#idk i'm just reflecting

[inconspicuouspotatosack]

i hate this. i hate this!!

[hussyknee]

I know some dickheads have now decided that Judaism is the "bad, violent, terrorist religion" and Islam is the "good, peaceful" one, which is only to be expected of white people, but how much of an issue is it currently? Like I've seen some USAmericans sharing how the Islamic faith shapes Gazans values and perseverance (good) except with that distinct white hippie "I'm about to imprint on this like the world's most racist duck" vibe (bad), but I didn't think they're already turning on Judaism in numbers.

Do they realize that Christianity is also the same kind of comfort to Christian minorities in Asia and Africa? That it was Buddhists that genocided the Rohingyas in Myanmar and Tamils in Sri Lanka? That Hindu fundamentalists are even now trying to ethnically cleanse Muslims in India? How Hindus and Christians are terrorized and persecuted in Pakistan? That Muslims have a history of persecuting and ethnically cleansing Jews too?

Really tired of asking y'all to be normal about people's religions man. There's no religion that's inherently violent or exceptionally peaceful. It's just like any other ideology that becomes a weapon in the hands of ethnic power. Interrogate power, not religion, and respect people's belief systems insofar as they aren't in your business.

Edit: I've amended the "long history" of Muslim persecution of Jews because it might be misleading in the current political climate. Zionism and antisemitic Arab nationalism are twin births resulting directly from Christian colonization, and Islamic empires tended to actually be more tolerant of other religions compared to Christianity, especially Judaism, which was considered a sibling religion. Antisemitism wasn't ideologically entrenched in Islamic tradition. It's simply that ethno-religious power will lead to ethno religious domination and intermittent cleansing of minorities, and Islam is no exception. Humans be humaning always.

[syn0vial]

boba's friendship with beviin in the expanded universe is so funny. he's like, "yes, this is my best friend beviin. he has colossal dad energy, adopts practically every orphan he comes across, and constantly refers to me with a term of endearment that only my father ever used. he's the platonic ideal of a mandalorian in my eyes and his is the only opinion i care about. his armor's color scheme is literally the inverse of my father's. if you attempt to psychoanalyze me about any of this, i will kill you with explosives"

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[patentedsun]

nalu works for me because they genuinely like each other and enjoy spending time with each other... with so many ships I'm like ok well I see the romantic subtext they're going for but do they actually get along. can they hold a conversation. can they scroll tiktok in bed together without talking to each other. can they go on a walk together.

[ricky-mortis]

Hatchetfield @femslashfortnight Day 2: Retro

[titfairy]

[blanketforcas]

say what you will about him but that man's got our back 🙏

[krash-and-co]

the real 35 portland row is located on tumblr dot com btw

[x-i-l-verify]

Linked Universe Daemon AU Headcanons

WORLDBUILDING NOTE 1: The concept of daemons is borrowed from the His Dark Materials series. A daemon is a person’s soul manifested outside of their body in a tangible, physical form, which permanently settles into the form of the animal that most resembles them in character as the individual matures. Person and daemon are not separate beings, but two halves of one mental coin, which means that they each know everything the other does, thinks, and senses. Daemons are almost always the opposite gender of their person and have a distinct personality than the person to a certain degree, as person and daemon represent different aspects of the same whole. Touching someone’s daemon without their permission is taboo, considered a violation tantamount to rape in most cultures.

WORLDBUILDING NOTE 2: All Links have the same name for their daemon: Ellanharai (composed of the Old German elements ellan “courage” and heri “army”). However, because all the Links are their own person, their daemon’s form settles on something different with each incarnation. Just as the Links in the Chain go by different titles to differentiate them all, so, too, do their daemons. Links tend to settle early (12-13 years), as they generally know who they are and what they want from a young age.

WORLDBUILDING NOTE 3: The Dark World/Twili crystal magic combines someone and their daemon into one physical body. This new body has the form of the daemon but the gender of the person with size alterations or different markings/coloration and is controlled by the person, with the daemon part of their mind taking a backseat. For example, Legend is larger as a rabbit than his daemon usually is, and of course, her natural color is not bright pink. The lingering effects of this transformation only physically affect the person side of the person/daemon pair once they are returned to normal. 

---

SKY + PSALM (RED-CROWNED CRANE)

Red-crowned cranes are renowned for their lasting and affectionate pair bonds, having come to represent longevity and devotion in many cultures; they are cooperative and low-aggression birds, quite tolerant and relaxed around other animals, and only really become territorial and protective over their nesting sites and chicks.

