#i tend to headcanon draxum as having some level of chronic pain but also not the best awareness of how he's doing physically

[bambiraptorx]

[I.D. Digital two panel drawing of TMNT 2003 Baxter Stockman and ROTTMNT Baron Draxum. In the first panel, Baxter stands with one hand on his hip and the other pointed upward. He says proudly "Of course having a healthy work-life balance is essential to any amount of success so I make sure to maintain a good diet, exercise properly, and get eight hours of sleep a night." Next to him Draxum has his hands behind his back, and a simplified smiley face expression. He says "I work twenty hour days for as long as I can before I collapse". In the second panel, Baxter narrows his eyes and stares at Draxum with a confused, somewhat disturbed expression. In turn, Draxum looks defensively at Baxter and asks "What?" End I.D.]

I love the idea of Stockman being very health conscious/aware of his physical needs because he knows pushing himself and burning out isn't worth it, versus Baron "I'm functioning at like a 3 in terms of pain right now so I can just keep going- oh shit now it's at 9" Draxum

[echonvoid]

Disaster twins strike again! This show has fucking fantastic disability/nuerodivergency/queer representation and I adore it!

So, my headcanons after the movie:

Leo:

Suffers from chronic pain and fatigue; has weaker lungs and immune system; and has to use a cane to keep himself steady in case he has a dizzy spell. Uses a c-pap to make sure he breathes when he sleeps; and he has some emergency oxygen tubing that he puts on if he’s really having a hard time breathing.

Has nightmares, ptsd, and frequent panic attacks; all involving weightlessness, falling, or just the feeling of Krang beating the shit outta him.

Often uses compression clothes to help with sensory issues. The whole gang tend to wander around the lair in comfy clothes nowadays. Everyone needs the extra comfort.

Has a real nasty case of tinnitus and wears hearing aides to help with that. I just realize the don’t really have ears, just ear slits. So instead, he wears noise canceling headphones (him and Donnie have a habit of kidnapping each other’s headphones) that donnie has modified to act as hearing aids, filtering in the outside sound

Leo’s Gay as Fuck (I mean Da Vinci is so proud of this boy), and he’s a demi boy. He definitely has adhd and quite the handful of nuerodivergency disorders. Like he has some nasty dyslexia and tonal issues. AMAB pronouns: he/they

Donnie:

Makes a softer battle shell for around the house, but refuses to take it off unless they’re bathing, or slapping some ointment on it. It definitely bubbled and blistered after being attached to the Krang’s nuerotech (he was very proud of coming up with that name); his arms also had a similar nasty rash, but it was no where near as bad.

His eyes glow in the dark, eerie and blank, but quite powerful, they illuminate a good distance around him, but he himself can only see shadows.

His nerves are incredibly rebellious after being merged like that. Sometimes he can’t feel shit, others it’s a weird electrical tingle that passes through, and most often it’s his nerves all feeling like they’re catching on fire. He was used to sensory issues from his nuerodivergency, but this was a fucking whole other level.

He does a lot of data collection and processing over all the shit that they have left over from the Krang attack. It helps him process all the fucking horrors they went through.

Pronouns: He/They. Gender: agender. He’s an aromantic bisexual (or at least bi and somewhere on the aroace spectrum) AFAB

General:

ASL comes back in full force. When Donnie was little there were times he’d go nonverbal (hell, Raph still does go nonverbal when he gets to anxious (Savage Raph)), but he slowly grew outta it. Now, they all have nonverbal days and ASL has become a major part of their speaking. Most of them will sign while speaking outta habit, and not even realize it.

Turtle cuddle piles become the norm; they’ve turned the common area into a huge cushiony pillow fort of sorts. All the good blankets, textures, all of it, they pile in there. There’s also a closet that they transformed into a hideaway cove of sorts for anyone needing to be alone, so then they won’t be too far.

They take a pretty long break from any kind of hero work, at least 6 months. But after that, everyone was on a break. Hell, hypno and warren had brunch with the turtles once a month. They’ve reached a nice frenemy status, and honestly, the couple feels fucking horrible for what went down with the Krang.

Everyone goes to therapy!!! Especially CJ, Draxum, and Splinter; while everyone goes for help processing the attack, these three have trauma that haunts them from long before.

CJ has survivor’s guilt, c-ptsd, and a shitty relationship with food since it wasn’t always available, and the youngest and the fighters always had eating priority. He also fucking hates Draxum, cuz in his timeline Draxum gains a god/savior-complex; he decides that it would be better for the hidden city to be destroyed than for the Krang to have it. Donnie and Raph (while on CJ babysitting) found out, and went to stop him. But he beheaded donnie, in front of 4 year old CJ, then murder-suicided the entire city. Raph managed to get themselves out.

After hearing the devastating news that au him beheaded his own son and destroyed the very thing he swore to protect… and he wasn’t surprised… Draxum realized he wants to make his kids proud (especially Mikey, who poured so much love into him, even when he didn’t want it) So, he agrees to therapy. With a licensed therapist who wasn’t his child.

There he realizes he was raised in an insane bloodthirsty cult, and he was literally raised to be a child soldier. He spends a long time unlearning the cult mentality he grew up with. (And yes I am very much projecting my own feelings of learning that your parents religious ideology functioned more like a cult than a religion)

Splinter has to deal with his fucking trauma from Big Mama. Like, she abused the fuck outta him and he *still*, to this day, believes she can be fixed/redeemed. He has to unlearn a lot of shit, and his relationship with Draxum (the glorious nebulous divorcée vibes) is far healthier and it helps him better understand the way relationships are supposed to work. Oh, and he learns how to properly process grief and depression.

Anyway, I have lots of post movie feels, and quite a few 2012 crossover notes that I may or may not do something with (don’t worry, no 2012 hate; them characters just need therapy and a huge group huge/cuddle pile)