Unfortunately, I'm Opinionated

TMNT: quotes, essays, meta, edits, art, & *:･ﾟ✧ o p i n i o n s ✧･ﾟ:*

[sewerpeaches]

*same anon* sorry for the last response I agree it’s sad they watered Raph down you can make a complex angry character. Also apology for the question being loaded I am autistic I had no idea how to ask it lol.

lol it's fine. i just wasn't sure if i answered it like you were looking for given that it was a really open ended question. no worries.

[sewerpeaches]

I know you are busy but I am curious what is your opinion on 03 Raph?

hskdjsls anon this is such a loaded question??

i mean i absolutely adore 2k3 raph. absolutely iconic shitty little short violent mutant who loves motorcycles and has a heart of gold. and as far as i’m concerned, the True™ raph, b/c he’s basically pulled straight from the original comic.

2k3 raph has depth. he’s mischievous. he’s loving. he has internal conflicts. he has motivations. he has meaningful relationships. he has mechanical knowledge. he can think outside the box. he has character growth.

beats any other raph by leaps and bounds, b/c subsequent creators apparently can’t so much as comprehend any combination of character traits with “angry” other than “bigger and dumb”. and more often than not can’t manage to differentiate between “angry” and “cruel”.

(like… i really don’t understand why raph’s character has become so watered down, but it’s truly sad to me. 2k12, ROTTMNT, MM, 2k14/16? cookie cutter generic “big mean dumb guy” garbage. 2k7 has a pretty good raph only b/c it was essentially completely reworked by peter laird. the IDW comic has a good raph, b/c the first 100 or so issues were written/directed by kevin eastman. it’s not hard to make a complex angry character, but it seems only the original creators have the passion to fight for it which is heartbreaking.)

[prowl-autism-extraordinaire]

i really just. cant stand rise. the character designs irritate me, the animation irritates me, the voice acting irritates me and the theme song is so obnoxious. ive watched exactly one episode and that was more than enough, the entire premise irritates me to no end. and i get that people enjoy it, even if i dont get why, but it really grinds my gears when people call the other shows outdated or whatever. like, rise wishes it could touch i, monster. rise seems goofy and feelgood, which is fine if you like that, but its so annoying when people just dismiss the other shows as dull or not as interesting. “funny” doesnt equal interesting!! and i know my friends are absolutely sick of hearing this rant but like. fuck i hate rise i really do. it seems tailored to a very young audience compared to 2k3 or 2k13- which, again, is fine! but lord im tired of seeing rise and rise only in the tags. even blocking all the associated tags doesnt help because people just tag as tmnt and the designs themselves are just so annoying to me that seeing them makes me mad

[sewerpeaches]

The Answer to the Age Old Question:

Who is older, Donatello or Raphael?

The long answer that you didn't come here for is: it depends on the continuity. So you can find my breakdowns for each continuity here (eventually).

The short answer:

Donatello

Why?

#1. "Word of God" #2. IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011), volume 5 #3. Character/family/team dynamics #4. Aesthetics

~ 1 ~

For those unfamiliar with the term, the Word of God is "A statement regarding some ambiguous or undefined aspect of a work, the Word of God comes from someone considered to be the ultimate authority, such as the creator, director, writer or producer of a TV show / video game / film / etc."

With that in mind, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird co-created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984. Unlike a fair amount of co-created series, TMNT is actually an evenly split brain-child (ie neither Eastman nor Laird seems to be any more responsible for or involved in its creation/production/etc than the other).

On August 14, 2014, Kevin Eastman stated "I'm going to take a bold step and say Donatello is older" during a Reddit AMA .

I couldn't find so much as a whiff of Peter Laird's explicit opinion on the matter (for all my searching... and there was a lot), but that also means that I never found him contradicting Kevin Eastman's statement. (More subjectively, Laird seems to have essentially directed the 2k3 run and I'll post my take on why 2k3 has peak little-brother Raph energy here (eventually))

At any rate, if you're the type of person who accepts the "Word of God" at face value, then continue no further! I, however, don't do that—hence why this is only reason 1 of 3 (4).

~ 2 ~

If you're not familiar with IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011) then read it, because it's phenomenal, it's the franchise's longest running piece of media ever and up until volume 100, original co-creator Kevin Eastman co-wrote the series and collaborated on page layouts. The much acclaimed Last Ronin, the first thing written by both Eastman and Laird since the original Mirage run, is set in the IDW-verse as its own version of SAINW.

The premise of the IDW run is that Splinter's and the Turtles' souls are reincarnated from those of a human family that lived in feudal japan (yes it sounds stupid, but it's touched on very little and is executed surprisingly well). And that means that the Turtles' corresponding human-selves are all visibly different ages (because unlike turtles, it's not so common for humans to have quadruplets).

So when we see the Turtles' human selves in volume 5...

It's clear in both appearance and mannerisms that Don is older than Raph.

They're definitely the closest in age of the siblings, but still most assuredly different ages.

Besides Raph being smaller than Don with shorter and chubbier limbs, his hairstyle also strikes me as more baby-like (kinda like the ancient version of the ponytail parent's give their 1 year olds when they don't have enough hair yet to actually do anything with). His mannerisms also lend themselves to that of a younger child—more sleepy, much more oblivious to his surroundings, and more clingy. Don's also shown to be able to stand, while Raph seems like he might not be able to yet.

~ 3 ~

This reason is subjective, which is why I've listed it last and need more space to elaborate on it. You'll find the unabridged version on my blog at some point under this tag (eventually), because I simply have Too Many Thoughts™ to contain within a post not dedicated specifically to it.

