#Raph-berries

[sunsetsandsunshine]

~ Just say you’re sorry ~

THIS IS FOR THE AMAZING ANON THAT INSPIRED THIS FIC SO KUDOS TO THEM 💞✨💗💕

Also tagging my fellow moots who love this HC as much as I do:

@someone1348 @tickleebug @prettychillbrainfreeze @ghostlyshylee @itzystopkiddingmenowloco

Lee’s: Leo🐢💙 and Mikey🐢🧡

Ler’s: Raph🐢❤️ and Donnie🐢💜

Summary: Raph and Donnie have been getting pranked by they’re younger brothers all day. So like the good big brothers they are, they hatch a totally not devious plan to teach they’re younger sibs a lesson.  

(A/N: AS ALWAYS- T*EST DNI YOU NASTY CREEPY WEIRDOS)

———————————————————————

“Stupid dumb-dumbs…stupid stupid dumb-dumbs…”

Raph turned around from where he was sitting on the living room couch to see his immediate younger brother- Donnie- pacing back and forth in the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee that spilled a little bit every now and again as he turned around in a pacing circle. 

The young genius was wearing his dark purple sweatshirt with the sleeves pulled up to his elbows, wearing his occasional purple mask and goggles. Raph was wearing his own mask as well, clashing with his grey/gray sweatshirt.

The snapper got up from the couch, putting his phone down and walking to his immediate younger brother. “Hey, bud…you okay?” Raph asked, putting a hand on Donnie’s shoulder as a way to show his comfort. The younger looked up at Raph and started chuckling, even though the eldest turtle was 99.9% sure nothing he just said was funny…

“What’s wrong..? What’s WRONG???” Donnie yelled, going close to Raph’s face so they’re snouts touched before stepping away from him. The softshell put his coffee mug on the counter, pacing back and forth again while his hands were behind his back. 

“Oho, I’ll tell you what’s wrong. What’s wrong my dear older brother, is that those imbeciles that I apparently have to call my younger brothers have been pulling pranks on me left and right ALL DAY. I can’t get any work done without fearing for my life that another water balloon or paint cannon is going to hit me!” Donnie said, throwing his hands up to the air before putting them back down. The purple cladded sibling sighed, rubbing a hand down his face slowly as he tried to calm himself down.

Donnie was frustrated- very very (that’s two very’s) frustrated if you couldn’t tell. The genius wanted to have a productive day; a day where he got almost all of his work done and he had the rest of the evening to spend with his family and friends. Believe it or not, the softshell actaully enjoyed spending time with his family, even if he acts like he dreads every single second of it.

But sadly, the universe didn’t want the day to go the way Donnie had originally planned. The universe had to give him not 1 but 2 younger siblings that were annoying as FU- fudge. Annoying as fudge.

Anyway, the two gremlins have been placing boobytraps and pranks all over the lair, such as sparkle canons, water balloons, whoopie cushions- you name it! And at the end of every single prank there would be this…card that mysteriously came out of nowhere. It was orange and blue and had Mikey and Leo’s faces on it, saying “You just got pranked by the Portal Pals! (P.S. L + Bozo)”

Which was…cute. It was nice that the two were having fun and spending time with each other…but WHY did they’re fun have to torture Donnie in the process?

“You too, huh?” Raph chuckled, reaching into his sweatshirt pocket and taking out a couple of Leo and Mikey’s “You just got pranked!” cards. Donnie couldn’t help but chuckle along with Raph at the sight of the cards, going over to him and resting his head on his plastron, groaning. The snapper just laughed some more, wrapping his immediate younger brother in a hug as he patted his battleshell.

“They’re. so. annoying.” Donnie whined, rubbing his hands along his face as Raph sighed. “I mean, yeah. They’re our little brothers, little bro. It’s kind of they’re job to annoy the living hell out of us, y’know?” The eldest reasoned, patting Donnie’s shoulder as he huffed, his anger starting to slip away. “Yeah…I guess so…” the softshell mumbled, taking his head up from Raph’s plastron and smiling at him.

“But hey! Look on the bright side: that doesn’t mean we can’t get payback~!” Raph exclaimed, winking at Donnie who raised one of his sharpie drawn eyebrows, curiosity and mischievousness written all over his face. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” Donnie asked, grinning from ear to ear. 

Raph grinned back, nodding his head in confirmation. The second-oldest turtle  smiled a bit more (this time being a kind of evil smile) as he took out his phone from his pocket, going into they’re family GC. The younger started typing up something on his phone, beginning to walk to his lab.

“Walk and talk with me, Raphie. I’ve got a plan…”

🕺🏾🐢🍕Cool Kids GC 🍕🐢🕺🏾

Today at 2:34 pm 

*🕺🏾👾Bootyyyshaker9000👾🕺🏾 is online*

Hello my fellow fam

*UrfaveChamp😘😘😘✨💙 is online*

*Mystic_Mike🎨🤩 is online*

Yoooo

Hey Don!

How are you 😁🥰?

Good good.

How’s the eyebrows working? Feelin pretty, bro?

Donnie groaned from Leo’s text, about to type “kys” in the GC to his younger twin before Raph cleared his throat, shaking his head in disapproval as they continued to walk. The softshell sighed, deleting the text before he was about to send it in the GC. 

“There. Happy?” Donnie asked as the oldest nodded, walking into the lab and both sitting on the lab’s desk chairs. “Very.”

“Anyway, what’s he even talking about, Don?” Raph asked, confused. Donnie ran a hand down his face, clicking out of messages and showing Raph a picture he took earlier. It was a pic of Donnie’s eyebrows covered in sparkles, glitter and fake gemstones- and it looked completely awful. Let’s just say the eyebrows looked like a second graders art project. 

Uh…no offense to any second grader of course…

“One of they’re sparkle canons got me…” Donnie mumbled. The softshell was so glad he was able to clean that monstrosity off- he would never be able to live that down without anyone making fun of him for it. 

Raph cackled at the picture, putting a hand to his face as he did so. “Stop laughing...” Donnie glared, taking the phone back so Raph couldn’t see the photo anymore. And if the alligator snapping turtle knew any better, he could’ve sworn that he saw a pout on his immediate younger brother's face. 

“It isn’t funny.” The pout caused Raph to giggle a bit more, booping the softshell’s snout as the younger playfully swatted his hand away. “It is a bit funny…” Raph giggled, smirking at Donnie. The second oldest just chuckled as he rolled his eyes, clicking out of his Photos app and right back to the GC.

They’re fine, actually. The sparkles really complimented my eyes.

See! Told you he would like it, Mikey!

A success in my book

Oh whatever 😒😒😒

✨Anywaysssss✨

What is it that u needed, Don?

R u okay?

Oh, yeah. I’m fine.

I just need you both to come to my lab.

I have to make a huge announcement to say to everyone.

It’s extremely important.

Raph’s already with me so I just need you two to come.

Oh! 

Okay! 

Oooh! Must be a pretty important if we’re coming to Dee’s lab…

Yes- it is important. I literally just said that.

See you in like- 15 seconds, Dee!

Wait! Raph’s w/ u right now?

Yes. Raph is with me as of right now.

Ask him for me how he likes his new room setup 😁✨ 

LMFAOAOAOAO

Raph grabbed Donnie’s phone out of his hands, his face red in embarrassment as he typed in the group chat. “What’s he talking about, man?” Donnie chuckled confused, not used to seeing his older brother so flustered. 

After the snapper was done with…whatever he was typing, his face relaxed- seeming really calm and content now. Raph cleared his throat, handing the phone back to Donnie. “We don’t talk about it.” 

KSYNDND

*KYS

THIS IS RAPH TYLINGNEN

*TYPING

KANSHSJAKSHS!!!

U KNOW ITS FUNNY BRO-BRO

I HATE YOU 2 SM LITERALLY DIE😡😡😖!!!

BAHAHAHAJSHSBDKDK

We love you tooooo Raphieee~!☺️☺️☺️😘😘💕💖💞💖💖✨✨

Donnie clicked out of the messaging app and glared at Raph. “How come I can’t type ‘kys’ in the group chat but you can!?” He asked, putting his phone on his desk and crossing his arms. “Eldest brother privileges, duh.” Raph said calmly, merely shrugging as Donnie rolled his eyes for probably the millionth time today. 

.

.

.

“What’s with the random call to Dee’s lab? Are we experimenting on something?” Leo asked excitedly, looking around the lab to see if there was anything brand new or important to test on as him and Mikey walked in. “Yeah! What is it? I wanna know!” Mikey asked as well, grinning from ear to ear waiting for either of his older brothers to answer the question.

Leo was wearing his dark blue sweatshirt, with his blue mask. Mikey was also wearing his favorite orange sweatshirt, also wearing his mask. 

Not answering any of the younger two's questions, Donnie tapped a few buttons on his wrist watch, closing the lab door behind them. The two quickly looked behind them at the door and then at each other, nervousness starting to broil up in they’re stomachs. “Don? Raph? You guys okay…?” Leo asked, his head tilting to the side in confusion as his twin and older brother just stood there staring at him and Mikey.

“So…you guys gonna keep staring at us, or are you gonna tell us why we’re here…?” Mikey said as he scratched his head in confusion. 

“Glad you two are so curious to find out why I called you here.” Donnie smiled, him and Raph getting up from they’re chairs, looking at they’re younger brothers with a deadpanned face. There was another awkward silence with all of them just staring at each other. 

The two youngest weren’t sure if they were called in Donnie’s lab for a legitimate reason or if this was some huge staring contest. Leo and Mikey exchanged worried glances, “Soooo…you gonna tell us or what?” Leo chuckled, crossing his arms trying to hide his nervousness at his twins vague answers. 

“Well, you and Mikey have been pranking me and Don a lot.” Raph said stating the obvious, only for Leo and Mikey to chuckle. “Is this what this is about? Are we in trouble or something?” Mikey giggled, nudging Leo in the elbow causing the older to snicker.

“You two aren’t in trouble per say. We just want to join in on the fun too!” Donnie smiled…a bit too sweetly. Leo crossed his arms, squinting suspiciously at his older brothers. “Join in on the fun?” The slider repeated. “Oh, but of course! The fun I’m personally thinking of starts with an r and ends with ‘evenge’. Isn’t that right, Raph?” Donnie grinned as Raph nodded his head.

Mikey gulped, “Wehell…Ihi just remembered I have to goho feed my pehet rock…so, uh…if you’ll excuse me I’ll just be on my way…” Mikey giggly said, nervously walking backwards to the opening door to the lab. Mikey attempted to open the lab door again and again but it just wasn’t budging. He turned around, trying to turn the knob but it wasn’t moving an inch. 

“The lab door is locked my dearest Angelo.” Donnie chuckled as he saw the youngest trying to pry the door open- an evil smile plastered on his face as he leaned against Raph’s side, crossing his arms. 

Well shit.

“You get Mikey, I’ll get Leo.” Raph instructed, walking towards Leo as Donnie walked towards Mikey, both of the older siblings wiggling they’re fingers slightly with huge evil grins on they’re faces. The two youngest looked at each other completely petrified, stepping away from the door and splitting up, going deeper into Donnie’s lab but making sure to keep they’re eyes on they’re “attackers.”

“Wahait! W-We cahan talk abohout thihis!” Leo giggled, putting his hands up as a way to try and stop Raph from…whatever him and Donnie were planning. Well- he did know what they were planning which is why he’s TRYING his very best not to think about it too much…

Now, don’t get Leo wrong, he can be a menace. He’s been called it many many times by different people, which he takes a LOT of pride in. And he can become even MORE a menace when he’s tickling one of his brothers. To funny remarks to rib-counting to teases. Leo was one scary of a Ler and that was just something you just couldn’t deny. 

But sadly, the universe wouldn’t allow Leo to be the only scary Ler in the family. The universe had to give him not 1 but 2 older siblings that were terrifying as FU- fudge when it came to tickling.

When it came to Raph and Donnie, they were just…vile. Finding every single possible way to tickle and fluster they’re Lee until they can’t even think straight. 

Since Raph was, like, a TITAN in turtle form, it’s completely impossible to escape him while he’s wrecking you. And since he’s the eldest he will just go on and on and ON about how he was “The best Tickle Monster.” And that stupid thing he would always do was give “Raph-berries.” Basically raspberries but he’s nibbling you as well and it was TORTUROUS. 

Now Donnie was an evil force to be reckoned with. For one, he would cheat. The softshell would use his spider arms to ping your arms up so you couldn’t squirm. And worst of all he would pretend as if him wrecking you was a whole big science experiment. Testing out his “hypothesis” or whatever other big words Donnie knew. 

