THIS IS EXACTLY HOW IT HAPPENED AND YOU CANT CHANGE MY MIND!

I hope to be as honest and real as this one day 🧡

keep going

Turtle Power? Dude I totally thought you said Turtle Tower!

Here are the finished results of a 3 month on going art project with none other than my darling friend, @anobodyinabog. Our boys look good and it’s been a total shell of time making memories with you 😊🧡

🫢🤯🥹

This…this literally blew me away like…I have no words to express how beautiful this is…

I Want Something Just Like This

Collaboration with the lovely @tapakah0 thanks for working with me ｡(TヮT)ﾟ｡

@somerandomdudelmao hope you feel better soon Cass ( -_-)＼(0-0 )

Song: Something Just Like This by Coldplay and The Chainsmokers

When that character analysis hits just right and is plain scrumdillyumptious

My favorite thing in the world about Rise Leo is that he acts Like That but then at any given moment he's almost always doing something that's like. so fucking clever.

Like in the episode "The Ancient Art of Ninja Hide and Seek," the guys are sneaking around Big Mama's hotel to steal something from her guard dog Gus's collar. Raph's idea of stealth is uhhh holding a frond over his head, and Mikey and Donnie spend most of their time scooting a food cart up the stairs. Gus sniffs them all out and they all have to be rescued by Splinter.

And then Leo does this

And it seems so stupid, but like? it's actually not?? there's a strategy here???

The other guys get caught bc Gus is an incredible tracker w a great sense of hearing and smell—which Leo knows from their last run-in with him. So what does Leo do? He eliminates the problem by purposefully sneaking up on Gus in a crowded, noisy, distracting room so Gus won't be able to hear or smell him. And it WORKS—Gus doesn't notice him even when he's right under his nose! He just gets unlucky that the Evil Sports match ends right when he gets his hands on the collar.

It's just. so endlessly funny to me that Leo's the one who gets the closest to actually completing the mission without needing Splinter to bail him out, and no one notices bc he does so with the air of a court jester. A little clown boy. He truly radiates the vibe of someone constantly flying by the seat of his booty shorts, meaning no one realizes until Shredder that he's secretly the only one on the team who regularly uses ANY problem-solving or planning skills lmao

Why revenge my dear, Chessman. Why else? You make us suffer so fabulously with your incredible skills and intriguing personality. You’re practically impenetrable due to your mystery. Seems only fair to return the favor. Within small doses of course.

*chants softly before getting progressively louder* one of us OnE oF Us ONE OF US ONE OF US

Apologies everyone... I fear I have accidentally killed him. Who knew a cryptid could be so powerful...

YOU ARE NOT SORRY IN THE SLIGHTEST--

DON'T EVEN--

LEO LEO LEO LEO

Memory

RaphaelxReader

Warnings: Amnesia, Angst

(this is so tropey and self indulgent that I was almost too embarrassed to post it, thank you @the-cauldron-witch for giving me the stones. Apologies in advance. 😅)

"What are you to me?"

You freeze, your pen stopping mid-letter. For the last week you'd been trying to figure out how to answer if he asked, and you were still at a loss. 

Don't think for him, Donnie'd said, the memories are there, he just has to form the connections. They'll be stronger, and this will go faster, if you let him do that on his own.

He knows he shouldn't be asking, but every time he looks at you he feels like he's missing something important, and the way you look at him sometimes... he can't bear it. 

"We should, um," you clear your throat, looking very intentionally at the paper in front of you, "we should really focus on this analysis. The more data we can feed Donnie, the sooner he can figure out of there'll be any serious lasting consequences to this." 

"I'm missing three years of my life, I'd say that's pretty serious," he quips, humorlessly. You still haven't looked up at him. Jaw tight, measured breaths the only thing keeping your hand steady. You'd been keeping it together for the last two weeks, you couldn't break now. Least of all in front of him. 

Six hours trapped in a reinforced refrigeration truck. He only survived because of what little body heat you could offer, but you'd both nearly died. You woke a few days later, in the infirmary, your hands still raw and recovering from frostbite, but Raphael... didn't. 

