#redstringraven

tommy:

he actually doesn’t carry around much because brooke is always carrying his stuff. of course, after she’s whisked to the future, he starts carrying around all her stuff.

if someone asked to borrow anything, it depends. if it was always his, or if it’s before the others get whisked to the future, “yeah! no biggie :]” while they’re all missing?? absolutely not. don’t even look at brooke’s old stuff. and god forbid you ask for it. he’ll use her stuff (like the first aid kit), but nobody else can touch it. after they get back, he’s still a little cagey as the habit settled in deep.

brooklyn:

it would be easier to just show you lol she carries around everything. “just in case.” (note: not listed on this ref is the fact she used to carry around colloidal silver supplements to suppress her lycanthropy, but it was making her incredibly sick.) she hates going anywhere without her entire satchel, but sometimes uses a smaller purse with just water, snacks, a first aid kit, phone, and multitool.

most of her things, she’ll freely hand over if you ask to borrow them. with her notebook, she’s hesitant and might flip it to the back so the likelihood of people seeing her notes is lower. she tends to not get attached to pens/writing utensils and carries extras whenever possible.

t’ytian:

he has some small pouches attached to his belt and usually carries around water, snacks, and whittling tools. he never goes anywhere without his whittling tools, and only the most trustworthy people can use them as they were a gift from his late father. borrowing anything else, he’ll happily hand over and won’t even get upset if he doesn’t get it back.

finn:

her briefcase might look fancy and professional, but it’s full of de-stressing tools like coloring books and markers, fidget toys and stress balls, candy, and supplements. she has many high quality pens and frequently gets more so she’s open to letting people borrow/take one if they’d like.

lilith:

on stage: basically only carries what she can fit in her pockets, sometimes doesn’t grab anything. maybe a pen for autographs.

brooke gets a few tattoos and piercings, but most of it is after she finishes college

- wolfsbane plant on her arm (as like. a tribute to the whole werewolf thing)

- the semi-colon but made into a butterfly on her wrist (for mental health awareness, also to signify her transformation)

- a small turtle shell on her ankle (because turtles)

(and maybe more, i haven’t decided)

- she had pierced ears for a while but her healing is so much faster than a human’s, so after the third or fourth re-pierce, she just gave up on it. occasionally she wears clip-ons.

- she dyed her hair with a bit of green once but it was very noticeable in wolf-form and she didn’t wanna risk anyone identifying her, so no more hair dye :(

—

i have like. several versions of cam that vary how techno vs organic she is. in her more organic versions (where she has hair), she gets a white streak of hair (it’s a side effect of being brought back to life by an allspark fragment, but she likes to dye it to make it really pop). she can’t get normal tattoos since her skin is now made up of nano-metals and too thick to put ink into—cybertronians tend to chisel away at their armor to give them the same sorta thing we do for tattoos, but cam’s a wimp when it comes to pain. same with piercings—she could, but prefers not to. loves seeing it on others, though!

in most forms, cam regularly maintains having a sorta black-tear-stains makeup look. i would also say she considers the Upgrade to be at least partially her choice, since she put on the tech suit (that just happened to merge with her, one way or another).

—

salamandrians only have body modifiers if they think it could help them in battle, but they usually aren’t permanent. some of their people can regrow limbs entirely so they get temporary prosthetics—like a tail, but they add a mace to the end of it to make the warrior more deadly (like G’Throkka, for example).

t’ytian would learn of tattoos and piercings and would probably want to get the classic “mom 💘” tattoo, but he can’t go to a tat shop because of… this whole situation, so he doesn’t get it before he has to go back to salamandria :/

—

Aura was born and raised as a human named Laura Otis. She never knew her biological father - her mother refuses to talk about him. She thought she'd met the love of her life, gave everything up to have his baby, only for him to bail when he found out she was pregnant. She was hurt and angry, but ultimately decided to keep the baby.

Laura's mother - Marina Roberts - met and married her stepfather - Perry Otis - when Laura was a year old. Perry legally adopted Laura as his child, though it was never a secret in their family that he was her stepfather.

Perry was a taskmaster, but it all stemmed from a deep desire to see Laura one day fulfil her full potential. You see, Perry couldn't have children of his own, so he poured all his attention, hopes and dreams onto Laura. He genuinely loved her, he just couldn't see how he was hurting her.