So getting that out of the way, Leo knows he’s absolutely dead. Deceased. Expired. 6 feet under…

The red eared slider just knows he’s completely screwed. Based on the facial expressions, body language and overall demeanor of his older brothers, the two were out for revenge. And Leo and Mikey being more sensitive than them, (Leo being a tad bit more ticklish than Mikey), they knew they couldn’t stand a chance. All the two were doing was wiggling their fingers and Leo and Mikey were giggly messes…

“Talk about what, little brother? Talk about how you scared the living heck outta me with all those posters of Mrs. Cuddles that you put all over my room?” Raph taunted, stepping closer and closer to Leo making the younger giggle more frantically.

 “I-Ihit wahas funny though!” The younger one stammered, “Actually, now that you mention it…SHE’S RIGHT THERE, LOOK!” Leo screamed, pulling out a completely terrified look out of nowhere pointing somewhere ahead of him, pretending where he was pointing was Mrs. Cuddles.

Hey, he’s not called the Face-man for nothing! 

“Wait- WHAT? WHERE?!” Raph screamed, frantically looking around Donnie’s lab to try and spot Mrs. Cuddles. But the only thing he saw was a certain red eared slider running away from him.

Well played…

That little shit.

Before Leo could attempt to try to hide somewhere in the lab, Raph came from behind him, picking the younger up and putting him on his shoulder, carrying him to the middle of the lab where Donnie and Mikey were. Donnie already “captured” Mikey, using his spider arms to hold his arms so he couldn’t try and run away again. 

Leo started to hit the back of Raph’s shell, squirming to try and get out of the older’s hold as a bunch of giggly threats flooded out of his mouth. The snapper only rolled his eyes, poking Leo in the side causing the him to let out a surprised shriek followed by frantic laughs. “Don’t forget the position you're in, bud.”

“Yohou guhuys! Plehease dohon’t- noHO Deehee!” Mikey squealed as Donnie released him from his tech arms, sitting down on the carpet floor and pulling him into his lap as Raph did the same thing with Leo, sitting a little bit across from Donnie. Before the young genius could pin Mikey’s hands up- as he originally planned on doing, the youngest retracted into his shell, giggling smugly as Donnie tried to get him out by knocking on his shell repeatedly. 

“Hey! You can’t do that!” Donnie said, crossing his arms and glaring at his younger brother. “Toohoo bad. I juhust did.” Mikey taunted, happy he found a way to escape Donnie’s tickly wrath.

Leo, about to go into his shell too was immediately caught by Raph. The older held up his arms, grinning and raising a brow. “Where do you think you’re going, Lee?” Raph asked, chuckling as Leo plastered a nervous smile on his face. 

“Nohowhere…” The red eared slider giggled, looking around anywhere but Raph’s face before looking towards his younger brother who was soon about to break by the demon you would call Donatello.

“DeEHEE! NahAt the tUHuhUmmY!” Mikey squealed, squirming in his shell trying to get away from Donnie’s tickly fingers that were now dancing across his stomach. The older shook his head, grinning at the sound of the youngers frantic laughter.

“Then get out of your shell and fight like a real man!” Donnie taunted, which only caused Mikey to whine throughout his giggles but not coming out of his shell. Suddenly, Donnie stopped tickling his tummy, poking at the boxer turtle’s lower rib. “Boop.”

The younger's reaction was almost immediate as he came out of his shell completely to grab at Donnie’s wrists. “There we go~! See! Was that so hard?” Donnie smiled innocently, using his spider arms to pin Mikey’s arms up. Donnie just smiled at Mikey as Raph let go of Leo to begin tickling his sides.

“Pfft- nohohoho!” Leo giggled, hugging his middles and squirming a bit as Raph lightly scratched around his sides. The older one laughed in amusement, raising a brow and grinning at his reaction. “No? No, what? You two brought this upon yourselves!”

“Oho screw ohohoff!” Leo retorted, pushing at Raph’s wrists as Donnie just continued to look at the youngest, not doing anything quite yet. 

“Whahat?” Mikey asked, looking at his older brother who’s face looked like he was solving the worlds hardest math problem- but the genius probably did stuff like that for fun anyway.

“Hm? Oh…nothing. Just trying to remember where you’re most ticklish, Angelo…I can’t quite seem to remember…” The softshell muttered, crossing his arms and looking up intensely at his midnight purple ceiling.

“Wha-?! Whahat ahare yohou tahahalking about??? Yohou know my worst spot!” Mikey giggled, rolling his eyes at his brother who only shook his head. “My apologies, Mikey. I sadly do not. But…perhaps you could possibly tell me?” Donnie smiled, a smile which only caused Mikey’s face to go a bright red. “I aham nohot telling! Yohou already know!” 

Donnie laughed at the younger one’s answer, starting to trace his fingers along the place where Mikey’s shell met his neck- a known melt spot spot for the youngest. Mikey giggled slightly at the sensation, squirming a bit under Donnie’s hold. 

"Are you ticklish anywhere else?" Donnie asks, not stopping his tracing, looking down at his younger brother’s face that indeed looked like a tomato- which is really weird because he hasn’t even tickled him for that long!

“Noho! I’m not! Juhuhust lemme gohoho!” Mikey squealed, kicking his legs trying oh so desperately to get off his older brother’s lap. “No? You're lying to me, aren't you?" Donnie chuckles, still not stopping as he continued to trace Mikey’s melt spot. 

“I bet you're super ticklish. I just need to find the right spots! Just tell me where, and I'll be sure to avoid it like the plague." He pauses, giving the younger a chance to tell him where he was ticklish (because Donnie obviously didn’t know!). His voice was low and teasing now, a playful, taunting inflection in his words. "Or should I just start tickling you until I find out myself?"

Mikey just giggled, shaking his head and stomping his feet on the ground- determined to try and escape while he still could. “That's a yes, then?" Donnie chuckles, smiling a little to himself. "Alright, I'm going to take your lack of response as permission to tickle you." The softshell merely said as he now started to tickle the younger’s exposed underarms.

“HeHEY!” The boxer turtle shrieked, trying his best to squirm away from his older brother. “ThaHAT TIHIckles yohoU BiHIHiG jeHerk!” Mikey cried, regretting his words as soon as they came out. 

“Does it?" Donnie chuckles in fake surprise, continuing to tickle Mikey’s underarms, his hands being gentle- not getting to his worst spots…not yet at least. “You really shouldn’t have said that, Mike~!” He remarks, smiling as the younger one only laughed more at the tease. The second oldest soon began to pick up the pace of his tickly fingers, laughing as Mikey tried to hide his face in his elbow- not being able to hide them in his hands since his arms were pinned up.

“What are you squirming around for, hm?” I vividly remember you saying you weren’t ticklish anywhere else…” Donnie stated matter-of-factly. “IHI LIhihiED, AhaLRIGHT? Ihi lihihIED- dOHOn PLEHease! QuiHIT IHIT!” The younger admitted, his laugh muffled from hiding his face away in his arms.

“Do you hear that, Raph? This little shit lied to me! Can you believe that?!” Donnie cried dramatically before lightly scratching his fingers at the sides of Mikey’s neck- making the younger let out a high-pitched squeal; not hiding in his arm anymore as he threw his head back in full blown laughter. 

“I wouldn’t be lying to Donnie if I were in your position, Mike. Just saying.” Raph said casually as if there wasn’t a red eared slider in his lap, laughing his shell off and squirming like he’s being electrocuted. 

“And you. Stop squirming so much! Your making it hard to get your good spots!” Raph playfully scolded down at Leo, tickling at the younger’s ribs, chuckling as Leo grabbed his wrists and uselessly tried to pull them away. 

“Ihi’m gOHOnna gEhet yohOU guhuys baHAHAck soho bahahad yoHOu’ll wiHIsh yohOU neHEver knew meehee!” Leo threatened, lightly punching the air in hopes to hit Raph. Which- none of them did. But hey, A for effort, right?

“Oho I bet you are.” Raph laughed sarcastically as he began to tickle Leo’s stomach. “Someone has a ticklish tum-tum, I see~?” Raph teased as Leo’s face began to go almost as red as the oldest’s bandanna. “DOOHOO *snort* naHAT CAHaLL IhiT THAHAT!” Leo squealed, kicking his legs and throwing his head back in hysterics. 

“RAHAHPHIEEEE! PLEHEASE! STAHAP IHIT!” Leo cried, still trying to grab at Raph’s hands as they were lightly pushed out of the way each time he tried. Raph smirked as the younger pleaded, only making Raph tickle his stomach more lightly- almost feather-like. 

“I will stop as soon as you and Mikey apologize!” Raph smiled. “Agreed. As soon as you two apologize, we’ll stop reminding you two just how ticklish you are.” Donnie exclaimed as he began to knead Mikey’s thighs. The box turtle shrieked, kicking his legs in hopes that the kicking will make it harder for Donnie to tickle him there. 

“NAHAHA! DEEHEE! NAHAT *squeak* THEHEHERE!” Mikey squealed, still kicking his legs but Donnie’s hands stayed firm as he began to knead harder. “IHIT TIHIHICKLES! DAHANNIE *squeak* PLEHEASE *squeak* STAHAP!”

“Hm? What? What’s so funny Angelo?” Donnie asked, looking back at his younger brother who- by the way- looked like a full on turtle tomato. “WEEHEE’RE SORRY!” Mikey cackled. Donnie nodded his head, looking at Raph but not stopping tickling Mikey. 

“Hey, did Leo apologize yet?” Donnie asked. “Nope! Which I think is a bit rude considering your situation don’t you think, Leo?” Raph asked, stopping tickling Leo to let him breathe as Donnie did the same with Mikey. 

“Yohou are thehe woHORST older brohohother eveher…” Leo giggled at Raph, knowing he was absolute dead meat after that comment but couldn’t help himself. Mikey made a teasing ‘ooooh~!’ sound, giggling at Leo’s comment to they’re eldest brother. 

“Personally, I wohohould nohot tahake that amount of disrespect…” Mikey giggled as Raph only sighed, shaking his head before smirking. Raph flipped Leo around so that his shell was facing the ceiling- and as he did so Leo felt as if his soul left his entire body. 

Leo and his big mouth…

“AHAHA! NOHO! NOHO WAHAIT *snort* A SEHEHECOND!” Leo panicky giggled, kicking his legs and lightly punching on Raph’s thighs. “Waitwaitwaitwait- lehet’s tahalk- RahaHAHAPH! RAHAHAPH WAHAHAIT!” Leo giggly panicked, his laughter increasing as Raph slowly lowered his head to the back Leo’s knees, ALMOST touching it with his face. 

“What? Wait for what?” Raph grinned, waiting for Leo to reply but the only response he got from the slider was snorting cackles. Raph took a deep breath before blowing a raspberry on the back of Leo’s knees, causing the younger turtle to go absolutely mad in laughter. Leo covered his face with his hands, muffled cackles bouncing around the walls along with Mikey’s squeaky cackles as Donnie gave raspberries to Mikey’s stomach. 

“Jeeheez…you guys are really ticklish, huh~? I wonder how long they could last…what do you think, Don?” Raph asked before going back to blowing raspberries on the slider’s knees, not showing him any mercy now. 

“I estimate about 3 more minutes or so…but it doesn’t really matter because I don’t plan on stopping until I hear an apology from Leo~!” Donnie tauntingly sang, laughing as Leo and Mikey’s laughs became more louder after that. “Besides, these two had what was coming to them for a while.” 

Mikey absolutely paled at Donnie’s tease. This wasn’t fair! This wasn’t fair one bit! He already apologized! He surrendered!But because of Leo’s stupid comment and the denial that’s he’s the most ticklish out of all 4 of them, they’ll probably be here for an hour! 

“LEEHEEO! LEEHEEON *squeak* PLEHEHEASE! JUHUHUST AHAPOHOL- *squeak*” Mikey cackled as Donnie began to blow raspberries on Mikey’s ribs now, scribbling his fingers along his sides too.

“So? What’s it gonna be, Leo? Have you had enough?” The eldest asked as Leo only glared at him through his laughter, throwing his head back again. Leo shook his head, banging his fists on the carpet. The poor slider was trying to act high and mighty but was still squirming like a fish out of water trying to get back into the ocean…

Or, in this case, trying not to get tickled to pieces.

“Stop squirming, Leo. You aren’t going anywhere. I could do this allllll day.” Raph teased as he blew another raspberry on Leo’s stomach. “Well, scientifically speaking, you can.” Donnie said, stopping giving Mikey raspberries but still tickling his stomach with both hands. 