For fifteen days, no one knew if he was going to survive. You didn't sleep. You couldn't eat. You wouldn't leave his side. The number of arguments you and Donatello had about you resting were in the double digits. He might lose his brother, he wasn't going to lose his best friend, too. The only way you agreed was by dragging the couch beside the cot Raphael was laying in.  

When he awoke he couldn't remember much of anything. Slowly, over the course of the next week, memories drifted back like smoke. He remembered his father, his brothers, April, his best friend, Casey, that dumb ass, Vern, but not you. The last three years are still a blur and none of it makes any sense.

He looks at you like a familiar face at the grocery store. Like something is digging at the back of his mind, something important, but he can't quite place you. He looks at you with curiosity, even attraction at times, but the love that you built and fought for, through death and distance, is gone.

You inhale, before the pen begins to move again in your hand. He reaches up and stops it. 

"Y/N..." The familiar feeling of his hand around yours, his thumb gently brushing the hollow of your wrist, makes your chest ache and your eyes fall closed. 

Tears glitter at the seam of your eyelashes, as the words slip free unbidden, barely louder than a whisper, "I miss you..." 

His hand stills, there it is again. That feeling, understanding just outside his reach, he's pulled to you and he doesn't know why. Everything you do affects him, and right now, you're crying, and he would tear the world apart to see you smile again. 

You inhale sharply, pushing yourself to your feet and pulling your hand from his, leaving the pen on the table, "I need to go."

"Y/N, wait," he begs, quickly, standing, "please, I-" 

All of your faculties are being used to keep you in one piece. You don't even have the ability to attempt any kind of excuse. "I'll be back tomorrow night. We can finish the analysis then." You shove your laptop into your bag and zip it closed, slinging it over your shoulder, before you rush out of the lair to echoes of him begging you to stay. 

You barely make it home before you collapse by the couch and weep. Three years. Three years just gone. 

You pull the deep red blanket he made you last winter off the couch and wrap yourself in it, in him, in his scent, because it's the only thing of his you can wrap around you. 

You let yourself cry. Mourn. Since he woke up, you've been shoving everything down and away. 

This is not about you, you'd scolded yourself. 

You'd reminded yourself it must be worse for him. He's probably terrified, losing so much time must be scary as hell. And you'd kept it together. Every time he looked at you with that question in his eyes. Every time he said "hey" and kept walking. Every time he touched you... and let go. 

But you've reached your breaking point

The feeling of his hand on your wrist was so familiar, and you were pulled back into lazy evenings in bed, the sunset painting your skin, as the two of you found any excuse not to get up for work. Comfortable, safe, warm. Things you haven't felt since before all of this started. And it was all too much. 

Violent sobs rip through your body, as your heart rages in your chest. It's not fair. You'd already been through so much. Fought so hard. And, for him... none of it happened. The bone-deep love and connection that had become so vital to both of you, was ripped away, and you were the only one left bleeding. 

You don't notice the soft landing beside the window. 

He just stares at you for a moment. He's overcome with the need to catch you up, hold you to him, and do whatever he has to do to fix it.

"It's important, isn't it," he says finally, quietly, "what I can't remember."

You gasp and stand up, clumsily, hands flying to your eyes and wiping pointlessly at tears as you turn away, "You shouldn't be here." 

"See, I'm not so sure about that." He steps forward slowly, "because..." His eyes fall on a carved wooden rose, and he pauses. A craftsman can always recognize their work. His eyes begin to scan the dimly lit room around him. 

No photographs, but all around him are little things made by his own hands, his favorite books and movies, this place doesn't just feel familiar. It feels like home. His eyes return to yours as he continues his approach.

You fall back against the wall as he advances, "Does Donnie know your here? You really shouldn't be out running around the city by yourself. You're still recovering, it's not... safe." Your breath hitches as your back hits drywall. 

