#So i've been partially avoiding scrolling through stuff

[hungergameshyperfixation]

Day five since SotR was announced

How we feeling everyone

[turtlebros4u]

Counterculture Terrapins (1/4)

I was thinking about doing something short but then I kept adding detail so here we are. Inspired by someone mentioning that Donnie does Raph's tattoos (I forgot when and who I saw that from or else I would link it cuz it was so cute). Also I have a rudimentary knowledge of how tattoos work I haven't gotten my first one yet so I've done my best to Google some things.

Also in case anyone is upset at the mention of needles, like me, I have avoided using that word when talking about tattooing.

Donnie

You're sitting next to Raph on the couch with one of his favorite soap operas on the TV. It's a bit boring, you know the cliché it's going for now. You look to the big guy but can barely see his invested glare over his massive delts. You gaze down in your boredom along his partial sleeve tattoo. It's so delicately done.

"Who does your tattoo?" You ask.

"Hm?" Raph says peeling himself from the drama as it hit a commercial break to look down at you over his shoulder, "Oh Donnie. He's got a real steady hand from making all those tiny 'lectronics and stuff. Why? Y' want one?"

"Uh well I was thinking about it..."

"I think you could rock one. You'd look even hotter." He drops that sentence so nonchalantly it makes you blush.

You don't say anything for a bit, letting Raph get back to the show after the commercials. You calm down as the Secret Twin trope gets revealed on screen. God it's such a cheesy show but maybe that's why he likes it.

You wait until the next break to ask, "How did you choose what to get?"

He thinks for a moment, "Uh, I wanted something that reminded me of the strength of my family and also looked cool as hell I guess."

Mikey sauntered into the room at this time whistling a tune.

"So a tattoo should be inspiring and cool?" You ask Big Red.

Mikey spins on his heels and lands his elbows onto the couch, "Angeeeelcaaaaakes! You thinking about getting a tattoo like Raph's?"

You laugh, "Ahh well not really. I'm not sure. I have been wanting one but I'm not sure what I even want yet. Do you think I should get a sleeve?"

"No one can tell you what you want except for you, sweet cheeks. Buuuut if you ask me I think you should get some bold text, like NO REGERTS or PIZZA TIME!"

He smiles widely, "Totally show me what you decide to get, pumpkin spice, Donnie's like a serious guru with that. You'd look so dope with a tat." And with that Mikey also left you blushing as he continued with whatever he was going to do.

The episode ended and Raph rambled a bit about how he wants to know who the real father of the baby was going to be and if it will be the secret twin of the dad or not. You smile softly, amused that he's invested in such goofy drama. Raph headed to his weight rack to do a couple of sets and left you scrolling on your phone on the sofa.

You sit there looking through tattoo ideas. The idea of asking Donnie is kind of growing on you. You weren't sure how to find a good artists anyways and talking to new people made you anxious.

How much would it hurt? Even if it did, to sit there under Donatello's gaze would counteract everything. You wonder how he would react to you asking.

"Hey Princess," Leo sashays towards you, a towel around his neck dabbing sweat. He must have just finished a training session with Splinter, "Mikey says you're going to ask Donnie for a tat."

"Uh well I really was just curious where Raph got his and I was looking for an artist I trusted anyways but I don't really know what I'm going to get yet." You say somewhat surprised that word is going around faster than pizza.

"Ah I see, Mikey was telling us about it while we sparred. He got very excited about tattoos and ended up going off about trying get a whole pizza pie tatted to his shell. Fun fact, you can't tattoo a carapace. Anyways, Splinter suggests doing something symbolic and simple. And if you want my opinion—"

"I do want your opinion, " you say knowing he was going to say it anyways.

Leo stuttered for a moment, thrown off his rhythm that you were actually asking for it this time. "W-well I'd say an elegant asymmetric pattern of some sort on your shoulder or thigh would suit your style well. Like a spider web or lighting or wrinkled plaid. "

"Wrinkled plaid? "

"Okay maybe not plaid, but something like that, I feel it suits you." He shrugs off the awkward suggestion and escapes towards the showers before putting more of his foot in his mouth.

You consider plaid for a moment longer and then shake your head of the silly suggestion. Leo often had great ideas but was very bad at explaining why or offering any useful context when it came to personalized things. He could make a life or death decision in a split second but he couldn't explain to you why he liked tile over rugs.

~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~

You've been mulling over it for a few days now. You have finally both decided what you want and also built up the courage to ask Donnie if he would do the honors.

