#non-binary donnie realness

[tmntismdoodls]

i have accumulated so many doodles bare with me

t/cst & pr0ship dni

[neoncolorblocks]

Can I ask what your thoughts on transfem Leo? It's one of my favorite headcanons and I was silently hoping you'd make a drawing on the HC or some of your own personal headcanons :)

I actually HC both Donnie and Mikey as non-binary but I haven’t pinned down what I feel about Raph or Leo yet.

I’m a bit biased toward male presenting Leo bc his character really helped me feel better about my own views on gender. But I’m all for anyone having fun and their own interpretations of characters, I understand transfem Leo means a lot to many people in the fandom. So I try to design the turtles with an even balance between male and female presenting traits. Like giving them all eyelashes for example.

Honestly though it’s kinda hard for me to think of a female turtle that wouldn’t look the same as the TMNT. Venus in my AU just looks like the turtle tots do bc real life turtles just don’t have many differences at a young age. Also I may or may not have implied that the cloak my older Leo design wears is just a split skirt around his shoulders… I haven’t found a way to make skirts look decent on my turtles yet..

Leo’s perfect no matter the gender presentation tho it’s just a fact.

[crypticpaw]

Do you have any headcanons for the ROTTMNT guys?

OMG, DO I?!? I have lots, actually!

Leo:

Gay. A fruit. CEO of the skiddle squad. Queerest of all the turtles combined

Donnie's twin and the youngest between them, only older than Mikey

Has really bad insomnia, especially after the movie and the stuff with the Kraang, because of nightmares

Took spanish classes with Señor Hueso just because he though it was cool, but now whenever he gets into an argument with someone he just starts speaking spanish and nobody can understand him

Absolute gossip king, wants to know everything about everyone and if you have any secrets whatsoever, Leo will find out about it, whether you like it or not

On the same note, he's an amazing secret keeper. If you directly ask him to not tell anyone, he won't

That doesn't aply to his own crushes, he will gush and sigh like an idiot under some love-spell, kicking up his legs with his face all red

Red-Eared Sliders actually hiss and huff whenever they get angry, and Leo does too

Dating Usagi

Donnie:

Non-Binary and Bisexual, he/him pronouns

Leo's twin and the oldest between them, only younger than Raph

Sensory seeker autistic with a special interest in technology, but knows about biology too

Also very invested in gossip, will listen to whatever stories Leo brings and add his own too. Donnie, however, could not keep a secret if his life depended on it

The one who actually met April. He was out collecting trash and scraps for his inventions and she followed him, they've been bestest of friends ever since

Pettiest turtle you will ever meet in your life. Seriously, do not piss him off, he will take revenge and you will regret it for the rest of your life

Tried drawing his eyebrows on his skin when he was a tot and had a very bad sensory ick, like, a full shut-down. So he started drawing them on his bandana instead

Sleeps cuddled with Sheldon like he's a stuffed animal

Has the voice of an angel. For real, this guy can sing like a rockstar, sometimes sings outloud as a stim and his brothers just gather around him to hype him up because Donnie is just THAT good!

Raph:

Transgender boy who loves to dress in a more femine style. Paints his nails and knows everything about makeup

Oldest of all the brothers

Has the biggest collection of stuffed animals in New York. They all have names, backstories, personalities and outfits he likes to dress them up with

Roars. Actual, loud, bellowing roars. When Raph let out his first roar as a little tot, Splinter actually thought there was a monster in the lair

Accidentally hurt their father one day while training and cried about it for weeks on end, feels terrible about it to this day

Solves all his problems with his sharp teeth, the power of his bite can crush a grown man in half like a twig

Raph actually has lost a lot of teeth because of this. Donnie had to replace a lot of them and you know he asked for a little extra sharp gold tooth that peeks out of his mouth sometimes

Loves swimming, will toss himself in the nearest body of water that looks deep enough for him, spends the most time in the bath out of all the turtles

Will stop to pet every single dog he sees walking down the streets, even if it's in the middle of a mission

Mikey:

Aroace royalty who don't need no romance!

Youngest of all the brothers

Diagnosed ADHD. Has comited arson and will do it again

His room is covered in stickers and posters from floor to roof, it's diffucult to tell where the walls or doors are

Misses Karai the most. He got so quickly attached to her, sometimes Mikey dreams that she's still there and when he wakes up and realises she's not, he tries to go back to sleep only to start crying

If you ever gift him something you made with your own hands, like a hand-written letter, card, DIY project, he will absolutely die for you no questions asked

An actual contorcionist. Will pull the most mind-blowing circus move you've ever seen in your life mid-battle like it's nothing. This boy has no bones, the most athletic of all his brothers

The first to really reach full potential of his powers and has the better control of it out of the whole family

Also, all of them can retrach into their shells, all of them! I don't know why only Mikey got to do that in the actual show!