He takes your hand gently, holding it just like before, caressing the inside of your wrist. Your jaw clenches, and your eyes sting. As he invades your personal space, your body reacts on instinct, head tilting up, hand against his chest, and his responds, gripping your waist and pulling you into him, breathing in deeply a scent just on the edge of his memory. 

"That's what I'm missing, isn't it," he asks softly, tears darkening the fabric around his eyes, "that's what this feeling is... love." 

Your heart twists, and you can't breathe. You're trembling with loss and grief and you don't want him to stop. 

"I love you," he says, almost in wonder, holding your gaze. 

It's like a bullet to the chest and all the air rushes out of you. Tears stream freely from your eyes and you draw a shuddering breath. "You don't even know me," you say, and you swear you don't mean for it to come out as bitter as it does.

He flinches, stepping back, but not releasing your hand. The shame and guilt are instantaneous. None of this is his fault. You look down and away, unable to meet his amber eyes, "I- I'm sorry," you manage, "I-"

"You're wrong."

You look up through tears as he steps forward again, pulling you closer. A hand comes up and cups your cheek as the one around your waist tightens, and he looks down at you with an intensity you haven't seen in weeks. 

"I may not know your face, or remember... anything about you, but..." His eyes close and his hand slides into your hair as he dips his head and touches his forehead to yours, "I remember... this," he continues breathlessly, gripping your hair gently, "I remember this feeling... Your skin... against mine. Your scent..." 

It's there. He can feel it. Just beyond his reach. He's been grasping blindly. Needing you and not knowing why, needing to feel you under his hands, against him. 

The hand at your waist slides to your lower back, pulling you closer. "Help me," he pleads, eyes shut tight, all focus trained on you, voice thick with hope and desperation, "please... help me remember." 

Donatello's warnings burn to ash within your memory as his mouth claims yours in a searing kiss. 

It's clumsy at first. Demanding. Desperate. Like a dance he doesn't quite remember the steps to. He holds too tightly, moves too stiffly, but you open to him anyway, and a warm wave of sunlight flows into him. 

He was so cold. He's still so cold. He can't remember the truck but he can remember the cold. Seeping into him slowly. As time dragged on and his body heat waned he'd grown so tired so quickly. He could still feel it. Frost on his edges. He's tried everything. Heated blankets, hot showers, gallons of tea. He's been trying since he woke up, he just can't seem to get warm. 

But where his skin touches yours, it's like holding the sun. 

Your heat floods into him like warm, golden light. Like the dawn. Pouring into the deepest, coldest parts, and filling him completely with that feeling. Love. And there you are, beneath the melt. As vital and familiar as his own heartbeat.

His kiss softens, his hold becomes more sure, familiar. It takes you a moment, but you realize, between kisses, he's whispering, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." He holds you the way he always has, and he kisses you the way he always has, and soon your crying too hard to kiss him back.

He holds you tight against him, pressing you against his chest, kissing your hair, apologizing over and over as if any of this is his fault. You cling to him desperately, afraid that if you let go it won't be real, that he'll forget you again. You squeeze your eyes shut tight, afraid that you'll be wrong, and you'll look up into his, and you'll find only questions.

His hold tightens and his eyes burn. He's angry. This is unacceptable. Unfair. He got played, and he was supposed to die in that truck. What the Oroku fuckers didn't count on, what they never count on, is you. You'd pressed yourself against him, sharing what little warmth you could. By the time the others found you, both of you were unconscious and hypothermic, but still alive, Raphael's large body wrapped tightly around yours. You'd kept his heart beating. Just like always.

He pulls back and attempts to raise your chin to meet his eyes. You resist. He can smell your fear, feel the pounding of your heart under his fingertips.

He rests his head against the side of yours and speaks your name softly, in the same voice that has pulled you peacefully from sleep a thousand times. Another sob escapes you and you curl into him tightly, before a few moments pass and you unfurl, your eyes raising to meet his. 

The weight of his gaze settles on you and you never thought you could be grateful to see such depths of pain within him, but within the pain was... everything else. From the depths of despair to the heights of ecstasy, every moment of the last three years was a storm inside his eyes.

