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controlled-spontaneity · 2 days ago

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(left: TMNT 2003 S3E16 'Prodigal Son'; right: RotTMNT Finale Part 2)

This is why both Rise!Leonardo and Rise!Splinter really are tragic, despite the series' mostly-comedic tone.

Context:

Left: Leo returns from Japan to find the Lair razed to the ground and his entire family gone.

Right: Nardo steps back in from Tello's lab to find the Lair on fire and his family in the middle of a fight to the death.

The difference:

The worst-case scenario is about to happen (but not yet) for Nardo.

His - their, this holds true for all and any Leonardo - worst nightmare has *already come true* for Leo in 'Prodigal Son': home shattered and family assumed dead.

Nardo falters in shock and fear, hand lax on his blade. That's a normal, sane reaction for any average teenager stepping into this carnage.

But it is not the mentality that their family and Nardo himself needs most at that moment.

In contrast - 03!Leo is scarily, genuinely calm facing the worst-case scenario that's already happened, returning from his famous depression/PTSD arc to sort out things at home.

He compartmentalises seamlessly like a soldier because he - unlike Nardo - was trained for it and trained to kill all his life.

One hand ready on his blade, stepping in with mission-readiness to do reconnaisance.

Leo might be about a year older in this scnshot than Nardo is in his - but the soldierly composure and tactics did not happen overnight. He was like that already, from season 1.

His father made sure Leo knew how to protect himself and his family - by any means possible - against bigger animals in the sewers and humans trying to harm strange-looking creatures.

(And so Leo could decapitate a man threatening his family, without blinking, at 15 in season ONE.)

Rise!Splinter saw combat/duty/ninjutsu take away his mother and countless ancestors for a bogeyman he genuinely thought non-existent.

Lou set out to break the cycle. He was going to leave all of that 'superstition' behind, living for himself - and when he found himself with little children to care for, told them not a single word of the horror stories fed to him in his own childhood.

Lou gave his kids only the barest of ninjutsu basics, just enough for them to enjoy re-enacting action movies and benefit their health.

None of his children will ever need to learn how to fight or kill. Lou will hide them from the harsh realities of combat-training from young (which all the 03! bros had to endure).

When Nardo was playing dodgeball with his brothers, Leo was taught how to (and successfully did) pressure-point giant hungry crocodiles. Lou swore to protect his children from ALL of that.

And so - Rise!Leon ended up with a civilian's unarmored heart on the battlefield.

With *no* clue that his father is gon unilaterally and *very-belatedly* name him leader right after this. (where 03!Leo is explicitly shown to be a natural as a child, and that his *entire* family implicitly but clearly *chose* him, in S1E19 'Tales of Leo').

from Lou's PoV - normal average families just naturally have their oldest kids 'in charge'. why would he have ever needed to consider differently, or interfere in what looked like normal average dynamics? (Whereas the 03! team has their teamwork sorted out from day one, ready for all the conflict coming from outside the family.)

but that changes, when the stakes rise. Birth order is no longer an excuse or replacement for actual militaristic/tactical leadership.

Too bad no one in the Rise! family had a clue that this was coming.

It is irony and tragedy all at once, that in trying to protect him, Lou left Leon so utterly unprotected. Lou's choices spared Nardo from developing 03!Leo's seriousness, sense of duty and workaholic tendencies. But in the end - it could not spare Nardo from needing all those things, needing 03!Leo's skills and overall ability, to protect himself and his family.

But in tragedy lies great setup for triumph - it is in hitting rock-bottom that there is meaning in the ascent.

RotTMNT as a series took away from Leon important advantages every other Leonardo is known for: martial artistry, a trained soldier's mental fortitude and physical resilience, and leadership.

Then Leon climactically earns and demonstrates them in his movie -that is why i personally really love that the series is called RISE of the TMNT.

Leon literally rises to everything he wasn't before but could be - and he truly had to do it from rock-bottom and ground zero.

(left: Leo re-gathers his scattered family, finds them a new home, forcibly warns off their enemies and brings back takeout in the darkest hour // right: Leo rallies everyone with hope and strategy in that darkest night)

#rottmnt #tmnt 2003 #tmnt analysis #rottmnt analysis

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controlled-spontaneity · 6 days ago

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hold the world to its best (8/8)

rottmnt word count: 2k pairing: raph & OC title borrowed from light by sleeping at last part of the archer au

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Raph has been April’s little brother since about two weeks after they first met when he was six years old. He’s always been Splinter’s baby and will never outgrow that no matter how big he gets, forever his dad’s ‘sweet little apple pie.’

