Greetin's Peetin's

And you'll be like, "That sounds bad." And she'll be like, "No no. It's totally not that bad. It's just a meme. Men say it too. Like if a man does something silly he'll be like, 'I am like those women who do not deserve to vote.'" And you'll be like, "Does that make it better?" And she'll be like, "Well there was one guy who tried to make 'Men shouldn't vote' a popular meme. But it never caught on and also he got yelled at a lot."

there it is, again

In many of his incarnations, Raphael silently declares himself as the protector of the family and the team. When one of his brothers is in trouble he is the first one to jump between the enemy and his family to protect them. In the Tmnt 2012 series Raphael says that he has no problem with risking his own life but he can’t handle the pressure of giving orders that put his brothers´ lives at risk.

Leonardo usually has to deal with the pressure of being the leader. He is a perfectionist by nature. He is always trying to be the best when it comes to his ninja training and being a leader. It’s not rare to see Leonardo beating himself up for situations that weren’t his fault to begin with. He has tons of the doubts about his skills and he is deeply afraid of failing his brothers.

Both Raphael and Leonardo want the same thing: to protect their family. The difference comes with how they view the world and the methods each one think is the best to do so.

Something that it is very consistent with different Raphael incarnations is that he views the world with a very black and white mentality. He is usually distrustful of strangers’ true intentions, specially if they are people who have hurt his family in the past. Not that he doesn’t have a reason to think like that: He and his family have been trained to survive in the outside world. The turtles have multiple of enemies every where and New York City has been potrayed as to be dangerous at night.

Leonardo thinks that people aren’t completely evil or good. They are more complex than that. If he sees that an enemy has a good side, he is willing to give them a chance for them change for the better. His empathy works a bit different than Raph’s, that is that he sometimes feels sorry even for those who have hurt him. In both the tmnt 2003 and the tmnt 2012 series he is willing to help Karai multiple times since he believes there is good inside her.

This is one of the reasons that Raphael and Leonardo clash so much with each other. Leo would leave his feelings aside if he has to work together with an enemy and he wants to see the good in people. On the other hand, Raph is less likely to trust others. When he sees Leo accepting any kind of help from someone he personally doesn’t trust, he won’t stop bothering his brother about it. Not because Raph is being mean, but due to him being afraid that his leader is unintentionally leading them to some kind of trap or his decisions are going to make one of his brothers get hurt.

Another aspect of their conflict is that Leo feels like he has to fix issues that weren´t completely his fault. In both Tmnt 2003 and Tmnt 2012 series he thinks he has to stop the chaos that ensues in the New York city after the Shredder is defeated. 

In Tmnt 2003 this leads to Leo and Raph constantly argue about if they should be involved in the crime war during the ¨City at War¨ arc.  For Leo, It is like its their responsibility that many people are getting injured during the war despite being carried out by the Purple Dragons, the Foot Clan and such. Raphael tells Leo multiple times that it isn´t their problem and they should stay out of it. It´s not like Raph doesn´t care about how other people are suffering, is just he cares more about his family getting hurt while trying to find a solution to the problem.

In tmnt 2012 Leo does something very similar except he goes alone with Karai and Shinigami to destroy what its left Shredder´s empire. He doesn´t tell his family about where he goes during the night since he probably thinks it would better for all of them if they don´t get involved. This secrecy ends up backfiring once the rest of the turtles find out about Leo´s secret and it accidentally leads to Donnie getting hurt. Raphael gets really angry at Leo because if it wasn´t for Leo keeping secrets, Donnie wouldn´t have gotten knocked out.

Interestingly enough, in the tmnt 2007 Leo and Raph take opposite roles: Raph is the one that wants to be ¨the hero¨ stopping crime in the city dressed as his alter ego, the Nightwatcher, and Leo wants to stop the Nightwatcher because he thinks he is taking things to far and somebody could get hurt. In this case is Raph the one who feels he has to fix issues that are out of his control.

When it comes to Raphael, he often finds himself conflicted with being the protector of the group and rushing into battles without thinking twice. Raph appears to be self-destructive at times, as he doesn´t seem to care too much about his well-being. In the the 2012 series he says he doesn´t mind putting his life at risk. This recklessness puts him on trouble and his brothers have to step in to save him. 

Jumping into battle usually makes him start arguments with Leo about not following the orders. While Leo can be stubborn, even cold sometimes, he wants to think things through since he is the one that is responsible about taking care of his brothers. His needs to know which is the path that is going to lead them to the best outcome. 

So, when Leo argues with the hot headed turtle about not following his orders, it is because he cares about the safety of his family, including Raph´s. When Raphael wants to do things his own way, Leo is forced to quickly make a change on plans.

This is not only exclusive of Raph, Leonardo in the Tmnt 2012 has the a bad habit of doing the ¨self-sacrifice¨ act to protect his family multiple times in the series. He thinks he should bury the burden alone, often sneaking behind his brothers´ back to go in solo missions. Over time the rest of team start to call out their leader for this, always reminding Leo that they are supposed to be a family. Raph is one of the characters that brings this up when he notices that Leo is about to ¨play to be the hero¨ again.

for example, i’m not someone who’s particularly good at coming up with complex, elaborate plots or incredibly unique ideas.  it’s just not how i choose to write.  and it would be easy for me to look at someone with an elaborate, super unique plot & decide that because i don’t write like that, i’m not a good writer.  after all, unique plots are good, and my writing lacks those, so my writing must not be good, right?  well, no, actually.  i just have different strengths, like taking a simple premise & digging super deep into its emotional depths.  that’s what i do well & it isn’t any better or worse than people who do elaborate world building or come up with really creative and unexpected plots.

your writing is never going to be all things to all people.  it just isn’t.  inevitably, you’ll have to make creative choices that favor certain aspects of writing over others.  there is truly no getting around that & it’s honestly a good thing, because it means you’ve developed your own style.  but you’ll always encounter other creators who posses strengths that you don’t.  it doesn’t mean one is better than the other or that your writing isn’t good enough. 

so i made this, and i was like "aww yeahhh such a funny animal"

and then a second image popped up in my head

what if they acted like dogs?