I think one of my favorites is all the varied dynamics we see with each iteration of the turtles and their Master Splinter. There’s such an interesting push and pull that comes from him being both their father and their teacher.

For instance, even though the 03 turtles only ever call him ‘sensei,’ or ‘Master Splinter,’ or very rarely ‘father,’ all titles which sound very removed and impersonal, I feel like they actually have the closest and maybe the most loving relationship with their Splinter.

I feel like the MM boys also have a very loving relationship with their dad. And for them there’s almost no line between dad and sensei, I think. They definitely have some stuff to work through since he was definitely a much more controlling father when they were younger, but unlike other Splinter’s I think (even if it takes a decent amount of convincing) he’s the most open to change if he thinks it will make his children happy.

Then the Rise boys have a really complicated relationship with their dad. They’re all in one way or another dissatisfied in their relationships with him, both as their father and their teacher, in the beginning he’s not enough of either and as he gets more involved in their adventures he starts to overcompensate in both extremes, either being too much their sensei and forgetting to be their father, or being too much their father and forgetting to be their sensei. It’s a struggle for them to find the right balance. And while they do all love each other, there’s no doubt about that (from an audience perspective at least), there’s definitely been a huge breakdown in communication along the way that leaves the boys a bit desperate for attention and validation.

For 2012 Splinter there’s a lot more of that push and pull. (Also keep in mind I’ve still only seen season 1 so some of this might be conjecture on my part or not that accurate to characterization in later seasons) Even though he does call the turtles his sons- and I do think he’s being genuine- I think there is always a degree of separation between him and them and I think it comes from him and the turtles pick up on it and that’s why they only ever call him sensei. Splinter is deeply traumatized by the loss of his wife and daughter and I feel like he’s afraid to close the gap with his sons because he’s afraid of feeling that pain that deeply ever again. He is very much their father but I think it’s easier for him to think of himself more as a teacher than a father (even if he calls them his sons).

Interestingly this dynamic isn’t necessarily one that I seek out in fan works but more like something that I happen upon. I can think of a couple of fics in the rise fandom that fit this thematically but the names are escaping me at the moment so I might add links to those in an edit or a reblog later.

Maybe it’s cuz he doesn’t have the same self blaming, “it’s all my fault” hang ups that tends to get assigned to Rise F!Leo. No, all his bitterness is directed outwards. He felt like Donny abandoned them. He watched his father give his life to save him and his brothers only for that sacrifice to drive them all apart. He watched his brothers grow into (arguably) the worst possible versions of themselves.

And then that’s all gone, suddenly. How he gets back to the past or survives the fight with the Shredder, I have no idea. But everyone seems to have collectively Decided that Rise F!Leo can survive a laser blast that literally disintegrates him on screen and still end up back in the past anyway so I think anything goes really. The fact of the matter is he’s there, in a past that maybe doesn’t belong to him.

And it must be so strange because maybe he feels like he should be glad to have survived, to have been given this second chance but… I feel like he’d also feel so far removed from it all. He got so used to the way things were in his universe that he forgot how they used to be. Seeing Leo and Raph now, who still argue, yes, but who still have that brotherly bond, he must wonder if it will truly last. Donatello, maybe not his, but still as young as his last memory of him, who is the only other one who knows the world he came from, but Donatello only spent a short time there and was scarred by the experience. He can’t bring himself to let those thirty years weigh on his brother’s shoulders too. He was so angry when he first saw Donny again back in his world, but in the here and now all of that just bleeds out of him. This Donatello is still just a kid, like his brother when he disappeared, still just a kid. And his younger self, his younger self. Still so vibrant and optimistic, he doesn’t know how to be that anymore, he gave it up a long time ago because he had to. I almost wonder if they would be somewhat afraid to face each other. Young Mikey, afraid of the kind of person he could grow to be without his brothers, Michelangelo afraid to face what could have been, if maybe he’d just held onto hope a little longer.

Not even to mention seeing his father alive again, maybe wondering “is he proud of me? Is he proud of the ninja I became, even at such a terrible cost?” But he can never ask the question, he just can’t.

