woof

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It was late for Donnie, but not so much for Leo, only a few hours behind, he glances at the blinding lights of his computer screen where he watched the clock he’d installed tick the seconds away in the Central American time zone, only a little past midnight, he’d have assumed his brother was still up.

But this wasn’t the first time he’d been met with the robotic tones of his answering machine rather than his actual brother — earlier today, he’d sent him a message to confirm their arranged call time, only to get something short and blunt back in response, a one worded: okay that was now feeling further and further from any sort of promise nor commitment.

It didn’t hurt any less, however, each time Leo fell flat on these arrangements. Each time the phone would call off, or when he’d just another one worded text back if Donnie was persistent enough to call again and again and again.

It would always say something like, sorry or busy.

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You called me stupid once, and only once when you were really mad at me for breaking your telescope that one time. You once gave me a fat lip when you elbowed me way too hard during warm ups. You used to rip ass and always blame it on me and laugh when Leo left the room after chewing me out. You sometimes left the toilet seat up when you peed and again, blamed that on me. You were a terrible liar, a god awful cook, you sung so badly when I always knew you had the voice of an angel. You never let me win Street Fighter even when I was being a sore loser. You once got drunk at April and Casey’s wedding after party and lovingly called me the runt.

You did a lot of really good, beautiful, wonderful, awful, horrid things in your short, tragic life.

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At first, Raphael thinks this is yet another one of their grand old tricks on him — it was some sort of right of passage, as the eldest to be entirely tormented with pranks and such, like all three of them (yes, even Donnie) truly revealed in Raph’s high levels of stress and worry.

Because when Mikey tries to pull away, he finds that he can’t.

“Uh, guy’ths?”

Mittens come to wrap around the pole as his head gingerly tugs backwards, and Leo stops looking through his phone to glance at him, brows curved upwards like he too wasn’t sure to believe it or not.

“You’re not stuck,” Leo huffs, amusement bleeding into his voice as his lips quirk around an almost nervous smile. “It doesn’t work that quickly.”

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“Dee?” It’s Raph, forever looking like he wants to shrink to perhaps Mikey’s size in his much larger body. “Are you busy?”

Donnie pushes himself away from his desk, the old, flea-bitten moth chair he’d made Dad lug home two birthdays ago, wobbles and creaks as he spins to face his eldest brother and hops down, adjusting his glasses once he’s planted his feet on the ground.

“What’s broken?” He asks.

Raphael, who’d now ebbed himself a few more steps into the room, fishes into his hoodie pouch and shows him the damaged goods.

It’s Raph’s beloved GameBoy Advance — pink and bedazzled and a one of a kind find on the steps of the thrift store. It’d been in almost perfect condition (the speakers were a bit warbled but nothing Raph couldn’t get past), but now the top part was almost entirely detached from the bottom.

A partial decapitation.

Donnie winces and moves forward. “Yeesh. What happened?”

Raph chews hard on his lip, eyes casted down and he clears his throat before he speaks

so we know that splinter sent leo away to “become a better leader” which could be interpreted in a few ways. some people said that in of itself it could have been a test that leo failed from the get go, and that to be a true leader, he shouldn’t have left in the first place.

but then i don’t think leo would have gone if he didn’t think it was what his father wanted/expected of him — this is leo we are talking about, serial people pleaser and anxiety extraordinaire in all universes, and he would have probably picked up the vibes on whether splinter was bluffing about sending him away or not. if it was something splinter really wanted from him, leo would have gone, and so he did.

which, if true, begs the question as to HOW leo was supposed to become a better leader when he’s not in the same country as his team, when he left them behind. because when leo comes back, things don’t seem to have really changed at ALL. in fact, it’s implied that things are now worse off from before he left. if you wanna count 2007 as canon sequels to the 1990s movies (which, personally i don’t but my point still stands) then it would appear that yeah, no real good really came from leo’s departure and it wasn’t really necessary. if anything they ALL needed a vacation after everything they’d been through lol

leo returns home after his prolonged stay, even splinter is pretty shocked that his son hadn’t returned upon his scheduled date, and things are tetchy, mostly between leo and raph. so what did leo learn in the jungle? other than maybe a few fighting skills? some independence? but that’s not what splinter sent him away for.