You can see the naked rage, swirling in the tempest, and it mirrors your own. Those responsible would be dealt with, later. Now, you reach back behind him, and he dips his head to make it easier for you to remove his mask. You toss it aside, and he presses his forehead to yours. You rest your hands on either side of his face, tracing the familiar scars, and you can feel his shuddering exhale. 

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I'm sorry."

"Raphael-"

"I didn't mean to-" His breath catches on a sob, and you pull him tighter against you. Burying his head in your shoulder, he wraps his arms around your waist and breathes deep. If scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, he would bury himself in you. He would never forget again. 

....

I know this isn't how amnesia works, okay??? I KNOW the plot here is swiss cheese!!! but it got stuck in my head and now you have to deal with it too, so there.

...

Tag list

@thelaundrybitch @the-cauldron-witch @fyreball66 @ninnosaurus @tmntngl @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos @zagreustomb @ramielll @silverwatergalaxy @gornackeaterofworlds @daedric-sorceress @sophiacloud28 @iridescentflamingo @milykins @sacred-holy-light @celeste-clearwater-06 @pheradream-15

I-I…um…help?

could you please do 29 for dialouge prompts, leo and donnie?

dialogue prompts

29. “Tell me where it hurts, and be specific.”

x

When they were little, Donatello’s twin was his translator. 

Donnie was the last of the turtles to start talking—though the first to start reading and writing and dismantling kitchen appliances—and no amount of coercion or bribery or outright begging was enough to get a single word out of him in English or Japanese before he was good and ready. 

Splinter was in over his head already just by having four unplanned children to raise who were not even the same species as him. He fretted about his sons’ health and their development in those early years, and had absolutely no one he could turn to for regular parenting advice, let alone advice on what was and was not normal for mutant turtle children. 

He tells the story now with a rueful good humor granted only by hindsight and a decade and a half of distance, but at the time, Donatello refusing his second meal in a row while blinking silently in face of his father’s increasingly worried questions probably would have driven Splinter to tear his fur out if not for the contribution made by Donnie’s talkative striped shadow. 

“It’s the, uh, the red things, daddy,” Leo piped up. “He doesn’t like those.” 

Splinter blinked at him, and then down at the plate Donnie was refusing to so much as look at it. 

“The tomatoes?” he said. 

“Tomatoes,” Leo parroted. “They’re hard outside and squishy inside. He doesn’t like things like that. And they touched everything else so all of it is no good now!”

Never having considered that texture, of all things, could be the issue—and kicking himself for it—Splinter scrambled a fresh pair of eggs for his stubborn little softshell. He skipped the cherry tomatoes, and sliced a bell pepper instead that he made sure to put on the opposite side of the portioned plastic plate. 

Donnie sniffed his fresh plate of plain eggs suspiciously, but it passed his inspection. He crunched into a piece of bell pepper so eagerly that he must have been hungry. Splinter sank back in his chair with an exhale that left him feeling like a deflated balloon. 

Leo, eating the discarded tomatoes out of Donnie’s original breakfast, giggled at him. He was the first of Splinter’s babies to start speaking, and the sound of his bright voice tripping eagerly over clumsy human words rarely failed to coax a smile out of his father. 

“Thank you, baby,” he said, poking Leo on the edge of his beak and earning himself another peal of bubbly laughter. “I’m glad one of us speaks Purple’s language or I might have set us up for failure big-time.”

“‘Course I do! ‘Cause we’re twins!” Leo said, with only half an idea what the word meant, but happy for any reason to be one of a pair with his best friend. Donnie knew very well what the word meant and simply nodded along, because he was happy, too. 

Now that they’re older, and Donatello no longer needs a translator, he finds himself returning the favor instead. Leo is far from nonverbal—Leo talks too much—but he hardly ever actually says anything. He can pontificate and harangue and lecture to lengths of absolute absurdity without giving a single word of substance away that he doesn’t want to give away. 

Donnie can read him like a book. Like one of his favorite books that he doesn’t actually have to read, because he knows every page by heart. 