[drakkensystem]

My Personal Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Headcanons

Section 1: They're all queer as fuck

Part 1: All of the turtles are trans/genderqueer in some fashion

Real life facts: For most turtle species- including alligator snapping turtles, box turtles, and red-eared sliders but NOT including softshells (we'll get around to ol' Donnie boy in a minute) you can determine the sex of an individual by looking at the shape of their plastron (aka chest/stomach).

Males always have concave (inward curving) plastrons

Females' plastrons are convex (outward curving), flat, or bumpy. For most species the shape varies from individual to individual, but female plastrons are never concave.

Tldr: concave (inward curving) plastrons = biologically male; any other plastron shape = biologically female

Now, let's look at our 3 (non-softshell) boys' plastrons

First, Raph

Raph's plastron is flat with a bump on top (aka, not concave). Therefore he is AFAB (or should I say AFAH- assigned female at hatching?).

Now I headcanon that he is a binary trans man. When Raph was very young, Splinter realized that Raph didn't like something about his deadname so he asked him about it and eventually got the turtle tot to admit that it felt wrong for him, that it felt more like a girl's name. To which Splinter said, "Are you not a girl?"/genuine and Raph said no, he feels more like a boy. So Splinter was like, "ah, my mistake. I guess you need a boy name then- how about Raphael?" (this would match the Renaissance name he gave his other son) The little turtle thought very hard for a moment. It felt right. "Raph likes that name". Splinter chuckles "Raphael it is"

Then when Donnie and/or Leo had trouble remembering to not use his deadname (Mikey was just learning to talk at the time, so she only ever remembers Raph's name being Raph), Raph would subtly remind them by referring to himself in the 3rd person, and after a while the habit stuck.

Speaking of his brothers:

Mikey, the youngest but the second one to change names and come out.

Here is Mikey's plastron

Flat = Not concave = Mikey is also AFAH.

I said "come out" but Mikey has always known that he was neither a girl or a boy, but rather- both? Or neither? Honestly she doesn't bother to try to figure it out and usually just identifies as "queer as ginger beer, baby!". If pressed for more details about his gender she shrugs and says "genderfluid". Mikey uses mirror pronouns.

When Leo began teasing Mikey about how girly her deadname was (Leo dealing with his own gender dysphoria in an unhealthy way, as per typical of the slider) Mikey decided to change his name for 2 reasons 1)on some unconscious level she understood why Leo was teasing her about the name and he thought if he had a different one it would make Leo less uncomfortable and 2)she was in the middle of a hyperfixation on (the Renaissance artist) Michaelangelo's art and the idea of being named after one of the best artists of all time made him do a happy-stim dance. Incidentally, Mikey is the only one who doesn't care whether anyone knows his deadname (it's Kitsu- a Japanese name meaning "tangerine/orange" because "you bring the sweetness and brightness of this sunny fruit into our lives every day")

Splinter found out that Mikey wanted to change her name and, not having any kind of concept of genders beyond male and female, (and thinking back to his experience with his eldest) came to the conclusion that Mikey was a boy. Mikey tried to explain it to him once, but when Splinter's eyes glazed over Mikey decided she didn't care if his Dad thought of her as a weird kind of boy.

He once had a phase where she decided he wanted to come up with his own neopronouns and landed on "orangeh/orangir/orangehs" (pronounced identically to the english words "orange", "oranger" and "oranges"). Honestly Mikey only kept it up for as long as orangeh did to see the twitch on Donnie's face every time Splinter forced the softshell to use the correct pronouns for his little brother ("But those are ALREADY REAL WORDS with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MEANING!" "Nuh-uh, I made new ones! :P" "They are pronounced EXACTLY THE SAME!" "Purple, respect your brother's gender identity and call him what he- I mean Orange- wants to be called or I'm taking away your soldering iron for a week!" "GAAURAGH! FiiINE! I will use orangehs DUM-DUM little words to refer to orangir even though orangeh is only doing it to annoy me >:( !!" *Mikey grins smugly*)

Incidentally, this was when Splinter started referring to them by their colors because his neurodivergent ass had trouble remembering to not use his sons' deadnames and if the pronouns were going to change too? That was more than he could handle. But Splinter was dead-set (get it ;) on respecting their gender identities so colors it is (thank God he had already color-coordinated them)

Ah, Leo. Leo Leo Leo

As we can see here, Leo's plastron is not concave, ergo he is also AFAH (also biologically male red-eared sliders' markings often fade as they reach adulthood and their skin produces more melanin, while biologically female sliders retain the same bright coloring they had as hatchlings. But since some male sliders don't get darker skin, we're not going to count this as proof of his gender assigned at hatching. Evidence? yes. But proof? No)

When Raphael came out to their dad, Leo became extremely jealous of his older brother because of Raph's name change because of the extra attention Raph got from their Dad. And, ironically, this only made the red-eared slider firmer in his insistence that he wasn't an "icky boy :P"- he was NOT (!) going to copy his older brother even though he kinda wanted to.