so i’m curious to know what everyone thinks of this particular plot point — when leo gets sent away in 2003 we see almost every step that leads towards it: leo’s temper, the very real and raw decline in his mental health. splinters decision and having to tell leo this (side note: the others eavesdropping on this conversation is one of those moments that breaks my heart like. it’s so sibling coded to the core), and then we also SEE leo’s journey throughout. we see how to takes on these lessons to better himself, even when it does take a little while for it to sink in for him. we see every step of this arc for leo, which yeah is a LOT easier for a tv series than it is for a movie that has a whole plot to move along but yeah.

and the 2007 prequel comics are actually really good, we don’t really get much insight into WHY leo was there, but do get to see WHAT he was doing (and for those that don’t know it gets VERY dark like leo having to rescue women and children from being literally trafficked and going on a murder spree as he should!) which sure does shed some light onto him time away, and does explain why he maybe came back home a little… edgier than usual.

hi there!! and thank you!!

ooh that’s such a fun question :]

i’d say for 2012 i really do love the farmhouse episodes — they really did that fun little horror trope really well in 2012, the big foot one particularly is so much fun, but i think i’d have to say “in dreams” is a personal favourite! which is funny because i don’t think i’ve ever written any fanfic regarding that episode :0 perhaps i’ll have to rectify that soon.. hehe

for 2003 i think “i, monster” is one i really do enjoy. anything with the rat king and you know its gonna be a banger. plus with this one it just feels different like, them playing their little stealth game to begin with, just real creepy spooky vibes.. can you see there’s a pattern here hahah

and for rise!! it’s a tricky one but i think i’m gonna have to go with “the mutant menace” :] idk why that episode just tickles me a lot it’s a lot of fun and i just think they individually shine in that episode. full of sillies :3

it’s a shame because as someone that does follow most official tmnt accounts, the show itself didn’t seem to get much promo (making me even momentarily forget that a second season was even coming out next month)

this makes me a little.. nervous about the sequel movie as well as the last ronin movie also in the works. tmnt as of late, since rise, just isn’t being given its breathing room any more.

Have you heard of ellipsus?? Its a writing website thats developing more every day! I saw you use google docs and i know some people still prefer it since it usually has all their stuff on it, but (if!!!) You dont like google docs (for their Ai, for their scraping, for any number of reasons) i recommend Ellipsus! It has templates you can change yourself to make fit anything you want, theres a drafts feature where you can make edits and compare the changes! You can change the theme, change its font/looks, and it has folders for organization! I use it and have a folder for tmnt, persona 5, and then jrwi LMAO

Ok so this was like really long and basically an Ad but i PROMISE I STAND BY IT !! I try to share it with a lot of writers and i figured it couldnt hurt to ask if youve heard about it! Feel free to delete this ask if you dont want to change haha but i know i was upset about thr google docs ai and changed.

But with that out of the way, hi! I hope you are having a lovely evening, and my first tmnt series was 2012 as well! I am a diehard leo fan (it was because i liked his swords haha) and i also LOOVEE Mikey!! Do you have any WIPS you can share? Any good snippets??

ooh thanks for sharing! i’ll definitely check it out :D i was a very much big long time microsoft word user for many years before moving over to google docs so i’m always down to try new things out :’) thank you again for letting me know!

and ah! 2012 fan! i love leo in this verse especially season 1/2 leo ;-; he’s just a little guy!!! i need to go back and rewatch again for old times sake haha

and hmm a snippet of a fic you say? at the moment i’m working on my advent fics but here’s a little wip i also have been working on (currently on pause) that’s been fun to write :3 (if anyone can guess what au this is, you get a gold star)