info abt splinter + some lore today ! pt . 1 bc this is getting into like . plot stuff . so is gonna b a bit long
so he was born as Hamato Yoshi , a human boy . he was pretty much average in most areas , but he had a passion for the history of art , and the art of fighting . he would spend most of his free time in the library
of course , he began training at ten years old , and he was quite talented . he was fond of hidden weapons and deception in particular — using his enemy’s propensity to plan against them by always remaining unpredictable . this was also helped by the fact that he had always been a physically small person , so he was able to play on expectations easily . essentially , he was a wild card
while he was growing up — probably around his mid to late teens — was when the existence of yōkai could no longer be hidden from the public of New York . i’m not 100% on what exactly happened to cause them to be exposed , but at some point humans learned about the hidden city and the existence of yōkai as a whole , and Yoshi was there to witness this change first hand
ofc a lot of humans disliked yōkai , but there were many who were welcoming to them too . though most yōkai were understandably perfectly content in the hidden city , some did have roots above ground , and now that they were able to be open about themselves , there was an effort to build communities where people could see it
there ended up being one main community downtown which welcomed yōkai , as well as several smaller communities throughout the city . some schools were also pushed into acceptance in order to maintain a positive public image in the face of the changes
though , of course , the more marginalized groups were around the more yōkai were there too , and all it took was a little bit of digging to realize that there were a lot more yōkai above ground than most people thought
when he completed his training and earned his title — the Splinter , for a specific move he created — Yoshi became determined to make it on his own . he took any job he could get , had people start referring to him exclusively as Splinter , and eventually moved out . of course , he wasn’t in a spot to move anywhere nice , but he was proud of the accomplishment anyway
the jobs he worked were mostly of the physical variety . he moved boxes , hauled crates , etc . he even worked as a bouncer a few times . but after a while he became most comfortable with transporting things to and from different warehouses
and one thing you learn from doing a lot of these same jobs for a lot of these same communities is , the city isn’t really as big as it seems , and you might run into a lot of the same people