“I was doing some research for um…scientific purposes and I figured out that alligator snapping turtles and softshell turtles can hold they’re breaths for an hour. So, as long as we take certain breaths now and again we could blow raspberries on Leo and Mikey’s ticklish tummies for as long as we-“

“WEEHEE GEHET IHIT!!!” The two youngest screamed, not wanting to hear anymore of Donnie’s “scientific discoveries” about how him and Raph were the most devious ticklish monsters on the planet.

Donnie and his dumb-dumb research.

“Huh…you don’t say…” Raph smiled, trying to test Donnie’s theory about the whole “not needing to breath thing for an hour” thing. He blew probably like the millionth raspberry on Leo’s stomach. 

 And…Donnie was right! Not that he had one single doubt on his immediate younger brother’s genius of course! It just sounded too good to be true! He will definitely be using this tactic on Leo and Mikey in the future…and maybe April too! He’s definitely not scared of the aftermath of when he does that to her… 

Raph smiled, not being taking a single breath as he continued to give a raspberry to the back of one of Leo’s knees. Raph was enjoying this new skill he could do very well! Leo on the other hand…was going absolutely ballistic.

“NAHAO, *snort* AHANYWHERE *snort* EHELSE! NAHAT *snort* THEHE KNEEHEEHEES!” Leo screamed, punching Raph’s thighs lightly again. “Awh~? Why not~? Is this a bad spot, Lee?” Raph teased into Leo’s knees, finding this whole situation quite amusing indeed. 

“OHOMIGAHAHA-!!! YEHES! IHIT’S *snort* SOHO FREEHEEAKING BAHAHAD!” Leo cackled, not knowing what to do but just laugh and kick his legs. He was absolutely defenseless! There was nothing more he could do but just take it! “So…it tickles? Would you say this tickles too~?” Raph asked as he began to nibble at the back of Leo’s knees along with giving raspberries at the same time. Or, “Raph-berries” if you  will. 

“RAHAHAPH! NAHAH- *snort* IHI HAHATE YOHOHAHAH!” Leo snorted, his hands starting to flap against the carpet floor, making light thumping noises. 

Raph laughed, a smile still plastered on his face- but instead of that eat shit-and-die” expression he had on earlier, this smile was way more fond. 

Fun fact: Anytime Leo was tickled by his siblings, he younger would start happy stimming with his hands. His siblings think it’s the most adorable thing ever- much to Leo’s disagreement.

And it was so funny because he couldn’t even deny that he hated being tickled (even though he did anyway)! The evidence was right there!

“You didn’t answer my question, little bro! Does it tickle?” Raph pressed on, eager to get an answer out of his younger brother. “ *YEHES! MY GAHAHAD! OHOBVIOUSLY!” Leo screamed, still trying to kick Raph off of him.

“Just making sure!” The oldest smiled sweetly, still not stopping his new ability on  the second youngest’s knees. Leo whined throughout his cackles, covering his face once more. “Don’t be like that, little bud! You know you love it!” Raph teased. 

“NAHAO *snort* THE HEHEHELL IHI *snort* DOHOHON’T!” Leo screamed, happy stimming with his hands again.

“Your body language says otherwise, bud.” Raph teased back. 

Back with the PB&J Duo, Donnie an idea sparked in the genius’ head. His eyes sparkled as he grinned at Mikey- causing the youngest to gulp in nervousness. He knew what his older brother was planning…

“Dohonatello- Dohon’t yohou dahahare…” Mikey warned, glaring at Donnie as a warning. But that so-called warning only made Donnie laugh. “Oh I dare. Oh I so, so dare, Angelo.” Donnie taunted before blowing raspberries on Mikey’s plastron where his ribs would be. 

The younger let out a glass shattering squeal, causing Donnie and everyone in the lab to flinch a bit. But like Leo- Mikey can’t really do anything but just laugh at this point. 

“PLEHEHEHEASE! DAHAN- *squeak*! STAHAP!” Mikey cackled, kicking Donnie in the side with his knees which only caused Donnie to chuckle. “I think our little brothers have mutated into a pig and mouse.” Raph laughed, both him and Donnie laughing at the comment- because they couldn’t really deny that fact that. 

“OKAHAY! OKAHAY!” Leo screamed, his hands flapping on Raph’s thighs repeatedly. The older chuckled at the gesture, fighting every ounce of him not to take a picture with Donnie’s phone right now at the younger’s adorableness. “Okay, what Lee~?”

“IHIHI’M SAHAHARRY!!” Leo snorted, his hands still flapping happily and Raph couldn’t help but laugh fondly at it. “Should we let them go, Raphie?” Donnie asked, still nibbling at Mikey’s plastron but eyes on Raph, waiting for his answer. 

“Yeheah, we should. We don’t want to accidentally kill them...” Raph said to his immediate younger brother, chuckling at his own joke. The two oldest stopped tickling the two youngest, letting the two just relax in they’re laps; trying to catch they’re breaths.

“Oho my gohod….” Leo breathed out, turning to his side so he could see both Donnie and Mikey. Raph laughed as he rubbed the younger one’s head; trying to soothe him. The younger teen squirmed, holding Raph’s wrist as the older laughed some more. “I’m not gonna tickle you, bud.” He said, continuing to rub Leo’s head as the red eared slider stopped holding his wrists, excepting the gesture. 

“Thahat was fuhun!” Mikey giggled with Leo, sitting up and leaning on Donnie’s plastron- now being able to use all of his limbs. The softshell then used his spider arms to give the pranking duo two glasses of water- which the two happily accepted. 

“Speak fohor yourself…” Leo giggly grumbled, putting the finished glass of water to the side after drinking it and leaning on Raph’s plastron. 

“So! I guess now you two know not to mess with your older brothers, right?” Donnie asked, wrapping Mikey in a hug before lightly squeezing his sides, causing the younger to let out a screech. “YeHES! We learned our lesson, okahay?! Jeeheez! Couldn’t you have warned us in text or something?” Mikey whined, pushing at Donnie’s face lightly.

“Nah. This was way more fun.” Raph and Donnie both said, smiling as the two youngest groaned fondly at they’re answer to Mikey’s question. 

——————————————————————

This fic has been a WIP for a LONG ASS TIME so I decided to finish as soon as my stupid exams ended and post it lol-

But srsly- I love this HC for Raph and Donnie sm it’s so evil <3 I hope everyone enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :D

(Also sorry if the phrasing and/or pacing is weird- this is my first time writing with two lees and two lers- I dunno what I’m doing 😭💀😂)

P.S. Since Summer just started for me I will be able to work on more of my WIP’s so keep watch for ‘em :p

[filledmouth]

been really in2 sandwiches lately

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kitchensink callithump linkdump

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

With just days to go before my summer vacation, I find myself once again with a backlog of links that I didn't squeeze into the blog, and no hope of clearing them before I disappear into a hammock for two weeks, so it's time for my 21st linkdump – here's the other 20:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I'm going to start off this week's 'dump with a little bragging, because it's my newsletter, after all. First up: a book! Yes, I write a lot of books, but what I'm talking about here is a physical book, a limited edition of ten, that I commissioned from three brilliant craftspeople.

Back in March 2023, I launched a Kickstarter to pre-sell the audiobook of Red Team Blues, the first novel in my new Martin Hench series, about a forensic accountant who specializes in unwinding tech bros' finance frauds:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

One of the rewards for that campaign was a very special hardcover: a handmade, leather-bound edition of Red Team Blues, typeset by the typography legend John D. Berry:

https://johndberry.com/

Bound by the legendary book-artist John DeMerritt:

https://www.demerrittstudios.com/

And printed by the master printer JaVae Berry:

https://www.jgraphicssf.com/

But this wasn't a merely beautiful, well made book – it had a gimmick. You see, I had already completed the first draft of The Bezzle, the second Hench novel, by the time I launched the Kickstarter for Red Team Blues. I had John Berry lay out a tiny edition of that early draft as a quarter-sized book, and then John DeMerritt hand-bound it in card.

The reason that edition of The Bezzle had to be so small was that it was designed to slip into a hollow cavity in the hardcover, a cavity that John Berry had designed the type around, so that both books could be read and enjoyed.

I offered three of these for sale through the Kickstarter, and the three backers were very patient as the team went back and forth on the book, getting everything perfect. Last month, I took delivery of the books: three for my backers, one each for John DeMerritt and John Berry's personal archives, one for me, and a few more that I'm going to surprise some very special people with this Christmas.

Look, I had high hopes for this book. I dote on beautiful books, my house is busting with them, and I used to work at a new/used science fiction store where we had a small but heartstoppingly great rare book selection. But these books are fucking astounding. Every time I handle mine, my heart races. These are beautiful things, and I just want to show them to everyone:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/albums/72177720318331731/

As it happens, the next thing I'm going to do (after I finish this newsletter) is turn in the copyedited manuscript for the third Hench novel, Picks and Shovels, which comes out in Feb 2025 (luckily, I had enough time to review the edits myself, then turn it over to my mom, who has proofed every book I've written and always catches typos that everyone else misses, including some real howlers – thanks Mom!):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

Of course, the majority of people who enjoy my books do not end up with one of these beautiful hardcovers – indeed, many of you consume my work exclusively as electronic media: ebooks and (of course) audiobooks. I love audiobooks and the audio editions of my books are very good, with narrators like Amber Benson, Wil Wheaton, and Neil Gaiman.

But here's the thing: Audible refuses to carry my books, because they are DRM-free (which means that they aren't locked to Audible's approved players – you can play my audiobooks with any audiobook player). Audible has a no-exceptions, iron-clad rule that every book they sell must be permanently locked into their platform, which means that Audible customers can't ditch their Audible software without losing their libraries – all the books they purchased:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Being excluded from Audible takes a huge bite out of my income – after all, they're a monopolist with a 90% market share. That's why I'm so grateful for indie audiobook stores that carry my books on equitable terms that Audible denies – stores like Libro.fm, Downpour and even Google Books.

This week, I discovered a new, amazing indie audiobook store called Storyfair, where the books are DRM-free and the authors get a 75% royalty on every sale:

https://storyfair.net/helpstoryfairgrow/

Storyfair is a labor of love created by a married couple who were sickened and furious by the way that Audible screws authors and listeners and decided to do something about it. Naturally, I uploaded my whole catalog to the site so they could sell it:

https://storyfair.net/search-for-audiobooks/?keyword=cory+doctorow&filter=any

These books are DRM-free, which means that no matter who you buy them from, you can play them in the same player as your other DRM-free audiobooks. You know how you can read all your books under the same lamp, sitting in the same chair, and then put them in the same bookcase when you're done with them? It's weird – outrageous even! – that tech companies think that buying a book from them means that they should have the legal right to force you to read or listen to it using their technology exclusively.

If you let your Storyfair audiobooks touch your Libro.fm audiobooks, they won't get cooties! Audible is like a toddler that won't let their broccoli touch their peas – only that toddler is also a rapacious monopolist that keeps 75% of every sale.

The fight for fair audiobooks is one of those places where the different parts of my professional life cross over: activism, digital media, art, writing the web, and breaking down complex technical subjects for a mass audience. I've just signed up to a six-year project to combine all those facets in a structured way, in collaboration with Cornell University.

Cornell just named me as their latest AD White Professor-at-Large. This is a six-year appointment that involves a series of week-long visits to Ithaca to lecture, run seminars, meet with colleagues, collaborate on research, and do community performances:

https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/

We've tentatively scheduled my first visit for early September 2025, to coincide with the Ithaca Book Festival, and we've got big plans, roping in multiple departments at Cornell, the local alternative school and local colleges, doing talks at the fair as well as at the university, and (we hope!) squeezing in a stop in NYC on the way home for a day at Cornell Tech. I'm so excited (and honored) to be working with Cornell (and getting a chance to visit Moosewood Restaurant, whose cookbooks taught me how to cook!). Watch this space.

Authorship has always been a political act, but never moreso than today, with waves of book-bans sweeping the country. One of the heroes of those bans is Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who made headlines when she publicly excoriated Scholastic for demanding that she remove references to racism from her kids' books in order to make them more palatable to reactionaries:

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/15/1169848627/scholastic-childrens-book-racism

Tokuda-Hall has stepped up the fight, co-founding Authors Against Book Bans, an org that provides training and support for author/activists so they can fight back against book bans at library board and city council meetings:

https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/

Authors Against Book bans is looking for members! I signed up last week, within seconds of having Tokuda-Hall give me the pitch when we ran into each other in Oakland at the Locus Awards. Are you an author? Sign up too! They're especially interested in branching out beyond YA and kids' authors (though they want those kinds of writers, too!).

