A/N: This is my first time writing for the ‘87 cartoon turtles! I wanted to channel a bit of the absurd silliness of the show, so I let the headcanons be a lil’ goofier than usual. (PS - Watch the Red Sky seasons if you want to see these guys be more serious and face dangerous situations!)
Enjoy! 😊
CWs: Though these HCs are mostly lighthearted, I’ll still be warning for trespassing/breaking & entering (lockpicking, bypassing security, etc.), minor property damage, implied theft, hacking electronics, and use of store inventory without paying first. All characters are aged-up.
LEO
Leo treats an after-hours mall date like a high-stakes infiltration mission, which makes it absolutely hilarious because he’s trying so hard to be a smooth boyfriend while maintaining ninja discipline.
He maps out the mall’s security guard patrol routes on a blueprint beforehand. He slips through the skylight, drops down gracefully, and offers you his hand with a dramatic, breathless, “The coast is clear, my love.”
He takes you to the sporting goods store. He wants to show off his form with the display baseball bats or golf clubs, treating it like katana training. If you laugh, his face goes bright red under his mask.
He finds a photo booth. He insists you two take pictures together, but he refuses to take off his trench coat and fedora, resulting in a strip of photos where he looks like a cartoon detective trying to sneak a kiss from you.
RAPH
Raph acts like he’s way too cool for the mall, but he secretly loves having the whole place to yourselves because he can hold your hand without worrying about a crowd staring at him.
He picks the lock on the back service doors in three seconds flat, turning to the “camera” to whisper, “Don’t try this at home, kids.”
He takes you straight to the department store to mock the ridiculous 80s fashion mannequins. He’ll grab a neon-pink boa or an oversized pair of shutter shades, put them on, and strike a dramatic pose to make you laugh.
You pull him into a giant candy store. He pretends to be annoyed when you start a playful war by tossing jellybeans at him, but he immediately fires back by using his sai like tongs to launch sour bricks at you with perfect ninja accuracy. He ends up breaking the fourth wall to say, “Hey, at least we’re paying for these … eventually.”
DONNIE
For Donnie, an empty mall is a playground of consumer electronics. He doesn’t just want to walk around; he wants to make the mall work for you.
He doesn’t sneak past security; he overrides the entire mall’s central computer system from a maintenance panel.
He brings the entire place to life just for you. He turns on the giant decorative mall fountains, programs the neon lights over the food court to flash your favorite colors, and hacks the PA system to play a soft, cheesy 80s synth ballad so he can awkwardly ask you to dance.
You two head to a tech store. He spends the night souping up the display massage chairs to give you the “ultimate relaxation experience,” only for his modifications to cause the chair to start vibrating violently and rolling down the mall corridor with you in it.
MIKEY
Mikey is in his element. A mall at night is his literal dream come true, and he treats you like royalty in his neon kingdom.
He skateboards right through the glass doors after Donnie unlocks them, shouting a hushed “Cowabunga!” that echoes loudly through the empty corridors.
You spend the entire night at the arcade. He uses a paperclip and a magnet to trick the token machines, giving you a literal bucket of infinite tokens. He lets you win at air hockey, but he goes absolutely feral trying to beat the high score on the dance machine to impress you.
He raids the food court’s pizza place. Even though the store is closed, he finds the leftover ingredients in the fridge and uses the commercial ovens to bake you a “Gourmet Mall Special”—which turns out to be a pizza topped entirely with crushed-up cheese balls and cinnabon frosting. He looks at you with puppy-dog eyes, begging you to take a bite.
Dealing With SO’s Major Career or Life Failure (2007)
💚 2007 Turtles/Gender Neutral Reader 💚
A/N: The 2007 movie line-up went through so much trauma, and I really wanted to explore how they’d use their own rock-bottom moments to pull you out of yours.
Enjoy! 😊
CWs: Discussions of failure & burnout, emotional exhaustion, crying/breakdowns, mentions of canon trauma, and mild mentions of anger & aggression. All characters are aged-up.
