#leorai

(and before anyone tries to piss on the poor, i AM saying that adoptive families are real families, that's not what this is about)

bc in order for adoptive families to work, it can't just be a one-way street of someone choosing to be a parent to a child they didn't genetically contribute to. it ALSO has to be the child choosing to see that person as their parent rather than as someone who just happens to help take care of them. likewise, it's about choosing to see any other children in that home as siblings rather than as just people they live with - and that applies regardless of how old someone is when they join a family.

i will admit that being raised together from a young age will make it feel more like a default than a true deliberate choice to consider the people around you as family - like the turtle boys considering each other brothers when who knows if they came from the same clutch - but as long as the kid gets told the truth eventually, they WILL end up having to face that decision.

some will find it easy to make; some won't. some will decide that yes, this family is their family, and no one can/should tell them different - and some will decide that this isn't their family, it was just a place they were raised in and people they were raised around.

mikey, after learning about his adoptive dad's bio kid, chose to see karai as his sister. donnie and raph never really gave a strong hint either way. leo, on the other hand, very clearly chose to see karai as a love interest rather than a sister, which is a completely valid decision as well.

Imagine if rottmnt Karai was there longer or didn't die, you think people would ship her and Leo more? I'm betting so. Plus honestly their little hug was cute. Don't care if they all call her gram gram. I love leorai. Plus I love that they're the same hight as each other

the love for leorai is still there, and dont really care what anyone says or mocks about it. Plus I'm a multishipper when it comes to any tmnt media. Been listening to this song all day and it makes me think of Leo and Karai. Mainly the female singer part in it:

She puts eyeliner on her dark skin She tells me lies but she knows all of my secrets And when we drive in the car and I say, "Who is this band?"She says, "You won't understand, it's some next shit "Choke-choke-choker on her neck, kiss me Holy fuck, I'm bleeding on your Blink tee So, so, so many regrets, you tell me you're depressed Baby girl, that makes two of us

I fell in love with an emo girl I'm in love with an emo girlI fell in love with an emo girl All I want is an emo girl

Future tmnt 2012 oc?? oh idk

agressiveblue // hammersword

if Kina hadn't been there, Cindy would have aced the Penal Code

this is my sideblog so i can't send you an ask but what i did/do is curate my own space in fandoms. in my main fandom (not tmnt), i have a group of friends/a circle for my otp and favourite characters and i don't go out of my way to interact with people i'm not familar with unless i see we share interests and i feel comfortable. if strangers want to chat to me or whatever, i'm cool with it and would only block if they act weird or hostile, or if they post stuff that makes me uncomfortable. i tend to draw in people with my fanfiction (again, not tmnt, at least not these days).

i just want to make a quick mention here that i am not a pro-shipper. i dislike incest ships on principle. i do not think leorai is incest so my take here is based on having this stance. if you think it's incest and like it... this won't really apply to you lmao.

you are not going to convince everyone that leorai isn't incest, even though i really don't think it is. it's a sad fact. you can say 1000s of times that they're not blood-related, that they did not grow up together and they do not consider each other siblings and a bunch of other stuff, and there will be still people who go 'b-b-but splinter is both their dads! even though their relationships/dynamics with him are significanlty different' or whatever. at the end of the day, leorai is iffy and i get why some people will be uncomfortable with it. people are free to have their own headcanons on the leorai dynamic and if they want to pretend or imagine they're siblings, whatever, but their projections don't make it true or mean i have to agree with it. and i'm sure they think the same about me in inverse.

i've not been harassed for shipping leorai but i've noticed people in the fandom block me which i honestly don't care about as they're not people i'd want to talk to anyway. i love tmnt but i'm not really in the fandom, if that makes sense. i usually enjoy it by myself.

i don't think shipping leorai is a particular indicator or any moral judgement. i've been called homophobic for shipping a different m/f ship even though i'm a lesbian. i've been told i support abuse, to kill myself, i've been called slurs and harassed for shipping something (not leorai) which imo was a pretty harmless ship that the fandom convinced itself was bad because the fandom is full of kids and people with no literary skills or understanding of how relationships work.

now for a little story. when i was 15, i joined the tmnt fandom and hung out on deviantart. a big pro-tcest and anti-tcest movement went down. lots of arguing and fighting. it was chronicled on a drama lolcow site until the people running it deleted it because they thought it was incredibly stupid. i ended up losing practically all my friends at the time because the admin of the anti-tcest group was extremely homophobic so while i hated tcest too we fell out because i'm not homophobic. and obviously i don't like tcest so had no friends there lol.

this is rambly and i apologise but yeah basically you need to shut out the noise and do your own thing. :-)

EDIT: Also lbr they were not intended to be siblings like what is this

For @sujikiwis-blog for the Holiday Gift Exchange!

(DISCLAIMER: This post is NOT a complaint against the entire series, it is a constructive critique.)

1. Instead of Karai being Splinter’s birth daughter, I would’ve had it where Karai is a completely SEPARATE character from Splinter’s daughter, Miwa. To add, I would’ve had it where Miwa and his wife, Tang Shen, unfortunately perished in the fire the night Oroku Saki attacked. This could set up his second chance in being a father to his four sons after losing his first family. And this could’ve also set up Leo and Karai to have a successful enemies to lovers arc, without any complications.

2. I would’ve had it where Shredder adopted Karai from an orphanage. Maybe Shredder could’ve have possibly adopted her in Japan, and began to raise her from there. Karai’s character being raised by Shredder, without the weight of her being Splinter’s biological daughter, allows for her to be wholly loyal to the Foot Clan. And this can set up how Leo doesn’t get how Karai could possibly be okay with the evil stuff Shredder does (until he of course learns that she’s his adoptive daughter).

3. Karai should’ve have left the foot clan. After being inadvertently mutated into a snake and then deliberately brainwashed by Shredder, the man who raised her, she should’ve chosen to distance herself from him altogether. And she should’ve gone to the turtles, especially Leo, looking for a sanctuary and a home to stay in. Leo could be, of course, welcoming to Karai, since he cares about her, and Splinter would be open to her staying, to care for her as a mentor, but April, Donnie, Raph, and Mikey would need convincing.