#rottmnt family feels

[nat-talks-turtles]

and so the final installment of my angst-series is now complete!

[somerandomdudelmao]

Part 2 is here! :D

And you know what?

Sensei Leonardo and Master Michelangelo are good. But Donnie is not a master or a teacher or a professor for Casey. Nonono~

Donnie is that totally crazy uncle and I will fight for that concept.

Part 1 Next episode

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo standing up for his brothers in the things that really matter to them.

Like- Leo is the one who immediately pushes Mikey and Donnie into finding Raph the second it’s clear that their oldest brother is missing because he knows Raph can’t handle being separated like that.

Leo is the one who stands up for Mikey when Mikey wants to go on a solo mission, actively vouching for him and being the one to convince Raph into letting Mikey go, because being independent and proving himself just as capable of standing on his own two feet as everyone else means so much to Mikey.

And Leo defends Donnie’s honor in particular when his brothers’ intelligence is insulted because Leo is well aware of how important Donnie’s smarts are to him - and how important having those smarts valued and acknowledged is as well.

All this goes right into just how well Leo knows his brothers. For as much as he’ll tease or fight with them, he knows them, and he loves them.

[hasello]

Mikey is a chronic hand-holder, don’t change my mind.

bonus

[tuziehr]

me whenever i see a doomed/tragic/angsty sibling dynamic

[leisi-lilacdreams]

just a little flame that's all his brother is now but it's the heaviest thing he's ever held

that's ok @somerandomdudelmao i was only gonna take a nap after watching mutant mayhem then you had to go and post that update

the little prose popped into my head after reading it and i was taken over by something

[thisisadonaldduckblognow]

all the rise boys get done dirty on characterization by fandom in different ways i think. (not ALL the time every fanwork etc etc these are just like, trends i tend to notice?) every fandom suffers from losing character nuance.

- leo i’ve talked about plenty on this blog, how some of his canon traits (genuine belief in his skill and cockiness, capacity for joy, his manipulativeness whether for good or ill) seem to get watered down or wiped off the board and supplemented with generic sad boy. his struggles with purpose and identity and not wanting to fail somehow morph into “he hates and completely holds no value for himself”

- donnie’s canon personality gets blurred out and largely replaced with whatever list of Neurodivergent Traits. and i think there’s such a fine line to walk between exploring a character that’s been word of god confirmed as on the spectrum and overwriting what’s canonically there. it’s a hard needle to thread. it also feels like a lot of his canon emotiveness gets left off the table for some reason. bc he does have his moments of flat/deadpan delivery, but a lot of the time he’s honestly very emotive. he has the passion of a theatre kid and the vindictiveness of... also a theatre kid. and the mind of a scientist.

- raph loses so much of his rowdy teen boy energy it’s kind of wild? like interpretations sand off that he’s also impulsive and can be reckless and dumb and LOVES fighting and roughhousing and isn’t the most eloquent person. suddenly there’s this pitch perfect soft boy big bro who would never hurt a fly and always says the exact right supportive thing and singlehandedly raised his 3 brothers (which simultaneously sands off all the nuance of splinter’s issues emotionally connecting with his sons and how that affected all of them). and like i LOVE raph, he’s so full of love and care and anxiety, he clearly has learned to put a lot of work into being aware of his strength and size. but there’s a difference you know?

- mikey is like. where raph gets overparentified by fanon, mikey gets over “family therapist”-ed IMO. the impulsiveness, the goofiness, the powerful emotions including a VERY powerful temper, the flat-out dumb teen boy choices... they get ignored. suddenly there’s this only very sweet and earnest boy who has read a hundred psychology books and runs group family therapy weekly or something. he is crying in his room bc leo and raph are arguing about something. which is so. he IS very sweet and can be very earnest and is full of love! he HAS come in with his opinions and unsolicited advice a couple of times and life coached for the greater good. but there’s a difference between what he does in canon and the role he gets in fanon.

[bulbabutt]

theres something about the way raph and mikey used to be closer when they were younger that really gets to me (with how raph either parentified himself or got parentified by his brothers, and mikey whos the baby of the family really wants independence) and i like to think there was a point in their lives maybe post movie where they sort of realized they've grown past that stage and really appreciate each other as brothers and equals who can support each other

sometimes youre close when youre little and grow apart. and sometimes you find each other again.

idk, siblings, you know?