LEO
“I spent a year in the jungle trying to find myself because I thought I had failed my family. The hardest lesson I learned is that falling down isn’t the end of the story. We breathe, we reset, and we figure out tomorrow together.”
Because Leo carried the crushing weight of feeling like a failure during his exile in Central America—and experienced the harsh reality of returning home only to find his family fractured—he views your failure not as an end, but as a severe storm that you simply must weather.
He’s incredibly calm, but it’s a protective, deliberate calm. If you’re crying, venting, or sitting in stunned silence, he won’t force you to talk. He’ll make a pot of tea, wrap a blanket around your shoulders, and sit right next to you.
He knows the dangerous spiral of tying your entire identity to your success. He will gently remind you that this failure does not define your worth.
He becomes your tactical coordinator for life. Once the initial shock wears off, he will help you break down your next steps into small, manageable daily goals.
RAPH
“Hey. Look at me. Screw them, okay? They don’t see what you’re capable of, but I do. You’re allowed to be pissed off. Just don’t you dare start thinking you’re not enough. Let me carry the weight for a bit.”
Raph spent a long time drowning in bitterness, feeling abandoned, and channeling his disappointment into violent vigilantism. When you experience a major life failure, his immediate internal reaction is a protective, simmering rage at the world for hurting you.
He also wants to punch whatever or whoever caused this. If it’s a toxic boss, a canceled contract, or a failed exam, he’s pacing the room, cracking his knuckles, and aggressively validating your anger. He wants you to get mad instead of letting sadness consume you.
He hates seeing the people he loves feel small or helpless. He knows how easy it is to let failure turn into hatred, and he wants to shield you from that poison.
He provides a safe space for your rawest, ugliest emotions. If you need to scream, cry, or smash cheap plates in an alleyway, he’ll provide the plates. Later, he’ll pull you into a big hug, burying his face in your hair.
DONNIE
“Take all the time you need to just … exist. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. The world out there is messy, but in here? You’re safe. Let me take care of things for a while.”
Donnie once swallowed his pride and took a mundane tech-support job to pay the bills while the family drifted apart. He understands the quiet, humiliating sting of having to compromise your dreams and feeling intellectually or professionally stifled.
His heart absolutely breaks for you. He won’t try to offer aggressive motivation like Raph or philosophical advice like Leo; instead, he hyper-focuses on your comfort and creating a stress-free environment.
He knows how exhausting it is to put on a brave face when you feel like you’re failing. He wants his lab or your apartment to be a place where the expectations of the outside world completely cease to exist.
He takes over your logistics. He’ll silently handle your chores, cook your favorite meals, and set up a quiet space for you. If you want a distraction, he’ll pull up a chair next to his desk and let you watch him work, talking in a low, soothing voice about boring tech specs just to give your mind a break.
MIKEY
“I know it feels like everything is ruined right now, and it sucks. It really, really sucks. But you’re still you, and you’re the most amazing person I know. You don’t need that old job/plan, anyway. We’re gonna make a new one, okay?”
Mikey spent months wearing a suffocating Cowabunga Carl suit, being underappreciated, and hiding his loneliness behind a painted-on smile. He knows exactly what it feels like to feel stuck, overlooked, and unaccomplished.
His usual high-energy demeanor drops into something incredibly tender and earnest. He can read emotional shifts instantly. He won’t force you to cheer up, but he will be a fountain of unconditional love.
He believes that your happiness and peace of mind are infinitely more important than any career, title, or external achievement.
He’ll order your favorite comfort food, put on your fave terrible movies, or play video games with you. He’ll sit with you in the dark, letting you cry into his shoulder, and remind you with total sincerity that you are his favorite part of every day.
Been button testing for the past week! I’m having so much fun!
About 6 years ago I was going to pass out free buttons to a showcase event but it got canceled/delayed due to Covid. Because of that, I’ve had a whole box of button making supplies just sitting around collecting dust.
My dear grandma saw that box while cleaning and encouraged me to buy a button maker, even offering to pay half on it 😭
Been button testing for the past week! I’m having so much fun!
About 6 years ago I was going to pass out free buttons to a showcase event but it got canceled/delayed due to Covid. Because of that, I’ve had a whole box of button making supplies just sitting around collecting dust.