Book bans affect us all. Even if you personally are never stymied when you visit your library and discover the book that you want to read has been removed by a swivel-eyed loon with terminal groomer-panic. The bans sweeping our country mean that our neighbors and loved ones are being denied literature by these cranks. There are people in your life who are losing out on the possibility of a life-changing literary adventure (which is why the far right hates these books – they want to be sure no one encounters the ideas between their covers).

The realization that you have to live in a society with people who are harmed by injustice, even if you personally escape that justice? It's the whole basis for solidarity.

Americans are living through a multigenerational project of stamping out solidarity and insisting that we only ever view ourselves as individuals, with no stake in the plights of our neighbors. That's how the US got the most expensive, least effective health care system in the world. And even if you are in the vanishingly tiny minority of Americans who are happy with their health care, you live amongst people who are being killed by the system around you.

The health system is a perfect example of how monopolization drives more monopolization, and how that comes to harm the public and workers. Health consolidation began with pharma mergers, that led to pharma companies gouging hospitals. Hospitals, in turn, engaged in a nonstop orgy of mergers, which created regional monopolies that could resist the pricing power of monopoly pharma – and screw insurers. That kicked off consolidation in insurance, which is why most Americans have a "choice" of between one and three private insurers – and why health workers' monopoly employers have eroded their wages and working conditions.

A new study in American Economic Review: Insights puts some quantitative spine in this tale, tracking the relationship between hospital mergers and skyrocketed health-care prices:

https://harris.uchicago.edu/news-events/news/consolidation-hospital-sector-leading-higher-health-care-costs-study-finds?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template

The researchers investigated 1,164 acute-care hospital mergers, finding that while the FTC only challenged 1% of these, they could – and should – have challenged 20% of them, based on the agency's own criteria for merger scrutiny. The researchers blame the rising costs of hospital care directly on these mergers, and point out that Congress has historically starved the FTC of the budget it needed to investigate these mergers. The annual additional costs to the American people from these mergers exceed the entire annual budget of the FTC.

It's not just hospitals: the entire investor class is hell-bent on spending their way to monopoly. Nowhere is that more true than in AI, where hundreds of billions are being poured into bids to attain permanent dominance through scale. Writing for their excellent AI Snake Oil newsletter, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor inject some realism into the AI scale hype:

https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-scaling-myths

Narayanan and Kapoor challenge the idea that throwing more data at large language models will make the better: "With LLMs, we may have a couple of orders of magnitude of scaling left, or we may already be done." They are skeptical that this can be fixed with synthetic data (whose use is limited to "fixing specific gaps and making domain-specific improvements"). They also point out that if returns from data slow, then returns from adding more compute or making bigger models might also be throttled.

They reserve their most skeptical take for "AGI" – the idea that LLMs are going to achieve consciousness. This is a fundamentally unserious idea, one that they unpack in detail in their forthcoming book:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249131/ai-snake-oil

One thing I'm hoping for from the book is some analysis of the material usefulness of AI hype – what purpose does the hype serve? I mean, obviously, hype is useful if you're looking to suck up investor capital, or flip an investment to a greater fool. But there's a specific character to AI hype: namely, the claim that AI will displace labor, which is really a claim that a bet on AI is a bet on the increasing wealth of capital at labor's expense.

In other words, AI is a bet on oligarchy. In America, that's a pretty safe bet, and the odds just got even better, thanks to a string of brutal Supreme Court decisions that legalized bribery, banned most regulatory enforcement, and made being alive and unhoused into a crime (Poor Laws 2.0):

https://prospect.org/justice/2024-06-29-whos-gonna-check-supreme-court-chevron-separation-powers/

But amidst all those gimmes to the rich and powerful, there was one notable exception: the SCOTUS ruling on the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. Purdue was the family business of the Sacklers, a multigenerational dope-peddling dynasty that went from super-rich to stratospherically rich by kickstarting the opioid epidemic with their blockbuster drug Oxycontin.

The Sacklers sold mountains of Oxy the old fashioned way: by lying. The lied about its efficacy and they lied about its safety, and they helped kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Eventually, this caught up with them, and Purdue lost a bunch of court cases and was forced into bankruptcy.

That's where things get gnarly: the Sacklers took the already-sleazy world of elite bankruptcy to a whole new level, with a set of breathtakingly sleazy maneuvers that ensured that their case would be heard by the one judge in America who would let them off the hook:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

That judge was Robert Drain and the Sacklers were the blow-off to a long and shameful career in public "service." The Sacklers incorporated a subsidiary in White Plains, NY (in Drain's turf) precisely 181 days before filing for bankruptcy, then claimed that this empty small-town office had been the company HQ for more than six months. Then they hid machine-readable metadata in their filing that tricked the court's database into assigning the case to Drain:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

The reason the Sacklers were so horny for Drain? He was a notoriously generous source of "nonconsensual third-party releases." These would allow the Sacklers to permanently end every lawsuit against them without having to declare bankruptcy. Instead, they could take their (ruined, hollow) company through bankruptcy, throw a small fraction of their personal fortunes into the pot, representing fractional pennies on the dollar of what they owed to their victims, and walk away with tens of billions and eternal protection from any future suits.

In other words, they could stiff their creditors and keep the loot. Which is exactly what Robert Drain gave them – before retiring from the bench to get a two-orders-of-magnitude pay raise at a white-shoe firm that specializes in representing corporate mass-murderers like the Sacklers.

That's where it would have ended, but for a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court, which threw out the nonconsensual third-party release deal and put the Sacklers back on the hook to pay the victims of their many, many crimes.

As ever, the best source of analysis and explanation for elite bankruptcy shenanigans is Adam Levitin of the Credit Slips blog:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2024/06/purdue-pharma-decision-a-big-win-for-mass-tort-victims.html

Levitin has a prediction for what's going to happen next. He rejects the predictions of Sackler apologists, who say that this is going to add years or decades to the already too-long wait for compensation that the Sacklers' victims have endured. Instead, Levitin says that the Sacklers will almost certainly transfer billions more from their personal fortunes to the settlement pot and beg for consensual releases from their victims. In other words, they'll go from dictating terms to asking for them.

So the settlement will stand, but it will be larger, and victims who don't want to take it won't have to – they'll be able to sue. In other words, this ruling "does not prevent deals in bankruptcy. It just changes the terms of what those deals."

This has implications for other mass-murderers and corporate criminals, like Johnson and Johnson (who tricked women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

And the Boy Scouts of America, who let pedophiles abuse children for decades:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/05/third-party-nonconsensual-releases/#au-recherche-du-pedos-perdue

Both J&J and BSA carved out nonconsensual third-party releases in the mold of the Sacklers' deal, and both briefed the Supreme Court, warning that if the Sacklers were forced to pay what they owed, J&J and BSA's victims would also be entitled to far larger sums. Go ahead and threaten us with a good time, why doncha?

The Sackler decision is a real bright spot at a dark time for corporate impunity. It's always nice to see big corporate bullies getting a bit of a comeuppance. Another one of those comeuppances was just delivered thanks to a classic fatfinger error.

A Microsoft engineer accidentally released the sourcecode to Playready, the company's flagship DRM product:

https://borncity.com/win/2024/06/26/microsoft-employee-accidentally-publishes-playready-code/

Microsoft's DRM doesn't do anything to protect the interests of creative workers or even the companies that employ them. As a Microsoft rep admitted on stage at a presentation in 2006, the purpose of Microsoft DRM is to prevent small startups from entering the market, ensuring that Microsoft and its "rivals" can safely divide up the world without worrying about disruptive competitors:

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/30/msft-our-drm-licensing-is-there-to-eliminate-hobbyists-and-little-guys/

I was there that day and reported on the remarks, prompting both Microsoft and its rep to furiously deny that they'd ever said this, despite multiple witnesses who heard it. This was just a couple years after I gave a viral talk at Microsoft about why the company shouldn't use DRM:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

By 2006, it was clear that the company was all in on DRM, and today, DRM is the centerpiece of Microsoft's anticompetitive strategy, and Playready is the centerpiece of Microsoft's DRM. The source-code leak is doubtless going to give rise to lots of grey-market tools for stripping DRM from all kinds of media:

https://security-explorations.com/microsoft-playready.html

You love to see it! Now I'm doubly looking forward to this summer's security conferences, including Defcon, where, for the first time, I'll be emceeing the charity poker tournament to benefit EFF:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/betting-your-digital-rights-eff-benefit-poker-tournament-def-con-32

This should be very fun – and funny – especially given how little I know about poker (I have been specifically selected on that basis, for the comedy value). Every player gets a custom EFF poker-deck, and the winner gets a treasure chest filled by EFF board member Tarah Wheeler, including "emeralds, black pearls, amethysts, diamonds, and more."

I like to close these linkdumps with something fun and uplifting, and I'd planned to end things with the poker-tournament, but then my pal Raph Koster announced that his game studio Playable Worlds had dropped its first announcement of Stars Reach, an open-world MMO like no other:

https://www.raphkoster.com/2024/06/28/announcing-stars-reach/

Raph is a legend in MMO design circles, whose credits include Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. He wrote the definitive text on how games work, A Theory of Fun, that's does for games what Understanding Comics did for comics:

https://www.theoryoffun.com/

Stars Reach is stupidly ambitious. It consists of truly open worlds, modeled to an absurd degree of fidelity:

We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up. And not just our water — everything does this. Catch a tree on fire with a stray blaster bolt. Melt your way through a glacier to find a hidden alien laboratory embedded in the ice. Stomp too hard on a rock bridge, and watch out, it might collapse under your feet. Dam up a river to irrigate your farm. Or float in space above an asteroid, and mine crystals from its depths.

The game is fundamentally a climate story, whose lore has humanity seeded around the galaxy by a powerful alien race called the Old Ones, only to have humans bust through the planetary limits of every world they were given. Now the Old Ones are giving humans another chance to try smarter ways of sustaining ourselves on new worlds, with the aid of powerful robots call "Servitors."

Because this is a Raph Koster game, it's got a bunch of extremely satisfying play dynamics:

A classless skill tree advancement system, where peaceful play matters just as much as combat

An intricate player-driven economy where players can craft their way to fame and fortune

An accessible yet deep combat system, where you can choose whether to play using action aiming or more forgiving homing shots or lock-on targeting

In-world player housing that lets you build and customize your home and form towns… and enough room for everyone to have a house

A single shardless galaxy, with both space and ground gameplay… in fact, you can build that house on an asteroid, if you want

The ability for a group to govern a planet, and define its laws, whether you want a peaceful home or a PvP free for all

Stars Reach is not playable yet, but the company's looking for gamers to give them feedback and steer the development:

https://starsreach.com/

OK, that wraps up the week's links. I'm gonna get one more edition out on Monday, god willin' and the crick don't rise, and then I'll be off for a couple weeks. Enjoy your summer!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/29/pasticcio/#professor-at-large

Image: James St John https://flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/40894047123

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[strawberry-pretzels]

nobody:

literally nobody:

mfs writing the most beautiful character study about the different ways people cope, suffer, and eventually heal from grief about turtles who lost their brother to canned spam (it was rottmnt fanfiction):

[pctentialbreakupsong-archive]

📞 Kath ( @velvetnviolentviolets )

[thelaundrybitch]

YAASSS

@sharpwindow

My thoughts on the boys and summer activities.

Mikey - If it involves a beach, this guy is there. Surfing, beach volleyball, sandcastles, anything and everything that requires water and sand.

Raph - I see him hanging out all day at one of those outdoor gyms. Showing off to anyone who passes by. "Yea I guess benching 150lbs is impressive...if your a baby. Watch this." Then blows your mind and benches an ubsurd amount of weight.

Donnie - I found this one a little tricky but instead of complex it's very simple. Bonfires. Something about the simplicity and the utter lack of tech makes it meditative for the genius. The crackling wood, the smoky smell, nothing would relax him more. Would definitely have one every night.

Leo - I feel this is predictable but Leo loves to camp. Getting back to something simple, breathing the fresh air all day and night...you've never heard this man snore until you get him in a tent, just totally in his element. He would also show off how he could forage for food and you'd be surprised how good he makes it taste.

[novastar-creations]

ROTTMNT ART CHALLENGE DAY 7: Pancakes!

I think this would be after the Krang invasion but before they find the new new lair

ALSO SIDE NOTE I’VE NEVER MADE IT THIS FAR IN AN ART CHALLENGE ONE WHOLE WEEK OMGGGG

Mastapost

Individual panels under the cut + Headcanons on how they eat their pancakes bc why not

Mikey: He makes the pancakes, end even when his hands are shaking, he’s got it down to an art form. They’re soft, fluffy, and perfectly cooked to each individual’s liking.

