seeing all these rottmnt/2012 crossovers bash on the 2012 bros’ relationship with each other is kiiindaaa upsetting as someone who’s uncomfortable with expressing and receiving overt affection
but hey what do i know i probablyy just have all toxic unhealthy relationships where we never understand each other and share mutual trust and love *twirls hair*
the 2012 bros may not openly express their love like the rottmnt boys do, but that doesnt mean its not there. and acting like the rottmnt relationships are automatically better and the only Right standard for healthy relationships seems pretty,, juvenile and inexperienced imo. love isnt only expressed through physical affection and saying things like “i love you,” openly, and assuming there is no love in a relationship without those things is… odd.
love is not only in words or hugs. the 2012 boys can love each other just as much as the rottmnt boys without being open about it. 2012 raph, especially, loves to show affection through acts of service, physical affection, and quality time, but he doesn’t like any of this to be commented on because it makes him uncomfortable. and thats okay! he doesn’t need to express affection openly to have it be there.
just as rottmnt donnie can express love and affection outside of hugs and words, so too can the 2012 boys. they all have their own unique ways of expressing love that the others all respect and recognize, and dismissing that feels less like it’s intentional, and more like the people writing these crossovers just don’t recognize alternate forms of expression exist. which, again,, reeks of inexperience.
( also semi-related tangent speaking of donnie he literally fucking . put a shock collar on his brother like he’s a dog in an attempt to change him. and brainwashed his brothers. and frequently puts his own wants and needs over their own - which is totally fine, if it didn’t happen all the time. it’s kinda laughable to say 2012 raph is worse than rottmnt donnie honestly
siblings hit each other. okay. siblings hit each other. i need y’all to recognize this. i will power drive my little brother into the floor over the last oreo. siblings hitting each other is not abusive (TYPICALLY) because there are established boundaries both parties abide by. like i will never touch my siblings if they are in a bad mood, trying to concentrate on something, or otherwise in a bad position (like standing somewhere dangerous, by a corner etc), and i will never intentionally hurt them. if i think they are actually hurt, we stop immediately until they tell me theyre fine. roughhousing with your siblings is fun. it is bonding. its a self-esteem booster to be able to pick up ur freshman brother okay.
the 2012 bros always abide by these rules. they never hurt each other beyond what the other party can handle, and if they do, it is very clearly treated as a bad thing by them or the other brothers so they realize they went over the line, and they resolve it by the end of the episode (as is the way of formulaic kids shows).
rottmnt donnie. put a fucking shock collar on his brother. and this is funny to him. and not something he ever learns from. and totally not weirdly sexual. But 2012 raph is the bad guy? ok )
i mean. i dont know what i expect from a fandom full of chronically online children who truly dont have experience with relationships. but it just really irks me for some reason and its currently one in the morning so im feeling whiny about it.
affection outside of words and hugs exists. affection outside of words and hugs exist!! and if you know that then you know that the 2012 boys love each other so so so much, just as much as rottmnt. just because they express it differently than in sanitized queer TV shows and not overtly, so you kinda have to pick up on nuance, doesnt mean they dont love each other. let people love other people in non-overt ways!
YES!
Speaking as a person who grew up in an explicitly loving household, I am also perfectly comfortable with other forms of expression. In fact, it really interests me because while a lot of people talk about 2018 Donnie’s autism–which I totally get, I do–I’m autistic, and I also sort of emphasize with 2012 Raph.
I can get cranky if someone invaded my physical space, and if they did it as relentlessly as 2012 Mikey does I might crankier. I probably wouldn’t get physically aggressive, but then again, I haven’t been socialized in an environment where controlled physical violence would have been part of life–like, say, a ninja lair.
TBH, I can empathize more with 2012 Raph’s lashing out than 2018 Donnie’s calculated attempts at control through some objectively fucked up shit. Like, it’s entertaining, but it’s hard not to acknowledge the darkness. (@50-shades-of-cloaca were literally just talking about that stupid collar in Discord, and the mind control, and honestly I would respect the writers more if they just made it kinky rather than whatever it was supposed to be).