Psalm is impatient, mischievous, and fierce. Sky is more easygoing, considerate, and gentle.

Sky and Psalm are very outwardly affectionate with each other, and both can often be found napping together in a patch of sunlight, Psalm resting her head in Sky’s lap or draping a wing over him. As the physically tallest daemon of the bunch, Psalm delights in teasing fawning over her smaller daemon sisters, especially the younger ones. She will often sit on someone and happily brood, and while some may outwardly protest, everyone secretly enjoys it.

---

FOUR + RHYME (ITALIAN HEBRAN HONEYBEE)

Four's daemon is an industrious, adaptable, cooperative, sociable species of honeybee, known for being assertive but not aggressive insects; they have a high threshold for what they consider threats, and will communicate using pheromones, body language, and vocalizations to make themselves as clearly understood as possible, but they will not hesitate to defend themselves if something is deemed a threat.

Four is empathetic, observant, passionate, and composed. Rhyme is the emotional, pragmatic, impulsive, competitive part of his personality.

Rhyme is usually kept in a protective case Four wears around his neck to prevent any harm from coming to her either in battle or out of it, due to her diminutive size, but he will happily let her out to stretch her wings when around people he trusts. While she is too small to outright cuddle with her sisters, Rhyme loves perching on their heads or burrowing into feathers or fur when it’s chilly, and she’s surprisingly expressive with her body language, though one might have to squint to see it.

When Four splits into his Colors, Rhyme also splits. Which means instead of one being in two bodies, they’re now one being in eight bodies. As in LU canon, none of the Colors is their own individual in this AU, merely a fraction of a larger whole. In turn, each iteration of Rhyme is an alternate part of each of the Colors, with Four’s soul fragmenting into smaller and smaller individual pieces the deeper you go down.

---

TIME + MELODY (SPANISH FARON MASTIFF)

While menacing in appearance due to their sheer size and bulk, Spanish mastiffs are actually known for being protective, affectionate, quiet dogs, with a long history of guarding livestock; they are patient, easygoing, and surprisingly playful, good with children and tolerant of other animals, though their strong wills and stubbornness make them a challenge to handle for first-time dog owners.

Time is authoritative, jaded, and stoic, while Melody embodies his nurturing, hopeful, mischievous side.

Melody can often be found at Time’s side with one of his hands resting on her head or back. As the largest daemon in the group paired with the tallest person, they make for quite the intimidating pair and are downright deadly in battle together. Outside of battle, though, Melody becomes a big teddy bear, utterly content to let her daughters sisters use her as a pillow or mode of transportation, quietly communicating all the warm care and tenderness Time is sometimes too awkward to openly express. She is the one who introduced the musical motif the other Ellanharais also adopted when coming up with nicknames for themselves.

---

TWILIGHT + ARIA (GRAY WOLF)

Twilight’s daemon is a social, cooperative, dedicated apex predator, who routinely work together to raise their young, defend their territories, and chase down their prey over vast distances; they are not overly aggressive and prefer to avoid conflict whenever they can, using body language, sent marking, and howling to diffuse tense situations and prevent costly fights between packs or individuals.

Twilight is focused, cautious, and opinionated. Aria is his easygoing, empathetic, people-pleasing side.

Aria instantly adopts most of the younger daemons in the group and dotes on them as much as they’ll allow. However, she turns into a big, besotted puppy whenever Time and Melody come into the picture and becomes adorably bashful around Malon’s pigeon daemon Rosamu. She is often found at Twilights right side, guarding his flank and watching his back while he focuses his attention on what’s in front of him. She also loves scritches and belly rubs and has nearly smothered Twilight more than once by sprawling on top of him too heavily while they sleep. While their initial transformation into Wolfie was traumatic and scarring at first, they have both grown to enjoy the occasional opportunity to truly travel, fight, and exist as one.

---

WILD + TRILL (WEDGE-TAILED EAGLE)

Wild’s daemon is a loyal, resourceful, resilient species of raptor that is often found alone or in monogamous pairs, but will freely cooperate together with groups of up to 15 other eagles to take down larger prey; they are straightforward and communicative with their vocalizations and displays and also surprisingly playful, wrestling or playing food games with each other.

Trill is Wild’s dutiful, reserved, focused side, while Wild is the impulsive, playful, lackadaisical side.