Cass: Tries it with anything and everything. Berries, chocolate, maple bacon, butter, you name it, they’ve tried it. Why? The foot clan didn’t have pancakes!

Leo: Eats it like a heathen. He eats the burnt ones, stuffs his face, practically drools maple syrup, and worst of all - butter (I hate butter with every part of my soul)

April: Prefers her pancakes to be on the less thick ends of the spectrum, takes small bites, and tries it with most things, but not all at once like Cass.

Raph: Two drops of lemon juice and an aggressive amount of sugar. The lemon juice is the only reason his brothers let him do it because technically it’s healthy. He also likes his to be superrrr thick, but hates them being burnt, so they’re a little undercooked in the middle

Donnie: Thin pancakes, no toppings.

[xavitron883]

More lee Casey!!

Casey was taking a nap with Raph when he desides to wake Casey up with his signature "Raph-Berries"

Raph is such a gremlin i love him!

[goodlucktai]

hold the world to its best (5/?)

rottmnt word count: 2k pairing: raph & OC title borrowed from light by sleeping at last part of the archer au

(prev) (next)

x

Gio is by no means a chatterbox. 

His pattern of speech is the same as when he’s nineteen years old, littered with careful pauses, slow to string words together. He tacks on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at the end of everything like someone is waiting around the corner to grade him on his manners. He visibly overthinks it every time he opens his mouth to say anything at all. 

If Raph had a dollar for every time Gio looked up at him to make sure it was okay for him to speak, he’d have enough money to buy the state of New York by the end of the week. And he can’t think about why that is, because then anger and hurt and a wailing sense of unfairness that feels like a little kid stomping their feet shouting ‘no no no!’ will swell inside him until he has to do something with all of it, like break a wall. And he can’t break a wall because that would scare the baby. So he can’t think about it. 

But Gio doesn’t need any prompting or encouragement when Splinter comes home from a last-minute run to Stop & Shop. There’s supposed to be a storm tonight, and traveling through flooded tunnels is no one’s idea of a good time, especially not with groceries for a family of eight. 

“Someone needs to go unpack the car so all of you must roshambo for it,” Splinter announces by way of hello. 

Everyone else groans but Gio perks right up. He squirms down from the sofa and runs to greet dad with uppy arms and a hopeful, “Papa.” 

A direct hit. The old rat has to take a knee. Not even the Shredder was enough to defeat the former Battle Nexus champion, but a two foot tall baby turtle is another story. 

“Hello my little one,” Splinter chokes out, scooping the spotted turtle right up. “Ah, I have not been welcomed home like this in many years. It’s enough to make an old man nostalgic. Thank you, Gray.”

“Appliance store commercials make you nostalgic,” Donnie says without looking up from his phone. 

“If you tried to pick one of us up like that you’d pull something,” Leo adds. 

“And thank you my obnoxious blueberries,” Splinter says, still in his baby-turtle-voice but with a narrow look over Gio’s head at the peanut gallery that implies they’d both get whacked with his tail if they were within reach. 

Pops must be feeling nostalgic if he’s breaking out that childhood nickname for the twins. Leo was the blue and Donnie was the berry from the ages of zero to about nine, when they had decided they’d outgrown it. Now Donnie looks incredulous and Leo looks deeply embarrassed, like a couple of kids whose mom is blowing kisses at them out the car window in front of all their friends. It has the additional effect of shutting them right up, which might have been what Splinter intended in the first place. Raph is adding that to his arsenal for a rainy day. 

Gio is too well-mannered to demand dad’s attention back like all the rest of his spoiled siblings would have done, but his eyes are big and lamp-like, and he’s wringing his hands against his plastron like someone five times his age, and it gives him away anyway. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” Mikey chirps, swinging around to hang off Splinter’s back and hook his chin over the rat’s shoulder. 

“Gray,” Gio says carefully. Then he points to himself, and does the question-mark wiggle with his pointer finger. Me?

“Yes, you!” Mikey leans over even further to poke Gio’s beak playfully. Splinter is fully supporting the weight of two of his kids at this point, one significantly heavier than the other. “It’s a nickname! We all have them. You’re Spot, and Gray, and Georgie. And Georgathan and Gregory and Jorge and—”

“Point made, Michael,” Donnie says flatly, because he really will just keep going. 

Mirror neurons in full-effect, Gio smiles at Mikey’s smile. Then he fingerspells C-L-E-M and points to himself again. 

“‘Clem’?” Mikey sounds it aloud. “Is that you?”

Gio nods with his fist, and what little expression they’ve coaxed out of him over the last couple of days is evaporating by the second, leaving behind that neutral-faced toddler they first met. Mikey clocks it and straightens, bracing his hands on Splinter’s shoulder to glance over his head at Raph, brow wrinkling beneath his mask. 

Raph, for his part, is marveling at the fact that it has literally never occurred to him to wonder about where the name “Giorgio” came from. Gio told them that he didn’t grow up with them in the future—that he spent the bulk of his childhood in another dimension before making his way back to the one he belonged in. What are the odds that Gio had a matching name before he knew he was part of a set? Obviously he must have been called something else before. 

Donnie is frowning thunderously. When he shoots a sideways look at Leo and raises his eyebrows, Leo only grimaces back in answer, both of them clearly on the same page and not loving what they’ve found there.

“Share with the class, you two,” Raph says for the millionth time in his life, stamping down an ancient annoyance. They claim not to have twin telepathy and then have entire conversations without saying a word. Who are they trying to fool?

“Ugh,” Donnie says. He looks and sounds disgruntled, like he hasn’t decided how upset he needs to be yet but he’s leaning towards ‘very.’ “Clem—I said it earlier, didn’t I? Clemmys guttata. The scientific name for spotted turtles. It’s like if my name was Apa, short for Apalone spinifera. No individuality, no character, no dynamism.”

Splinter’s tail lashes, agitated. “You all had tags on your shells when you were just babies. I kept them because it was the closest thing to a birth certificate I was likely to ever have. They included information such as your weights and sizes, your approximate time of hatching, as well as your genus and species. I still have them in a shoebox somewhere.”

So whoever found baby Georgie after the portal separated him from his family must have seen that tag. They must not have realized that it was the classification of what, not who, he was. 

Raph kind of hates that, actually. Even pets are given names. 

But he also hates the way Gio is getting nervous, making himself smaller where he’s tucked in the crook of Splinter’s arm, like he did something wrong by bringing it up. 

So he steps over and crouches down the way he’s gotten in the habit of doing with his baby-fied older brother. Splinter helps him out by turning slightly so that Gio and Raph are face to face. 

Gio tucks his chin slightly, and it would be easy to mistake the gesture for timid, but Raph knows better. For a second, Gio’s older self shines through. 

The kid isn’t even wringing his hands anymore, just clasping them so tightly it’s causing his dark gray-green skin to blanch. He’s watching his biggest brother with those archer eyes that miss absolutely nothing. He’s prepared for Raph to be angry with him, even though all he’s done is ask a simple question, even though Raph hasn’t so much as frowned at him once. 

Raph cannot break a wall, he reminds himself sternly. 

“Hey, big guy,” Raph says, smiling his biggest and warmest smile. “I’m sorry, it must have been pretty confusing, all of us calling you by some name you didn’t know. Do you want us to call you Clem instead?”

None of them would like doing it, but Gio’s comfort is more important than how the rest of them feel about a name he used to go by. It’s temporary, and Raph’s bratty little brothers will do as they’re told for once, or he’s putting them in air jail. All of them, air jail. 

But Gio shakes his head fast. He signs ‘no,’ too, touching his fingers to his thumb. 

“No, please,” he adds for good measure. “I want to be Gio.”

“Gio it is,” Raph says firmly. 

Mikey plants both his hands on Raph’s left shoulder and pushes with all his might. Raph doesn’t move, but Splinter is propelled a step backwards. Mikey uses the space he created to flip over dad and land nimbly in front of him and scoop the baby out of his arms. 

Gio doesn’t react beyond an initial widening of his eyes. A few days of constant exposure to Michelangelo has acclimated even the most cautious child in the world to his whimsy and enthusiasm. When Mikey smushes their cheeks together, Gio even smiles. 

“Do you like bananas?” Mikey asks solemnly. 

“Yes,” Gio says. 

“Do you like cake?”

“Yes,” their resident sweet-addict says unremarkably, like that isn’t the understatement of all time. Leo makes an incredulous scoffing noise, a laugh that’s trying not to start. He’s probably thinking of the same thing Raph is, which is the time Gio ate six red velvet cupcakes in one sitting and called it breakfast with a straight face. 

“Did you know I made a banana split cake for dessert?” Mikey whispers conspiratorially. “It’s almost ready to eat—I just need someone to help me add all the sprinkles on top.”

“I can help,” Gio says earnestly, leaning away to look up at Mikey with big brown eyes. Every person in the room would give him anything he wants, no exceptions, but probably the only thing he wants now in the whole entire world is to help with the sprinkles. 

“Aw, Georgie, I knew I could count on you! Helper gets first dibs, so let’s go make sure you get the best piece!”

Raph drags Leo with him to go haul in the groceries. Leo complains about it while in earshot of everyone else, but he doesn’t actually hate one-on-one time with his second-oldest brother. He loves it, actually. He just has to put on a show for no one’s benefit but his own for reasons that are a mystery to everyone but himself. If Raph would have remembered that in those tumultuous months leading up to the invasion, he would have saved himself a lot of grief. 

For now it’s enough to trip Leo and then run ahead of him, hearing the initial startled squawk melt into a competitive cackle and bracing for the weight of a little brother that lands on Raph’s shell moments later. 

Even with the ability to portal back and forth, it makes sense to two teenagers to precariously amass all the shopping bags at once and make a single trip. There’s a paper produce bag of tomatoes that almost doesn’t make it, and would have tipped out all over the kitchen floor if not for the quick save of Mikey’s sunshine-golden magic catch. 

“You boys are too silly for your own good,” Splinter grumps without heat, but he pats Raphael’s arm fondly before elbowing his way through the kitchen toward the fridge. 

Gio is sitting on the edge of the counter, kicking his feet idly and eating maraschino cherries out of the jar that Mikey left unattended. Donnie is leaning against the island beside him, pretending to be absorbed with his phone, but coincidentally within reach if a certain toddler were to slip and fall or start choking. 

Donnie is also, as far as Gio is concerned, the answers guy. He reaches out one pink-stained hand and pats Donnie’s arm very gently. Donnie, who would have no less than twenty things to say to anyone else who dared touch him with cherry fingers, each more scalding than the last, simply says, “Yes, George?”

“What is he like?” Gio asks. 

“Who?”

“Gio,” he says. 

Donnie blinks and sets his phone down. “What are you like? Oh—your older self, you mean?” Gio hesitates, but ultimately nods, and Donnie hums thoughtfully. “How best to describe Hamato Giorgio. A conundrum.”

“He’s so cool,” Mikey pipes up, with a smug glance at Leo. They have newly reached a point in their lives where it’s tentatively okay to make jokes about certain aspects of the day the world almost ended, depending on the joke. Leo’s early-onset hero worship of the long-lost Kraang-killing brother who’d brought him home that day is always okay to joke about, because Leo isn’t teased until he’s red in the face and sinking into his shell nearly enough. 

Leo scowls and shoves a carton of eggs at Mikey for him to put away, but noticeably does not refute the statement. 

“He’s a tank,” Raph adds, smiling automatically when Gio’s big dark eyes find him. “Steady as a rock, rolls with the punches. When he gets knocked down, he doesn’t stay down for long.”

“Proficient at his chosen craft,” Donnie says. “The tool he uses requires precision, focus, and hand-eye coordination, often in the middle of confusing or frenetic situations. But he never misses.”

“And he’s nice,” Mikey says, exchanging the jar of cherries in Gio’s hand for a can of cool whip. Gio holds it and has no idea what to do with it, so Mikey forms his fingers around the nozzle and presses, giggling at Gio’s surprised jump. He directs the baby turtle to the dessert dish, and as meticulous as he usually is with his cooking, he lets Gio apply the whipped topping the way he lets his brothers add color to his spray paint murals—as if each clumsy pass and crooked line is a worthwhile addition to his art. He beams every time Gio glances up to make sure he’s doing it right, so warm and bright and indulgent that it’s almost hard to believe he’s been the baby of the family all along. “He always has time for us, day and night. If we need something, he’ll get it. No questions asked,” Mikey goes on.

“Even if maybe a question or two should be asked,” Splinter mutters, likely having a flashback of the absurdly big tuna fish Gio had once brought home after Mikey made a passing remark about wishing he had the means to make sushi for lunch. They had nowhere to put it. They ate sushi for days. But Mikey had squealed with delight when he saw it, which made every single thing anyone else had to say about it a moot point to Giorgio.