As a result, Laura grew up to be an overachiever and a perfectionist, constantly seeking the validation of a parental figure who always critiqued her faults rather than building up her wins. He'd point out what she'd done wrong, in an effort to help her improve, but all she ever heard was that she wasn't good enough. She began chasing his approval, constantly pushing herself to be The Best, as though she could just earn his love if she pushed herself hard enough.

Perry wanted Laura to go into law, and for a long time she thought that was what she wanted as well. But it all came crashing down in college. The pressure built until she finally broke, failing her classes and ending up flunking out of school.

Laura was devasted. She truly believed she'd failed. She was too ashamed to return home to her parents - she knew Perry would be furious - so she turned to the only other person she had left: her Aunt Pip.

Phillipa ‘Pip’ Roberts is a veterinarian in New York City. The older sister of Laura's mother, Pip had stepped up for her sister when her previous partner abandoned her. She helped her sister to raise baby Laura for the first year of her life, and always doted on her only niece. From an early age, she taught Laura compassion and kindness, and Laura genuinely loved the brief times Aunt Pip came to visit after Marina married Perry.

Pip of course let her niece live on her couch, but her apartment was really too small for 2 people (and her labrador, Vesper). So she helped Laura find a tiny bedsit to rent while she got back on her feet, and helped her get a job as a waitress at a 24/7 diner to pay her bills.

It was around this time that Laura discovered photography, fell in love with it, and started to dream of opening her own studio one day.

Marina Otis née Roberts

- Laura had a fairly distant relationship with her mother. Marina let her new husband take over raising her daughter, mostly so that she could restart her career and pick up again where she'd left off to have a baby.

- Laura always admired her mother's work ethic, but wished she wasn't so distant.

Perry Otis

- Laura's step father was much more of a presence in her life growing up. If he wasn't taking her to violin lessons or ballet class, he was personally tutoring her so she'd get higher grades. He filled her schedule full of extra curricular activities, and almost seemed to live his life vicariously through her.

- Her feelings for him are… conflicted. On the one hand, she grew up earnestly desiring his praise and approval, convincing herself that his goals were her goals. It was only when she failed college that she began to realise… that was never what she'd wanted.

Pip Roberts

- Laura's aunt is the mother/big sister figure she always secretly wanted. She was free to be herself with her aunt, though it took her flunking out of college to really start to figure out who that was.

- Laura admires and aspires to be like Aunt Pip's kindness and compassion. She inspired Laura to learn First Aid as a valuable life skill. (Unfortunately, she also inadvertently inspired Laura to volunteer for the 'medical testing' program that led to her mutation).

- As of the current point in Laura/Aura's story, Aunt Pip has no idea where her niece suddenly vanished to (Laura didn't tell her about the testing program), and has not given up searching the city and plastering it with missing persons fliers.

Fun bonus fact:

Brooke has a few guardians: her grandparents on her mother’s side, and her mother (her father is also sometimes included but he differs a lot based on each iteration so i won’t include him. all you need to know is he’s absent, not dead).

brooke’s grandparents (Maliah and Juan Ramirez) are definitely the best positive influence she had growing up, and the reason she’s not… worse. but they were also dealing with a little weird girl with Big Emotions and while they had the best intentions, some of their tactics weren’t the best. i.e. they’d try to get her to calm down before she’d fully felt and expressed her emotions, they’d also give her waaaay more responsibility than her age warranted. she's got mostly positive feelings toward them. she got their intelligence, diligence, compassion, and passion from them, and hopes to one day do her part. mirroring them is a conscious thing brooke tries to do.

neither is inherently closer to brooke, i'd say, they just play different roles. abuela was usually the one deciding and dishing out discipline, but also recognized brooke was quick to pick up on things and gave brooke confidence by entrusting her with responsibility (like the feeding and caring of the animals). abuelo tended to just indulge brooke so long as it seemed safe—he’s the one who went to the store to pick up lab equipment and helped brooke put together chemical bombs in their driveway before abuela yelled at them haha. he's also the one who encouraged her to learn to bake (so he could "test out" her baked goods—which to be fair, he earned, given the first several times were really bad, but he faked enjoyment just so brooke would keep going)

brooke loves them to death but they’re also very religious. and brooke being a werewolf—which is associated with darkness, evil, witchcraft, curses—makes for a bit of a tense relationship now. they do not know, to be clear. brooke keeps it from them since she’s terrified they’ll disown her (or worse) if they find out. her grandparents also are very, very adamant about brooke bonding with her mother, which isn’t something brooke wants...