[butterflyscribbles]

Bunch of fluffy miscellaneous turtle scribbles. Can you tell my favorite thing in the whole world is just drawing them all being super mushy towards each other?

[psychologicalwarclaire]

No more soundproof than he is bulletproof

He just wishes they'd stop

[tei-to-tei]

December 16 - Mischievous Activities

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 16 | ...

[threestripeslider]

Tired: Rise!Splinter is a neglectful and awful father who doesn’t care about his kids >:(

Wired: Rise!Splinter’s negligence comes from a place of deep trauma that he’s carried with him his whole life – losing his mother, having been betrayed by the love of is life, being imprisoned and forced to fight for his life, used as an experiment and subsequently being mutated and losing his whole identity as a person – and while it certainly doesn’t excuse his behavior, there is no doubt that this man loves his sons fiercely despite his own shortcomings and perhaps it is exactly that love and care that causes him to keep his children at arms length in hopes to spare them his family’s cursed legacy that grooms them into martyrs and are thus destined to die young, a sacrifice for the greater good that Splinter is never willing to make even if it means forfeiting the world to the Shredder. Splinter’s journey of fatherhood began by being completely unprepared as a fresh young single father of four young children that depend on him to survive and there is no surprise he’s hit almost every bump there possibly is when raising a child but never in his life has Splinter ever blamed or resented his children in any way – he is not perfect and he’s aware and he tries to do better all because he loves his kids this fucking much bc despite all the shit he’s been through, those kids made him realize that he can try again. to dismiss him as an awful father is a gross mischaracterization of a deeply traumatized man of color who evidently tried his fucking hardest not to pass on the hurt onto his own children while grappling with his own demons and the crushing destiny of his family’s blood line that took away his mother.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: trauma / ptsd / violence / brainwashing / ]

I’m not done talking about Raph and Leo yet because you know what kills me? How the beginning of the movie with Raph very angry at Leo to the point of lashing out at him is paralleled with how the end of the movie has the Krang very, very angry at Leo and beating him horrifically.

Both Raph and the Krang are so much bigger than Leo, both have been very angry with him, and both deem him responsible for ruining their respective missions.

To make matters worse, Raph’s body was used to hurt Leo. So it’d make sense for Leo to just…flinch, sometimes. To have his body reflectively brace for a blow that will not come because Raph would see this and just be horrified. Their fights, their roughhousing, their existing together all have a newfound and unwanted extra layer to them.

And Raph? Raph is traumatized enough having been brainwashed the way he was, turned into a monster in a way he always dreads in general. To be made into the antithesis of a hero and instead be a villain’s pawn, made to hurt his own family…poor kid, to say the least.

Can’t imagine what it must feel like, the first time post invasion that Raph gets mad at Leo and they fall into their old dynamic only for Leo to see the Krang and for Raph to feel like he is the Krang.

[hasello]

Now here's a question that would bring chaos for a bit; did the kids - in cousin au - fought about which's first " Cereal before milk or milk before Cereal " and why?

Oh god, personally I find putting milk before cereal a crime… so no fighting, cause I think they all put cereal first!

…except Blue, cause he’s an asshole and he loves to piss his cousins off 🤣 (secretly he puts cereal first too, tho!)

Orange is contemplating his “favorite brother” choices.

[r0b0t1me]

bittersweet future

[dandylovesturtles]

Sidelined AU Info Post

Alright, I guess we're doing this

CWs: mentions of internalized ableism, struggles with mental health

Timeline:

all of S1 is the same as in canon up until End Game

however, after Splinter turns over the helmet to Draxum, Draxum does not put on the armor, but chooses to put Leo inside instead, realizing that whoever goes in will probably have something horrible happen to them. that's detailed in this fic

unlike Draxum, who gets spit out of the armor immediately, Leo ends up trapped inside. from Leo's perspective, he is only vaguely aware of what's happening outside (it's a bit sunken place-ish, with him seeing snatches of events like through a grainy television), and he has only small amounts of influence over what the armor does

once Feral Shredder is on the loose, he pretty immediately starts destroying the Hidden City. Draxum realizes that he has inadvertently released a great evil on his people, the exact opposite of what he wanted, and he turns to the Hamatos to help him stop it. obviously they don't want to work with Draxum, but they have to get Leo back so they take the help

it takes them two days, during which the Shredder moves up to start terrorizing New York as well, but eventually they get him subdued. I'm not 100% on what goes down yet or whether Big Mama gets involved (I'm leaning toward not), but Leo fighting from the inside is a big help