But he’s never been one of the younger turtles before. He’s never had a big sibling who was like him in ways his father and sister weren’t, by limitation of species or mutation. At eighteen years old, it was quite the curveball. A not-unwelcome adjustment period.

Raph remembered wanting, more than anything, to make a good first impression. He seemed to be the only one worried about it.

A few weeks after Gio moved in, on an afternoon that Mikey had unilaterally decided he didn’t wasn’t going to share Leo’s attention and had summarily kicked everyone else out of the medbay for the duration of their Jurassic Park movie marathon, Donnie had decided to make his boredom their eldest brother’s problem.

Raph sat on the couch as Donatello did the same thing he did with Gram-gram, the same thing he did with April once upon a time, where he showed off machines he had built and unfinished projects he was still building in a bid to impress, the way a cat might proudly present a dead bird.

Gio didn’t seem to get tired of the seemingly endless show-and-tell production, gaze attentive and engaged. His words were short but sincere each time he said something along the lines of, “Very cool.”

Donnie chortled, dark and sinister, steepling his hands like a cartoon villain. “Yes,” he intoned, “at last. The validation I crave. Today George, tomorrow the world.”

Before he scuttled off to find some other piece of tech to drag out of his lair and parade around, he gave away how pleased he actually was by flopping across Gio like a wet noodle for one of his trademark limp-armed hugs.

The full deadweight of a teenage boy, plus his shell, plus his shell’s shell, would have winded anybody who wasn’t prepared to have it tossed in their lap without warning—but Gio’s oof was barely audible. His surprise was more obvious.

His hands had hovered for just a moment, the most uncertain Raph had seen him up until that point, this terminator of a brother who never flinched and never faltered and never second-guessed what the right thing to do was. And then they drifted down to land on Donnie’s shoulder and the top of his head, and when nothing happened after a few seconds except for Donnie’s content turtle trill, they settled into place more firmly.

Donnie bonked his head into Gio’s stomach affectionately before he scrambled up from the older turtle and over the back of the couch, creature mode activated. When something in the next room clattered to the floor in his wake, followed by the comically loud sound of breaking glass, Raph almost gave into his first, second and third impulse to plant his face in his hands and swear.

“Sorry. He’s excited,” he said instead. “We don’t, uh, get to meet new family very often. Just say the word and I’ll sit on him.”

“He’s fine,” Gio replied immediately. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

He sounded like he meant it. All his bewilderment from a moment ago had already been packed away like it had never existed at all. Gio’s dark brown eyes only met Raph’s for a split second before moving away to the Netflix show being projected onto the wall that neither of them were really watching.

Raph was nervous about good first impressions, but he seemed to be the only one. Everyone else was throwing the full gamut of their inexhaustible personalities at the spotted turtle like they needed him fully amalgamated into the family in as little time as possible and were willing to work nights to make it happen.

And Gio was proving to be totally implacable, a far cry from the rest of the reactive, chaotic clan. Nothing they did ever seemed to rile him up or rub him the wrong way or really do more than make him blink.

April called it Gio’s capybara energy. She kept sending videos to the group chat of the most unbothered animal on the planet chilling with hawks and alligators. It wasn’t entirely off the mark, but only where his siblings were concerned. The Giorgio that Leo told them about, who squared up to the Krang in the prison dimension without so much as flinching, was much more likely to try to take a bite out of any predator that came too close to his flock no matter how much bigger than him they were.

“Was he different in the future?” Raph asked curiously. “Donnie?”

There was a long pause before Gio answered, “He was older.”

That made sense. Raph guessed it wasn’t the strangest thing in the world for his little brothers to outgrow being so demonstrative, but he couldn’t really picture it. It was hard to imagine a Donatello who didn’t crawl into Raph’s arms any time of day or night when he needed a good bear hug.

He resolved to get more cuddles in while he still had a Tweedle Dee receptive to cuddles.

“Raph can’t imagine growing out of hugs,” he admitted a little shyly. “That’s, like. What my arms are for. You know? I don’t even know who I’d be otherwise.”

Gio was looking at him with an expression that Raph didn’t recognize. Someday he would know how to read his big brother’s neutral bearing as easily as he could pick apart the charmingly faultless smile Leo always hid behind, but in that moment he had no idea what Gio was thinking.

“You were older, too,” Gio said.

Raph rolled that around in his mind like a marble, trying to decide how he felt about it.