julia… was/is absent emotionally. brooke doesn’t even really think of her or refer to her as her “mom” except around julia (to avoid a shitstorm) and with people she doesn’t wanna explain this to (like her grandparents, and strangers). brooke has a lot of her mother’s traits which reeeeeally fuels the fear and hatred she feels toward herself, like her emotionally avoidant tendencies, big emotions, pride in self-sufficiency (that feels like she’ll be punished for asking for help), bad habits she’s picked up… not to mention the fact she looks so much like her mother—oh my godddd all the comments she gets. staring at herself in the mirror feels like a bitter reminder that she’s destined to become like her mother. and brooke hates it. some days she thinks "what would julia do?" and then does the opposite just to spite her.

it’s a toss-up on if tommy is brooke’s “little brother” or “son”—they tow the line, sorta like a huge age gap for siblings where the older “raises” the younger. the two are like peas in a pod though, joined at the hip most of the time. this causes some codependency, though, and makes it hard for tommy to spread his wings since brooke is so protective. she's trying to mimic what her grandparents did, with a little more emphasis on being emotionally supportive. it's a struggle, though, since her mother's habits run deep.

after getting rescued by and adopted into the turtles’ crew, brooke considers them family (oftentimes, she feels closer to the turtles’ crew than her biological family). they are the ones she’s called in the case of an emergency.

i’d classify splinter as a guardian/mentor to a degree, seeing as it’s his meditation techniques and teachings that have helped brooke “tame” her wolf side enough to function. splinter also reminds brooke of abuela so they get along fairly well.

—

tommy ofc has brooke, who he adores and would literally travel to hell and back for. but she’s also incredibly protective to the point it’s suffocating sometimes. and i’d be lying if i said her overprotective nature didn’t contribute to his anxiety. but she’s also gone through some shit by this point, and is fairly ok at not squashing tommy’s emotions. she’s not the best with herself, but if it’s tommy, she's significantly more supportive and gracious.

she’s headstrong and stubborn, but also denser than osmium, holy shit. tommy, by contrast, is very observant and picks up small cues really quickly. he’s also less stubborn and more likely to take a following position than a leading one. he looks up to her, and doesn’t mind the traits he shares with her like their big emotions, but he also recognizes that their differences make them a better team. being like her isn’t the goal, but it’s not something he’d hate. comparisons mostly make him nod and go “yeah, that makes sense,” but there’s no positive or negative connotation to it—it’s just a fact. of course he’s like brooke.

tommy also considers splinter and the turtles (and casey and april) his guardians, siblings, family. they have many dynamics and roles they fit into.

you remember how in 2003, splinter dressed up as santa in the christmas aliens? i’m picturing splinter loves kids. wants kids/grandkids. two comments in rottmnt also confirm this headcanon for me but part of that lore is that splinter was human once. anyway. splinter already raised some turtle boys, so what’s one more? he tends to dote on tommy a bit, and enjoys tommy’s questions. tommy is very low energy and a nice change of pace from the four teens who seem to find trouble wherever they go lol. tommy also loved snuggling up into splinter’s fur and hearing stories before bedtime when he was teeny tiny, and it was splinter’s favorite part of the day to put tommy down for a nap.

they are both quiet/low-energy and observant. splinter’s very attuned to the spiritual side of things whereas tommy is best attuned with his emotions (and sometimes others’ as well). tommy also loves to just sit and observe splinter in the dojo, occasionally asking questions. it’s always a treat for splinter to mediate with him.

similar to splinter, don and leo carry that quieter energy that tommy just gravitated toward early on. they’re the first ones tommy openly directs questions to, usually after silently observing for 3 days straight. it takes a bit for the two to get used to it since tommy isn’t asking the beginner questions (he already figured out most of that stuff) and typically hits them with a “how can you tell the difference between solar plexus and sacral chakra blockage?” or “what's the difference between java and python coding?” (note: this is mostly for 2003–in other iterations, the order of which turtle/s tommy warms up to first varies. it’s a safe bet it’s probably leo though)

mikey and tommy both get gold stars for being observant of others and how the dynamics typically work. they’re also probably the most attuned to their own emotions, except in specific circumstances. tommy knows this so when the comparisons are made, he’s happy to take it as a compliment. it did take him a while to warm up to mikey (though not quite as long as raph).