“He’s our big brother, and he’s the best,” Leo says, folding his arms on the counter. “Hey, can I get some of that?” He leans over and opens his mouth, and Gio blinks at him, and then down at the can in his hands, and then attempts to apply whipped cream to Leo’s face. Some of it makes it into his mouth, but most doesn’t. Leo laughs, silly and sweet, before it even occurs to Gio to worry that he’ll get scolded, and wipes the errant cream into his mouth with his thumb. “We love him to pieces, and he loves us, too. It’s a good deal all around. Everybody wins.”

Gio gazes up at him, searching his face for something. He nods, and smiles back, and then giggles when Leo scoops some whipped cream out of the dish and smears it onto his nose—at which point Mikey declares Leo banned from dessert prep and Leo says, “Oh, big words from Mr. Eats-Peanut-Butter-With-His-Fingers,” and Donnie picks up both Gio and the discarded cherry jar and relocates the three of them to the other side of the island, out of the line of fire. 

Gio opts to stay in Donnie’s lap rather than return to his seat on the counter. Donnie looks down at the top of his head, but if he’s surprised he doesn’t show it. As all big turtles are wont to do with smaller ones, Donnie will hold him for as long as he wants to be held. 

From the way Gio’s sticky hands clutch Donnie’s arm, as if he might lose it if he doesn’t hold on, that’s one universal truth he hasn’t learned yet.

[truths33k3r4]

CHAPTER 14 - Only a Teacher, Never a Father

For most of Mikey’s childhood, Splinter’s bedroom solely remained ‘off limits’ to the brothers. And on the rare occasion that they did find themselves in the mysterious nook, it was most likely for the purpose of awaiting a punishment. Despite the soft, crimson carpet and the smoky scents of flickering candles spread out the room, the space never felt warm. Even the majesty of the hand-painted mural on the wall did nothing but remind them just how small they truly were. 

Mikey winced at the sensation of sweat seeping into his jittering palms, his darting turquoise irises finding their home everywhere except his father’s face. He was sure he’d picked and pulled at every stray thread on his hand wraps, causing the ends to fray. He couldn’t help it! Energy always had a special place in his soul, usually stemming from joy, laughter, or a good beat. But the adrenaline causing his palms to become the ickiest of slip-n-slides was foreign and very much unwelcome. 

He hated not knowing what to do. And when he was unsure, he would fidget; That was something he could pour the nervous energy into, by twiddling with his fingernails, picking at dry skin, or pulling and twirling material around his fingers. Sure, it would leave his wraps a glorified ball of yarn encasing his arms, or his nails would get a little too short, but it was better than catching himself spouting off random words in a chaotic mess that barely resembled a sentence. They had Don for that, and the youngest would never steal an iconic habit from his temperamental, genius brother.

The stress building inside of the youngest wasn’t helped at all when he saw how his older brother had handled training. Raph was rarely one to make a verbal sound during exercising, always keeping his pain just as secret as his bleeding heart. So it really threw Mikey for a loop when his fiery brother had not only groaned loud enough to be heard, but had also somehow injured himself before a spar even broke out. It twisted the youngest’s tender heart when he saw his tough brother whimper through the pain that had pulsed through his arm. And when Mikey had asked what happened, his older brother bit his lip and shoved his discomfort back into unseen shadows. Just like always.

 After Splinter had caught them talking, things just went downhill from there. The dojo became as silent and cold as falling snow as they finished their stretches and tumbles. Not a single diss was given from Raph as the brothers exercised, which twisted Mikey’s brain and gut even more; Instigation and insults were as common as bruises in their home. Especially in the room where they trained and sparred. So that further proved to the youngest how unwell his fiery sibling really was.

A determined scowl grew on the youngest’s face.

He’s got another thing coming if he thinks this is over. Soon as I’m done here I’m gonna drag his berry-hued butt to Sensei. Or Leo. Maybe both.

“Ahem.” 

Mikey flinched at the seemingly calm and patient sound that rumbled through his father.

Oh crud. I totally got lost in my head again.

“S-Sorry, Dad!” The youngest whimpered, as he straightened his posture and did his best to give his full attention to his waiting sensei. He purposefully placed his hands at his sides, hoping that would be enough to keep himself from picking at his wraps. With a forced breath he lowered his shoulders as his father knelt down in front of him. Mikey inwardly struggled not to rise up and help his aged sensei when the master let out a strained grunt as he knelt on the mat.

“Now that I have your undivided attention,” Master Splinter spoke with faded brows raised and the glimmer of an amused smile, “We can finally begin. Firstly, I will start by telling you that you are not in trouble.” 

Mikey couldn’t help but sigh in relief at the news. “Oh, good! PHEW!” He nervously laughed, dramatically swiping his hand across his forehead and flicking off beads of sweat.

“Yes.” Splinter softly chuckled along, most likely attempting to soothe the frayed nerves of his youngest son. “There is nothing necessarily wrong, but there are… changes that will soon be happening to you.” 

His father’s gentle but worrying words felt like a stone with soft, smooth edges but a staggering weight hidden within. Part of Mikey wished his father just acted like Raph sometimes, and replaced the babying tones with iron, blunt force. At least that way the pain would be over quicker, and the youngest wouldn’t be left anxiously waiting for the bombshell to go off.

He tried to swallow the girthy stone of his father’s words, nearly making him choke as he squeaked, “What do you mean by ch-changes?” He asked cautiously, waiting for the rock in his gut to become a stick of dynamite.

His father’s face shifted, conflict pulling taut every wrinkle. Mikey unknowingly tensed as a decision was made behind his sensei’s mossy irises.

“I shall start with where you are in your training.”

Oh. That’s it? Really??

“That’s it?” Mikey asked, bringing volume to his inner thoughts without realizing it. A stern glare from his father silenced both his mind and his words.

“No, it is just where we will start.” Splinter corrected with a subtle twitch of wavering patience from one of his ears. “Do you recall what your older brothers did when they turned thirteen? How their training and passions intensified?”

…Uh… That’d be a nope.

“Um… Not really, Sensei…” Mikey admitted, his gaze straying to the floor. “I was kinda in my own world back then.”

It was true. He’d always been a bit more of an “airhead” as Raph so gently put it. When he was a kid, his world consisted of drawing, singing, and watching movies. When he wasn’t doing those, his time was put into schoolwork and hanging out with his brothers. 

Things didn’t begin to change until Leo and Raph turned eleven and twelve; One fateful day they both emerged from Sensei’s room, Leo sobbing and Raph bleeding from a deep cut across his right eye.

Ever since that accident their father changed; Bed times became more strict, schoolwork was watched with a prying eye, and laughter became scarcely heard from their dad’s mouth. He especially became really hard on Leo, pulling him aside all the time for Bible Study and training rather than allowing the oldest to just… be a kid. There was no doubt that Leo had messed up that day when he cut Raph, but part of Mikey really wondered if Sensei had gone too far with the rigorous spiritual and physical exercises he had put the eldest through. 

If Mikey could look through his oldest brother’s eyes, would he see Splinter as Father, or would he only be known as Master?

“Mm.” Splinter thoughtfully hummed as he began stroking his beard, “It is true you were not the most observant of my students… Which is part of what makes it further frustrating when your raw talent is squandered with childish behaviors. If you truly put your all into your studies and training, I could one day see you as a master yourself.”

Mikey’s posture struck rigidly at the combination of his father’s insult and compliment as if he were hit by a flash of lightning. “T-Thanks?... I think?” He shrugged, dazed from the aftershock.

Master Splinter sighed as his ears drooped. This was not going according to plan at all. “The purpose of my words, Michelangelo, is not to uplift, but rather determine.” He stated, lighting a spark on the wick of dynamite wedged between Mikey’s heart and lungs. “Like your brothers, you will soon have to decide a role in your team. Can you recall the positions they chose?” 

The flickering sparks traveling through Mikey’s gut made his heart rate pulse uncomfortably. He had to make a conscious effort to not grip his chest to slow it down, for fear of revealing his anxieties to his already patience-challenged sensei. Regardless of the discomfort attacking his body, he tried his best to push through. 

“Uh, let’s see… Leo obviously chose Team Medic and Leader,” The youngest recalled, tapping one of his fingers as if counting, “... I’m gonna say Raphie went with Team Tough Guy?” He asked mischievously, as he tapped a second finger.

“Not quite.” Splinter monotoned, as he softly shook his head. “Raphael chose the role of Team Strategist. You out of everyone in this household are aware of his skills in recognizing weak points, as well as always being aware of his surroundings.”

Fair. The jerk’s gotten way harder to sneak attack thanks to his newly found spidey-sense…

“Yeah, he can always tell if you busted your ankle or slept on your neck wrong-” Mikey drawled, swaying his head, “- and then he’ll wait till you’re out of breath or distracted to deliver the final blow like BAM!” He shouted, emphasizing the onomatopoeia by slamming his hand into his opposite palm.

“Yes…” Splinter hesitantly agreed with another tired sigh, rubbing at the fur below his graying eyes. “Which is why he now plays the strategist of the team. And what about Donatello? What role did he choose?”

“Haha, probably Team Egghead.” Mikey spouted jokingly, to which his father responded by releasing another, heavier sigh.

“Michelangelo…” The great Master exhaled, his patience now wearing as thin as the frayed strings hanging from Mikey’s arm wraps.

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist!” The youngest weakly defended, quickly scrambling to reach and catch his train of thought. “I bet he chose to play Team Tech Wizard or something like that? Oh wait! Is Team Brain a thing?”

“That’s…” Another exhausted sigh huffed through Splinter’s nostrils. “...Close enough. Yes, your brother became the Brain of the group, using his intellect and common sense to guide his team through difficult decisions and situations.”

Mikey paused, letting all the information settle and flutter back down to solid ground. “So… what’s left?” He asked, genuinely considering the fact that his brothers took the best jobs offered on the team.

“The choice you must make does not depend on the options, my student. It depends on who you are becoming, and where your best qualities lie.” Master Splinter corrected, his tone heavy with the seriousness of a samurai, but soft with the care of a loving teacher. “I could already tell what roles your brothers would choose far before I began training them. It was evident through their individual skills and souls.”

Mikey shifted where he knelt, continuing to make a conscious effort to focus on the words being told to him no matter how heavy, serious, and scary they were becoming. “How could you tell?” He asked timidly, afraid his father would chide him for not knowing the answer himself.

Instead of judgment or annoyance billowing onto his father’s expression, there came a gentle, reminiscing smile.

 “Your brothers made it very easy. Donatello has always been a logical soul, seeking knowledge for the purpose of winning arguments or protecting himself from anything that would harm him or his philosophies. I would catch him late at night with his nose buried into the pages of a book, even as a toddler. This natural yearning for knowledge pushed him to grow academically.”

“That’s why he was able to get a job, right? Cause he was smart?” Mikey asked, though this time he did already know the answer.

The soft expression gracing his father’s face twisted, whiskers twitching as the Master scrunched his nose. “Your brother earned his profession by his cleverness just as much as his intelligence. He succeeded in deceiving the eyes of his employer… as well as me.” His brows descended, creasing with conviction. “Had I known what he was up to I would’ve put a stop to it.”

“Why? Doesn’t he pay for a bunch of stuff? Why wouldn’t you want money?” The youngest inquired, confusion clear in his large irises and tilting head.

“It was not about the income.” Splinter replied, his voice withering. “Truly, we do need the money if we are to continue eating a healthier diet, but I am still wary of the dangers of being revealed to the-”

“-Wait.” The youngest interjected with a raised hand, his expression turning sour and offended. “Are you seriously telling me that the only thing Don gets with his money is VEGETABLES?!”

Another, long, exhausted sigh weaseled out of his father. “Yes, Michelangelo. If it weren’t for the hard work of your brother we would solely be living off of the dry, stale pastries from the bakery down the street.”

“Why’s that a bad thing?!” Mikey burst out, his hands waving in all directions like the stray sparks of a firework. “Those snacks are so good! Why give em’ up for… for…” Mikey failed to hold back a sudden gag, “-Healthy stuff??”

The wrinkles etched into the great Master’s face suddenly became more prominent.

“As I and Donatello have been trying to convince you of for the last thirteen years- you, my son, need vegetables in your diet. Living off of baked goods will not equip your body with the nutrients it needs.”

Mikey’s offended expression smoothed out to be more placid as he huffed, “That’s why you eat the pastries with the fruit filling. Duh!”

“We are getting off topic.” Splinter deadpanned, his pointed ears dropping lower with every second that passed.