You get to the lair and beeline for the lab. Leo and Mikey see that you hardly acknowledge their presence and they smirk at each other. They know you've finally decided.

You flip the plastic sheets away as you enter the lab.

"Donnie!" You say loud and proud.

Donnie perks up and spins on his stool to face you.

"What can I do for you, Sparkplug?" He asks setting down the tools in his hand and giving you his full undivided attention. A rarity.

"Would you be willing to give me a tattoo? I trust you and I want—"

"I thought you'd never ask." He says, a glint in his eye as he leaps up and goes to the industrial cabinet that holds all varieties of his tools and he opens the drawer for his tattoo work.

"Yesterday I finished prepping the attachment for human skin. I had initially made the pen for us, since we've got thicker skin—at least literally—than you. But this should work wonderfully. Are you ready for your consultation?"

"Yep, let's get started!" You say and plop down in another stool.

~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~

After a day of prepping the design, Donnie let's you know he's ready.

You had asked for him to design it based on some key words. You are excited to see what he came up with but even more hyped to lay down and let him work his magic.

You get to the lab and see that Donnie's set out some sort of MacGuyvered massage table? Or was it a dentist's chair? You took a seat anyways.

"So, Tattoo Guru," you joke to the purple banded terrapin, "where shall we put it?"

He scoots toward you on his rolling stool and slides just between your knees.

"May I?" He asks gesturing to you that he would like to look you over for the perfect location. He had decided he would design it first and pick a location later.

You nod and he begins. He mumbles to himself as he analyzes your body from top to bottom for the prime location. You try to fight the blush in your face when he runs his fingers across your thighs and down your calves. It's no use.

He gently lifts your shirt up to check your stomach and sides. Your shoulders and collarbone. His face is so close to yours. You can feel his warm breath on your neck.

"Are you nervous?" He asks, "Your heart rate is increasing and your breaths are shorter."

"N-no," you stutter somewhat embarrassed that he was noticing, "not about the tattoo. I trust you entirely. It's just you were studying me so intently I'm starting to wonder if you can see any flaws from this close."

His brows raised, "Flaws? What flaws?"

"Oh y'know. The blemishes and cellulite and the few gray hairs I've been trying to keep plucked but somehow elude me." You say trying to play it cool.

"Oh, you think those are flaws?" His voice rose in astonishment. You remember that he doesn't have hardly any clue about human beauty standards, and while he knows that humans are judgemental, it's on a totally different scale for him.

"Well yeah, people think they aren't very flattering." You admit, not proud to admit humans weren't all great.

"That's ridiculous. The whole point of being human is to be unique and live unique. And as you age you get little representations of the life you've lived. Like nature's tattoos. You can almost read my brothers' shells and find a mark from every year from some stunt we pulled. I find it quite fascinating to read all the little love notes that life leaves."

You face flushed with heat. If you had managed to hide it before you certainly couldn't now.

"I've decided your shoulder blade is the best." He said changing the subject very matter-of-factly. "Would you remove your shirt, here's a towel if you want to cover your frontwhen you lay down." He shifted the seat to be horizontal and scooted away. You take the towel remove your shirt and lay on your chest. The table was quite comfortable.

Donnie scoots back with his template, wipes down your shoulder blade and begins his work. While he preps the stencil his every touch makes you tingle. The air is cool on your back and his hands warm.

You definitely would not have had this experience with any other artist in New York. This was special.

"I'm ready to start inking. You ready, Sparkplug?" He asks gently. You confirm and brace for the sting.

It hits you but less painfully than you expected. It still takes a moment to adjust to the regular zing in your shoulder as he begins.

Through the corner of your eye you can see he is zoned into his work. His tongue sticking out a bit as he is apt to do when in deep focus.

Although somewhat munade, every time he wipes away your shoulder, it feels so intimate. You close your eyes and just soak it in. The buzz of the pen, the warm hands and trained eyes.

May this will be one of those little love letters Donnie was talking about. You are glad your face is buried somewhat, your heart skips a little just thinking about how oddly poetic Donnie was when he said that.

Maybe that's the way Donnie sees the world. Every line of code, every chemical equation, every physics constant, every biological mutation was just poetic to him.

You were glad to have the opportunity to be one of the few who knew the brothers. You went through a wash of emotions.

First pride for almost having them to yourself, but then followed sorrow, that the brothers were limited in who they could trust and show themselves to without insighting the worst humanity had to offer.

Again you were grateful that you could be one of the people that didn't make them feel like they didn't belong here. You felt a twinge of resentment towards the outside world, because it took you this long to find a family this accepting and kind and optimistic about everything, you had felt your fair share of human cruelty both from people you once considered close as well as the system itself that felt so predatory.