CJ had told them little odds and ends about his family, when he could bring himself to talk about them at all, and the picture he painted was one that Raph struggled to place himself in.

He liked to believe he’d be like CJ’s Uncle Rapha when he was older, strong and steadfast and capable—carrying the weight of everyone he loved without ever letting them down. He really wanted to never let them down.

Gio was still watching him. Something about having the spotted turtle’s undivided attention made Raph want to keep asking him questions. He was suddenly closer to understanding why their little brothers were so keen to pester Raph twenty-four hours a day.

“Can you give me just one spoiler?” he wheedled. “Was I still a good hugger in the future?”

Gio exhaled, the ghost of a laugh. It wasn’t an entirely happy sound, but he was smiling crookedly when he looked away again.

He said, “One hug from you could have saved the whole world, Raphael.”

Raph didn’t get it then, but he does now.

Because now Gio is this tiny little thing, holding a teddy bear as big as he is and looking up at Raph with huge hopeful eyes, because all the hugs Raph’s little brothers grew up with as the norm are absolutely not a given in his life. Because while Raph was sleeping in turtle piles and splashing in rain puddles as his dad held his hand and squabbling over the biggest piece of cake for dessert, Gio was alone, raising himself, going hungry. He was hiding from thunderstorms under the bed. He was learning that he was unwanted, that nobody would come for him when he cried, and that it was better not to cry at all.

Yeah, Raph thinks, tears pooling in his eyes and spilling over when he blinks. One hug would have done it.

He picks the baby turtle up the way he’s done a hundred times over the course of the last week, that spotted shell small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, weighing next to nothing. Gio had to be taught how to be held, but he’s an old pro at it now, tucking himself against Raph’s shoulder with a sigh better suited someone ten times his age. His fingers clutch at the front of Raph’s shirt, always wanting to clutch at something, usually only having his own hand to hold.

He’s so little. He shouldn’t know the first thing about hardship, not when he’s this little.

“There’s not a single version of you that I don’t like,” Raph says firmly, the second he’s certain his voice isn’t going to wobble and break.

He can’t see Gio’s face from this angle, but he can picture the stubborn pout on that spotted face as clear as day.

“You like the Gio who’s cool and strong and smart,” Gio mumbles, as close as he’ll come to arguing outright. He’s rubbing the tiny fold of Raph’s shirt that he’s holding between his thumb and forefinger, like he’s trying to commit it to memory. “The one who fights monsters. You said so.”

“I do like him,” Raph says. “But I also like the Gio who’s a bit silly. The one who eggs the twins on even when they’re at their noisiest, and lets Mikey draw all over his arms with paint markers, and would eat cheesecake for every meal if we’d let him. Does he sound familiar?”

It takes the toddler a moment to answer, but when he does it’s with a very shy, “I like cheesecake.”

“You sure do.” Understatement of the century, honestly. “And you let our brothers get away with everything under the sun, because that is apparently a fundamental law of the universe when it comes to you,” Raph says with a lightness he doesn’t really feel. “You’re my brother and that’s all that matters. That’s never ever gonna change. Whether you’re four years old or forty or a hundred. I’m always gonna be right here to give you all the hugs you want.”

Gio nods just barely, a whisper of movement against his shoulder that Raph barely feels.

Raph remembers how tentative he was with Gio when they first met, holding back from him because he was stupidly preoccupied with making a good first impression. Because Gio was so cool and so reserved, and Raph didn’t know where he fit as a little brother when for so long he’d been the biggest.

Back then, there’s no way he could have known that Gio used to be this child who never took an inch more than what he was given. Who would sit outside until he died of exposure unless someone opened the door for him. It just wouldn’t occur to him to come inside and claim a seat at the table for himself.

And how much of Raph’s nervousness read as rejection to the brother he was still getting to know?

And how many times has Gio worried about the same things Raph used to, fitting in and making a good impression, earning love that should have been his from day one?

It’s never just been given to him. He’s always had to work for it.

“I don’t love big Gio more than I love baby Clem,” Raph says. His heart could burst with how much love it’s holding, actually. He needs about half a dozen more to fit it all comfortably. “I love both of you, all of you, forever and ever and ever. Okay?”

“Okay,” Gio says in a tiny, wobbling voice. His fist in Raph’s shirt is white-knuckled, like it would take an act of god to move him. Raph would like to see god fucking try.

“What do we say when we need to feel brave?” Raph nudges gently.

“I’m not alone,” Gio recites. He leans back and looks up at Raph, an expression on his face that Raph recognizes as the same one that used to mystify him when Giorgio first moved in. The one that used to leave Raph guessing what his older brother was thinking, since he didn’t have the first clue how to read him back then.