“Okay, suuure,” Mikey hesitantly retreated despite his strong feelings on the matter, “Don’s always been a nerd and Raph’s always had a good eye at spotting weakness, but what about Leo? With how stressed out he is all the time, it’s hard to imagine he chose to be Team Medic and Leader…”

…It’s almost like he was forced to. Mikey silently finished in his mind.

With how hard their father became on the oldest, it really wouldn’t come as a surprise if in the end Splinter just decided to pawn off the positions on Leo, whether he wanted them or not.

“Your oldest brother was not so obvious in his skills, but over time it became clear to me by Leonardo’s tenderness and care that he would make an excellent healer.” Splinter admitted after taking a moment to think. “How he would dress you and your brothers’ wounds after training, or would always have a first-aid kit nearby, it made it obvious to me of his skills in caretaking for his family.”

That tracked. As far back as Mikey could remember, his oldest brother was always standing nearby, bandages and hugs at the ready. It didn’t matter if the boogeyman appeared in the shadows of a dark room, or if you scraped your hands raw sliding down rope. Leo was always there, ready to help and heal what had been hurt. 

A slight twinge in the youngest’s right ankle forced him to reposition on his mat as a faint mist of guilt draped across his heart.

No matter how many times I’ve messed up, Leo’s always been there.

 “Despite the anxieties that drown your brother constantly, he is always able to do what needs to be done.” Splinter continued, his thin voice slowly gaining strength.

Mikey thought back to the moment when Leo told him how Lotus’ surgery went, or rather how it had quickly gone dreadfully wrong. A pang of sympathy burst in his heart when he saw the shadows under his oldest brother’s eyes, the trembling of his gloved hands, and the telltale weight of crushing guilt weighing his shoulders down. His brother’s haunted words echoed back like the whispers of a ghost.

“She felt… everything.”

Not only had the oldest been forced to do a surgery for the first time, but he did it alone. The pressure that Leo always carried to be perfect and do his best must’ve flattened him once he realized the mistake he had made. However, Mikey had made it clear to him what happened was just a really bad accident. 

He was still waiting to see if the oldest had accepted that fact or not.

“As for his bestowed role of Leadership,” Splinter went on, “that came to be as naturally as his birthright of eldest. From a very young age, Leonardo would always pester and direct you and your brothers. Even when you would play together, he would give you the imaginary roles you were to act out. And you all, not quite having wills of your own yet, would willingly take his commands.”

Mikey couldn’t help the grin blossoming on his face as those warm memories filled his vision and steadied his heart. “Haha… yeah, I remember those days.” He said with a gentle fondness of the times long past, when life was just a little less complicated.

 “It filled my heart when I watched him guide you all, protecting you from unknown dangers and becoming a foundation you could rely on.” Master Splinter reminisced with a similar smile. Then the vibrance decorating his aged face faded, a troubled expression quickly taking its place. “But, as with all strengths and skills, it all depends on how you harness them… I wish I had been quicker to recognize that Leonardo’s leadership had twisted into manipulation.” An unseen weight pressed down on the Master’s shoulders as he hid his face within his palm.

Mikey’s irises shrank as his eyes widened in surprise, his breath stuttering in his throat. “Th-That can’t be true.” He whispered in unbelief, brows creased and a slight quiver to his lip. “Leo wouldn’t trick us like that!”

“By God’s grace and teaching, he doesn’t anymore.” His father replied, words heavy with exhaustion. “But for far too many years he would use you and your brothers to do his bidding, getting Donatello to secretly finish his homework, or causing Raphael to lose his temper so he would be forced to his room, leaving the television solely to the eldest.” 

That… can’t be right. 

“But, Sensei… I don’t remember any of that! Are you totally sure?” Mikey asked, trying to keep his voice from going too high and causing another embarrassing squeak.

His father lowered his hand revealing his weary face. “The worst of sins, my son, are the ones done in secret, to the point where even the bearer does not know what they are doing.”

“No, that- that isn’t right!” Mikey defended, passion to defend clear in his growing tone, “You just don’t know him! The Leo I know wouldn’t do that! He’s always been kind and caring and c-compassionate!”

“-Michelangelo.” Splinter warned, his voice low and singed at the edges.

“-No!” Mikey cried, his tongue sharpening as his words continued to point accusing fingers, “No, you’ve never seen the true Leo. You just think of him as -as something you need to fix!”

His father’s irises shifted, a hardness suddenly overtaking the moss-like hue. In an iron tone demanding resolution of the subject he stated,

“Sacrifices had to be made for the good of your brother’s soul.”

… Even if that means you stole someone’s childhood from them? 

That they’re always stressed and worried that they’re not enough? 

That they can’t ever FORGIVE THEMSELVES?

Mikey’s fingers curved into fists as a small, dark seed began to sprout within him. His gaze fell to the floor, dragged down not by guilt but something else; Something planted and sharp like a thorn crawling its way up a rose.

“That’s not enough reason to break him!” The boy’s fists began to shake as he remembered the dedication forced into his oldest brother, and how through the years it wore Leo down. Where once a mischievous and silly boy played, now stood a teen with anxiety and pressure; Always building and never soothed.

All by the hands of his sensei.

 His father.

Just say it. 

“... Why did you train him instead of love him?” Mikey hissed, his turquoise irises igniting with anger like heat fueling the rays of the sun.

The hurt bleeding into his Sensei’s eyes was quickly flashed over by a flame of indignation.

“Michelangelo.” The great Master’s voice rumbled in whispered threat like a storm brewing in the distance. “Do not act as if you understand the decisions I have been forced to make as teacher and father. Your brother chose that road himself, and I had to discipline him accordingly. Leonardo was traveling down a path of selfishness, and it needed to be pulled from its root.” 

The flame of his father’s words burned the youngest like a branding iron on delicate skin. The dark seed within him was engulfed by the blaze instantly, leaving nothing but ash and fear. Guilt and shame quickly followed, rattling Mikey’s body like the turbulence of a fierce gale. His jaw fell slack, hanging from his chin and gathering spit. His turquoise irises were nothing but pinpricks trembling at the kindled anger burning within his father’s words. 

“Dad, I-I’m…” Mikey choked out, finally grasping his purloined breath and voice. His hands trembled in his lap as his face burned with shame. He whimpered, bowing his head in a silent plea for forgiveness. His eyes squeezed shut, no longer able to stomach his father’s wounded expression. “I’m s-sorry.” 

Another sigh, this time steadying and cleansing, left his father. A calloused but soft palm again planted itself onto Mikey’s quivering shoulder, causing a small jolt out of the distressed child as he raised his head. 

“I forgive you, my son.” His father’s voice gently soothed, the flame within still flickering but nearly quenched. “But I never want you to speak to me like that again. Am I understood?”

“H-Hai.” Mikey squeaked, his voice pulled thin from the guilt and shame tugging at both ends of his windpipe.

An uncomfortable silence sucked the life out of the room, leaving Mikey and his father in an awkward limbo, neither knowing what to do or how to save the conversation. Instinctively, Mikey began to pick at his nails as he pushed back the brimming tears in his eyes.

Dad’s never yelled at me like that before… 

The unnerving chill of discipline loomed in the air, causing a slight shiver through the youngest.

Finally, thankfully, Master Splinter spoke up. “I need you to be thinking and praying about what position you shall take on your team. You will not be allowed on any missions until your decision is made. Is that clear?”

Mikey silently nodded, his expression scrunched and movement slow; The charred burns from his father’s words still stung the child’s heart, leaving him uncharacteristically speechless and still. 

“There is some good news as well.” Splinter added with brows raised, “After your role on the team has been chosen… you will be allowed to pick your very own weapon.”

Mikey’s picking fingers froze instantly.

Wait, WHATTT???

“Dude- er- Dad- WHAT?! I’m gonna get my own sword or bow? Aw, SHELL YEAH!” Mikey cheered, his signature grin returning in all its bright glory. He leapt off his mat, prancing around the room, kicking and punching into the air with an invisible weapon. “H-YAH! HEEYAH!”

When Mikey caught the gaze of his father’s regretful eyes he stopped prancing around, returning to his mat sheepishly. “Haha… Sorry…” He shrugged, still wearing his shining smile.

On the outside, Mikey was using every acting skill he knew to appear calm. But on the inside was a different story.

LET’S GOOO!!! I’m gonna FINALLY go on missions too!!! HAHA YES! No more hanging back at the lair~ I’ll officially be part of the team! Well- Okay, I still gotta pick a role, but it can’t be that hard, right? I just gotta go with my gut! My personality and soul~  

…Okay, how do you figure out what kind of soul you got? Do you just describe yourself and go from there?  I can do that! Okay, I’m bright, and cheery, and fun, and optimistic.

So… what role would be best for someone with the personality of the sun?...

Hmm.

…This might not be as easy as I thought…

“Michelangelo Hanten, are you listening to me?” 

Oh Frosted Flakes I did it again.

“S-SORRY!!” Mikey cried out, raising his hands defensively in front of his face. It offered him a clear view of his hand wraps- frayed and worn.

GUHH MAN! Another set of wraps ruined! DANG IT!

“Now…” Splinter huffed, the annoyance on his face quickly shifting to uncomfortable dread, “There is… one more matter we have to… discuss.” 

Mikey couldn’t help but tilt his head, his brows slanting in question at the sudden strange behavior from his sensei. Master Splinter always spoke and moved with precision and dignity, never slurring his words or tripping on a single step. So at the sight of his master becoming tense and shifting in his seat, it really made Mikey start to freak out again.

“Okay?…” The youngest whimpered.

Master Splinter cleared his throat, straightening his robe with soft swipes of his hands. “Now um…”

Master Splinter just said “um”.

 It’s the END OF THE FRIGGIN’ WORLD. EH- EH- EH- ABORT! ABORT!

“... There comes a time in every person’s life when their body…”

What’s happening?

 “...begins...”

WHAT IS HAPPENING.

 to change.”

Mikey’s eyes widened, a look of growing dread smearing his once excited smile like rain over chalked pictures. Without realizing it, his body’s natural response to his growing distress and embarrassment was to begin pulling his head into his shell.

Now he knew why Raph was laughing.

ABORT! ABORT! SAVE YOURSELFFF!!!

Anddd that's all for this chapter! XD

A lot of you had commented your theories of what Splinter had to talk to Mikey about, (most of you landing on the dreaded TALK from a parent), but I wanted to do just a bit more than that in this chapter. :) In my story, each of the brothers had to go through this rite of passage with Splinter when they turned thirteen. Splinter, being the wise master that he is, chose to begin "the TALK" with more pleasant news to keep his sons calm and less nervous. His hope was to excite his sons with the choosing of their roles and weapons and then... eventually deliver the SLEDGEHAMMER of discussing other certain aspects of growing up that aren't so pleasant...

(Also what Mikey said yelled to Splinter about being so hard on Leo- I may or may not have just been using him as a microphone to voice my own scolding of how Splinter, *COUGH* 2012 *COUGH* , is normally shown to treat the oldest of his sons. Like- bro- HE'S MORE THAN JUST A STUDENT, DANG IT. Yes, there are times where we got to see a more gentle side of the ratman, but CERTAINLY NOT ENOUGH- Okay rant over... XD)

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reblog!

A BIG THANK YOU TO @poetique823 for reviewing and critiquing my chapter! <3

@indieyuugure @writer-in-wonder @allyheart707 @oddartistl3 @risebabyx2 @joyjoygorl @carrots-bear @imagionationstation @howtotrainyourdragonprince @jasminegazer @brightonstudios @ninjaturtlefan-dee @rottmntlover14 @eggbem @lydjachan @sashatrout @chaosborb

If you want to be tagged in the next chapter, comment down below! (That way when I post the next chapter you'll get the notification!)

To God be the glory!

~ Melissa

MASTERPOST <- PRIOR CHAPTER NEXT CHAPTER ->

[imagionationstation]

16 🍄 with mikey and raph!

🍄 -> You ate a wild what?

Raph notices a problem when Mikey refuses dinner.

His older brother could probably count the number of times when Mikey skipped a meal on his fingers. So when Leo told him to leave it be, Raph promptly and firmly ignored him. He left their injured brother to Donnie’s care and went looking for the turtle that had slipped out of the room during the meal.

He finds him upstairs, vomiting his lungs out.

“You idiot.” He goes down to his side, putting a hand on his head. There’s no unnatural heat. He releases him so Mikey can… Release something else. “Why didn’t you say you were sick?”

“I’m not!” He whines between pants. “My stomach just hurts.”

“And you told who?”

“I’m not a baby, Raph.” He snaps to the toilet bowl. “Go take care of Leo.”