So Leo dealt with his gender dysphoria in other ways -

becoming ultra-competitive ("just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't cream you, DonTon!" "Bring it on then, twin sister" *Leo just gives a wordless scream of rage*)

teasing every single one of his siblings about gender stuff every chance he can (except Raph- the first time Leo implied that Raph wasn't a "real boy" Raph ran off crying and Leo was grounded for a month- with no pizza)

developing that characteristic, deflectingly cocky personality

when things were really bad he became aggressively angry (when this happened he usually got it out by sparring with Raph or Donnie no, not because Leo's jealous, why would he be jealous

When Mikey changed his name, at first Leo became insanely jealous found Mikey to be even more annoying than usual until one day Dr Feelings, in her first ever appearance (*internally* "I only changed my name in the first place to try to make Leo feel better, but now Leo's feeling even more upset! Wait, that's it- feelings. I'll be Dr Feelings") , told Leo that if he was so jealous of Mikey and Raph changing their names, why didn't he just change his?

An argument ensued with Dr Feelings trying to get Leo to tell him what's wrong until finally Leo blurts out:

"Because! It's not like it would stop everyone from calling me a girl anyway!"

"...But if you asked us to we would"

*one existential crisis later*

"Raph, Donnie, Mikey: I have an important announcement to make... I'm not a girl, I'm a boy and my name isn't [deadname] it's Leonardo"

"Did you pick that because you wanted to match how the rest of us are named after famous artists?"

"Or because Michelangelo's greatest rival was Leonardo Da Vinci? :D"

*His twin knew it was because he was going through a Leonardo DiCaprio fixation but other than giving his brother in blue a smirk, Donnie kept his mouth shut*

*sweating* "...Yes, of course that's why"

Raph took it upon himself to make sure that Splinter knew to respect Leo's new name and pronouns and the family has never looked back.

Now, let's swing back around to the autistic softshell.

Now, softshell plastrons are not sexually dimorphic in shape (tangent - is it actually sexual dimorphism when it is actually directly related to mating?) Anyway, our best metric here is shell pattern.

The pattern on a biologically female spiny softshell's carapace (back shell) will change as she reaches sexual maturity. Male spiny softshells retain their hatchling pattern their whole lives.

So, let's look at DonDon's shell pattern as a hatchling and as a teenager.

Donnie's shell still has the same basic pattern it did when he was a baby, so he must have been amah. But don't let those he/him pronouns fool you: Donnie is non-binary.

When his older brother Raph admitted to their dad that he felt more like a boy than a girl and then Splinter gave Raphael a new name, it set gears turning in little Donnie's head.

Donnie asked Raph about his feelings regarding gender and then had a conversation with Splinter- ostensibly to explain why he should call Raph "Raph" and how someone who (from Donnie's perspective) used to be a girl was now a boy. In actuality of course, our little scientist was gathering data about gender and how gender works.

His conclusion? More data is necessary.

So he watches his other siblings. He sees how Leo seems obsessed with gender and is also just, kinda angry, like all the time. He notices how Papá begins to use he/him pronouns for Mikey.

Then when he sees Leo's impassioned coming out speech, he finally arrives at a few conclusions:

1)Your gender is not necessarily tied to your physical sex (and the people who think otherwise are dum-dums whom he will keep away from his siblings at all costs)

2)Some people have very strong feelings about gender.

3)These people's strong feelings about gender are what determines whether they are a boy or a girl

4)Therefore, since he doesn't have strong feelings of being a boy or a girl, he must be neither.

5) Since he's not a girl he sees no point in changing his name and/or pronouns - honestly it would just confuse Papá and besides, with things as they are, he and his brothers' names are all matching.

When Donnie gets exposure to the queer community on the internet he finds out about nonbinary genders ("ah, an explanation for Mikey's confusing babbling about gender") and then xenogenders and suddenly everything clicks into place.

