theres a direct line from splinter’s parenting flaws/issues to the fact that raph’s overall series struggle is feeling like he personally needs to be responsible for protecting his family/carrying them, feels that it all stops with him, that he can’t turn to anyone else to help him with it, to the fact that hes acted as a parent to his own brothers, that he grew up too fast
every day i mourn that rise didn’t get time for a raph-splints ep that might dig into that even a little bit tbh
(i am not a rise splinter hater ftr i love him. i am Not about ppl trying to exaggerate him into being abusive and awful when the truth of the character and his mistakes-- and his growth and active work to improve-- is way more nuanced. he has very real flaws/traumas/issues and makes very real mistakes that impact all of his sons, this just fascinates me)
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(( Since its the dash topic right now:
Miranda has a strict regimen of birth control that she’s been placed on and will remain on until she’s been properly married and the time has come to have heirs. Until that point, she can’t go off of it, because it’s maintained by the Merkingdom and doing so before ordained by them could be seen as potentially questionable behavior that takes the rest of her rule into question.
This is primarily for the prevention of bastards — any royal that’s caught with a bastard child, had with anyone who they are not properly wedded to, is a massive black mark on their record. Other royals highly prize the sheer blackmail potential of the existence of a bastard and would absolutely use the, intentional or accidental, weakening of another noble family’s inheriting line to their full benefit. Royals are incredibly eager to stab each other in the back, and the existence of a bastard child is practically a target painted onto their back.
This is bad enough when it’s a bastard child between two royals, but it’s far worse when it’s a bastard child between a royal and a non-royal. The more powerful the royal’s station, the lesser the non-royal, and the stronger the blackmail material, and the stronger the potential repercussions of having made a bastard.
Because of this, if a royal has a bastard, chances are that they don’t know about it. If a royal does come across the information that they have a bastard child somewhere in the world, who potentially could claim inheritance of their family line but was not claimed by said family line at their birth, then their first and immediate move will be killing said child. There’s too much at risk to let them to live, and they’ll often murder the family and community of the bastard child as well, just to make sure that their tracks are fully covered and no one finds out about this. It’s too dangerous to let them live, and it’s too dangerous to let anyone know.
Because of this, if communities discover that one of the children within them is the bastard child of a royal, well...
While there are certainly communities and families that will happily welcome a child in, even a child who was born of a royal, and will swear themselves to secrecy and promise to keep them safe — they aren’t a majority, and it’s easy to see why. A bastard child puts them all at risk, implicating all of them in the political games that royals play, and the commonfolk seldom get out ahead in these games. There are other children too, other people, other lives put at risk, all because of this single action, and they all know what the wrath of a royal looks like. They all know how painful and brutal those deaths can be, and they know entire communities have been wholly wiped off the map because of this.
Oftentimes, if a community discovers one of their members has had a bastard child of a royal, they’ll turn that member and bastard child in. Whether to the Merkingdom, or to a competing royal who is all too eager for blackmail and willing to offer protection in turn, or to the royal parent themselves — it seldom ever works out as fully intended, but it’s still better than the alternative for most of the communities who do it.
Even children between two royals who are properly married to each other that aren’t fully planned out and arranged to be born ahead of their conception aren’t immune to this backlash either. The royals take the manner of inheritance and their family lines seriously, and implicating themselves as not taking their duties seriously and having full responsibility to hold onto their title is not only dangerous for what the consequences could be, but also dangerous for how other royals will react.
The hierarchy of royals within the Merkingdom shifts constantly, and holding onto what control they have is a deadly and tricky game.
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I want to be a man, but like, non traditionally. I want to be a guy whose a girl but I wear guy hat so well. Like, I'm such a girl but only in the way i fit. Call me a girl but know that boy is my last name. I love my assigned stuff, like, yeah this vagina and these tits are cool but also I don't identify with it? No yeah, I appreciate them, just not in a traditional womanly sense. I treat my innie genital, talk about it, as if its my dick but also a hole is a hole, and I'm a guy sometimes dammit.
It's not fair. I'm venting and stuff and it's not well articulated but that's just how my feelings are. Trust me, treat me like a boy just accept that I've got this body, but also, treat my like a girl whose just a guy. Why can't it be simple. And also, you perceive yourself with a nkt easily explained complex identity? In this economy? With your mother?
Idk anymore. No one else thinks like this probably. I don't want to change my body, but if I like masculinity, to be like tat, I feel like I owe it to myself to follow thru. Like, if I don't change or modify, I won't actually be able to call myself, 'not completely a girl'. Fuck that.
I'm going to kill myself or something it's top bright out to have thoughts like this.
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