Seeing April and Casey again. Knowing that April will get to grow into her old age not as a hardened soldier but happy and free, as she always should have been, Casey by her side and he actually gets to grow old instead of dying young.

(Sorry about all the headcannons… I’ve thought about this quite a lot. Also, I am not American, and I have never been to New York, so if there is anything I am wrong about I apologise.)

Ah, I was sort of talking the turtles in general/in a hypothetical future iteration where they all have accents but I guess I didn’t make that super clear 😅 still I’m going to follow you down this rabbit hole because I like where you’re going with this. Cuz accents are kind of a funny thing, especially when you have characters that are isolated from the general population. I kinda figure in a scenario where they all have distinct New York accents it would come from overhearing it from humans (Rise Leo is said to have learned Spanish by listening to the Puerto Rican population of New York) but unlike more recent iterations like Rise and Mutant Mayhem, the 03 boys really stuck hard to the whole avoiding humans rule until their first lair got destroyed and they were forced topside.

I think it really makes sense that their first language was Japanese, because of Splinter learned ninjutsu from watching Hamato Yoshi then he probably learned Japanese from hearing him. Learning English from TV makes the most sense since that was probably their main exposure to the language. Though if they didn’t have cable (which they probably didn’t in the early days) then most of what they heard probably would have been local news/public access channels so that’s probably where they got their first taste. If I may add to your head canon, I think the boys probably would have gotten the bulk of their English education from Sesame Street since PBS would have been one of the few channels they had easy access to and that actually had programming that they would be interested in when they were small. (Which then raises the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Raph got his accent from imitating Oscar the grouch 🤣🤣🤣)

The reading thing makes sense to me too, especially because they probably got a lot of their books by digging through trash or donation bins, so everything they would have had access to would have been in English. I had something similar as a kid because I grew up in a Spanish/English speaking household but I mainly learned to read in English, written Spanish didn’t make any sense to me even though I knew it when spoken. I didn’t really learn to read/write Spanish until high school but even then I can really mostly just read it, for some reason if I’m asked to write anything in Spanish myself I completely forget the rules of grammar and syntax immediately. It can be really hard to take a language that you’ve only ever heard or spoken aloud and then try to match it with its written form, especially if you’ve never even seen the alphabet before (and Spanish is like, easy mode, I can’t imagine having to learn three different alphabets, all of which support each other to form the language, though I think the 03 boys would be determined enough to do it) I like the idea of April bringing them language books to help them learn, it’d be really sweet, maybe they’d teach her a couple of phrases they know in turn.

Thanks!! So favorite to least favorite huh? I think my ranking goes:

03 Splinter

Rise Splinter

2012 Splinter

Bayverse Splinter

03 Splinter is the funniest in my opinion and think his relationship with the turtles is very sweet. He’s a self admitted overprotective father but he also wants to give his boys the chance to grow into themselves on their own.

I also think Rise Splinter is very funny. I have some conflicted feelings about his parenting style however I don’t think it was nearly as bad or neglectful as a lot of people make him out to be. The boys clearly love their dad a whole lot and that doesn’t come from being ignored every second of every day for 13 years.

Another Splinter that I think gets a way worse rap than he really deserves (although I’ve only watched season one, I don’t know how he changes over the seasons) he’s definitely a bit more reserved with his boys but it’s still clear that he is very much a father to them and not just a sensei. He does lose points for never going on missions with his kids though, like cmon they’re out there risking their lives yeah they’re trained ninjas but they’re also 15, get out there and help your boys fight the good fight.

Bayverse Splinter has the same problem that I have with most of the Bayverse characters outside of the turtles themselves which is that he’s such a non-character. He’s there to provide exposition to April and then get critically injured so that he doesn’t have to be involved in the plot of the movie anymore. He and Shredder don’t even really have a personal grudge against each other (at least none that I can remember and if they do then it’s kinda bad that the reason is so unmemorable that it just doesn’t register as part of the plot at all). In the second movie he’s just there to say something vaguely wise and then disappear from the action yet again. He very much feels like he’s just there because every turtle adaptation is required to have a Master Splinter and then they did nothing to actually make him a character. He’s master Splinter in name alone and that’s kinda it.