“Idiot.” Raph decides because by the look of his teary eyes and the way he’s grabbing at his chest, Mikey is miserable and he’s got to be an absolute moron if he thinks that he’ll just walk away.

Well. Fully walk away.

He does head over to the stairs to cup his face and scream, “MIKEY’S THROWING UP! MAKE SOME TEA!”

Mikey groans from the bathroom. Donnie calls back, “WHERE?”

“FIGURE IT OUT!”

“REAL HELPFUL!”

Raph heads back into the bathroom. “There. Problem solved.”

Mikey whimpers, holding his chest tighter. After a moment of deliberation, his older brother carefully dislodges him from the toilet and flushes it. Hoisting him from the floor with a low warning about barfing on his plastron, he carries him back to the room that him and Leo share. Laying him on the bed, he grabs the vomit bucket.

Mikey hugs it to his chest, inhaling through his teeth.

“I know, bud.” Raph rubs his arm. “Just breathe.”

“It hurts.” His voice warbles as the tears fall. He’s not sure if the paleness is from the fight not to throw up or the pain. “It hurts a lot.”

“Got to ride it out.” Raph assures. “Gotta-”

The door flies open. Donnie, holding a basket, shouts, “Mikey ate pokeweed berries!”

Mikey and Raph look at him. Then at each other.

The hothead crosses his arms, “Try again.”

“Did you eat these?” Donnie demands as he holds up the bucket. It makes it harder to see what’s inside, but Mikey nods meekly.

“They’re poisonous!” Donnie snaps furiously to hide the anxiety lingering below. “Mikey ate wild poisonous berries!”

“You ate wild what?”

Raph whirls on him. Mikey’s head is halfway in his shell. “…Oops?”

“Why would you do that?!”

“I didn’t know!” Mikey tries to sit up and immediately falls down again, tucking his arms around his midsection. Raph looks to the resident genius. “Is he gonna die?”

“Luckily for him, box turtle metabolisms can handle it.” Donnie huffs as he sighs in relief. “Unluckily for him, human metabolisms cannot. I doubt he’ll die. But the next few hours are gonna really suck.”

Mikey gags and then vomits. Raph pinches between his eyes.

“Maybe now he’ll learn to stop eating random things that have not been okayed as people food.” Donnie is looking directly at Raph but his words are perfectly pitched for Mikey.

The hothead turns him around and shoves him out of the room. “Go make tea.”

“I wasn’t done-!”

He slams the door in his face. After a under-breath grumble, Donnie pouts his way downstairs. Raph moves back over to the bed, takes one look at the tea-streaked face, and sighs. Grabbing the tissues from the dresser, he climbs onto the other side of the bed.

When he lays down, Mikey flips over to latch onto him. He whimpers loudly, buries his face in his plastron, and Raph grumbles, “You’re gonna be fine.”

“It hurts.”

“Yeah yeah.” Raph lifts his face to wipe away the liquid. “Nature’s way of saying to keep away from random berries.”

His lip wobbles, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Raph remarks as he lets him go. Mikey squeezes tighter, a soft keen of pain reaching open air. “Those weren’t my poisonous berries. And it sounds like you’re already dealing with the punishment.”

Another keen tugs at his heart. Raph wraps his arms around him in return, scratching at his carapace. A bit of the tension leaves. “Breathe, little brother. It’ll pass. I’ll be right here until it does.”

Mikey exhales pitifully. Raph leads him through more breaths.

They ride out the next few hours together.

Wasn’t sure which Mikey and Raph? So you get 2012. And thanks! Love a good excuse for fluff!! 🧡❤️

[pctentialbreakupsong-archive]

His eyebrows pressed together slightly when she moved to straddle his hips -- looking at her with widened eyes. "I -- wait," he breathed, confusion laced through his tone. His hands hesitantly moved to her hips, a slight smile tugging on his lips that he desperately tried to hide. Because this -- Gael was away and this was wrong, right? But she had said that she and Gael talked about it. His tongue darted out to lick his lips as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his neck -- a hand absentmindedly moving to rest on her back. "I -- you, I'm sorry I'm gonna need a little more information," he breathed, leaning back slightly. One of his hands moved to rest on her cheek, tipping her head back. "So -- you and Gael talked, and now you're kissing me and -- this is okay?" he asked, brown eyes searching her face. Because _god_ he hoped it was.

A warm chuckle rumbled in her throat as she was pulled tighter against him, her neck craning to gently nuzzling her nose against his jaw. The brush of his fingers against her lower back sent a wave of warmth through her that coaxed her easily into sliding the rest of her way onto his lap, legs straddling his hips. “You don't think I can be soft for you, Raph? I've been soft for you for a while now.” She hummed, deciding to strike while her courage was still strong. Her lips pressed against his neck with a gentle sigh. 

[krisanthimum]

Just a little thing that gives me fuzzies

Splinter preparing fruit for his kids, even into adulthood.

I know it's a pretty significant yet small thing that shows you care for the person enough you went through even that miniscule effort in their place. And I just think that's neat :]

So forget Splinter disappearing from the plot as one of his son's heal from whatever whomp the fic throws at them!

How bout Splinter cutting neat little apple slices Raph after a rough day dealing with his brothers.

Deveining oranges for Donnie so he doesn't have to deal with the sensory ick on an overstim day

Helping Mikey make fruit salad to share with the family to help him practice as his arms heal.

Maybe taking walks with Leo, using his portals to go pick berries while he vented to the sky as his Dad listened patiently.

He's a goofy guy, mayhaps even Babygirl, but that man loves his kids to death and I want more soft moments between them in the world.

[milykins]

TMNT Headcanon – When You’re Sick

My daughter was sick for the better part of last week so that got me thinking... also these are just my silly little headcanons, my hope is that they fit with your perception of the turtles.

Aged-up characters

Bayverse Turtles

Individual Turtles x Female Reader (they would all be separate relationships not all at the same time, could just be friendships as well)

Mikey

Upon seeing you are sick with various symptoms, coughing, sneezing, headache, fever… etc. Mikey will spring into action immediately. He will wrap you in a blanket, deposit you on the couch and put on your favourite shows and movies. You want classic episodes of The Price Is Right? He’s got you covered. Then he gets to work in the kitchen making the absolute best homemade chicken noodle soup you’ve ever tasted. Mikey will proudly tell you he even made the broth himself. He also swears that it will help you get better faster. Even if you tell him to keep your distance because you don’t want him to get sick as well he will not be deterred. He will bring you medicine and water and cuddle you in a burrito blanket while giving you forehead kisses and asking if you feel better yet. You do, his care is exceptional and sweet.

Raph

This turtle will panic upon seeing all of the symptoms you are displaying and run to his brother in purple for advice. No, he does not want Donnie to take over, just tell him what to do! Donnie will exasperatingly tell him how to take care of you and he’ll return with a thermometer. Gingerly, he’ll take your temperature and when it beeps he’ll mutter to himself: is 100.5F normal? He’ll leave the room before you can answer and he yells the question to his brother. Donnie will reply with a resounding no. Raph will return again with some medicine that will help bring the fever down. He’ll help you take it with some water and make sure you’re wrapped up tight. His attempt at cooking will be a can of chicken noodle soup because he can at least do that. You appreciate the gesture nonetheless. He’ll also bring you cough drops and a cup of hot lemon drink like Neocitran or whatever they have on hand. Raph won't care much about germs, he will hold your shivery self until the medicine kicks in and you fall asleep.

Leo

He is mostly unfazed to find out you are sick but the deep underlying concern will be there. He will be the one to brew you a certain blend of tea that will help with your symptoms. He will have created the blend himself with a combination of peppermint leaves, dried juniper berries, Echinacea and eucalyptus. It’s surprisingly good and he adds some honey to soothe your throat. He guarantees this will help you feel better but he’s not opposed to using modern medicine as well. If your fever is high he will bring Advil or Tylenol to bring it down. He hates seeing you suffer after all. Leo’s care will also involve him keeping a cold compress on your forehead and strict bedrest, he’s serious, don’t get up. He wants you to call him even if you have to go to the bathroom. If you’re hungry he’ll make you some toast or plain white rice. He can do that without burning down the kitchen. If you want cuddles he will gently stroke your hair and maybe even sing a Japanese lullaby to help you sleep.

Donnie

Doctor Don will make sure you get well. He is the one with the actual medical advice and he will put it into practice. He might even wear a mask around you if your symptoms are severe enough. He will quarantine you in your bedroom and bring you medicine, hot lemon with honey and food that is easy on your stomach. He’s also the one that will bring you handheld video games or a portable DVD player. If it’s a deep mucousy cough or chest cold he’ll bring you into the shower and hold you in the steamy air just to help you breathe a little easier. Donnie will put on his doctor hat and will do ‘rounds’ just to make sure you’re doing okay. His care is a little on the excessive side… no visitors, even Mikey until your symptoms have greatly lessened. You can see how seriously he takes his concern for your wellbeing and even checks on you at night just to make sure you’re okay. He can be easily coaxed into holding you if it will help you feel better. It does.

[raylaui]

Rise of the TMNT Hamato Leonardo

Character Sheet / Study / Expressions

Playlist 🔷️��� Neon_Nardo

April / Raph / Donnie / 🔷️ / Mikey

Hamato Leonardo

- post movie - 17, 5’ 5 1/2”

Birthday - Sept. 22nd

Learned how to turn paper clips into portable portals

Ties mask tails in a funny bun/bow

Cracks from being trapped in prison dimension (hidden behind gear straps)

Scars from training to duel wield & prison dimension

More yellow in eyes when angry

Less teeth than a human (SHARPER) (after prison dimension)

Post 3 weeks in Prison Dimension - sharper teeth - slit pupils - more yellow in eyes

Healed over gill scars

Cracks all over shell, and scratches on plastron. Less visible in time but still brittle.

Only Tea (secret teacup collector) JJ & Lou Jitsu mug enthusiast

Loves - Berries

Loves - Blueberry Butterscotch Muffins

(Image of a pizza) The Hawaiian Supreme: Hand tossed crust - Barbecue sauce - 3 cheese blend (cheddar, mozzarella, provolone) - Ham - Diced Green Pepper - Red Onion - Pineapple

[up-the-anti]

How do you pick out colors? if you don’t mind me asking! I rlly love ur art, and ik i say this a lot, but gyatt damn it’s so jaw dropping 💕 U fr the goat

oh golly what a question :3

first, let me drop my color history for each piece to show you how chaotic and different each process is + how the initial color choices don't often make the final product:

piece 1 (everyone sleeping) & 2 (jonatello)

piece 3 (april) & 4 (leo)

piece 5 (raph & mikey)

so what you can conclude from above is that:

1) color choices are literally pulled out of my ass. the only SOMETIMES recognizable pattern i have is alternating warm tones with cool tones across the piece to keep it interesting, maintain flow, and prevent an area from being too flat for example:

and more subtly, here

there is no one way to implement this and the oversimplified map i drew above does not completely capture how i use this esp for poor leo and that damn flower field but like u get the gist im sure. for the april one however i planned on this when i started coloring-- the berry bush was initially all middle ground colors, the ivy below it was cool toned to the point where it was looking completely blue, and the grass was all warm toned but that kind of fell apart in the process and became something better so trust the process is also a big part tbh

2) i use SO MANY blending modes (multiply, overlay, soft light, add glow, and glow dodge are my forever go-tos). its always different depending on what i want the mood of the piece to be and whether i knew what i wanted it to look like by the end.

for example, the first piece where they're all sleeping, i had no idea what it would look like by the end and relied solely on one blue multiply layer to bring everything together and make it look like nighttime. i also did this for the jonatello kitchen one and kept on slapping orange/brown multiply layers on the foreground to make sure it was completely distinguished from and didnt fade into the background.

by contrast, for the april piece (i talk about this one a lot damn) i knew i wanted to take inspiration from 2000s digital cameras and as a result made everything more saturated and the lighting more purple (?) from the very beginning to give that effect.

3) curves, contrast, and brightness CARRY my pieces . im never 100% satisfied with the way the colors look until i play with those settings. for more cinematic drawings like this, i always increase the contrast. thats my cheat code especially for the last mikey & raph piece, omg they would have actually faded into the background without that last step. and sometimes when i lowkey hate a "finished" drawing i slap a singular color overlay on the whole thing to make it look more cohesive as a cheat code :P

last example encompassing tips 2 & 3;; this is what it looks like without the orange overlay, backlighting, and multiply layer over the foreground. jumpscare :((

thats all i can think of for now but i hope these somewhat made sense. also by no means am i a professional so take everything i just said lightly, ive never had any formal lessons and am completely self taught so this is what ive come to learn on my own in the past 5 years