Trill is rather choosy with and to whom she shows open affection. She can be very standoffish, preferring to let Wild do the talking for both of them, but once she trusts someone, she will often become very chatty and physically affectionate. It is common to see her riding around or napping on Aria's back, but she has begun opening up more to the others as well.

Because Wild lost all his memories in the Shrine of Resurrection, Trill had become unsettled when they finally woke up, taking the most basic shape a daemon can take, normally only seen with very young children: a small, floating, glowing ball of golden Dust. As they regained their memories during Wild’s quest and discovered more about themselves, Trill began taking on some of their old favored forms before eventually resettling for good as her original settled form, the wedge-tailed eagle. Despite physically being the same, though, there’s still that distance between who they are now and who they used to be, most evident in how their personalities have seemed to switch; Wild used to be more serious, focused, and responsible, and Trill used to embody the impulsivity, rowdiness, and wanderlust he kept tightly tamped down for the sake of duty and appearances. Both of them are still coming to terms with how much they have changed.

---

LEGEND + LYRIC (EUROPEAN HYLIAN RABBIT)

Legend's daemon settled as a hardy, wary, sociable, territorial species of rabbit, able to survive and thrive in almost any environment; they are a keystone prey species, a vital part of almost any ecosystem they find themselves in, who must stay ever vigilant and rely on their speed, wits, and determination to stay alive.

Legend is blunt, private, and practical, while Lyric is the sensitive, sociable, sentimental side of him.

Legend has… a complicated relationship with his daemon’s form. He initially hides her away from the rest of the Chain out of paranoia and insecurity, keeping her in his pack at all times. What would Hyrule they think of the renowned Hero of Legend having a defenseless, soft little rabbit as a daemon? They would lose all respect for him, or worse, be disappointed. It isn’t until after the Twili crystal incident, and Twilight and Sky find out about Lyric’s form, that he starts to come out of his shell.

After the ice has been broken, Lyric leaps at the chance to interact with the other deamons more. She goads Aria or even Melody into games of chase, can finally properly pounce on Warriors’ daemon the next time she teases her, curls up into a little fuzzy ball with Hyrule’s daemon to nap, leaps up on Trill or Psalm or Wind’s daemon’s backs and coax them into giving her a ride, and holds Rhyme in her little paws to gloat that she finally knows a daemon smaller than her (Rhyme is not amused). She is the one who came up with the name for their group of daemons, which is a chorus, just like a group of Links is a chain.

---

HYRULE + CADENCE (YELLOW-BELLIED GLIDER)

Hyrule’s daemon is a small, nocturnal glider species that is selectively social, close-bonding, and expressive, utilizing a number of chirps, whirrs, whistles, and growls to keep away intruders and keep tabs on each other; yellow-bellied gliders are incredibly active, hard-working creatures, spending up to 90% of their time awake foraging, and they can travel up to 2 kilometers in just 4 hours through a combination of climbing and gliding.

Hyrule is independent, wary, and agreeable. Cadence represents his dependent, connected, feisty side.

Cadence is generally quite a skittish daemon, who can normally be found clinging wide-eyed to Hyrule’s back, shoulders, chest, or arms, or hidden inside his tunic or pack. She has not interacted closely with many other daemons in her time (fairies do not have daemons), so she is still getting used to the physical affection the others offer. She does not dislike it; it is simply a lot. But she is gradually learning to love being nuzzled, cuddled, and carried, and she greatly enjoys riding around on the other larger daemons.

---

WIND + SHANTY (MILITARY MACAW)

Wind settled just a couple months before the events of Linked Universe as a resourceful, gregarious, deeply loyal species of macaw; like all macaws, they can be quite loud, communicative, and expressive, and they have generally been described as having friendly, confident, playful dispositions, albeit with the occasional temperamental mood swing.

Shanty is Wind's meticulous, perceptive, down-to-earth side, while Wind is reckless, curious, and carefree.

As is befitting for a parrot daemon, Shanty spends much of her time perched on Wind’s shoulders or arms, though she does love being held and cuddled, too. She is still getting used to her settled form, and sometimes forgets she cannot shift like she once did, leading to some hilarious mishaps when she faceplanted on the ground trying to turn into a hermit crab, or one memorable instance where she nearly drowned while trying to become a yellowtail snapper. She gets very starry-eyed over the other demons and thinks all of them are the coolest for different reasons. She desperately wants to impress them and prove she’s just as badass as they are, so she can sometimes chafe under their well-meaning coddling.