When you were in this little pocket of sewers, turned into a cozy abode, under the city, you felt like you could step away from the rat race for once. Like it didn't really matter as much as everyone made it seem.

Overall you felt content. You loved the turtles and their fatherly rat, each with their quirks, but always trying to be better and never abandoning those they considered family.

"Aaaaand 100% completion. You may have outdone yourself Donnie," he said to himself, "I could compete with a RedSail laser cutter and win." His pride was bubbling up in the most adorably nerdy way.

"Let me just get you cleaned up and wrapped, let's keep it covered for a few days and then you can see, how's that?" He asks laying down the protective plastic over the fresh tattoo.

You nod trying to recover from being hopelessly lost in thought just moments ago.

He allows you to cover yourself again and you thank him for his work on your way out.

You send a text to Mikey to let him know that he can join you in the lab in two days to see your brand new tattoo.

~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~

You show up a little early and Donnie is busy soldering away at something or another.

He hears you come in and looks up from his hunched position and smiles, "Early as usual."

You take a seat and pull off the button up blouse you were wearing. Underneath was a tank top that revealed your entire tattoo. You were honest and hadn't looked at it yet, avoiding the chance to peak at it through the mirror in your apartment.

Donnie washed up and rolled over to you in his signature wheeled stool. He peeled the plastic off and took a damp towel to wipe it down.

He just finished when Mikey flung open the plastic sheets to the entrance of the lab announcing in one of his many comical voices, "And here were have the perfect human specimen, recently upgraded and equipped with the finest work our generation has to offer!"

You look at him in confusion at who he is talking to and see Leo and Splinter walking in behind him.

"Splinter?" You ask in confusion.

"My child," he responds intentionally not answering your implied question of why he was there.

"Cmon Y/n, spin around so we can see it. Mikey's been hyping it ul for days and he doesn't even know what it looks like." Leo said obviously just as excited as Mikey but showing it differently.

Somewhat nervous with such a crowd you freeze for a moment.

"Here," Donnie hands you a small mirror and holds up another so you can see the back of your shoulder when you turn around.

The tattoo comes into your sight. It's amazing.

"Donnie that's perfect." Leo commends.

"Angelcakes! Whoooaaaa that's so rad! Omygosh Omygosh Raph's gotta see this!" Mikey makes a break to sprint down the tunnels hollering for Big Red.

Splinter nods, "You've managed to capture my impressive aura I see. Excellent work." You roll your eyes and chuckle at the vain rat's comment.

You can't stop looking at your shoulder in the reflection. It really is amazing. It had everything you wanted. A symbol of new York in the classic sewer cap, simple representations of the five people you cared most about with Splinter's silhouette donning the masks of his four sons on his tail, and bold inspiring text through the middle of the sewer plate that reads, "WE'RE NOT MONSTERS".

You couldn't have been more proud to reclaim one of Mikey's most impactful quotes. And he seemed ecstatic to see them worn proudly.

Raph thumped in, "Calm down little bro, I've seen tattoos before, I'm sure it's cool." He stalks up and inspects it closely and quietly for a minute.

Then a moment later Donnie is spinning out of control on his stool with Raph bellowing, "Who said ya could give someone else a cooler tattoo than what you gave me. I told you specifically to give me the most badass tattoo and obviously mine is second best now."

Leo and Mikey bust up laughing. Splinter chuckles heartily. You can't help but giggle as Donnie recovers, shaking his head of the dizziness and smiling like an idiot. He took Raph's reaction as a full blown compliment and it truly was.

You leap towards Donatello and wrap your arms around his neck. He catches you and pulls you close.

"Thank you," you mutter, "Raph is right this is the best tattoo. I'm so proud to have it. You guys aren't monsters, you are the best family I've ever had!"

~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~*🐢*~

Totally forgot my taglist on these 😅

@turtle-babe83 @thelaundrybitch @geeksauruse

[lillupon]

OMG SO I HAVE A STORY

I've been ready AEV for about two weeks now. When I first started I was like 'this is awesome, I'm totally sticking around' and then I noticed one of the comments mentioning that you update on saturdays. So then I started getting excited about saturdays.

A week passed and you update again (I was very excited). I read chapter 10 and then for the next like 3-4 days all I did was re-read everything, hoping it would make time move faster, hoping the next update would come faster (no rush tho I'm just excited). And then I realized that you posted bonus stuff here on tumblr (at the time I wasnt active on tumblr).