Donnie begins to quietly collect gender labels into a super-encrypted, password protected for-Donnie's-eyes-only document: slowly at first (if he isn't 100% sure that it vibes, he doesn't add it to the document). But then eventually Mikey's carefree attitude about gender rubs off enough that he begins adding anything that vaguely fits (this, of course, necessitates turning his list into a table so that he can add another parameter for each entry- namely, how much does it apply- and then organize them by said metric)

If you ask him what his gender is, he has a spectrum of responses based on how familiar with xenogenders you are.

0 - "Sure, you can use he/him pronouns for me"- for those who lack the context of there being more than 2 genders (aka, Splinter)

1 - "I'm nonbinary, which means I'm neither fully a boy nor fully a girl but he/him pronouns are fine"

2 - "I'm a xenby (that's xenogender+enby) with some masculinity in my gender identity"

3 - "I am a mascuon neurogender gendercollector. My other lead genders include, but are not limited to: autigender, purplegender, techgender and vibrogender"

4 - literally just shows them his gender-collection document- only 2 people have ever had this privilege: Mikey and April. The latter of whom accidentally saw it briefly over his shoulder before even knowing that he's nonbinary/trans, but when she was cool about it made him trust her enough to info-dump about his gender to her (as he does semi-regularly with Mikey when there has been a significant update). Unlike with Mikey, he hasn't info-dumped to April about his gender more than once (she tried, she really did. But she could only pay attention for so long before her eyes started to glaze over)

Some of Donnie's other gender labels include (but are not limited to) darkwebgender, deepwebgender, genderwhat, neurbinary, nesciōgender, rouene, stebaonic, stimgender, void hoarder, xumgender

Queer Headcanon Part 1 | Queer Headcanon Part 2

[lovegal]

Meet Lovegal 💞💓💖💓💋

Lovegal is the account of ✨Gabby✨ (me)

Lovegal is a non binary and has a accent called "Heart ish"

lovegal say words like "meet" to "meat" "you" to "u" "too" to "2" "sweet" to "swet" "what do you mean" to "wdym" etc

lovegals real name is "Lilith" but always pronounce they/them/their real name wrong

lovegal childhood show was ROTMNT Bratz Barbie life in the dream house MLP:Equestria girls teenage mutant ninja turtles and World of Winx

Lovegal childhood fictional character crush was Leo but choose Donnie but starting to have a crush on Donnie Raph and Mikey (except Leo)

Lovegal is a teen (14 - 15) but kinda looks like a adult

Lilith doesn't have a additional crush on Donnie Raph and Mikey

People think Lovegal is "ugly" "trashy" and "ridiculous" but that is not true Lovegal is a bit sensitive, but smart, confident, lively, sweet, Funny, scared, relatable, smellible, nice, kind, caring, excitable, lonely, feminine, and, big - hearted

lovegal favorite color is: 🩷 (pink) ❤️ (red)

Childhood:

Lovegal was full of confidence and was such a optimistic child in the past 🌺🥀🌹💐🌸💮🪷🌷

they/them/their is so flowery and happy go lucky Lilith is a intelligent agree funny kid people would have called they/them/their a ugly piece of trash because how lovegal speaks

in public places lovegal would get bullied all day by children and adults except elderlys and grandchildren those old people would find lovegal really gentle and patient grandchildren would become friends with lovegal Lilith would accept it but the other kids wouldn't as for the teens they would like lovegal better then the children because of they/them/their personality lovegal really loved to greeted everybody but lovegals parents are to overprotective/protective lovegal was always calling people "lovelys" in childhood

🎂🎀🎁🎇🎆🧨🎊🎉 Lovegal was such a pure hearted elementary - aged kid

when lovegal was at the 1st day of school lovegal never wanted to talk to everybody lovegal think they/them/their was so hated so lovegal decided to make a community called "My Lovelys Deserve Better 💖💓💞💞🌺🎂" lovegal would just think everyone else was just a lovely

on the 2nd day of school lovegal was so lonely that the fact lovegal was sitting next with coral and Andrea the "mean girls" would always bullied lovegal a bit by them lovegal is always controlling they/them/their emotions lovegal was a relatable child whenever lovegal meet people with different languages like "Japanese" "Spanish" "Filipino" etc lovegal would be a nice person and the people would enjoy lovegal heart - ish accent lovegal really loves people with different languages better then English people lovegal would never care about how people say lovegal was a "bad kid" but Lovegal isn't Lovegal is really helpful towards elders and grandchildren

❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🤎🖤🩶🤍🩷

lovegal favorite celebrity was Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, Black pink, Melanie Martinez, Taylor swift, Britany Spears, Lovegal really wanted to be them so bad

when Lovegal was watching TMNT they/them/their saw Leo lovegal had a love beat inside of lovegals heart but saw Donnie Raph and Mikey lovegal would have a fluffy love Heart beat lovegal realize that Loving or simping someone is a good idea

🌧️🌩️⛈️🌨️☁️🌦️🌥️⛅🌤️

and Lovegal is a middle - age student now lovegal still has they/them/their personality but always having a beautiful life with a new city at Alexandria, Virginia ever since Lovegals father got a new job.