Leo is removed from the armor and is in really bad physical shape; meanwhile the Shredder is subdued for now. in the immediate aftermath, the Foot Clan manages to get ahold of the Shredder and take off with him

he's too weak to do anything immediately but he is very much a Looming Threat the family is aware of

Draxum leaves for awhile at this point because none of them want him around and seeing Leo in the aftermath did wake him up to "oh yeah that's just a kid and I did that to him," also he's feeling real bad about that whole "accidentally almost destroying the yokai and also maybe the world" thing

meanwhile, Leo is severely weakened, but there's not anything that the family can do to hasten his recovery. they can only get him hooked up to an IV for fluids and nutrients and wait

it takes Leo a few days to become fully lucid again; during that time he tries to fight anyone around him off or sometimes pushes his family away to "protect" them

eventually Leo does regain lucidity, he tells everyone he's fine but he's Super Depressed. he's also lost his mystic powers completely.

Splinter also retreats a bit at this point, because he feels guilt for handing the helmet over to Draxum instead of trying to find a different way to rescue his boys, which isn't a great thing for him to do but his mental health is also not doing very well (someone get these guys some therapy)

in the meantime the bros and April manage the best they can, they all have different approaches but I'll go into detail about that in the next section

there's no treatment for Leo's condition outside the most boring one: time, exercise, and diet. unsurprisingly he hates this

Healing Bad Times abound, as shown in this fic

eventually the boys have to go out on a mission again. Leo, feeling useless, listens in on the comms from the lair, and ends up catching something the other boys' missed, meaning he's able to save them from a trap or something idk exactly what the point is he makes himself useful

this opens up a new path for Leo, one his brothers very heavily encourage

with a new goal in mind, Leo starts taking a lot better care of himself, actually following his physical therapy routine, spending time gaining new skills, and accepting help in the form of mobility aids. his physical and mental health both start making big improvements

this also helps his dad's mental health, everyone is doing better even if things aren't perfect

Donnie builds Leo a command center modeled after the bridge of Jupiter Jim's ship, he absolutely loves it. whenever the boys+April are on missions, Leo is in his command center helping from the background

eventually Leo has gotten to the point where he has enough strength for day to day life most of the time, he still isn't fighting baddies on rooftops but he can get to a store and back without collapsing on a good day and that's pretty good!

the Foot Clan has been a much bigger threat in this version of S2 and it's clear they're up to something big

of course right when Leo is starting to feel stable and happy again, that's when they launch their final attack

a lot of the finale events go down similarly to how they do in canon, minus Battle Nexus New York. they get Karai back but then she dies, Shredder destroys their home (including Leo's command center :c ), everything is Bad

Leo gets his mystic powers back the same way his brothers do, though he needs a little bit of an extra helping nudge from April/Karai, since he didn't think that was a thing he could still do

everyone getting their mystic powers is emotional but it's especially emotional for Leo. he didn't even know what ninpo was before today, but he knew after the Shredder it was like some part of his soul got locked away, and now that he can feel it again he finally feels whole

it gives him a burst of adrenaline so he can participate in the fight, though he doesn't do much of the actual battling, instead getting his bros where they need to be for the big hits (I mean this is basically what he does anyway haha)

it takes Donnie exactly .02 seconds to figure out how to use his own mystic powers to support Leo physically so that helps

after this, Leo becomes a more constant part of the team in the field, though he still primarily works as support and only gets into direct fights when he feels like he has to

instead of being made leader like in canon, Leo and Raph become co-leaders. Leo's own leadership abilities have improved massively, but Raph has more experience in the field, so having the two of them working together means they cover each other's blind spots, and the division of labor is less stressful for both of them

since Leo's already been through his character development and this tension is gone the movie events play out totally differently but I haven't gotten that far yet lol. I'm sure the apocalypse still happens somehow, though, I'd hate to lose Casey Jr

happy ending whooo

Relationships

Raph

Raph feels a lot of guilt about what happened to Leo; he was supposed to protect his little brothers and he didn't, and now one of them has permanent physical disabilities as a result. add to that it was Raph's idea to be heroes in the first place and yeah... he's not doing great

because of this guilt, Raph's instinct is to essentially baby Leo - he wants to take care of his every need as soon as it arises. this makes Leo feel stifled and infantilized, and drives a wedge in their relationship (the same one Raph is driving between himself and Mikey, in fact)

his and Donnie's distinctly different approaches to the situation also mean that they get into arguments often and can't really deal with being around each other, leaving Raph feeling isolated at the start (and thus pouring more attention and effort into Leo, which compounds the problem)