The short of it is: Donatello's character has always seemed to be designed around being second-in-charge—both in team and family contexts.

I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that Don is the go-to turtle. Doesn't matter what continuity you look at, when Leo anyone runs into a problem, they turn to Don.

You could argue that Donnie's the smart one and "so it only makes sense to turn to him to fix a problem" (and that's a bit of a catch-22 that I'll talk about in more detail in the unabridged version!). However... he's not a real person and so him being the smart one that characters always turn to when Leo falters (including Leo!) is a deliberate choice by the creators. And in the context of the The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's very traditional operating style—with heavy emphasis on hierarchy by age, blood, etc.—it's very telling.

Were they a real family, yes, they would have developed their personalities/aptitudes mostly independently of their birth order, but given that specifically assigning children roles/ideals based on birth order is a significant player in Japanese culture (especially ancient Japanese culture which pertains to ninjitsu on which TMNT is based)... well... (I mean just look at how Splinter treats Leo).

Anyway, looking at the TMNT franchise as a whole, the advancement of the plot, in 9/10 cases, hinges on Don coming up with a solution either (1) via Leo coming up with something, pointing him in a direction, and asking "Don can you make [insane thing] work?" or (2) when Leo stalls entirely and Don has to take over. And though it's a formula, it's a formula with a million different permutations so it stays interesting.

Raph's role is to go into a berserker rage and brute force a second-wind powerup when when fighting is the only option. He's as the one who makes the first option work when Leo & Don are stuck and he has to, not the one who comes up with the second option. And, narrative-wise, it would be boring and lazy for the Turtles to only ever brute force plan A. (Happy to say I wrote this before I saw Laird say the same thing about Raph (bottom of #55))

That very distinct chain-of-command is why we get things like this, which is much more interesting and satisfying than beat-the-thing-until-it-stops:

The same follows in terms of family dynamics. Leo & Raph are simply too similar for the family to feel "balanced" if they're the two eldest brothers. There's no functionality in a family where 1 & 2 are providing nothing different or, worse, butting heads. Don holds the emotional stability of the family in the palm of his hand, largely just by existing as the buffer between Leo & Raph (we all know what happens in SAINW).

And, just from a characterization perspective, it seems much more natural for Raph to turn to Don for comfort than vice versa.

(Again, I'm gonna just... aggressively point to IDW.)

I'll go into this much more in the unabridged version, but I wanted to touch upon it here: setting Don aside for a moment, I see so many people argue for Raph being the second son based entirely upon his attitude towards Leo and ignoring everything and everyone else. It sorta drives me insane, tbh. I think it's a wildly shallow interpretation of his character.

Raph's entire hang-up is not around being second best, it's around being denied authority/autonomy in general—you know, stemming from being a mutant and being banned from doing 9/10 things he'd like to? That's why we see him fighting with Leo; Leo is the only authority he can fight (putting aside crime syndicate-type authority which he also fights obv). But more importantly, we also see him exerting as much power as he can by playfully, not cruelly bullying Mikey //glares at 2k12 (and in more source-compliant adaptations, yes, it is only Mikey that he truly messes with //glares harder at 2k12) or going off solo.

As much as I love 2k7, specifically the Leo/Raph dynamic, it's not actually a good representation of their real relationship—more of a spin-off "what if" (which Laird has also said). And 2k12 is ok plot-wise, but as far as I'm concerned it mostly fails at creating any compelling character dynamics and it crashes and burns in terms of staying true to source material. C':

~ 4 ~

Finally, I will end this post with my strongest argument for Don being second-eldest...

Sunset Aesthetic

[corrodedbisexual]

Once more for those in the back.

[takkytakk]

wasn’t expecting it at all

[madammuffins]

Facts

[masteroftime231]

Ahahaha, the story of my life 😂

[ilovebeingaturtle]

Wow it’s crazy what they were able to get away with in 2003

[wormspoodle]

when you blew up a city and watched it sink into the magma below

[theelvishfiddler]

03 Turtle Posting

[theelvishfiddler]

Glass pt.2/?

first/previous || next >>

[theelvishfiddler]

Glass (pt.1?)

next >>

[ruija]

Look, it’s a box turtle! 

(I was thinking about fics with the “Someone gets buried and the others have to find and rescue them before it’s too late” -scenario.)

Anyway, if you find him, just leave him in the coffin. He looks like he needs the rest.

[ruija]

Okay, okay guys. I got him out. He can have his nappies now

[lesbianloujitsu]

Which 03 tmnt turtle are you!

[masteroftime231]

I guess I, indeed, have a lot in common with Leo 🧐

[sewerpeaches]

I will fight whoever made this tooth and nail over trying to pawn Leo off as liking TV more than reading.

I realize they had to format this to fit on one page (for the magazine or whenever it came from), but come on.

Got further in and saw that they said Leo can’t name more than three martial arts moves????? I’m sorry…. what???

[greenendorf]

4am thoughts: what if Mikey got huge for no apparent reason

[castlewyvern]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles artwork by Duh Dude.

[turtle-ika]

i recently started rereading the SAINW - Days that Bind Us fic series by @dawntreaderflynne , @hamsterandturtlesoup and @wtf-skittens and it is giving me lots of feels as you can see. This scene is from the first part, Buying Time, and my heart breaks for Mikey but i am also super proud of him bc he is trying SO HARD to get back on his feet ;__;

[dailytmntquotes]

Splinter: You are outnumbered. Bishop: Perhaps. But never outclassed. -TMNT 2003 Worlds Collide Part 3