End of Childhood.

[corinthian-og-begay-docrime]

If you guys are looking for something fun to read Heres some webcomic recommendations

T-POS is one of my favorite webcomics. Its full of a lotta good representation. Its gay as fuck. And sci-fi. Main character is bisexual and disabled. Love interest is gay.

Fluidum. Really good non-binary and gender fluid representation. Its very good. Also sci-fi.

So I was not sure about this one. But its gay As fuck. Its got demons and angles and its very good. A wide variety of queer rep. Its very good.

Gay mermaids. Need I say more?

Main character is non-binary. Lot of good gay rep. Its got a cool concept. Very good

Sci-fi. Main character is trans. Its very gay. I love it a lot. I wasn’t sure at first when I started it but I gave it a chance.

Fantasy. Really good Ace representation. The author is Ace. And so romance is pretty much nonexistent in the story line. Its more building friendships/found family of sorts with this. But its really good.

If y’all got anymore feel free to add them.

[almguav]

yo! Yo! YO! so ya'know how litearly all of science and history says that trans and non binary peeps are real right? Well donnie would absolutely loose his shit on anyone who is being transpbobic to Leo or mikey (or anyone really) (he would also do it to anyone being homophobic, but I like to think about him being protective over his siblings)

omg wait thats actually super cute 🥺😭💖 protective brother don is a really good don qwq

[tangshcn]

2003 donnie & raph?

;0

03 Donnie

1. Sexuality hc

Like all Donnie's, bisexual extraordinaire. He's also non-binary bc I do what I want

2. Otp

Donnie/not being traumatized 🥰💕

3. Brotp

Raph n Donnie dream team forever. Also him and Leatherhead were so 🥺🥺🥺

4.Notp

The gross ones

5. Headcanon

He has really kind eyes, you know the kind of eyes that you look at and you're like "yup I trust you w my life". They're a really dark and deep brown and he's a bit doe eyed

6. A way I relate to this character

I too like to be given my space to do my own thing for hours on end.

7. Thing abt them that gives me second hand embarrassment

The.. spinning bo staff scene.. sweatie...

8. Cinnamon roll or problematic fave

Sinnamon roll

03 Raph

1. Sexuality hc

Transmasc gay. We love a king

2. Otp

Can't think of one rn lmao

3. Brotp

Again, raph-donnie dream team, I'm also fond of Raph and Casey's I'm taking you under my wing now, little man // are you really? // Yes dynamic

4. Notp

Also the gross ones

5. Headcanon

Raph is really into street art, also he really likes stargazing on rooftops

6. A way I relate to this character

Short and mad. No but for real I also often wonder why the fuck did I do that whenever I lose my temper (which admittedly doesn't happen often but yeah 😬)

7. Thing about them that give me second hand embarrassment

I get that it was 2003 but like. Who makes yo mama jokes still

8. Cinnamon roll or problematic fave

Yeah

[spectrumscribe]

to market, to market.

rottmnt gen fic, word count 2,618. contains early morning family routines, mentions of organic foods, nonsense magic, the author’s attempt at vague worldbuilding, and cute teens being semi-responsible.

presenting an rottmnt au i’ve been toying with the past few months and finally started to really figure out! i love human aus that include magic, so... have one for the boys + gal. <3

there’s notes after the ending about the au, and here’s the AO3 Version.

Saturday morning is farmer's market day. That’s been a staple in their home since forever. It’s the best place to buy not just cooking ingredients, but more specialized ingredients, too. From the stalls that are placed between others stalls in hairsbreadth spaces, stalls that no one else but their family and others like them can see.

Raph has always loved walking up to those impossible and amazing market stalls, from the time he was little. They fascinated him, even though their strangeness is commonplace in his life.

His brothers love them, too. They would all clamor at dad to hurry up with the boring shopping so they could go pick out their treats of the day. Curiosities in jars, paints that have brighter pigments than any other, sweets made with the soul essence of a sunny summer day or a cold winter’s eve- all those and a hundred other odds and bobs they can’t ever get enough of, even now.

Of course, this doesn’t make it any easier to get everyone going on a lazy Saturday morning.

Since their pops has made it very clear he’s not moving for love or good groceries today, no one even bothers to try dragging him out of bed. Instead, Mikey, who is always the first up unless Donnie just straight up didn’t sleep the whole night, shuffles into Raph’s bedroom shortly after his alarm clock goes off.