My dear grandma saw that box while cleaning and encouraged me to buy a button maker, even offering to pay half on it 😭
A/N: This is my first time writing for the 1990 movie! 😊
🎵 Inspired by Nightminds by Missy Higgins 🎵
CWs: Angst, implied past suicidal ideation, panic attacks/emotional breakdown, aggression/punching a wall, and intense emotional distress. All characters are aged-up.
The sign in the front window of the vintage shop buzzes with an erratic frequency, casting strange bends of light across the racks. Outside, the rain is torrential, a deluge that turns the gutters of the Lower East Side into rushing, murky rivers. It hammers against the storefront glass, blurring the streetlights into smears.
You’re working the late shift. It’s a lonely job, cataloging donations and sweeping dust that never seems to settle. You prefer it this way. The quiet gives you space to breathe, away from the crushing, suffocating noise of the daylight hours.
You gather a bundle of broken cardboard boxes, flattening them against your chest, and head toward the back room. The air back here smells like old paper, damp concrete, and the faint scent of chamomile tea brewing in the small electric kettle on the breakroom counter.
You push the heavy metal back door open with your shoulder, stepping just far enough under the rusted tin awning to toss the cardboard into the recycling bin. The roar of the storm is deafening. Lightning flashes, brief and violent, illuminating the trash-strewn corridor between the buildings.
In that split second of harsh light, you see him.
He’s huddled between the dumpster and the wall, a silhouette swallowed by a trench coat. A fedora is pulled low over his head. He’s slumped against the brick, knees drawn up, his shoulders heaving with ragged breaths. The rain is soaking through his coat, but he doesn’t seem to care. He looks like a man—no, not a man; something much larger—who has been thrown away by the world.
Your breath catches. Instinct tells you to step back, to slam the door and lock it. This is New York. You don’t approach strangers in dark alleys, especially not ones that look big enough to tear a car door off its hinges.
But then he shifts, and the dim ambient light from your doorway catches his face. It’s not human. Textured green skin, a beak-like mouth set in a fierce scowl, and a soaked red bandana tied around his eyes. He is gripping his own arms so tightly that his three-fingered hands are trembling.
He doesn’t look dangerous at this exact moment. He looks cornered. Looks exactly the way you felt years ago, hanging by a thread, staring down at the concrete and wondering if letting go would be easier than holding on.
You don’t scream. Don’t run.
Instead, you step back inside, leaving the door propped open. You walk over to the counter. The kettle finishes its quiet, steady hiss. You take down a ceramic mug, drop in a bag of chamomile, and pour the boiling water over it. You stir in a spoonful of honey, watching the amber liquid swirl.
When you turn around, he has crept inside. He didn’t come far—just over the threshold, escaping the brunt of the downpour. Then he sits on a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes in the shadows, his frame hunched over. He still has his trench coat and fedora on, though the brim is dripping water. Crossing his arms tightly over his chest, he sets his jaw in a hard, defensive scowl.
You approach slowly, holding the mug, steam curling from the top. You stop a few feet away, extending it toward him. “Here,” you say, your voice quiet so as not to startle him. “It’s hot. And you’re shivering.”
His brown eyes dart from the mug up to your face, sharp and suspicious. He doesn’t move to take it. “I don’t shiver,” he growls.
“Okay,” you reply softly, not pulling the mug back. “Take it. Your hands look like ice.”
He stares at the steam for a long moment, his chest heaving with slow breaths. With a frustrated sigh, he reaches out and takes the mug. He wraps both hands around it, letting the heat soak into his palms, but he doesn’t drink.
“You’re crazy, ya know that?” he mutters, looking down into the amber liquid. “A stranger ducks into your alley covered in mud and lookin’ like he wants to break somethin’, and you bring him inside and make him tea. You got a death wish or somethin’?”
You pull up a plastic milk crate, flipping it over to sit a respectful distance across from him. “If you wanted to break something, you would’ve broken the door. You were just sitting out there letting the storm drown you.”
