilian u wanna be. theres some fun ones Red: I'm partial to caimans and alligators Green: well chop chop pick up the pen tool Red: So caiman seems about right for a smaller alligator Blue: theyyyy are just little guyssss Red: Idek if I have clip studio installed rn Blue: u got mspaint. itll do

EIGHT HOURS PASS

[ID: msg from blue: gotta do everything around here attached art now has the caimen character drawn in, mostly the same as above. Though still in broad cartoony style, he has strong eye ridges, flat head, prominent alligator type snout with nostrils and gullet. END]

Green: WOOOOW THATS REALLY GOOD Red: Sorry I've been busy That is good tho thank you Blue: THANKIES. i do like crocodilians. is the thing. [Green] ur odd man out now. beak urself Green: That’s on you for not changing the style Blue: WELL. i was tryna draw ur guy as youuu drew him fghjsdf. gotta put him on the pottery wheel... MOLD HIM [...] Blue: anyway u. any actual animals ur guy is supposed to evoke or should i just look up bulbasaur realistic fanart

ID: Green: Lmfao is supposed to be a normal snapping Turble Blue: arrghhhaa YEAHgg photo of a snapping turtle making a funny face

an aside about... the devils green:

[ID: Green: Now I’m trying to think of how a big croc mouth smokes weed Blue: smoking big doinks in amish silly sketch of the caiman smoking a joint, eyes half lid with a big goofy smile, smoke coming out the nostrils. END]

Green: But [Red] doesn’t use joints Blue: IM NOT DRAWING A BONG. Green: I’m thinking of his big dumb [novelty branded bong] tryina get the croc mouth on it Blue: jhgbhjsdfg Green: That’s what’s making me laugh

ID: Blue: with difficulty sketch of the caiman with head lowered to a excessively long bong, arm stretch to over the distance of both his muzzle and the bong. hand drawn holding lighter to the. smoke bit. smoke comes out of the nostrils again. Green: HELL YEAHHHHH END]

Blue: 2 hours old and hes already schmoking Green: When he exhale becomes a dragon Blue: Yer Green: [Red] look at your weed smoking fursona Red: I got distracted but I hate and love it Green: was the distraction weed Red: No it was tik tok Green: so worse the worst drug

Attempt 2:

[ID: Blue: okay get creatured idiot art now has the turtle as the above art, without only minor touches. He has a wider set eyes, a more shapely and pronounced beak, the 'teeth' coming to a point, eye ridges, and more colour variation. END]

Green: YIPPEEE i forgor is yours a robot Blue: yerrr lol least amount of guy to draw and from front view so idk how to show. the CHOMPERS

(aka, now I FELT left out)

attempt 3: et volia

[ID: All characters as above, with highlights and shadows now, only drawn over the screen shot, not edited into frame. The blue masked reptile robot thing has been moved so its more visible also gaining a flatter head, eye ridges, a pointer (tho still round) beak with more teeth indicated in the comical expression. it has a scarf the same colour as its mask. END]

anyways i was like arggghh how to edit them into the scene better that seeeeeem HARDDDDDD. think about makeing them bigger and moving them and etcetc. until i realised i bet i could just get this background from the episode.... and then i was fucking around on websites. suffering... until i remembered.... i have... ALL OF SEASON 1. on my laptop. and. the thumbnail for this eps file is LITERALLY. this

[ID: the blank background of the library, with the desk in fore, little orb lights above, and the kooky purple mystic library selves and what not in back. END]

s'its about 3 mins in.

[getindumdums]

I noticed you said you liked 12 and 03. I was wondering what’s your opinion on both versions of Raph?

I do really like both. Something I love about all Raphs is that they care so DEEPLY about their family. They’re so protective of them, and seeing them get angry when that sibling is harmed means a lot to me.

I prefer 03, but either way I think their relationship with their Mikey is underrated. They both care so deeply about their bro. Mikey in both iterations is a little shit and deserves to get chased around for his antics. Hilarious sibling behavior, so real, I lived it with my bro. That kind of younger sibling, doesn’t matter how strict, caring, or times you tell them no, they will mess with you just to get your attention. Including tackling you to the ground.

While 12 Raph misses some marks from me. Like if they were trying to create 03 Raph again because he was so great but missed slight things on what did make him great. Still really fun though. He’s still a favorite for the 12 series me. 03 Raph is a grade A “tough character who’s also a sweetheart” and I am HERE for it. My favorite in the 03 series followed by Mikey and Don. Cool, sassy, and he makes good points. Something about a character who gets frustrated by their environment or a bunch of little things has always intrigued me.

And I think it’s because my twin sister is like that. She’s always stepped up to take on a lot of responsibilities, and faced unfair expectations and criticism. She’s always been so protective, supportive and caring and loving to us, her family. A big reason why I love Rise Raph is because his frustration stems from pressure and stress. It’s so important, so real.