“Ged’up,” Mikey says blearily, leaning his weight on Raph’s stomach. Raph in turn groans tiredly, unwilling to move even though he knows they have to. All the good shit will be gone before noon, probably before eleven to be honest.

“What if we just… not eat for a few days?” Raph asks, not opening his eyes just yet. He just wants to sleep, just a few more hours…

“You’d probs eat one’a us if we didn’t get groceries,” Mikey replies. He yawns, and then says, “C’mon. We gotta get more meat n’ veggies an’ you were the one who made the dumb list for ‘em anyway. You want the good steaks to already be sold out by the time we get there?”

“…No. Hhhn… ‘kay, I’m comin’.”

“Good. I’m gonna go get the waffles goin’. You get the other two.”

After Mikey’s left, Raph sits up slowly, sighing as his bones shift and creak. His eyes sting with sleepiness, and as he rubs at them, Raph feels the slide of an extra eyelid opening and closing. He feels around inside himself, finding the remnants of a feline being enticing him back to sleep, complaining that he should be sleeping much, much longer than this, he’d been out most of the night and now it was nap time right now until it was time to hunt again…

Raph shakes himself, realizing he forgot to tuck that spirit back into his core all the way. He’d tired himself out last night, giving into how the late spring evening tugged at his therianthropy magic and having an adventure in the darkness, alive with the senses and joy of creatures that were at home there.

Breathing in, breathing out, Raph dispels the effects of that animal and feels less like he needs to curl up in his bed to sleep again.

It still sucks to get out from under his warm blankets and leave his bedroom to meet the day.

Leo’s room is the closest, so Raph wanders into his second brother’s bedroom first. He steps around the piles of clothes and stacks of books and an old spell circle carved into the floor, taking a seat on the end of Leo’s bed and shaking his brother by the leg.

“Leo. Dude. Up and at ‘em, we got grocery shopping to do.”

Leo groans pitifully, rolling onto his other side and scrunching himself against his silk pillow. “No… I don’t wanna go. You an’ Mike go, you don’t need… me…”

“It’s a group trip, Leon. No take-backsies for agreeing to it yesterday.”

Leo cracks one eye open, dark irises showing reluctance at waking fully. He then smiles, speaking as he does. “Raph… I don’t have to go to the farmer’s market… you and Mikey can handle it just fine without me… and you’ll bring back my favorite honey cookies, too…”

The warm lilt and tune of Leo’s voice almost gets to Raph, coaxing the suggestions to take over and erase his original purpose to being here. Except, Raph knows this feeling, knows he doesn’t have to listen and how to stop listening, and he pulls on a creature he rarely does. Pupils shifting, teeth molding together into three points, and a malleability to his skin spreading across it. He focuses the changes on his ears, the world’s volume lowering and Leo’s voice becoming fainter and fainter until it’s gone.

Raph waits for Leo to notice the change. His brother keeps trying to spell him a while longer, silent mouth rambling who knows what at Raph to get him to go away. It’s only when Leo opens his eyes again that he notes the gently glowing patterns emerging over Raph’s dark skin.

He scowls, saying something Raph can’t hear. Raph grins with his beak-teeth.

“Can’t hear you,” he says, not sure how clear his speech is right now, but he doesn’t really care. “Just get up and get downstairs before we eat all the eggos.”

He doesn’t have to hear his brother to know Leo mumbles a (non-magical) curse and puts his face into his pillow. Raph rolls his eyes and stands up, patting Leo’s back before he leaves. Raph rescinds the cephalopod spirit that’s made his bones less than solid, moving onto the next sibling he has to wake as his humanity takes full hold again.

The room is a disaster of Donnie-organization as usual, projects scattered everywhere with scrap notes in code taped to the wall haphazardly. Plus, Donnie is sleeping weird again. He’s ended up the wrong way around on his bed, feet on his pillow and head under the covers. Going by the nearby still open laptops with their sleep mode lights blinking, Donnie stumbled into bed after doing something or other far longer than he should have.

Raph peels the blankets off the second eldest of their family. Donnie’s lost his shirt at some point, revealing the spiralling seals on his back that keep his strength-sapping blood curse at bay. Thankfully, when they visit city pools, no one but other inhumans can see the tattoos. Otherwise, they’d probably get stopped every five seconds by some concerned parent who’s freaked out that a fourteen year old has them.

“Donnie,” Raph says, bending down and putting himself at eyelevel with his brother’s sleeping face. “Hey, hey Donnie. Wake up, dude. We’re going to the farmer’s market today, ‘member?”

Donnie doesn’t open his eyes, instead mumbling out, “01000110 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110011.”