He flinches slightly, a muscle feathering in his jaw. He looks away, staring intently at a stack of boxes in the corner. “Yeah, well. Maybe I like the rain.”
“Nobody likes a downpour like that when they’re already having a miserable night,” you say gently. You watch him lean his head back against the wall, the brim of his fedora casting a deep shadow over his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Alright.”
Silence settles between you, filled only by the storm outside. You don’t push. Don’t demand answers. You just sit there, offering a quiet, steady presence. He takes a cautious sip of the tea. His shoulders drop just a fraction of an inch, the warmth hitting his system. He looks back at you, his expression a mix of confusion and irritation.
“Why aren’t you askin’ a million questions?” he asks, his tone dropping the aggressive edge. “Where I come from, what I am … why I’m wearin’ a stupid hat. Most humans would be screamin’ for the cops.”
“I’ve lived in New York long enough to know that the weirdest things in this city usually just want to be left alone,” you say, offering a small, tired smile. “And right now, you look less like a monster and more like someone who just had a terrible fight with someone they care about.”
He freezes, his grip tightening on the mug. Then the tension completely drains out of him. He slumps against the wall, looking exhausted.
“Leo’s a pain in the ass,” he growls softly, his voice thick with a complicated mix of anger and hurt. “Always thinkin’ he knows what’s best. ‘You gotta control your temper, Raph. You’re gonna get us killed, Raph.’ He acts like he’s perfect. Like he doesn’t carry the same damn weight I do.”
“It’s hard when people expect you to just shut off what you’re feeling,” you observe quietly.
Raph looks up, his gaze locking onto yours, completely unguarded for the first time. “Exactly! I get angry. So what? The world’s a mess, and we’re stuck down in the dark, and I’m supposed to just sit there and meditate? I can’t do it. I feel like … like I’m gonna burst if I don’t hit somethin’.”
“But you didn’t hit anything tonight,” you point out. “You just came here.”
He stares at you, completely disarmed. He looks down at his hands, then back at the delicate mug you gave him. A slow realization hits him, and the rough, street-tough exterior completely melts away. “Yeah,” he murmurs, his voice barely louder than the rain. “I guess I did.”
He takes another long sip of the tea. When he looks back up at you from under the brim of his hat, the anger is entirely gone. “Thanks,” he rumbles softly. “For the tea. And … for not runnin’ away.”
“You’re welcome, Raph,” you reply, using the name he inadvertently gave you.
He stays for another hour.
You don’t talk much more than that. The ambient noise of the shop and the rain turning into a drizzle fills the space comfortably. When his tea is gone, he stands up. He sets the mug on the counter, tips the brim of his hat to you, and slips out the back door into the misty night.
For the next few days, you wonder if you hallucinated the entire encounter. The city has a way of making you see things, a way of bending reality around the edges of exhaustion. But the mug sitting washed on the drying rack is proof enough.
A week passes. The weather in the city turns bitterly cold, a biting, damp autumn chill that settles deep into the bones. Your shift ends at 2:00 AM. You lock up the register, turn off the sign, and grab your coat. When you open the back door to leave, your heart gives a slight jump.
Raph is leaning against the brick wall beneath the fire escape, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trench coat. He isn’t looking at you; he’s watching the mouth of the alley, ever vigilant. When he hears the door latch click, he turns his head.
“Hey,” he says, his voice a low rumble.
“Hey,” you reply, pulling your collar up against the wind. “You want some tea?”
He shakes his head, shuffling his feet slightly. It’s an oddly vulnerable gesture for someone so intimidating. “Nah. Just … figured I’d make sure you got home alright. Neighborhood’s garbage at this hour.”
You blink, surprised by the offer, but a profound sense of warmth blooms in your chest. “Okay. Yeah, I’d like that.”
That night is the beginning of the routine.
He never comes into the light of the main streets. He stays in the shadows, walking parallel to you in the alleyways, effortlessly scaling chain-link fences, or leaping silently from fire escape to fire escape above you. You walk on the sidewalk, keeping your pace steady, occasionally looking up to catch the flutter of his trench coat or the gleam of his eyes in the dark.