Anyway, I read those (and re-read them) just to keep myself busy. Like 2 days later I came back to AO3 to re-read some of my fav chapters only to find....... aev had dissapeared from my saved fics. When I tell you I panicked, I mean I PANICKED.

So, I then went a searched for AEV but I couldnt remember what the title actually was becuase everyone only refers to it as AEV. And when I searched, all I found was the mpeg spinoff. I searched everything I could possibly think of in order to find it again. And when I couldnt, I thought the worst. I started to think that maybe it had been deleted or something. So then I moved to tumblr. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not really active on here, I didnt even have the app downloaded or anything. So I downloaded and searched for the aev tags on here. Only... if you just search aev then you get a whole bunch of cars. So I scrolled for a while until I finally found someone who had posted about it and tagged you. I finally found your account hoping that maybe somebody had mentioned the actual name of aev. BUT NO ONE DID. Everyone just calls it Aev.

I scrolled for AGES before the thought hit me... maybe you use the same user name on AO3 as you do here. (Lucky for me, you do). So I went back to AO3 searched your name and FINALLY found you and aev (which I learned is Achieving Escape Velocity). I also found out that you wrote another one of my fav fics Heatsick. And this WHOLE THING could have been avoided if I had just paid attention!

Anyway I love your work, and i put so much effort into making sure I still had access to it lol.

LMAO ANON Thank you for sharing this! The efforts you went through to find AEV is commendable. I got a good laugh out of this when I read it last night (´ ∀ ` *) I never delete fics, so you can rest assured that my fics won’t randomly disappear out of nowhere. This little story was partially the reason why I decided to update last night even though I was on the fence... I thought there might be a few folks out there who were eagerly anticipating an update, and I figured more editing wouldn’t make all that much of a difference >.<

Anyway, you’re not the only reader who doesn’t actually know the title of my fic, which is kinda funny because I wrestled with my brain to come up with the title for several days, haha.

It’s always so cool to hear about new readers joining me. I always wonder who’s been with me from the start, and those who are picking up AEV now that more chapters have been posted; I also wonder if there are readers who are interested in AEV, but won’t touch it until it’s complete ^^;

[hawkeyedflame]

Hey, I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing by asking this in question but would you say it's possible to have executive dysfunction while still being able to perform well in school? I don't have trouble with assignments but I've been wanting to read a book that sits in a cupboard 5 centimeters from me ever since October and haven't been able to force myself to open it. Could this be explained by EFD or should I look into something else? Or maybe I'm just lazy lol idk

It is absolutely possible. I excelled in high school while also committing myself to cross country and indoor/outdoor track sixs days a week for five years. I graduated with 15 varsity letters, over thirty medals at district and state meets, a 4.0 GPA, special or high honors every semester, 97th+ percentile on my SATs, 4s and 5s on all six AP exams, early acceptance to University with a merit scholarship, etc etc. I could go on but you get the point: you can have executive dysfunction and be successful in school.

[This got really long so I’m putting a readmore]

You might be wondering how I managed all those achievements if I have this disorder that I say I have. That’s normal. Most people hear “ADHD” and think “hyperactive child who can’t focus in school.” While that’s sometimes true, it’s far from an all-inclusive representation. The answer to my previous academic success, I’ve realized, is that I relied very heavily on externally-imposed structureLet me walk you through one of my days in high school, and you’ll see just how much of my routine was being enforced externally.

My alarm went off every day at 6:20am, and my dad made sure I was out of bed by 6:30 before he went to work. He usually made steel cut oats and left some for me. My mom always made sure there was enough food in the house so I could make my own lunch. I let the chickens out before leaving for school.I went to school for six hours of short (50 mins) classes of 18-25 students, where my teachers knew me (and my parents) and where phones and laptops were strictly forbidden. Notes were taken on paper only and homework assignments were due the next class, and everything was graded. Agendas were given out at the beginning of each year and we were expected to use them every day. Parents would be notified if behavioral or performance issues arose.After school I went to cross country or track practice where the captains led us through warm ups and then the coach told us what sort of training we were doing that day. They often timed us and recorded our progress over the season/years.After practice I went home, where my mom was starting dinner, and I did my homework that I had to do if I didn’t want to get a 0 and have a parent-teacher conference. I ate dinner, did the dishes because that was my chore, put the chickens away, worked on more homework, and then by 9:30pm my mom would be berating me to go to bed. I didn’t have a smartphone or a computer so it wasn’t possible for me to lay in bed staring at a screen all night. On weekends I cleaned the bathrooms and vacuumed the house because that was my job. Somewhere in there I also cleaned the chicken coop and attended to their food and water.Rinse and repeat.