---

WARRIORS + BALLAD (RED FOX)

Warriors’ daemon settled as the confident, dependable, independent red fox, the most widespread and successful carnivore in the world, found in just about every available habitat, from jungle to tundra; despite being mainly solitary, these animals have a complex social hierarchy and can be seen in a wide variety of group settings, with vixens sometimes coming together during the breeding season to help raise each other’s cubs, and their mates bringing them food and also helping parent the new cubs.

Warriors is shrewd, charming, and diplomatic, while Ballad is more brash, cheeky, and candid.

Ballad, while generally friendly and warm with the other daemons (especially the younger ones), is also strangely skittish around them. She is fine initiating touch or curling up for a nice nap around or with someone else, but if touched unexpectedly, she tends to either bristle, growl, and retreat behind Warriors, or go very still and quiet. She shies away from any human hands except Warriors' (and even then there are days he doesn't touch her directly). They bring to mind other hands. Slim, small, elegant, painted hands that hurt, that took, that tainted- ...It’s fine. She’s fine. They’re fine. Everything’s fine.

---

Resources:

Red-crowned crane analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24990

Italian honeybee analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23882

Tibetan mastiff analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24552

Spanish mastiff information: https://dogtime.com/dog-breeds/spanish-mastiff

Gray wolf analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23828

Wedge tailed eagle analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26686

European rabbit analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23718

Yellow bellied glider analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24968

Military macaw analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26591

Red fox analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24946

Art belongs to @/linkeduniverse

[aroaceleovaldez]

i would like to say my ideal PJO adaptation (if i was being physically forced against my will to have to pick a live action adaptation over an animated one for some reason) would be a combo like writing of the musical + casting of the show + visuals of the movies

BUT the show actually does have the playwright for the musical as one of the major writers for like three episodes and that did nothing for it. so...

[raycatz]

midnight thoughts: like, I know there's a decent number of people in the LU fandom who haven't played the games or have only played botw/tears onwards. So, how familiar are people with zelda music? Like, would anyone be interested in like a fandom discussion post talking about music that stands out from each title?

[uncanny-tranny]

I'm still thinking about how ashamed I was (and am) with being open about my pain because I am so young. It's so hard to feel worthy of having your pain taken seriously when the people around you insist that young bodies are always in pristine, untouched condition and that you must earn your pain through aging. Never is it considered that young people aren't lying or being a hypochondriac for expressing their pain.

Young people can be in life-altering pain. Young people can have debilitating pain. It doesn't matter what age it happens because pain doesn't discriminate. Complaining about pain and doing things to prevent needless pain aren't something you have to "earn" through aging.

If you want young people to be in less or lesser pain, then encourage them to do whatever they can to minimize it. Don't downplay what they're experiencing. Not everything is a lie, not every experience that is different than yours is exaggeration or deceit.

[whiskeyswifty]

One of my favorite things about TTPD is definitely the thread of what makes an artistic genius a genius that runs through it. Specifically, the very concept of genius as it pertains to Taylor swift and how she herself has evolved that definition within her own field, how she mocks it and interrogates it on this album. But also the way it conflates with how we dub her a genius these days; artistically, strategically, philosophically (depending on your mileage). The crux of the issue ultimately is that historically, geniuses are often characterized as men who are lonely and flawed to the point of unsociable. It is in fact their genius that tortures them and isolates them and subsumes them and makes them flawed. And then in turn, the only men who can create great works of genius must also possess those traits because they are decided markers of genius, and so on and so forth. Women geniuses, the few that earn that moniker, in turn are often marked by caveats tacked onto any praise or recognition of their genius work. (It’s all non-cis-men “geniuses” really but for the sake of this discussion, we’re talking specifically about women v. Men because Taylor is a cis woman in a predominantly cis male controlled space) In Taylor’s case, it’s fearless deserved AOTY because it’s impressive….. for a teenage girl writing about teenage girl things, instead of simply saying the album itself being a great work of genius deserving of the award regardless of her age and it’s subject matter. Another being instead of simply saying she is skilled at distilling the human experience, she is deemed adept at distilling the girl experience, the girlhood of her weepy, exuberant little girl audiences. Always a qualifier, always a subset and an othering of female genius. It’s genius…. Within the confines of the handicap of being a woman. 