It was hope all along.

Two days later, the curse will finally expire in an explosion of smoke that ruins lunch prep and ends the life of Mikey’s favorite ceramic mixing bowl when he drops it in surprise. Three people lunge forward at once to scoop the baby out of the way of the broken shards underfoot, collide with their solid twenty-year-old brother instead, and end up football tackling each other into a pile on the floor.

“What,” is all Gio says, at the bottom of the stack, followed quickly by, “Donnie?”

“Eurgh,” Donnie replies, face-first in the concrete.

Gio sits up, taking stock of him, then the rest of the room in short order. There’s a wrinkle in his brow that spells confusion, but otherwise his expression is the resting murder face that gives away nothing. It’s much harder to take it seriously when they all have seen first-hand what it looked like on his little baby face.

“GIOOOO!” Mikey hollers, collapsing on the eldest turtle in an enthusiastic embrace that Raph is quick to get in on. Donnie is only more firmly squashed where he’s caught in the middle, and starts scrabbling uselessly for freedom like a trapped raccoon.

“We were in the Hidden City,” Gio says slowly. “There was a witch.”

“We’ve got a lot to catch you up on, Gigi,” Leo says, joining the pile on the floor because he would stroll amicably into hell if that’s where his brothers were hanging out, and only complain about being left out in the first place. “But first you owe me like a gazillion naps. I aim to collect.”

“We’re under strict orders from Barry not to overwhelm you with details till you’ve had a chance to adjust,” Mikey announces, curtailing the dozens of questions Gio must have. “Up up! We can’t adjust on empty stomachs! And since the pancake batter is all curse-smokey, may it rest in peace, it must be deli sandwich o’clock.”

Gio is clearly unhappy with the missing time, but he can’t argue with proof in front of him that all little brothers are present and correct and accounted for. Everything else takes a backseat to that. One gray-green hand drifts to his empty wrist where a faded friendship bracelet usually lives, and alarm sprints across Gio’s expression clear as day when he doesn’t find it there.

“I’ve got it,” Raph says immediately, reaching into his pocket for it. “We kept it safe.”

“Oh,” Gio says. He’s never explained the importance of the bracelet to any of them, and seems surprised that they’ve been paying close enough attention to guess as much on their own. He slides it back on, and brushes the pad of his thumb over the fraying ends the way Raph has seen him do a thousand times, and says, heart in his hands, “Thanks, Raphie.”

Later, they’ll fill him in. They’ll show him all the pictures, the tiny baby hoodies, Splinter will cry on him a bit, April will dramatically mourn not having his big round cheeks to squeeze anymore, and through it all Gio will look a little embarrassed, a little amused, and a little bewildered.

Much later, when Leo’s dead to the world asleep with his head in Gio’s lap, and Mikey is sitting on the back of the sofa with his legs draped over Gio’s shoulders and his chin propped up on Gio’s head with his headphones on, and Donnie is sprawled in Raph’s giant beanbag giggling evilly at whatever he’s doing to people in his Minecraft server also with his headphones on, Gio glances sideways at Raph.

“Sorry if I was a lot to deal with,” he says. “People used to tell me I was nothing but trouble when I was little.”

Raph has to wrestle with a dozen things he’d like to say to that before coming up with, “Well people didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.” It comes out a dangerous rumble, and he can’t help but add, “Anyone would have been lucky to have you, Georgie. Those families before us had no clue what they were throwing away.”

Gio looks away quickly, half a rueful smile on his face. Not buying it, not really. He might believe that Raph believes it, but he always believes the best in his brothers.

Nice words don’t leave scars like the ones he carries on his hands, and he learned all the wrong lessons for years and years before meeting the people who loved him the right way.

That’s fine. Raph has time. And he also has it on good authority that just one of his hugs could save the world. It is, after all, what his arms are for.

He seizes Gio without warning and hauls him into a crushing embrace. He’d feel bad for waking his little brother up if they weren’t going to wake him in a little bit anyway to try to salvage some pathetic approximation of his semi-regular sleeping schedule. As it is, Leo just groggily crawls away to shove and elbow his way onto the beanbag next to his twin instead and conks right back out again.

Above them, Mikey giggles. In his arms, Gio sighs. But he’s happy, Raph can tell. He knows what it looks like. He knows how to find it.

He hopes whoever he is in the future will still know how to find it.

#*sobbing*#rottmnt #the archer au #rottmnt writing

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