It’s a quiet burn. A fragile trust being built brick by brick in the dead of night.
As the weeks turn into months, the distance between you during these walks begins to close. On nights when the streets are completely empty, he steps out of the shadows and walks beside you.
The conversations come in fragments. He tells you about his brothers, his tone oscillating between fierce, protective love and bitter, boiling frustration. He speaks of the sewers, his solitary life, and the immense burden of concealing himself from a world he must protect.
And you listen. You don’t offer platitudes. Don’t tell him to look on the bright side. You know that when springtime feels cold, telling someone to enjoy the flowers is an insult.
“You know what the worst part is?” Raph asks one night. You’re sitting together on a rooftop overlooking the city skyline, your legs dangling over the edge. The wind is biting, but his presence beside you acts as a windbreak.
“What?” you ask softly.
“It’s the noise in my head,” he confesses, his voice tight. He taps his temple with two thick fingers. “It’s like … everything is dialed up to ten. When I’m happy, I feel like I could punch a hole in the sky. But when I’m down … man, when I’m down, it feels like the whole city is sitting on my chest. And I look at Leo, or Donnie, and they just process it. They move on. I can’t. I just get stuck in the dark.”
You look at him, seeing the aching vulnerability in his eyes. He feels too much. He was blessed—or cursed—with a different kind of inner view. Everything is magnified for him. The highs would make him fly, but the lows make him want to die.
You reach out, your smaller hand gently covering his bigger, three-fingered one. His skin is rough, scarred from countless battles, but he doesn’t pull away. In fact, he turns his hand over, his fingers curling loosely around yours.
“I know,” you whisper, the words carrying the weight of your own past. “I know, Raph. I knew before you even told me.”
He looks at you, his brow furrowing in confusion. “How?”
“Because I was once there,” you admit, your voice barely carrying over the distant hum of traffic. You look out at the sea of city lights. “Hanging from that same ledge where you’re standing right now. There were days I thought it would be so much easier to just … let go. To stop fighting the anger and the sadness and just let it swallow me.”
Raph’s breath hitches. He squeezes your hand, a sudden, desperate tightness in his grip, as if he is physically anchoring you to the rooftop. “But you didn’t.”
“No,” you agree, turning to meet his gaze. “I didn’t. Because someone sat in the dark with me until I was ready to get up. And that’s what I’m going to do for you.”
He stares at you, his eyes wide. For a moment, he looks as if he might cry. But he swallows hard, his jaw clenching as he looks away. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t let go of your hand, either.
The turning point comes on a Thursday in late November.
It’s been raining for three days straight. The city is miserable, soaked, and freezing. You are in the back room of the shop, wiping down the counters, when the back door suddenly flies open.
It slams against the brick wall with a deafening CRACK.
You jump, spinning around. Raph is standing in the doorway, chest heaving, absolutely soaked. But it isn’t just the rain this time. His trench coat is torn, and the fedora is gone. His breathing is jagged, practically gasping, and his eyes are wild with frenzied panic.
“Raph?” you say, immediately dropping the rag and stepping toward him. “Raph, what happened?”
He stumbles into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He doesn’t answer you. Just starts pacing the small space. He is gripping the sides of his head, his fingers digging into his skin.
“I can’t do it,” he gasps out, his voice cracking. “I can’t do it anymore. It’s too much. The fighting, the hiding, the constant—I can’t breathe. I can’t—!”
He suddenly punches the wall. He pulls his fist back to hit it again, his face twisted in agony, entirely consumed by his own emotions.
“Raph! Stop!”
You lunge forward, stepping directly into his space, entirely disregarding the danger of his swinging fists. You grab his arm. The sheer density of his muscle is like grabbing a steel beam, but you hold on with everything you have. His fist hovers inches from the brick as he freezes. He looks down at you, his chest heaving. He is lost in the ugliness. Drowning in it.
“You’re okay,” you say, your voice steady, anchoring. “You’re right here. You’re with me.”
“It’s too dark,” he chokes out, a devastating, broken sound that shatters your heart. His knees suddenly buckle.
