#just look at 87 Leo and compare him to 2003 Leo

[turtleblogatlast]

Middle of the night thought that I may extrapolate on much, much later: The next iteration of Leo always has something about them that the previous iteration wanted or was denied of.

[deadtiredghost]

Tmnt facts that are canon cause i said so:

All Leo's are sci-fi fans of varying degrees of old sci-fi series/movies

But MM!Leo thinks the old movies are old and thus has no major franchise to obsess over, he is just big into any of the more modern movies of the genre: I'm thinking Interstellar, Blade Runner, idk many more. And then he started watching Final Space and eventually got into Futurama.

But he still would think the other Leo's are old and a bit lame for enjoying old anime so much.

All the Donnie's and Leo's are the musical fans, but that doesn't mean that Raph and Mikey can't enjoy a musical too! Especially 2003!Raph who grew up watching shit like high school musical and teen beach movie with Leo and Donnie.

The 2003 boys all teamed up to sit on Mikey and tape Mikey's mouth shut cause he would dramatically and badly sing the songs otherwise.

2018 crew are hard into Hamilton of course while 2012 have a knock off version of it that flopped but Mikey loves.

2003 have a musical version of Lost Boys and Faries that could possibly be comparable with some rap songs and some emotional ballads.

Bayverse and MM have batman while 2018 have a weird mixture of some irl media and some really obvious knock offs. 2012 has Wingnut and Silber sentry as comics to replace Marvel and DC in their universe and we all know how 2003 is on superheroes.

All the Mikey's are naturally talented at drawing apart from 2012 who's skills apparently just got transferred to literally every single one of his siblings.

2012!Mikey's writing looks like chickenscratch and his drawings are chaotic in an abstract art kinda way, while 12!Leo can draw anime, 12!Karai is decent at drawing anything reallt, 12!Donnie preffers skatching items and backgrounds rather than people and 12!Raph is the one who does art the most in the fam.

The 1987 turtles are stuck in 1987 and have been since 1987. They like crossovers for the change of pace but 87!Raph and 87!Donnie very much dislike how other turtles have treated them in the past so take any and ever chance to fuck with their alternates in retaliation, feigning innocence well enough that they keep getting away with blatantly insulting their iterations to their face.

Leo is the tea drinker in the family across iterations but most of the iterations don't drink coffee - rottmnt gets into coffee wars (sans Leo and Splinter) but other than that 2007!Donnie and Bayverse!Raph are the only rabid coffee drinkers.

most of the Donnies drink energy drinks if they want a caffeine boost - the nonbinaries and their Monster especially.

The MM kids aren't allowed coffee because Splinter read a watched of child-raising YouTube videos and banned it. Of course that doesn't stop them from sneaking out. MM!Donnie is trying to convince him to allow coffee while MM!Raph just sneaks in his energy drinks.

2003!Casey was convinced the turtles were adults for at LEAST the first month into their friendship.

The ampunt Mikey wears stickers is directly proportional to the amount of leeway Splinter gives him - with the used-to-be-human Splinters being more strict on not personalising his weapon while the used-to-be-rat Splinters such as MM gives the go ahead.

The outlines of this rule are 03!Splinter and 18!Splinter of course who have entirely different ways of handling their adhd child.

And then there is bayverse!Splinter who said fuck the stickers, yes of course my 15-year-old children can have tattoos.

(And yes I firmly believe they were 15 in the first movie, and I attribute their tattoos to Splinter not really seeing the harm in it, or caring much as long as it won't hurt them.)

18!Leo is biologically the eldest but no one knows this apart from Draxum who will never tell at this point. Splinter aged them based on size.

On the other hand, 03!Leo is the biological youngest but only Donnie knows this (science shit to find it out) and will never tell anyone because he found out that 03!Mikey hatched first and that information can never be allowed to get to the turtle in question.

2012 Casey is transfem but doesn't know it yet and 2018 Casey is what 12!Casey will look like at 20.

All Donnie's watch anime and all Mikey's watch horror movies - despite how much they may or may not scream at the horror movies.

07!Mikey sells art online and 07!Leo becomes a language tutor in their 20's. Ironic as 12!Raph attempts to sell art online but becomes too emotionally attached to his work and 12!Donnie attempts to tutor for a time but is a terrible teacher.