Raph dealing with his own guilt and trying to find the balance between helping Leo while also respecting his need for independence, boundaries, and dignity is a big part of his journey in the AU, and it also improves his relationship with Mikey and Donnie as he gets better at those skills

Donnie

Donnie is not dealing well with the fact that there's nothing to fix. they can only be patient and work incrementally to improve Leo's condition

he distracts himself by putting all his energy into making the lair accessible for Leo, building him mobility aids and doing everything he can to help

he also has a hard time understanding why Leo won't do the things that will help him (at first), because doesn't he just want things to go back to normal? doesn't he want to help himself? why won't he just do what he obviously has to do, Donnie does not understand

Leo is deep in denial at first, and he feels like he breaks down and starts doing physical therapy and using mobility aids and doing basically any of the things that will help him, that means it's not going to magically get better, it's going to take time and effort and it will probably never be fixed, just improved, and he hates that so much he's choosing to treat this like a temporary cold or flu that will blow over any day now

Donnie doesn't understand that so he takes Leo's refusal as a rejection and animosity abounds!

breakdowns and admissions of feelings will eventually happen

Donnie and Leo together come to grips with the idea that there is no fixing this and there is no return to how things were before but they can work toward a new normal that's just as good

Mikey

this one is a little bit too big for Dr. Delicate Touch and Dr. Feelings

Mikey tries, but he is just a kid, and with their dad emotionally retreating too there's just too many feelings for him to deal with on his own

he's gonna play family therapist until he breaks

he's frustrated because he can see what each of his brothers need to do to feel better but they just! won't! they won't do it, and he doesn't know how to make them

he's really stressed

it's Mikey that realizes that Leo needs goals to work toward to get himself motivated to take care of himself, and it's Mikey who pushes the hardest for Leo's new role in the team

sometimes Mikey will challenge Leo to something silly, like who can make the most throws of a paper ball into a trash can, just to push Leo into exercising

he finds other little ways to help the others too, but he still can't solve the big problems on his own

meltdown ensues

Mikey has to learn to take care of himself, too, while the others have to learn they can't lean so hard on him for all their emotional problems

April

the only one holding on around here. it helps that she doesn't actually have to live in the powderkeg

takes a rationally minded approach to all these problems, kind of functioning like family therapist along with Mikey but in a healthier and more controlled way

helps get them resources from above ground

Leo opens up the most about his feelings about his physical condition to her first, because she strikes the best balance between being a sympathetic ear without coddling him

she's also stressed, but she has an outside support network so she's handling it better

Splinter

fully blames himself for what happened to Leo and has a hard time getting over it

depression in full swing

it means he can't easily get out of bed to help his kids, but then he feels bad because he isn't helping them, which worsens the depression, which makes it hard to get out of bed... a vicious cycle

when Leo starts working on his condition he gets a pact out of his dad that they will both work on being healthier together

maybe they manage to find an actual therapist eventually idk lol

either way, Splinter and Leo grumpily sitting over their plate of broccoli and then Leo says "bet I can eat more pieces than you" and it's on son

he's trying his best

Leo's Condition

Leo came out of the armor severely dehydrated and malnourished, even more so than any person should realistically be after two days; just keeping him from dying of the dehydration was the most immediate struggle

the main issue is that Leo's life force, mystic abilities included, were basically sucked out, leaving his body catastrophically physically weak

his muscle mass can come back with time and diet

the bigger problems are the bone density and chronic fatigue. while Leo can improve these, they'll never be back to where they were before the Dark Armor

his reduced bone density means he has to be careful doing anything physical because the chance he can break a bone is much higher than average, and he stands to suffer more from that break than the average person

he'll eventually get to where he can go through his day-to-day life just fine most days, and can even do some of the physical things he enjoyed before, he just has to be careful and know his limits. he'll never be pulling the 1440 off the halfpipe again, but he can still skateboard as long as he's careful.