The summer after the world didn’t end, Donnie’s twin becomes someone unfamiliar. 

He’s self destructive in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. He seeks out things that scare him, lingering above the death drop an extra second even though he’s been afraid of heights since he was fourteen. 

It’s obvious that he’s trying to train himself out of weakness. No more childish fears, no more lazy Sunday mornings, no more silly Nardo. 

Raph and Mikey have clocked it, too, in their own ways. At first Raph was pleasantly surprised when Leo beat him to the dojo for training, ribbing him amicably when he was also the last to leave. But then Leo started turning down Mario Kart tournaments and ninja tag in favor of shutting himself away and working working working to correct an internal ugliness that just doesn’t exist. Mikey’s used to being the exception to every rule, used to arms opening for him wherever he goes, and the way his sweet, sunny smile slips every time Leo talks around joining him on the sofa for Kitchen Nightmares reruns—or explains away why he’s skipping dinner—is one of the worst things Donnie’s ever seen. 

At the very least, Leonardo doesn’t lie to Donatello’s face. He’s stopped looking him in the eye altogether. 

You’re not going anywhere without me, Donnie thinks at him, ready to dig in his heels and fight like hell. 

It’s hard to say how long it would have gone on, but one late night Leo limps home from a solo patrol and Donnie is waiting for him, arms folded, tolerance for foolishness nonexistent. 

“What, are you tracking me?” Leo jokes half-heartedly. And then, when Donnie doesn’t blink, he adds, “Wait, actually?”

“Don’t waste my time with questions we both know the answer to,” Donnie says, and points Leo directly towards the medbay. Leo, who had been angled toward the bathroom instead, likely because he can close the door and suffer in private with no one the wiser, sighs loudly and course-corrects. 

The overhead lights in the medbay hum to life when Donnie flips the switches. Leo looks over his shoulder to gauge how far those lights have traveled past the open door, restless with wondering if he’s going to have to save face in front of someone else. 

All of this? All this behavior? Donnie hates this. 

Larger-than-life Leonardo seems smaller as he boosts himself up onto the edge of the bed. The infirmary is the one place he never puts on airs, the one place he takes seriously because his family’s health and safety has never once been a punchline to him. He peels off all his false layers at the door. He’s back to not meeting Donnie’s eyes. 

“Tell me where it hurts, and be specific,” Donatello says. 

“Your bedside manner could use some work,” Leonardo replies. His attempt at wily good humor limps along a lot like he had limped through the front door, like the least funny thing in the world. “That’s why between the two of us I’m the team medic.”

“And I’m two minutes from pulling the fire alarm and making this a house party,” Donnie says frankly. His tone isn’t gentle, isn’t quite angry. He’s somewhere in the middle, gentleness and anger fighting for the spot that affection has never once surrendered and never once will. 

He hates the way his twin’s eyes get wet, staring down at his own knees, knuckles stark white and standing out like a string of pearls where his hands are bunched in the thin blanket he’s sitting on. He hates that it’s come to this, the quiet of midnight in the medbay, one of the brightest lights in Donnie’s life dimmed and miserable and so clearly struggling. It’s laughable that Leo really thought he could have hidden it forever. 

Donnie sits beside him on the bed and says, “What if I quit?”

The non-sequitur takes Leo by surprise. He was clearly expecting a full frontal assault and glances sideways at Donnie briefly. 

“Quit what?”

“My bad, I should have been more specific,” Donnie allows. “I meant, what if I quit being a ninja? I have better things I could be doing, and I don’t like getting hurt.” Leo is staring at him fully now, totally bewildered. Flabbergasted, even. It melts some of the sternness Donnie has been careful to shore up for this conversation. “Would you love me less?” he asks. 

It would have been kinder if Donnie had slapped him. “Don’t say that,” Leo says, barely any air behind it. 

“Are you more capable than I am?” Donnie steamrolls on. “Are you better than me?”