You go down with him, kneeling on the floor. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him against you. “Just lay it all down,” you whisper. “I’ve got you.”
A shudder wracks his frame.
And then the dam breaks.
He collapses forward, burying his face in your shoulder. His arms wrap around you, pulling you against his plastron with a desperate, crushing grip. He doesn’t sob loudly—he is too conditioned to reveal weakness for that—but his shoulders shake violently, and you can feel the hot dampness of his tears soaking through your shirt. He holds onto you as if you are the only solid thing left in this world.
You hold him back just as tightly, running your hands over the smooth, hard curve of his shell, rubbing soothing circles into his back. You bury your fingers in the fabric of his bandana. “I know,” you whisper. “I know, I know, I know.”
He stays there for a long, long time. You don’t try to cheer him up. Don’t tell him it’s going to be fine. You just let him bleed it all out. You learn to breathe the ugliness he sees. Let the silence and the shadows envelop you both, sharing the dark so that he doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore.
Slowly, the trembling subsides. His breathing evens out, deepening into the familiar, rumbling rhythm you’ve come to know so well. The tension drains from his muscles, leaving him exhausted, heavy, and utterly spent against you. He shifts, pulling back just enough to look at you.
His eyes are red-rimmed, the brown irises subdued. He looks stripped bare, completely unguarded. “I’m sorry,” he rasps, his voice barely a whisper. He looks down, shame coloring his features. “I’m a mess.”
You reach up, gently cupping the side of his face. Your thumb brushes away a stray drop of rain—or a tear—from his cheek. “This world you’re in now,” you say softly, holding his gaze until he is forced to look at you, “it doesn’t have to be alone.”
Raph leans into your touch, closing his eyes. A sigh escapes his lips, washing over you, carrying away the last of the anger, the last of the panic. He covers your hand with his, holding your palm against his cheek. “You stayed,” he murmurs in quiet disbelief.
“I’ll always stay,” you promise.
He opens his eyes, looking at you with a reverence that steals the breath from your lungs. There are no walls left. No defensive sarcasm, no gruff posturing. There is only him, entirely exposed, trusting you with the most fragile parts of his soul.
He shifts his weight, leaning in closer. His movements are hesitant, telegraphing his intentions, giving you every opportunity to pull away. But you don’t. You stay perfectly still, your heart pounding a hopeful rhythm against your ribs.
He ducks his head, bridging the final distance between you. He presses his forehead gently against yours. It’s an intimate, grounded gesture, a shared breath in the quiet of the room. You close your eyes, absorbing the solidity of him, the quiet strength that has replaced the storm.
“Thank you,” he breathes against your skin.
You sit there together on the floor of the breakroom, wrapped in each other’s arms, long after the rain stops.
When you finally stand up to leave, the city outside has changed. The storm has passed, leaving the streets washed clean. The oppressive clouds are breaking, fracturing over the East River to reveal the first pale, violet streaks of dawn. You step out into the alley together. The air smells like wet asphalt and morning dew.
The world is quiet, not with isolation, but with peace.
Raph stands beside you, no longer hiding in the shadows of the fire escape. He looks up at the sky, the early light catching the angles of his face, illuminating the gold flecks in his eyes. He looks lighter. The invisible weight that had been crushing him is gone, shared between the two of you, halved by honesty and connection.
He reaches out, lacing his fingers through yours. You squeeze his hand, leaning your shoulder against his arm.
You know the dark will come back. It always does. You know there will be more fights with Leo, more days where the world feels too heavy, more moments where his mind threatens to drag him under. But you’re determined to never let him face it all alone again.
Raph looks down at you, a soft, genuine smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. It is a rare, beautiful sight that makes your heart swell.
“Come on,” he says gently, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Let’s get you home.”
I can't tell you how excited I am to finally post my latest illustrations for The War for the Obelisk set coming up this month! Gotta be one of my favorite projects to work on so far! I had so much fun working on these pieces! Got to try out some new brushes and other features!
This one with Death and the Undead party is a definitely a fave composition! Maybe I can show the sketches that lead up to the final piece?