even when recovered (as much as he can be), he has bad days and days when the fatigue is really strong. how Leo feels on a bad day is up in the air; sometimes he's at peace with it and generally cheerful, happy to be around his family even if he spends most of the time in his chair or on the couch dozing in and out. other days the depression rears its ugly head and he can get a bit nasty and bitter again. his family is much more patient with him on days like that than he is with himself.

in the beginning Leo also has brain fog and sensitivity to light and sound. these clear up over time, especially once Leo starts making more effort to exercise his brain. he starts reading a lot more and doing puzzles, especially things like sudoku and word puzzles, which helps a lot. thankfully these changes aren't permanent

his inner ears were also damaged a bit, this also heals up largely on its own, sometimes he still has difficulties hearing his brothers if they're whispering or far away but it's not so bad he needs assistance

Leo's Devices

Wheelchair

this is obviously the one Donnie had the most fun building and it shows. this baby is tricked out. Leo also likes to suggest improvements often, some for actual functionality but many just because he thinks it would be cool (like neon lights on the spokes)

it is blue obviously. do you even need me to tell you that?

it's fully electronic but Leo can also wheel it around freely if he wishes. Leo likes to wheel himself when he has the energy because it's good exercise he doesn't have to go out of his way for and he just likes feeling like he's moving himself under his own power. but when he's not feeling up to it he just drives it with the electronic controls instead

it has handles that extend and retract. being allowed to touch the handles is a major sign of Leo's trust and initially it's only for his bros + April + Splinter. Leo hates being moved when he doesn't actually ask to be moved, and he also hates being tipped backwards so his fam knows not to do it even as a joke (and it's so heavy that tipping him is kind of hard, anyway). someone touching the handles or messing around with them without permission gets you immediate backlash from protective siblings

that said Leo has them extended often so he can hang things off them, even though Donnie constantly gripes that that is not their intended purpose!

Sr Hueso is another person who gets handle-touching-privileges pretty fast, and he's also the one Leo asks to move him most often because he thinks it's really funny. he hams it up every time. Hueso is exasperated but does it anyway

(if Hueso adds a few extra wheelchair-accessible tables to Run of the Mill no one has to know)

the chair can also be moved by S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. this is mostly just for emergency situations, or times when the chair is somewhere Leo is not. Shelldon is a very good boy who does not move the chair without Leo's permission.

it has a billion storage spaces and little hidey holes and it can sync with Leo's phone to play music and it also has a charge port for his phone and yeah basically anything Leo and Donnie can come up with goes into this thing. it's a behemoth

Donnie also made Leo a lighter-weight chair with fewer features that he most often uses when he's good using his walker/cane/braces but wants to clear a larger distance first, and eventually Donnie makes him an athletic wheelchair so he can play games like wheelchair basketball

Walker

the walker is also blue but there's nothing particularly special about it

Leo hates using it because it feels like an old person thing. even if realistically he knows there are plenty of reasons people use them, including his own situation, culture is culture and it makes him feel bad no matter what rationality states

so basically once he doesn't have to use it he doesn't

as they all get more comfortable with Leo's situation and he starts openly using humor to cope, jokes about Leo's chair and cane become pretty commonplace in the fam (all good-natured of course). they know the walker is too much of a sore spot though, and poking fun at it is the fastest way to get Leo to do something stupid, so no one does. it's better to just pretend it's not there

Crutches/Canes

he eventually ends up with a variety of these, with different levels of support depending on what he's needing on a given day.

some of the canes are more fashionable than others. this is important to him.

Leo pretty much always has one of these on hand just in case, even on days where he feels alright to walk on his own

he is not afraid to bonk a brother with a cane or crutch but he does so knowing they are free to retaliate

Leg Braces

Leo doesn't need these every day but they're a pretty standard part of his wardrobe at this point

they start out plain but get increasingly elaborately decorated as time goes on because he, Donnie, and Mikey can't help themselves

like the walker, the braces are in the "don't make fun of" zone, though Leo is happy to get positive comments about them and doesn't really need their presence ignored

Other Mobility Aids

Leo has a variety of things to help with his loss of grip strength, difficulties bending over, tremors, etc. all of them are either made by Donnie or ethically "acquired" by April

he drives everyone crazy by leaving them in random places and then forgetting where they are. Donnie starts installing locator tags on everything they give Leo

jokes about these are fine, Leo makes them often himself and has silly names for all of them (this also drives Donnie crazy)