It’s always weird to hear that- how Donnie will say codes aloud but without actually sounding out how the numbers should be pronounced. Like it’s being beamed right into your brain or something. Raph is used to it enough he ignores the oddity of Donnie’s mix-up, reaching over to shake him. “Don, you know none’a us speak binary. Human languages only, please.”

With arduous effort, Donnie slurs out, “Ffffffive more minutesss…”

“I’ll give you ten seconds.”

“Noooo…”

Raph gets Donnie upright on his bed before he leaves. It takes shoving his brother’s favorite iPad into his hands and turning it on, letting the sentience Donnie has nurtured into existence in it finish waking its creator up.

Downstairs, Raph wanders into the kitchen with a yawn, having put on jeans that are mostly clean and an old t-shirt that smells like their home. He has to pull up short before he gets to the fridge, waiting for tiny flying dragons to finish carrying the butter from the counter. Following their path, a pair of large butterflies carries the syrup with their little feet towards the table.

There’s… also a child sized bipedal cat with three eyes and cowboy boots collecting the freshly popped eggos onto a plate. It glances at Raph briefly, nodding with a respectful but mysterious cat’s smile.

Raph blinks slowly, and lets it slide. Whatever Mikey has been conjuring lately, he never asks how his littlest brother came up with the ideas.

However, he can’t let slide him opening the fridge and getting a flurry of sparrow sized winged shrimp to the face.

“Fff- Mikey!” Raph snaps, turning to glare at his brother in the dining room on the other side of the counter. He shoos the remaining shrimp away from his head, feeling a tinge of the feline from earlier wanting to swat and bite them.

“Oops,” Mikey says sheepishly, holding out his arms for his creations to alight on him. They flap their wings and nuzzle their illustrare witch with their long antennae. “I was kinda wonderin’ where these guys got to last night. Guess they wanted to hang out with the real shrimp or something?”

Raph has been awake for all of fifteen minutes, and he feels tired again.

“…Please put them away, at least for breakfast.”

“Can do.”

Mikey’s sketchbook of the day, left on the far end of the table away from the syrup, flies open, pages flapping wildly. The shimpbirds become blurred and flat, losing their solidness and whisking through the air in streams of color. The sketchbook sucks them all back onto its pages, and then snaps shut again as Mikey’s magic fades.

Raph opens the fridge again, this time able to grab the apple juice without assault by flying decapods.

Leo and Donnie come into the kitchen not long after, dressed and slightly more awake. They take their share of the eggos from the plate Mikey’s conjured cat offers them, unbothered by the puss-in-boots knock off serving them, or by it turning into a stream of color to return to its sketchbook right after.

As they’re eating the first half of their breakfast- the next will be bought at the market, giving into the temptation of fresh baked goods sold there- Donnie’s phone gets a text.

“01000001 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101100 0010000001110111 01100001 01101110 01110100 01110011 0010000001110100 01101111 0010000001110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100001,” it cheers at the top of its speakers, and everyone but Donnie covers their ears.

“They said April wants to meet us,” Donnie clarifies for all the non-technopaths in the room.

Leo rubs his temples, sighing at his twin. “That’s great, but Donnie, please tell your devices to stop doing that so early in the morning. Or at any time of the day?”

Donnie’s phone makes a screeching sound.

“They said ‘fuck off’,” Donnie translates, sipping his coffee.

Leo gives the little device a confusedly miffed look.

“Guys, guys,” Mikey says, making calming gestures, “we got places to be, newts and cabbages to buy. We don’t got time for breakfast fights with technology.”

Raph takes over the peacemaking, reinforcing it by saying, “Donnie, if you wanna talk with your tech, use headphones. Leo, get earplugs if you really gotta.”

The two middle children give each other a long look, before mutually and silently agreeing the fight isn’t one worth having and going back to being stalwart allies. Raph and Mikey exchange their own looks, silently thanking one another for helping defuse the situation before it became one.

Donnie arranges with April to meet them on the way to the market, and reminds their best friend to wear her enchanted choker so she can see what they do. She starts a group text to remind them in turn that she’s literally hasn’t taken it off since they gave it to her, and that she’s reminding them to not forget the spelled cloth bags they’ll need for the abnormal ingredients.

Raph sheepishly texts back a thank you for the reminder while Mikey hunts said bags down. They’re in Leo’s room this time around, having been left there after their family’s silvertongue witch went shopping for new spellwork inks.

They leave a plate of saran wrapped eggos with a note for their dad on the counter, since he’ll probably drag himself out of bed at some point close to noon. Better to have waiting food than to get a grumpy call from their hungry dad who wants someone to bring him home a complicated takeout meal.