And I hope this isn’t going on too much of a tangent, but I also find it interesting about how people treat 2012 Raph’s lashing out versus 2018 Raph’s. I headcanon like most versions of Raph might have some kind of mental health illness, what with the mood swings and everything, although I don’t feel comfortable throwing around diagnoses. But it’s not specifically laid out for us, so we don’t feel encouraged sympathize.
2018, on the other hand, is very cut-and-dried. He’d got DID, or what the show presents as DID, and it’s all laid out nicely with the Mind Raph thing and how he turns into a grunting, vicious animal if he’s left alone too long which is not a super disturbing way to present mental illness it isn’t infantilizing or dehumanizing at all why do you ask. So people find it easier to understand him and to demonize Raph, and by extension the 2012 boys.
Except for Mikey, who people seem to insist on uwuing as a delicate sunshine child even though he has won plenty of fights with his brothers. He’s honestly on more of an equal ground with them than Donnie’s brothers are with him after he breaks out the shock collars and mindfuck machines.
I think people just sort of edit the episodes where he does this out of their minds. Like, the 2012 tussling is a lot more of a running theme than the stuff Donnie does, which people can and frequently do overlook if they’re not reminded it of frequently. While simultaneously bringing up every bad thing the 2012 kids have ever done.
At the end of the day, there are some things that 2018 does do better–letting April be Black again, not basing Apritello off the worst shit romcoms have to teach us–but people seem to neglecting to respect and support those choices in favor of writing crossovers which focus on something that isn’t broken in 2012. Like, I’m automatically inclined to be distrustful of ROTTMNT with the way so many people insist on relentlessly putting it on a pedestal.
And don’t even get me started on the Splinter Debate. If I had to choose between 2012 Splinter and 2018 Splinter, I’d want 2012 Splinter to be my dad every time.
Oh but one episode 2012 Splinter has a trauma response and locks his sons in the sewer to train so he’s abusive! So abusive! I’m going to ignore that he apologies at the end and that was the point of the episode!
And can we talk about them as… soldiers? Warriors? Ninjas? (As a separate, overlapping influence to what insights have been mentioned above.)
When your job/training/life is reliant on real, actual, intense violence? Your personal scale for “what is harmful enough to be worried about” gets a lot wider.
I’m not saying that soldiers stop registering paper cuts as pain. I’m saying that once you are acclimatized to survival-violence via prolonged training, your awareness and control of the full spectrum of possible violence spreads out. You have have more setting options on the ol’ fight-toaster.
With appreciation for ‘what is actually permanently harmful’ versus 'what just sucks,’ you are way more confident that your rough-housing isn’t going to exceed what your fellow warriors can handle.
If we’re talking turtles: 2003, 2007, and 2012 were all raised with multiple hours a day learning to beat the crap out of each other under stricter Splinters. That training taught them how to fight offensively, BUT ALSO–how to take a hit. How to fall. Not to flinch. Not to let fear of pain stop them. Combat training/experience is not just the offensive stuff of kicking and punching, it’s also pain tolerance training. It’s learning to control your reactions and your intentions.
The freak out over 2003!Raph’s temper isn’t that he’s stronger than Mikey. Isn’t that he grabbed an improvised pipe weapon. It’s that he wasn’t in control of his actions.
If he’d used the pipe to trip Mikey or pin Mikey’s wrists or prod him in pressure points, with the clear intention of not-murder? That would have been clever and commendable. Losing his control was the scary issue in a household full of lethal warriors. That’s what he strives to fix. Not that he smacks Mikey or clashes with Leo. That’s fair game in a rough-and-tumble, trusted group.
… my point is that the versions of Turtles who have gone through the longest/most intense combat training/experiences are far more fluent and comfortable with non-lethal violence/physicality/grappling/rough-housing than iterations whose upbringing/experiences have been lighter.
The 1990sMovie!Turtles, the NextMutation!Turtles, the Rise!Turtles… have not spent years as combat veterans yet. Their childhoods were gentler. They are still learning their own control and their brothers’ limits. Rise!Turtles’ understanding of each other’s limits is further complicated by species and age differences. Combat as a love-language is not a natural path for them. (Yet?)
