What's Donna's relationships like with her sisters in the 63 sainw?
[SAINW!Donna is a very broken young lady who is slowly piecing her mind back together and rediscovering who her sisters are in this new reality. Angie is the one who found her and has gone totally Mama bear over her, and in doing so brought a lot of the Angie back to SAINW!Michelangela. Donna’s probably the most comfortable around her, for many reasons. It a bit odd to Donna how easily she finds herself accepting being the younger sister in the new dynamic, and Angie does tend to push her around a lot for her own good, which frustrates her to no end sometimes, but Angie was the first familiar thing she found in this new world after breaking out of the void, and Angie is in many ways her anchor back to sanity. Despite the fact that she’s probably changed the most, paradoxically, Angie is the one who still feels the most familiar.
Lea is still very much Lea. Older, and broken, and blind, but still Lea, and Donna brings back the gentleness that thirty years of hell ground out of her. If Angie pushes Donna around in a coddling way, Lea is very much the opposite. Lea pushes Donna to her absolute limits, but her reasoning is the same. She has her missing sister back, and wants her to stay in one piece. For all it hurts, Donna is very grateful for that. She hates how much of herself she’s lost in the void, and trusts Lea absolutely. Angie and August worry Lea’s pushing Donna too hard, but Donna trusts that her leader knows what’s best, for all that she loses her temper while in the midst of it.
I haven’t had a chance to play SAINW!Donna off Ella yet, but I imagine, like Raph, Ella is the most visibly delighted to have Donna back, and spends every moment she can as close as possible to her. Ella is also the one who gets the biggest kick out of the fact that Donna is now the smallest of the four of them, and won’t hesitate to be the most physically demanding. While Lea and Angie push her around in metaphoric sense, Ella will actually just up and haul Donna around if she thinks that’s what’s best. While that makes Donna about as happy as you’d expect, Ella has always had a knack for making Donna feel safe, and that’s amplified a thousand times in the SAINW reality. They’re all family and she loves them all dearly, but when Ella’s nearby, all her old memories reinforce the feeling that nothing can touch her so long as her grouchy big sister is near. It’s part of why she doesn’t protest being carted around nearly as strongly as she otherwise might.]
I stayed up way too late reading through the sainw tag last night. It's so good, but nothing is okay. ;A;
[[I know right??? Everybody’s busy right now and we need Lea and Ella both free at the same time to move forward, and we’re lacking an August, but it will be finished someday, even if I have to fic it. Because I can’t leave it like that. Poor babies.]]
Shard is not blind to Donna’s obsession with sparkly things, and she’s much handier with a needle and thread than Splinter. So whenever Shard scavenges a particularly nice bit of sequined or beaded fabric, she saves it, and used them to make Donna a really glittery pair of patchwork fingerless gloves for working in the lab on those cold nights.
♥ - family headcanon
I’ve already talked about how Shard’s temper is made worse by the feline in her, but that’s why sometimes, when she’s got a really bad day with her anger issues and Splinter tries but she just doesn’t quite get it, Ella world hops and goes to have a talk with Shard. Shard, for her part, understands, and has a number of tricks she’s come up with over the years that she shares with Ella. Ella doesn’t tend to talk about these trips much -- she’s not sure why she doesn’t want her sisters to know, but she doesn’t -- and Shard keeps Ella’s confidence.
I have no plans NOT to, but I need the other r63-ers on board to move the story along, and everybody’s really busy at the moment with life stuff, which happens. :) I’m happy to wait, and if the others aren’t feeling it anymore, I may turn what I had planned into fic someday. I’ve got my own life stuff keeping me busy, so I’m pretty chill about it one way or the other.
heroicfangirl replied to your post:How did Donna learn to make kanzashi?
(I’m now imagining one of Donna’s sisters, maybe Ella, keeping her tutu safe for her in the SAINW verse and then one day when she’s feeling extra sad, Angie grabs her hand and is like, “Come on! I have a surprise for you!”
((Oh gosh, I love this. I think Ella. It'd totally be Ella. Ella's the one who tore Donna's room apart looking for clues as to what happened and came across the secret compartment where she stashes it. She hides it somewhere and never tells the others.))
I have been thinking about Sora's weapon a lot recently.
In Miwa AU, I think we can all agree that her weapon would definitely be the tessen. At first, I dismissed the same for Sora because I thought it has always traditionally been a kunoichi weapon, but recently I did some research and found that there are several stories and legends about male generals and war heroes fighting, killing, or fending off opponents with tessens.
In the 63 AU, it’s mostly only the genders that have been changed, with a few exceptions to detail like Starlight, Lea’s kanzashi, or Katsumi’s flute. What is especially refreshing about this AU, though, is the unconventional norms that flip our expectations. Women can be commanding, gross, or stoic, and men can be seductive, flamboyant, or sensitive.
The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea of Sora fighting with a tessen, and the more it makes sense to me, since it is not only a weapon, but a clan heirloom. The trouble is, I've written him fighting with a shikomizue already, so maybe he carries both, and uses them in different situations depending on which fight favors the weapon more?
Do you think Sora/Katsumi can lift/carry the girls? It's been bothering me for a while; I wish I knew how heavy their shells were. I think in last season's finale Raph carried Leo out of April's apartment. I know Raph is a lot more muscle than Katsumi, but he's also carrying the weight of his own shell on top of that. And Katsumi isn't exactly a lightweight, either--even if he looks scrawnier. X) He strikes me as that unfortunate body type that has muscle, but it doesn't show as much. Like some guys I know.