Leo is a basketball or baseball fan, Raph likes wrestling and basketball, Donnie will partake in basketball or volleyball and Mikey prefers dancing but is open to playing anything... just not watching.

Splinter always watched the tennis, becuase his grandmother did. Leo likes to put it on but doesn't like playing it.

Mikey will forever be confused why the others enjoy watching sport. This stemms from when he was 12 and trying to watch his cartoons and Splinter would always take control of the TV during the Olympics. Mikey is still very salty and has an agenda against the Olympics and any other big sports match on their communal TV.

All the Leo's before 2012 just didnt use the Internet or any electronics as a kid and thus struggles with electronics massively.

Conversely 2012 and 2018 Leo were both on tumblr as kids and read fanfic about Space Heros and Jupiter Jim respectively.

And in addition: Donnie was on the Internet far too much as a kid.

(12!Donnie will never tell but 12!Mikey befriending Chris Bradford on Facebook hit a bit too close to home.)

After Don, Raph is the best at mechanics, other than 18!Raph who is kinda shit at them.

Splinter taught all of the turtles first aid but Raph and Mikey are patched up the most by the other two, which leads to the other two being more confident and skilled at first aid.

Leo's first aid experience is very much similar to an army medic, using improvisation based on his prior knowledge without any of the proper hospital procedure while Donnie's is much more based on his research into medicine and thus much more clinical.

The outliers are the 18!kids cause Donnie finds biological shit kinda disgusting unless he HAS to do it.

And then there is the 87!turtles who don't really get hurt for longer than an episode's run time. Despite this every single one of them are able to accurately and skillfully carry out any medical procedure should the need arise becuase cartoon logic and convenience. It is a skill they have and its usually 87!Donnie ordering them about while 87!Raph plays nurse.

Mikey and Raph spray paint together sometimes in all iterations other than 87.

87!Mikey and 87!Leo have never kmowingly committed a crime.

Mikey looks up to Leo most out of his siblings, and Leo would look up to Mikey in turn if he could get over the jealousy towards his youngest brother.

There is not a single itteration where Leo doesn't sometimes kinda wish he could be more like Mikey - he has never voiced these feelings and hates that he feels this jealousy.

If you wake Leo up from sleeping he will be alert, a bit grumpy about it, but will never turn you away. He rarely gets a full good night's sleep anyways, ans becuase of this he is prime target to bother when he is awake... up until they turn 14 where Leo gets into the habit of pretending to be asleep so Mikey doesn't bother him and starts meditating until he falls asleep.

The prior headcannon excludes rottmnt and mutant mayhem.

Mikey starts bothering Donnie more and joins him in the lab late at night a lot.

If you dare to disturb Raph's beauty sleep you will get a pillow to the face and a shouting to at the least.

Everyone of the turtles loves Kung Fu Panda or whatever similar movie exists in their world. They won't admit it but its because Poe reminds them of Mikey.

Raph maintains that he doesn't like physical contact much to get out of hugging the sweaty humans in his life. He is actually fairly chill with hugs he just hates the feeling of sweat on his scales so much, and learnt that the hard way when Casey brought him in for a hug after a fight and he shoved him off and blustered a bit. But any of his siblings hugging him is fine, he only ever shoves them off out of annoyance.

Donnie is the least huggy turtle, but he will sometimes lean his full body weight on April - which is fine in most iterations but some cannot handle the weight, I'm looking at Bayverse.

If Mikey were a human he would be a borderline nudist when home and everyone who lived with him would complain about it.

Like [insert hair covering here] and a fluffy dressing gown from when he was 9 wrapped around the waist if you're lucky.

[rin-the-shadow]

So I know it’s not Mikey Monday, but....

For context, the tape we were watching was a sample career counseling interview. This is a course I was required to take, not for my program, but because my academic supervisor thinks it would be beneficial for me to pursue an LPC license. Which, granted, I’m not sure if I want, but if I hadn’t taken that course I wouldn’t have seen this video.

