#like. achieve the same kind of pain that the way they treated donnie in CL......

[qoldenskies]

SOMETHING ABOUT RAPH CALLING MIKEY AND DONNIE HIS TWO YOUNGEST LIKE THEYRE HIS KIDS. Raph sick with envy at Splinter for walking in and taking the role Raph had been forced to play for years. He doesn’t consciously think of his younger brothers that way, but the understanding of what an older brother is is so heavily influenced by the hole Splinter left through his distance. Punching the floor.

!!! YEAGGGGGG i also think about him going "kid..." when leo starts working himself up and snapping at him in in ch15 like,,, there's something so parental about it. he's been forced into this role for so long, he is exhausted by this thing he feels dependent on to make him feel useful which is such a donnie move of him lmao theyve got that in common (are mind meld and pizza puffs just effectively the same premise with hilariously different outcomes. oh my god they are. parallel episodes.)

i love when little things like that pop up in his internal narration, its very rare it peeks out so obviously from an outside perspective but my favorite thing about writing raph pov is that there's always these little glimpses of times where he's more like a parent than a brother. CU is a very good example with all his reminiscing, mostly back to times when they were younger and he had to work as their caretaker, so he thinks so thoroughly about how they act when sick/hurt and such ,,,,, raphie beloved