April is waiting for them on a corner halfway to the market, leaning on a stop sign and scrolling through something her phone. Probably one of the chats on the supernatural enthusiast sites she follows. Sometimes they all have a good laugh over the ridiculous misconceptions people have about the inhuman members of society, and other times they get a heads up of which parts of the city to avoid for a while. It’s worth it to keep tabs on what the humans notice about NYC; there’s always the off chance someone really has seen a wayward rabid ghoul or a summons gone feral that’s entered the territory.

“Morning,” April greets pleasantly, perky as she pleases even though she probably slept less than all of them, excluding Donnie. Somehow- and they’re still trying to prove it is a supernatural gift- April is always, always energetic and awake, no matter how long or little she’s rested.

Leo eyes the half a bacon and eggs wrap she has in her hands, and he sidles up to her, grinning slyly. “April,” he says melodically, “that wrap looks like too much for you, you’re already too full to finish it, right? I can take it off your hands, don’t worry. I’ll do it as a favor to you.”

“Nice try, Leon,” April says, sneakily tugging on his long braids as revenge for the attempted charming. “You and I both know I can finish this and another three if I wanted.”

“One day,” Leo says with a pout as he yanks himself away from April’s light grip, “I’ll prove that you’re not completely human, because you are way too tiny to eat as much as you do.”

April smirks and bites into her breakfast wrap, ignoring the begging look Leo gives her.

“You’re both makin’ me hungry again,” Raph complains, and starts herding his family along the sidewalk. “C’mon, keep moving or I’ll pick you up and carry you.”

Mikey perks up. “Actually-”

He doesn’t even have to finish. Raph bends without a word, and his little brother hops onto him for a piggyback to the market. The sharpie scarabs he doodled onto his arms yesterday flutter their wings and take flight as they go, buzzing around their group swiftly and quietly, shining iridescently black in the morning sun and invisible to humans passing by. Leo whistles a brief tune at a few and convinces them to land on his hands, petting their carapace gently as possible. Donnie ignores them and shakes them off when they land on his short hair, while April sputters as one flies at her glasses out of curiosity for their reflectiveness.

Raph feels something slithery and cool slide into his ponytail of thin dreadlocks, and just sighs and lets it happen. Apparently, Mikey drew another collection of snakes somewhere on himself, too.

The market is bustling as they get there, the human community intermingling with the supernatural community without noticing. Early morning shoppers are walking around with bags bursting with produce and homemade creations- ranging from organically grown carrots to knitted summoning dolls, the faces of unspeakable beings peering out along with stalks of celery.

An average Saturday shopping crowd, then.

Raph and his family aren’t noticed in the least as they join it.

so i spent a long while poking at the idea of the brothers having magical abilities in a witch au (splinter too, but i haven’t learned enough about him in canon yet to decide properly) and came up with these possible types that make sense to me! 

(disclaimer: spec is not the person to ever ask about real magic. i just do whatever the hell i want with it in my writing because yo, it’s magic!!!)

raph has shapeshifting magic, drawing on internal power and connections with creatures he’s interacted with to change his body to fit the abilities of animals. inspired thusly bc he has nice pointy teeth in canon and bc he reminds me (’cause he’s Big) of Jin from Ran and the Grey World.

donnie can communicate with and manipulate technology. unless he withholds it, any piece of machinery he works with will a) never break down again, b) mysteriously always seem like new after you’ve taken it to him for repairs, and c) might potentially develop something of a sentience if he gets really invested in the projects. most of his personal computers have sassy little personalities now.

leo, so long as he believes wholeheartedly in what he’s saying, can change bits of reality just by talking it into doing so. if he recites poetry he made himself with enough intention to a stick, he could convince it to become a sword, or tell an alleyway to become a dead end to someone. mostly though, he just uses his magic to convince people of little things, like giving him a discount at the store, or letting him copy off someone’s homework.

mikey can give temporary life to artwork, be it sketches or paintings or murals or pottery or etc. by drawing on the devotion and emotion the artists put into the pieces. he mostly uses his own art, but since he’s got more magical juice/potential in him than all his brothers combined, if he’s pushed to it he could bring life to one of those massive murals on the sides of apartment complexes. mostly he just likes making little friends, though, haha.

april is purely human, but can and has gone toe to toe with supernatural beings and kicked their asses. she’s never had any trouble keeping up with her witch buddies, and they, of course, love their semi-adopted big sister being around as much as she loves them being with her.

uhhhhh... more to come of this at some point? zshrug, i hope other people here love witches too.

(also... pls consider buying me a kofi.... i promise i shall reward the gift with frequent fics...)