If you trace back her relationship to this confine, at first, she did try to fit into this genius mold sculpted by men. Young and girlish as she was, she still peddled the idea that she too was churning out these genius songs from a sort of tortured and lonely isolation, albeit scribbled in gel pen ink with kicking feet and yearning sighs, but in isolation all the same. I say peddled not because she isn’t a fabulous solo songwriter but she wasn’t often in total isolation as per the (male) genius handbook, and there in lies the very thing her genius begins to push back on, and the genius presentation of women that often clashes with the defined genius mold of men. She’s incredibly social. Vivacious and thrives being around friends and family, and her line of work traffics in that vivaciousness as a pop star, smiling and dancing and giggling on stage for thousands. She enjoys collaboration and throwing parties and meeting new people professionally and personally. She seeks out interactions with her own fans, to varying degrees over the years but still her hand is always reaching out across the barricade. How much of this is purely a product of a public persona and how much is her innate personal qualities is a moot argument, because the fact remains the same that this is the persona we are presented with, who is the antithesis of the male genius. And it’s not to say that she isn’t lonely or flawed or tortured about it. 

TTPD specifically interrogates that idea both through the lens of observing a guy who fancies himself a genius in that very male way, but also her own representation of genius in the world and how she repudiates the male genius mold foisted upon her. Mocking the stereotypical misanthropic traits of this male “genius” she encountered on songs like the title track, but also mocking the way he (and us by extension) try to classify her as a genius with all the trappings of one. Going as far as to refer to herself as an idiot in contrast, not intellectually perhaps but in terms of her comprehension of the world and her place in it, she doesn’t feel like a genius, not the way the man she’s speaking to seems to cartoonishly categorize them anyway. She doesn’t want to hole up in the Chelsea hotel with a typewriter wallowing in the burden of her genius because she doesn’t feel burdened by it that way, but rather her genius makes her curious and compelled to continue living boldly and blindly. If his (and the world’s) idea of genius is that willfully lonely tortured poet, then she’s much happier to cast herself as a modern idiot. She continues to push back as the album progresses, wherein she doesn’t claim she doesn’t get lonely or she isn’t flawed, but simply that she doesn’t define herself that way or even let those feelings steer her. Broken Heart is a quite literal example where she endures one of the biggest heartbreaks known to humankind and touts her ability to continue to perform her job due to the fortitude of her compartmentalization, not letting it decide how she will live her life. The Prophecy, where she bangs her fists against the forces that insist that she must remain in the lonely tortured poet mold in exchange for this genius, be they arcane or the small mindedness of modern world around her. She becomes animalistic, feral as she howls at the moon even, refusing to be shackled. Which brings us to Who’s Afraid, the most violent push back against the male genius you could say. She does not retreat to the folklore cabin in the woods as she once did when she is lonely and flawed and tortured, but instead lashes out and monstrously displays her emotion in the faces of those who scorned her, promises to never retreat and to instead haunt them, and perhaps all of us, forever. A Frankenstein’s monster of herself, where she is both doctor and creation. A story whose comparison is apt for its subject matter, but also in its creation that gets to the core of how she redefined genius. 

Mary Shelley, a woman, wrote Frankenstein, a seminal work of literary genius, and while the book is about a genius tortured in isolation by his genius creations, she didn’t write it in lonely tortured isolation herself. She came up with it in a house full of friends where they played a game to see who could come up with the best ghost story, for fun. The impetus of its creation was to share it with others and emotionally connect with them. The manuscript closes out TTPD with a harrowing but frank recounting of a transformationally damaging relationship in her life where the song itself confronts how she hid the scope of the damage from others, and even to a degree herself, behind the genius works she created about that relationship. Ironically, some of which are the single works that had the big wigs and critics and greek chorus of the music world finally cement her genius. The lemonade out of lemons she could have said and been done with it. But it wasn’t the declaration of genius that those works afforded her that brought her closure and peace on the matter, as the Manuscript dictates. It was the way the work of artistic genius was received and emotionally resonated and connected with people that allowed her to emotionally connect to it herself over the years and create more art from it until she finally understood the experience fully. Understood what the agony of it all had been for back in her early twenties, and thereby understood what the genius is all for now. If being a woman is seen as a handicap by her genius peers or by those who decide genius in others, merely a hysterical woman or a weepy little girl, perhaps it also could be a huge reason for why she’s able to redefine it, due to her access and ability to embrace those hysterical weepy emotions as only women are allowed to do in modern society writ large.