Actually I feel like I should add a big reason why I love sassy “A-hole” characters is because both my sister and my dad have that ability to shoot back a witty, insulting remark. And they’re just such important, healthy figures in my life. I see a character like Raph and I see family, I know who this character is.

[taffycandyqt]

Since you’ve got to talk about your least favorite tmnt character (and fav side characters) I’m gonna ask ya whats your favorite version of each of the main group! Across each iteration!!

Sorry it took so long to get to this! I really have no good reason I just forgot it was in my inbox I'm ngl.😶

Across all the iterations I have seen, and actually enjoyed, it would probably be Donnie. Idk what it is but every iteration of Donnie has intense appeal to me in a way I cannot describe. The other main cast are a different story though. Also, my rankings for Casey and April are completely detached from my rankings for the turtles. They are in their own category.

(This will be excluding the comics and the next mutation because I haven't seen those yet. The bay movies and mutant mayhem will also be excluded because I genuinely disliked them and found it hard to like any of the characters within those movies.)

TMNT 87':

Mutant mains

Donnie

Raph

Leo

Mikey

Human mains

April - Casey

They are both equally as lovely and no one can tell me different.

TMNT 03':

Mutant mains

Donnie

Raph

Leo - Mikey

Human mains

April - Casey

TMNT 07':

Mutant mains

Donnie

Raph

Leo

Mikey

Human mains

Casey

April

We just didn't get enough of April in the movie for me to really like her more than Casey🤷‍♀️. She still slays tho 💅

TMNT 12':

Mutant mains

Donnie

Raph

Leo

Mikey

Human mains

Casey

I didn't always love Casey character but I still liked him. Which is why he's on this list. This list is for characters I like. That's why April isn't here.

Rise:

Mutant mains

Donnie

Leo

Mikey

Raph

Honestly I considered putting Mikey and Raph both in three but I just like Mikey I taaaaaad 🤏 bit more.

Human mains

April - Cass - Casey jr.

I love them all. Just ✋😩👌

TMNT vs. Batman (2019):

Mutant mains

Donnie

Raph - Leo

Mikey

There is no April or Casey in this movie and this post is about TMNT not Batman so no human mains here.

Ya know after putting it down I'm realizing there isn't as much variation in my rankings as I thought their was. ...huh.

ANYWAYS! Thanks for the ask❤️

[aslitheryprinx]

Reasons I Love Rise!

(because I'm tired of seeing posts where people claim to like rise, but then do nothing but bash it!)

Character design! All of the characters designs, whether main characters or even side characters, are super unique and fun! The turtles all have designs that match their personalities both in this show and, imo, their general character through every version. They're my favorite turtle designs, with Batman vs TMNT coming in at close second.

Filler! Of course not every episode is a hit. But rise reminds me of 03 (early seasons at least, I haven't gotten to the later ones) in that even when there Is a filler episode, it doesn't feel like we're wasting time, or just waiting for the next plot episode. Most episodes feel fun and engaging! We're watching the turtles grow, and having fun while doing it.

Tone! The way this show balances tone is pretty well done! It's, at it's core, a more lighthearted version than others like 2012 or 2003. It's probably closer to the 1987 version in tone, though not exactly the same. However, it can still have it's serious moments when it's important!

Relatability! Now, obviously, these are cartoon characters, so their personalities are exaggerated pretty often. But! Even with that, the characters in this show feel very real, especially in the more heartfelt moments! For example:

-Donnie shows his love through gifts, and has trouble understanding emotions

-Splinter cares deeply about his sons, but (potentially partially due to his own trauma) doesn't give them the attention they deserve.

-April is an incredible friend, but sometimes just wants to be normal.

-Raph does his best to be a good big brother, and sometimes the pressure gets to him.

Family!!! At it's heart, this is a show that focuses on a family! That's something that's great about TMNT as a whole, that family is important. That's especially present in rottmnt: Anatawa hitorijanai. This is also a personal preference, but it's really nice to have a show where there's almost no romance. There's enough to the show already that there's no need for idk a love triangle or something. Platonic and familial relationships can be just as meaningful or more as romantic ones!

Animation/Fight Choreography! Mostly focusing on the second bc I was rewatching Insane in the Mama Train a while back and Oh my God??? It's so well done? Like I love love LOVE fights that are as fluid as dancing. It's just so fun to watch. There's so many fight scenes, mystic powers or not, that are just Fun! Mikey and Cassandra's fight in Hot Soup the Game, when Splinter fights all four of the turtles at once in.... the episode whose name I forgot, the 'fish n ladders' fight, the series finale fight? Just all so good.