once he warms up to raph, tommy’s hanging with raph almost as much as he’s with brooke. raph’s also protective and makes tommy feel safe, but raph doesn’t have the baggage and guilt brooke carries about tommy getting mutated, so he’s a bit more chill and less suffocating. raph also adores tommy since the kid’s got a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. they share many high-threes after one gives off a good zinger, usually at the expense of casey or mikey. and of course, splinter can get a good zinger in as well.

they’re both loyal to a fault, protective (it shows up differently), and emotional. tommy tends to get loud when anxious, which comes across as angry sometimes. they’ve both got snark and tend to call it like it is, no reason to beat around the bush.

tommy is pretty confident in who he is and while he will mimic small things, generally he recognizes that the differences between himself and others makes for a stronger team, a better friendship. he’s not actively looking to become like anyone, but when comparisons are made, he beams about it for the next two days straight. obviously he’s also happy to have positive traits compared to the others, too, but he has a lot of respect and admiration for raph in particular.

—

t’ytian has four parental figures/guardians—his (biological) mother and father (k’ythka and t’bakka, respectfully), G’Throkka his mentor, and his step-father, g’byvak (name may change).

he’s also got eight siblings: five full-siblings and three half-siblings.

t’ytian kiiiiinda idolizes his dad—mainly because all his memories of dad are pleasant and dad died when t’ytian was like 8. t’ytian gets his big emotions from t’bakka (his mom says), and he was intelligent, charismatic, welcoming, constantly curious and open-minded, which t’ytian also picked up. his dad was also a bit odd with his hobbies, and liked to mold clay and whittle wood, which t’ytian remembers his dad showing him and has continued the tradition. he loves the idea of being like t’bakka and revels in all the comparisons, but it feels somewhat unattainable and hollow, given his dad is gone.

t’ytian gets his pride from his mother, k’ythka, who leads a squadron to protect the city from the various kaiju-like monsters roaming salamandria. she’s also incredibly loyal and caring to those who have earned her loyalty, which t’ytian learned from her. he adores his mama and wants to make her proud, and she makes it clear she believes he could change the world. which he does. with the rebellion.

G’Throkka taught t’ytian almost everything he knows about combat, and has been his mentor for years. they’re both escorts/bodyguards and share traits like extreme loyalty and a willingness to self-sacrifice being etched in their blood. t’ytian considers G’Throkka to be close to a father-figure given that role needed filling in his life. t’ytian’s whole deal is to become more like G’Throkka, and he often asks himself what G'Throkka would do in a given situation.

with t’ytian’s step-dad, t’y felt… averse to it (idolizing your dead dad will do that). g’byvak is more strict and less charming than his father, so listening and obeying didn’t come as naturally. they also argue since t’ytian’s time spent on earth gave him a new appreciation for things salamandrians take for granted or straight-up abuse. it also doesn’t help that g’byvak is a fairly high ranking officer for the salamandrian armies. if a similaritywere to be pointed out, t'ytian would politely nod and thank the commenter before changing the subject. internally, he's rolling his eyes and rationalizing how much he isn't like g'byvak.

out of all his siblings, t’ytian is emotionally closest to t’vekyl—his twin sister. she’s a rebellious girl, as opposed to t’ytian who grew up as a major people-pleaser. they share the same big emotions but the way those emotions come out differs drastically. while t’ytian tends to be optimistic, give people the benefit of the doubt, and internalize unwanted/unpleasant emotions, t’vekyl is abrasive and pessimistic, and unafraid to speak her mind. t’ytian is ready to throw down because he thinks you wanna spar for the love of the game, t’vekyl would honestly rather chew you out verbally than raise a weapon, but she will if needed. she’s training to be a medic, which is a very under appreciated career in their culture, and is constantly being bombarded with expectations others have for her that she’s not meeting—like her career, but also how she needs to settle down and start a clutch of eggs soon. the salamandrian conquest needs soldiers, after all. t’ytian, by contrast, has hidden the traits he has that his society deemed “undesirable.” only his immediate family know of his wood carving/clay sculpting (and after he gets back from earth, his music). none of them really support him in it, except t’vekyl.

