#raph is stress

[kitkatinahat]

[charcoaldustonmyfingers]

Part 3

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And he missed the mark. Sometimes something that works well for one person doesn’t really fit right for another. Where Donnie feels more comfortable categorizing and ordering things into understandable data, Raph feels more relaxed when he can step away from mountains of text or numbers and simply be.

Perhaps there is a way to meet in the middle?

[ironinkpen]

The dynamic in Rise between the rest of the team and Leo is. so fucking funny. Because like you've got these three extremely talented individuals who all seem like perfectly reasonable people at first glance, right, but then if you squint hard enough you realize they're actually all batshit insane (affectionate) and the clown boy standing behind them is secretly their common sense.

Clown boy will occasionally put himself and the others in danger to Prove Himself or Prove Someone Wrong (see Minotaur Maze and the movie) but like otherwise... i think people forget Leo's overwhelmingly the voice of reason in most situations?

Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all incredibly powerful boys with very specific skill sets. They are also, as a direct result of this, the WORST decision-makers on god's green earth lmao. When presented with a problem, Raph will smash, Donnie will blow shit up, and Mikey will razzmatazz. They will all run straight toward death with the same oblivious enthusiasm of a dog about to run straight into a screen door. None of them realize this and all of them think they are Extremely Good At Problem-Solving.

And the guy cursed with the common sense to realize this is literally the LAST person anyone would expect.

When you look closely, the entirety of Rise is actually a chronicle of Leo trying to find new and creative ways to keep this team of superpowered fools alive while simultaneously white-knuckling his Cool Fun Guy persona so the others don't realize he's secretly the Boring Responsible One. Haha, you know what would be Cool and Fun, guys? Not going after the Spine Breaking Bandit lol. Getting home before the sun goes up lol. Evacuating that civilian lol. Not telling the guy dangling me off a roof "you won't, no balls" lol.

The sacred struggle of every iteration of Leonardo is thanklessly wrangling the most trigger-happy siblings in the world, and Rise Leo has not escaped it. He just does an occasional shenanigan to avoid detection and his brothers fall for it every time.

[thatonedudeinthecorner]

Oh leonardo ninja turtle you will forever be famous to me for your stupid blue coded self-sacrificial ways

@hey-little-gay-boy-why-would-we I thought it would be funny

[tangledinink]

dychlfkhfhlfh He’s a Donnie again!!! No wings and feathers!!

breaking the spell and getting him home was step one. there's most definitely still story to tell.

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(the next 20+ pages are already up on patreon!)

[zee-rambles]

———-

“He wanted to get better.”

First I Prev I Next

[nordidia]

having a very rough night so raph doodles needed to be made

when in need, mash two interests together

[forgetful-nerd]

2012 turtles’ design just makes me wanna squeeze them-

Like this:

Them some bug-eyed boys

[serene-sabo]

Fine! Drop us a card sometime! Yeah, if the humans don’t arrest you first.

[darth-sonny]

the other three's names are not gonna show up during the credits

[shantechni]

No one asked, but my favorite part of the scene where Mikey comforts Leatherhead in front of his brothers isn't just that they're witnessing it.

It's the varying reactions we get.

It's a literal "blink and you'll miss it" moment, but Raph hardly reacts to Mikey's display; he's the first to turn to Donnie and signal him to inquire about the power cell.

We've seen how he looks when Mikey genuinely catches him off guard, and this isn't one of those moments.

It's fitting that Raph would be the least surprised by the spectacle because he's often portrayed to be the one who best understands Mikey, even in the 2012 comics when Leo and Donnie scold Mikey for his lack of focus in one issue (there are other examples). While they argue with Mikey, Raph is seen chilling in the background because he doesn't have that big of an issue with Mikey's attention span, and he even calls Mikey out when he claims he's not bothered by their comments as he walks out in irritation. He then goes on to scold Leo and Donnie later for running Mikey off as they look for him. He may be the biggest culprit when it comes to calling Mikey out once his attention starts to stray, but contrary to what he said in New Friend, Old Enemy, he understands Mikey quite well, sometimes better than anyone else.

So seeing Mikey pull the therapist card on someone isn't out of the ordinary for him. He knows Mikey well enough to anticipate something like this.

Leo's next in line for actually reacting very subtly to Mikey pulling Leatherhead out of his headspace.

His eyes are already widened by the time the camera pans back to him, but they widen an extra notch before he too turns back to Donnie.

Leo has borne witness to Mikey's skills plenty of times prior to this episode, and we can take their decade-and-a-half spent underground into consideration, so seeing Mikey behave so compassionately doesn't strike him as anything supremely noteworthy. But he's clearly impressed that Mikey managed to befriend the hostile mutant in such a short amount of time; he recognizes that his youngest brother is mentally intelligent and strong enough to calm down the easily angered Leatherhead while no one else thought it to be feasible.

It surprises him, but Leo understands that Mikey is the most sympathetic out of all of them, and he doesn't take long to get over his surprise.

Donnie, on the other hand, takes the longest amount of time to move on from what transpired.

Unlike Raph's lack of feedback and Leo's mental approbation, Donnie is awestruck.

As I said before, I highly doubt this is anyone's first time seeing the level of maturity Mikey has, but (and it's a very close race) Donnie's the main one out of the brothers who both accidentally and purposefully sees Mikey as the tactless, accident prone little brother everyone makes him out to be most of the time. Though he knows Mikey is proficient at critical thinking when he's needed to be, bringing in a mutant with violent tendencies and perceptible trauma that gets triggered by the mention of a name isn't a territory they've frequented.

And yet, much like Leo, he sees for himself that Mikey was clearly capable of mellowing Leatherhead out and knew how to steer him away from his horrendous memories with the Kraang.

[2aceofspades]

Further update...

I can't be stopped apparently...

Weak

[ironinkpen]

The interpretation of Rise Raph as a 'perfect responsible soft boy uwu' is so BORING I'm sorry, Raph is a rowdy adrenaline junkie with anxiety and I won't take this slander any longer

Raph secretly kept an enemy soldier in their actual literal house as a sparring partner. Raph glued his brothers together and dragged them out to fight crime. Raph once asked Leo to punch him in the face to prove he 'takes damage like a boss.' Raph tried to lift a school bus, twice. Raph offered to help his favorite wrestler beat his little brother up. When Leo suggests evacuating Bullhop, Raph says no bc the best defense is a good offense babey. Raph's idea of a 'friendly chat' with April's upstairs neighbor is to put on a black ski mask and go stand menacingly at their door. It takes Raph 10 episodes to conclude that they should MAYBE start training. Raph's plan to get a potentially priceless (and potentially FRAGILE) museum artifact is to punch a car in the middle of a busy street and also cut it in half with his brother still inside.

Raph's never met a problem he wouldn't try to punch in the face and does not know the meaning of the words 'excessive force.' He roughhouses with his bros and drags them out to fight villains and thinks any plan that doesn't involve an all-out brawl is boring and lame. He'll do anything to protect his family from harm and be a hero, but also he eats wet salami off the floor and once single-handedly destroyed a library.

I just adore how, at his core, Rise Raph is such a classic Raph—impulsive and stubborn and caring and passionate. He is a very sweet, strong, honorable guy who has a very powerful sense of personal responsibility... and he is also the exact kind of jock who throws you in the pool at a party without checking if you have your phone in your pocket first.

[fearthetallman]

Enjoy some vent art I made while upset people stressed me and I stressed people by being upset

[joyfuladorable]

Took a bunch of doodle requests from twt mutuals the other day ^w^

[randomrottmntscreenshots]

I come back