I really have to address this because it made me go absolutely crazy for the past 3 YEARS
The ROTTMNT Oc x Canon is real wild and catty towards each other over fictional turtles that wouldn’t ever like that behavior in a partner in the first place. Sorry not sorry, but these boys would hate the energy you bring onto other people just because you wanted to be chosen
I’ve seen people mischaracterize these sweethearts into lots of things: rude, boring, twinkified, dominant, etc. You really expect me to think that Splinter would raise four boys like that, especially when HE MADE THE MISTAKE ON PURSUING BIG MAMA AND WAS PUT INTO PRISON AT THE BATTLE NEXUS FOR THAT??? And no, Splinter was never neglectful, he loves his boys more than anything. People can’t understand that there are many factors that played when Splinter raised the boys. Splinter was mutated into a rat and immediately was put into the father position by choice, he didn’t have to take the tiny turtles but he did and that he did.
Of course he was going to struggle but he was more hard on himself and his choices but never took it out on the boys. He had it hard growing up without his mother and the rocky relationship with his grandpa; not to mention the whole actor career going away in a snap because of all this madness. Splinter has some flaws but he made sure to give these boys so much love and care for them to be raised like true gentlemen. Let’s not forget that by natural consequence, the boys chose to be heroes since they just wanted to take care of crime and help others.
Those boys would be told to treat everyone with respect and that they do
They never looked at April, Cassandra, Sunita, or any other girls weirdly, and it never was implied for these guys to be in a relationship with any of these girls—which I give them lots of kudos for. Even with villains like Kendra or the D.I.G.G. band, they were enemies but still held the same respect to treat them equally, and don’t tell me they would goon over them because they’re “baddies” because 1) no and 2) they aren’t baddies for being fucking criminals. The four idiots have hearts of gold, stars in their eyes when it comes to Lou Jitsu or Jupiter Jim, crack witty humor at each other, eat pizza together, and even have movie nights for crying out loud!
I know that this is an issue among people all across the world, but please remember that the rise boys would love your “flaws” (aka superficial features, e.g facial features, skin color, height, weight, etc). On this topic, they would not follow the TikTok standard of beauty either. We can agree they’re pretty but they would be judged since they’re not conventionally attractive, but we still love them and see their unique features
If we think the boys are pretty, why do we exclude ourselves from that equation? It’s pretty hypocritical in my opinion. It’s hard to get by and be confident, but I’m brining it up as a problem within the ROTTMNT Oc x Canon since they’re using insecurities in order to harm others rather than helping others or even themselves. Like sure, make your oc into a conventionally attractive person, but the problem lies where I feel that not many of us are being truly authentic while presenting their oc. That’s where we get into spirals where we genuinely don’t think these boys would like us without the conventionally attractive features—which we’ve established that they would like come on they’re mutant turtles.
I’ve seen lots of ocs that just sexualize themselves and then their turtle of choice (either by making the boys sexualized in general or even them just being horny got the oc character) which has made me uncomfortable not only from the fact that these creators make sexualized content of the boys, but also the message that you have to be a “baddie” or a sexualized person in order to get these guys’ attention. That’s not true with these boys as we’ve established, they wouldn’t be catcalling or acting weird with girls to only get “one thing”. I want to keep repeating that that’s not who they are, all of this truly goes against their morals.
Not only does this make others feel bad, but it also harms anyone that does want to show their ship to social media and I can even make it more narrow and say in friend groups too.
There’s many ships out there that get recognition and much more likes than others. Sure, the algorithm is arbitrary so what did I expect there. I’ve seen many people just try to share their ships but be bullied, belittled, and even just people ignoring their existence instead of giving it some love. That’s where I’ve seen even with discord servers that if you’re not a master at rendering, then your art/ship gets ignored and others that do have the ability to render/draw with an above intermediate level in their artwork, then their ships get recognized and even admired/idolized.
We have a problem in seeing screenshot redraws and then judging a ship depending on if the character is accurately drawn in the ROTTMNT style or not, or even if they just blended in with the screenshot. If we see beginner artists just trying to post their oc and just have fun, they’re ignored nor supported. Even worse, I have a friend that’s amazing at their job with art and they’re a fantastic fanfic author for ROTTMNT, but her stuff doesn’t get attraction because it’s not mainstream enough for audiences. We’ve come so far to make it horrible for others to share their work since they’ll be treated as if they’re the wind passing by but then other artists share their mischaracterized versions of the boys, making them like horn dogs, and it gets lots of likes just because it fits the mainstream standards and also loads of bias since they draw better than anyone else. It’s just high school all over again, a stupid popularity contest where no one can win unless they fit the western standards of beauty and ship tropes.
Continuing, I’ve met a lot of catty people in the Oc x Canon side of ROTTMNT like girl they’re fictional turtles. I don’t want to fight over a fictional fucking turtle, I just want to draw and make a story for MY OWN SELF. These people are always so fucking jealous over anyone that even shows a small sign that they like any of the boys and I don’t get it. We can share, we don’t need to prove our ships are valid. I was in a server—mentioned earlier—and here I thought I would get better opportunities to share my stupid ship or even just chat with other people that liked the boys. But what did I get? A server full of catty people that would make fun of me and my story just to make themselves feel superior, and after they bullied me to stop posting my art, they start to post their ship and got told to look at their “amazing ship that’s totally canon”.
To truly confess, there was one person that originally was shipping their oc with Leo and so many people were fine with this person shipping the oc with Leo. As soon as I—a Donnie simp—shared that I liked Donnie or even shared any content of my craft, the same person then mentions that they like Donnie too and had another oc to fill for a Donnie ship. I’m fine with two ships of course, BUT THAT WAS OVERKILL. The same person would see my friend post their content with Leo and that’s when she would switch back to Leo. Are we serious? Why are we fighting over fictional ninja turtles? They like pizza and to rock and roll, not fight over shit like this. That’s not an excuse to make someone feel like shit just because you’re threatened by anyone else that likes the same turtle as you.
That’s not fair, you shouldn’t be treating other people like complete garbage just so you can try gripping for any kind of attention from others. Speaking of a point I just made, yeah there’s so many people that try to make themselves the most “canon” to the universe in order to make their ship more valid than others. I don’t care if it’s not canon, that’s why I’m making a fan story instead of asking Andy Suriano to greenlight my fuckass story. I love my boys, and I want to share that love with other people rather than hog them just because I want to be proven that I’m worth it to the turtle I like.
People have made the ROTTMNT community a bad place for bullying others just because they like a turtle. If you’re someone that’s doing this to others, the turtles would hate you. If you’re someone that keeps sexualizing themselves and the turtles just to get attention, they would not be interested in you. You should be ashamed of yourself and reflect on your morals before you come on the internet and scream about your superiority complex because you WANT A FICTIONAL TURTLE. I’m being serious for a reason because what are you guys doing??? Let others have fun and share support for others, we need community and you’re discouraging it to win a nonexistent race to be better than everyone around you. The rise boys would fight people like you, you’re not special. They’ll do it again so they can make sure you don’t harm others.
Now, I know that this is a specific fandom and not even the in general ROTTMNT fandom. I think the fandom is cool and way better than others, so I want to be clear and just remind everyone that this is only for the ROTTMNT Oc x Canon and that it’s a problem that we have to fix.
People need to have more shame on the internet. Be better.
