#and rise raph is like all those same core raphael ingredients mixed slightly differently

[bullagit]

raph’s emotional issues and arc still on my mind all the time constantly. underexplored underutilized, deserving of so much more digging around.

the whole concept just really gets to me. this idea that as a kid, there was some definitive point where raph needed it, but in one way or another had to internalize “oh. no one is going to help me.” and the trauma of that reverberating through him all the way through to the finale. 

raph the caretaker, the protector, the leader, the big brother, the one everyone leans on, the one everyone counts on to ultimately come through and save the day. raph who never feels like he has someone else he can turn to when he’s scared and confused and struggling to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders. who is terrified more than anything of losing his family, who always tries his absolute hardest and many times has to watch as it turns out that putting his all into keeping them safe wasn’t enough. raph who pushes his tears back and puts on a brave face and tries to give his brothers someone who knows what they’re doing and is full of confidence.

raph who is incapable of seeing that his brothers and april are there willing and able to support him in the exact same way if he’d let them, because at some point he learned and internalized that that’s just... not something that he GETS to have.

and like whether that trauma stemmed from the stretch of years where splinter’s emotional distance issues were at their worst or ties into whatever the mysterious origin of the “savage (dont really care for the term but since that’s what they use in canon) raph” state, it’s very real and very much a part of him.