If you look at that routine, you’ll see only two tasks that I truly did on my own: making my lunch and putting the chickens in/out. I didn’t want to go hungry at school, so I made myself food. And I frequently forgot to let the chickens out (and put them back in, but fortunately we had a solid run that kept predators out). Everything else that appears to be self-discipline was actually motivated by desire to avoid external punishment. And that punishment was very real to me because it was always immediate and harsh.Late for school? Detention. Phone in class? Confiscated, sometimes detention. Didn’t take notes/do the homework? 0s in class, parents notified, not allowed to participate in sports, absolutely grounded. Skipping practice? Not allowed to participate in meets, possibly kicked off the team, definitely in trouble with Mom and Dad. Don’t do chores? Time to get yelled at. Don’t take care of the chickens? They might die and then I’d be in huge trouble. Stay up too late? Yelled at.Everything I did was motivated not by desire to serve my own future, but desire to avoid immediate negative consequence. And I didn’t have hobbies for myself. I liked reading but I didn’t have much time for it. I didn’t play video games, surf social media, watch TV, go to the movies, or do anything purely for enjoyment’s sake.

When I went to college, all of that structure disappeared. I didn’t do a sport because I couldn’t compete at a Division I school (partially due to joint pain). My classes were large, long, and spaced out throughout the day, with weird breaks between them. Most professors didn’t care if we had phones or laptops, and often we actually needed them for class. Homeworks were due online, sometimes two weeks from when they were assigned. Grades were posted online. No warning for poor performance, no teacher giving me a talking to, no parent-teacher conference. Nobody told me when to do homework. Nobody told me when to eat (or to go grocery shopping). Nobody made sure I went to bed or got up in the morning. Nobody kept me from playing video games or scrolling social media all day.Nothing except my own desire to succeed held me accountable for managing my time and working hard in class, and like I said, I didn’t have that desire. People with ADHD don’t have that. Motivation and self-discipline stem primarily from aversion to negative long-term consequences, even more so than from desire to obtain positive outcomes. This is because negative emotion is felt more strongly and for a longer duration than positive emotion. It keeps neurotypical people on track. But people with ADHD lack the ability to “see” the long term consequences of not doing what we need to do, when it needs to be done. That’s why we are chronic procrastinators. We favor instant gratification over delayed gratification because we fail to integrate awareness of far-off consequences into our daily actions. In other words, people with ADHD struggle to orient their behavior towards their goals because it is difficult for our brains to recognize things in the future as real.

And so, because of all that stuff under the surface, I floundered and flailed. I didn’t know how to hold myself responsible and I didn’t know how to ask for help. And I was depressed. I was so depressed. And anxious. And losing weight because I wasn’t remembering to eat. And that made my body weak, it made my hands shake and it made my brain dull and foggy. I was being treated for depression and anxiety because nobody saw the other half of my history. The part where I crumbled the moment I had to hold myself up. It was missed entirely until I stumbled across information about rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is only experienced by people with ADHD, and I realized that rejection by my parents was what drove that fear of consequence that had been motivating me all my life. When I started looking at my history through the lens of inattentive ADHD, the picture became clear. It wasn’t laziness or depression that was stopping me, it was executive dysfunction.

So my point in all this is YES, it is 100% possible and is actually quite common for people with executive dysfunction to excel in structured academic environments. It’s especially normal for people whose ADHD is dominated by inattentive symptoms over hyperactive ones. One of the major reasons why many young women are not diagnosed until their late teens/early 20s is because they’re more often inattentive, not hyperactive, and so their executive dysfunction doesn’t become apparent until they enter an environment, such as university or a job, where they are expected to hold themselves entirely accountable for their own positive outcomes.

As for you personally, I can’t diagnose you. I can say that what you described is possibly a symptom of executive dysfunction, but I don’t know enough about you or your behavioral history to say whether or not you should consider seeking a professional opinion. If you are experiencing deficiencies in your self-discipline/motivation/memory/attention that are disrupting your quality of life, and if you can identify those as patterns throughout your life history, then you may have reason to see a psychologist. If your symptoms are confined to inconsequential/nonessential things like reading a book you’ve been wanting to read, I wouldn’t worry about it too much as I’m fairly certain that’s a normal experience for most neurotypical people.

Anyways thanks for coming to my TED talk, sorry for taking fifty million years to get to the point.