In the interview, there’s a point where the counselor asks the guy role-playing his client about having any favorite characters or characters he identified with. The guy mentions Michelangelo because he’s funny and laid-back. My notes are as follows:

Interesting thing about the guy saying Michelangelo was his favorite turtle—Mikey is the one who is often characterized as “brilliant, but lazy.”

o   He’s kind of a silly character, which often distracts people from his perceptiveness and empathy. Sometimes he goes too far with his jokes or can be insensitive—particularly in the 2003 cartoon where he frequently shook his brother Raphael up by pressing his buttons, and once even seriously flipped him out by pretending to be severely hurt despite that not being the case. (The Shredder Strikes)

o   He’s also fairly heavily coded as having ADHD—to the point that the most recent adaptation made that canon.

o   His weapon is the nunchaku, which takes a huge amount of skill to wield even one, yet he uses two fairly well, proficiently at fifteen.

o   Has an unconventional way of looking at the world, which often lets him come up with solutions his brothers, who are comparatively less out-of-the-box, sometimes don’t think of. (Notes from the Underground, Touch and Go) This is also what lets him figure out what is going on with Leonardo in the fourth season of the 2003 series, where his brothers don’t put it together.

Given the age of the guy in the video, he likely saw either the 1980′s series, or the 2003 series. At the time, I assumed he saw the ‘87 because freaks like me were the only ones who saw 2003 and liked it, sarcasm voice on freaks like me.

The boldface citations were added after the fact, but these were the specific episodes I was thinking about when I wrote this. Because for whatever reason, it seems like it’s easy to dismiss 2003 Mikey’s complexity in favor of saying he was only ever “just” the funny one. If the series were made today, I’d say it’s because audiences seem to like having all the subtext and characterization spoonfed to them a la Beauty and the Beast (2017) because it’s like...a plothole or something otherwise. But for the early 2000′s and I myself having been a child at the time who was barely even aware that Leo was getting “official” arcs, I got nothing. Shell, maybe it’s just because he was popular with younger viewers.

From my perspective, I think it’s fairly obvious he had to have been more than that, because I don’t know that so many kids could have connected with him if he’d “only” been the funny one. I don’t know that my youngest sister could have connected with him if he’d “only” been the funny one, and I wonder if maybe the guy in the video connected with him for something other than “just” being the funny one.

Again, I don’t know for a fact which version the guy saw. My observations are just restricted to the 2003 because, TV Tropes aside, 2003 is the main one I have familiarity with, and barring a few issues from the City at War arc of the Mirage comics, the only one I was familiar with at the time I wrote these notes.

But I do think it’s very interesting that he picks the guy who, at least in the version I watched, is brilliant in that he possesses a lot of natural talent in one area, but what he really wants to do is draw comics, possibly become a superhero. Mikey is constantly reading comics, watching old movies, quotes these movies in some episodes, is able to draw connections between an old Silver Sentry comic and use it to figure out how to beat Amanda, the daughter of Battling Bernice and Doctor Dome, is mentioned in supplementary material to draw his own comics, and even has some featured in bonus material like the “Turtle Power” book. (Really, if I were to write a 2003 Mikey plot, it would probably be about him going through the process of writing and maybe even trying to publish his own comic book and how being a mutant turtle affects how he has to go about that.) 

So I have to wonder if part of Mikey’s appeal with non-child crowds is because in some ways, he’s a kind of wish-fulfillment for people who aren’t necessarily doing what they want to do. He isn’t necessarily doing what he wants to do, at least not in the order he wants. He’s more of an artist first, ninja second, which is probably some of where his seeming “brilliant but lazy” presentation around ninjitsu comes from. His interest is in creating his comics, so more of his stuff is configured around that, with the ninjitsu being something he enjoys, but not on the same level as his comic stuff.

But I do wonder if the guy role-playing the therapist had been more familiar with TMNT, if maybe they could have explored that a bit more. Granted, the point was to funnel him into an appropriate career choice, and I am not a career counselor, but who knows. At the same time, my cohort seemed to think I was weird for an analysis I gave of Leo in response to a question about what cartoon character you relate to at that moment and why, so maybe that’s just one of those questions you aren’t really supposed to answer except why would you ask it if that were the case?? So maybe not.o