“Of course not. I don’t think—I didn’t say—”

“Then why do you have to be perfect if I don’t?” Donnie presses the advantage ruthlessly. “Why aren’t you allowed to struggle and doubt and spectacularly fuck up every now and then without raking yourself over the coals for it?” 

Leo glances over at the door automatically, like Raph is going to be summoned by the bad word. He’s sixteen, he’s just sixteen, Donnie wants to scream it loud enough that those resistance fighters in Casey’s future could hear him, the ones who thought it was a halfway decent idea to put a child in charge. 

Earlier Donnie thought that Leo looked smaller here. Now he thinks he can tell by looking how much weight his twin has lost since June. There’s a deficit of Leonardo in this world and his whole family is feeling it keenly. 

Raph wants to scoop Leo off the sofa when he stays up too late and tuck him into bed, wants to listen to Leo filling the comms with chatter on those nights when patrol stretches long and dull. Raph misses his little brother, the gossipy, gangly, growing up little turtle that Raph used to be allowed to carry everywhere.

Mikey wants to bicker over who gets to play Sonic in Smash Bros and eat cookies while they’re still hot from the oven with the person he admires so much, who taught him all the best cheats in Smash Bros and that fresh sugar cookies in the falling apart stage, pre-icing, are better than ones that have cooled. 

‘Sometimes you gotta get burned to get results,’ ten-year-old Leo had announced, but he was always the one who lifted the cookies off the sheet pan, he never let Mikey burn his fingers.  

That goofy, clever kid who was always getting them all into trouble and talking their way out of it again is worth a thousand made-up Master Leonardos. 

Leo keeps his face lowered, shoulders hunched, because he knows what he’ll see if he scrapes together the courage to meet Donnie’s gaze. He’ll see the love blazing in his twin’s face like one of those digital billboards towering above Times Square, and somehow he’s convinced himself he doesn’t deserve it. 

Donnie doesn’t give a damn what Leo has decided he deserves. Donnie’s going to love him anyway, on purpose, whether he likes it or not. If Leo wants to grow up so badly, then he can stop acting like a kid pushing vegetables around on his plate and swallow the truth. 

It’s okay if he doesn’t grow up yet. They can be kids awhile longer. It’ll be like when they were babies, when Donatello would rather go hungry than stomach certain foods. Leo never let Donnie sit alone at the breakfast table, keeping him cheerful, babbling company, even when their brothers had moved off to play. 

This time Leo is the picky eater, willing to go hungry and sit alone at the table. But Donnie learned from the best. He's returning the favor.

Donnie isn’t going anywhere without Leo, either.

✨IMMEDIATE REBLOG✨

I can’t tell you the squee of absolute joy that escaped me when I saw this like DANG SIS!

How in earth did you draw that so fast?!? And capture the mood so perfectly?!

Like I don’t even have the words, so please take my humble keyboard smash as appreciation.

*clears throat*Ahem: hcoencheiamfuwjagdyaodjfo

*comes skidding into your inbox with a pant*

okokokokokok ok

Sorry to bug ya again but Protective Casey vs Leo has been rotating in my head all day and I can’t stop giggling at it.

Hear me out:

So Red Eared Sliders will rapidly tap the face of another turtle that they’re A) Trying to Mate with or B) Trying to assert dominance against

And I can’t get the idea that the turtle part of Leo’s brain yelling at him to fight the smol child (Casey Jr.) who keeps challenging him for the affections of his mate (Ana)

Leo’s like “I’m not about to throw hands with a toddler, I am full grown adult that would never slink to such childish tactics”

And then one day Ana turns around and find Leo and Casey going at it like this

AnYhOo, feel free to tell me to scram but thought this was funny and wanted to share with the class!

I think it says a lot that I myself have been giggling the entire time while drawing this-

LOVE IT DFPISDOPFSDOPF[SDIF

Yeets this @saspas-corner

EAT IT SUCKA I AM THE AGGRESIVE SUNSHINE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

I Jayused this to make it appropriate 😊🧡

Shit, y'all’s, I feel called out 😶‍🌫️