And so Taylor reshapes the identifying image of our genius as a bitter, tortured, stoic man in his cabin into a smiling face of a woman overwhelmed by a thousand emotions, clasped hands reaching out over barricades. Or one of eyes searching and recognizing herself in the faces of 80,000 people in an audience. Even seeking artistic collaboration with her friends that often results in sharing ghost stories of their own kind out of a desire to connect with each other. As sad and heartbroken and lonely she may feel, she will never be alone and the great mistake of the tortured and isolated male genius is thinking that he must be. If you believe that there is some divine purpose that bestows artistic genius upon a person, what Taylor Swift discovered and redefines and insists upon is that it is not a lifelong curse of loneliness but a gift of boundless and eternal human connection. 

[residentialsinyomakai]

Hello hello!!! Guess what. Yokai art dump below the cut!! So cool and shiny wow

Its true, I do >u<

I'll try and section these and give the usual explanations below! Image ID for more drawing specific inksplanation.

Click for full image! Since a lotta these are weirdly shaped they were cut off....augh...

McKraken and Maddiman related doodlesssss they're some of my faves <3 i will always love them even if they're not my focus characters atm (well. McKraken kinda is rn but also Babblong so YAY)

Misc. Yokai and ocs! The frog is Kerosque, the guy w the swirly pompadour thing is Swiss, and the monkey is Romono (although he's a Regretevator OC from FOREVER ago, he's still my son <33)

SWISS STUFF RAUGHHHH ! inconsistent style will be APPARENT here try not to notice shuhhhhhgh

Height for main yokai in my AU/on Casp's team! (In the anime it's just primary summons then wwwww)

Some yokai practice/design hcs bc my friend asked!! I was so happy to share 🤭 LOVE YOU CHERCHERRRR

Some of my little guys once more! Rawry' prob one of my faves yokai to draw, easy and fun to do show-accurate or stylized.

OCSSSSSS. AND BADDINYAN. MY EVIL CAT <3333 the guy next to the frog in the middle is an oc idea but idk for what yet =▽=

AUGH. THERES AN IMAGE LIMIT? Well in case you're wondering it's 30....post the rest after I get tomorrow's doodles. See you then and thank you for looking at and reading about my arts!

[zinzabee]

A Message for the RotTMNT Fans

For everyone who is afraid of drawing Rise Raph because of his large body type and proportions, I am here to give you this message: I promise you, I would much rather see you try your best effort and it look a little wonky than for you to exclude him entirely from your art and doodles.

The reason I am able to draw Raph as well as I am right now is because I learned how to draw fat/muscular/chubby body anatomy in my early art career. But it's really never too late to start practicing! I encourage you, I implore you even, to take a few small steps out of your comfort zone for a bit and see where it takes you. If you want to draw him (or any favorite character from a piece of media you love, really) but are intimidated because of their size being abnormal from the thin/skinny, I want you to know that it's okay to be scared. What's not okay is giving up, quitting, or not even trying to attempt their bigger proportions at all. Because then that will bleed over into the rest of your art style/mentality, and there are aspects of your art that you may never improve on because of that. You don't know until you try.

I know it may feel awkward at first, and you may be intimidated by the pressure of getting it right, less anyone make fun of you or you get caught by peers or non-artists and be judged. Trust me, I know. I have been there! It's not a pleasant experience. But if you want to get better as an artist, you need to learn different body types. You need to unlearn the internal fatphobia that society has ingrained into your brain. You need to free yourself and allow yourself to make mistakes as you learn and practice to get better.

Raph is such a wonderful character and he deserves just as much love as all the other brothers, but I've talked to so many artists who all repeat the same thing; "He's so hard to draw." "I can't get his shapes quite right." "I don't draw him that much because I'm intimidated." You are 100% valid for these feelings, I promise. But I think it's for these reasons that you should draw him anyway, and learn his shapes, and learn to draw larger bodies and bigger muscles, because it helps you grow as an artist. And besides that, representation matters. I know there's plenty of fans out there who would love to see more representation like Raph.

So go for it. Even if you're scared. Even if you're unsure. Give yourself a little grace if you wanna draw that big lovable turtle, and do your best. And when it comes down to it, I bet that if he was real and you showed it to him, he'd love it and appreciate the effort no matter what. <3