next closest is the brother who was born after his dad died, the last of his full-siblings—t’bakkok. he’s quiet and intelligent, preferring to work on his inventions or test something out over sparring or hiking around in the wilderness. t’ytian loves to sit quietly next to him as the two work on their projects, occasionally holding it up for the other to wordlessly nod approval over. t’ytian tends to match the energy of whoever he’s around so when it’s with t’bakkok it’s a chill quiet afternoon. fun fact! t’bakkok is named after his father, t’bakka, and is almost exactly the same in looks :)

he’s got three older siblings that he’s less close to. the oldest, his sister v’klyst, and then the twin second oldests t’vonis and t’kyptych. v’klyst is a high ranking guard for the Capital and she is friendly, quiet, and strategic. t’vonis is a pilot, sometimes to deliver soldiers or supplies, sometimes he scouts out nearby planets for salamandria to conquer. he’s arrogant and impulsive and loves teasing t’ytian (t’vonis also thinks he’s charismatic). t’kyptych is an enforcer (sort of like their version of the police) and is quiet and stoic. t’ytian shares the friendliness of v’klyst, the arrogance and impulsiveness of t’vonis (though not to the degree of t’vonis), and shares loyalty and strictness for rules with t’kyptych. t’ytian has no real opinion on whether sharing traits with any of them is “good” or “bad” (although he finds t’vonis’s antics to be annoying and would rather not be compared to him). uhh… there’s some tension after the rebellion, seeing as they worked against the rebellion that t'ytian helped.

then there’s the triplets, his half-siblings, who are all very young and still figuring themselves out. t’ytian enjoys chucking them into the nearby lake and playing with them. their names are a wip but my notes says they’re called t’byvrak, k’ythkak, and g’byva (names are meant to be combos of dad, mom, and step-dad's names).

—

cam had a more “traditional” family (more than the above characters haha). except... she leaves earth.

cam was born with a heart defect and partial deafness which caused the family a lot of strife early on (both emotional and financial—they’re still recovering).

unfortunately, her mother has a lot of resentment built up from the tension, so cam tended to get blamed for things and held to a higher standard by her mother. to her mother, alex could do no wrong, and cam could do nothing right. so cam has stopped trying to please her mother and hates when comparisons are made. unfortunately, they are a lot alike—stubborn, passionate, introverted, emotional... and with a built-up resentment toward each other, they tend to step on each others' toes.

by contrast, cam’s father went the complete opposite direction, instead treating cam as a delicate butterfly and constantly advocating for cam against her mother (this does not help their marriage…). she’s daddy’s girl (and knows it) but tries not to abuse the power too much. she loves her father to the moon and back, but feels like he’s patronizing at times. she loves him, but also doesn't put him on a pedestal.

alex kinda grew up with cam getting a lot of the attention, due to her medical needs, but was old enough (and his father explained) that it's necessary and not indicative of cam being the favorite and that they love him too. his father also explained that because of these needs, alex needs to be a good brother and protect cam whenever he can. this thankfully kept them still pretty close even after both becoming adults. alex is the one to tell cam to do what she wants when it's time to choose.

and she chooses to go into space, with the bots—her found, chosen family.

nebula is in a very unique place with cam. one that would take too long to explain since it goes back so far. but she's always been there for cam. even before cam was cam, nebula was there for her. so cam trusts her, inherently, instinctively, unconsciously. cam doesn't consciously try to be like nebula, but it's definitely there. they're both curious and diligent to find answers, a bit socially dense (though nebula exceeds cam by miles—amnesia will do that to you). despite being so close emotionally, cam doesn't actually spend a ton of time with nebula after meeting the rest of the bots.

bulkhead, endeavor, and bumblebee take those spots.

bulkhead is cam's unofficial guardian, typically taking the initiative to protect cam when they get into dangerous situations. he's also the very first bot cam formed a real friendship with, and easily the one cam trusts the most consciously. both of them are sensitive and careful to think things through, and typically anxious at bumblebee's antics.

cam and bee... have a bit of a rocky start. bee's pretty abrasive at the newcomer, and cam picks this up and assumes he hates her. it's a misunderstanding of course, that gets resolved and leads them to grow closer. this is a terrible thing for everyone else, because bee will easily convince cam to join him in adrenaline-pumping, daredevilish situations. though cam tries to play the straight man, she would never admit it, but being treated as normal instead of a fragile butterfly feels so good. she starts picking up his sassier attitude and cockiness later on, without realizing it. this is upsetting to cam's best friend, who hates bee with a passion—endeavor.