Summary: Because I wasn't happy with what happened for Karai's mutation and how Splinter and the boys didn't go after her right away, I wanted to take things differently.
Words: 1,099
---
"Sora," Yotsuba's hands were trembling. her voice breaking. Her son, her child, a victim of the ooze. She felt like the ultimate failure. All these years she'd protected him from it; she even threw her own humanity away to keep him safe. But it wasn't enough.
He was still her son. But now, his reptilian head lay in her hands, looking lifeless. It took all of her being to not scream in agony, to see nothing but red in order to take down Saki. Yotsuba caressed his cheek. "My son, no..."
Barely audible, but a hiss. The rat's ears perked in alert, detecting the threat, but it was too late. Green eyes stared through her soul and a spiked tail whipped at her shoulder.
He was alive.
Slight relief came over her, but there was no time for it. Sora already stood tall over her, taking no hesitation to continue whipping his tail and forcing her away, hissing loudly. Splinter finally managed to get away and get an actual good look at him; slender arms with snake heads as hands, tearing Footbots apart limb by limb. Crest resembling quills going from his back to his head, rising the more threatened he felt. Eyes showing both physical pain and confusion behind their harsh gaze as they locked onto targets.
Yotsuba could only look on in horror before Leanardo tugged her kimono's sleeve. Her daughters. They had been trapped.
Keeping alert, the rat checked on the turtles as they were freed, making sure no more of her children had been harmed. The smell of oil was beginning to become overpowering, and it quickly became flame all around them. An explosion across the room caused the rat to do the same thing she did all those years ago on that fateful night; she shielded her daughters from the flame as she turned her back to the fire, feeling parts of her fur get singed from embers landing on her fabric.
"YOU!" The shout caught her attention, and Saki's voice made Yotsuba go stiff. Now she saw red, sharply turning away from her daughters as an accusatory finger pointed at her. "This is your doing, Hamato! THIS IS YOUR FAULT! ALL OF IT!"
Knowing when to leave, the turtles dispersed from Splinter, whose gaze looked up for only a sliver of a second, thankful for the debris falling and preventing more battles. A scream left Saki in frustration, anger taking over completely as her target escaped her yet again.
The mother took advantage of the current situation and searched for Sora, who was on the rim of the mutagen vat, hissing and screeching in triumph over tearing apart his enemies.
Please, still be there, my son...
"Sora!" She called; it actually caught his attention. More relief, as he was looking at her, not Donatella shouting that they needed to leave, not Leanardo shouting over orders, but her. "Sora, we must leave, now!"
And it was too late that Yotsuba realized that he was looking at prey.
All four sisters were about to leave when they all collectively gasped in horror at their brother, who was now constricting their mother. Breath was leaving her, and natural instinct told Sora to squeeze harder as she exhaled in panic.
Red eyes pleaded at green serpentine ones, begging him to stop. "My son," She strained, "please...It is me! Your...your mother."
Sora hissed at her again, extending his jaw over her head. Shouts echoed from the girls, wanting to make him stop, too afraid to draw their weapons on family. He was about to snap his fangs deep into her shoulder blades when it finally hit him, his head drawing back and his grip on her loosening.
"Mmm...Mmmotherrr?" He brought his face close to hers again, but this time, curiously. His tongue repeatedly touched her worried face, and Yotsuba saw the moment he realized what he was doing. quickly releasing her, Sora slithered away, and hissed when Raphaella stood in his way.
"You're not going anywhe--" The red masked kunoichi screamed in pain as he spit acid in her eyes, taking the chance to escape.
"Sora!" Leanardo chased after him to the rooftops, getting more desperate with each shout. "Sora, WAIT!"
---
Thunder crashed in the sky as the downpour assisted with the fire below them. Leanardo and Michelangela looked to each other with heavy hearts, Donatella tending to Raphaella's eyes before the two of them gathered around Yotsuba.
"Sensei," Leanardo's voice threatened to break. "I'm so sorry, I should have stopped him from going after Shredder...I..." The turtle noticed how her mother was not moving. Just staring off into the wet horizon as the rain poured. "Sensei?"
"We are finding him," There was a coldness that none of the girls had ever heard from their mother. "Starting now. We are not going home until the sun rises."
There was no argument.
---
All night they searched. No words had been exchanged except a few questions and scenarios to play out, from Michelangela asking Donatella about making a retromutagen, to where they needed to search next, and what to do if there was the chance Sora would never be found.
The sunrise shone through the grates of the sewers, and there was an absolute silence as they passed the turnstiles. There was no luck in finding the lost brother, and they already missed his antics and annoyed shouts that would echo through the lair's halls.
Yotsuba continued moving while her daughters stayed at the turnstiles, watching their mother's energy finally begin to fade. They were all exhausted from the night.
"Sensei?" Michelangela asked, looking worried. The rat stopped walking, standing still at the edge of the dojo's steps. A good few moments passed, completely silent.
And finally, Hamato Yotsuba broke.
Dropping to her knees caused the teenagers to rush to her. She buried her face in her paws, took a deep breath, and let her heartbreak make its presence known in a sob that echoed through the subway system for a block's radius.
All four of her daughters joined her in an embrace, and they all tried so hard to fight back their own tears. Her baby boy. Their brother. It was nearly impossibly to believe, but with the lack of a fifth pair of arms in her group of children, it made it too real.
Their cries were the only thing to fill the room with sound, Yotsuba beginning to lose her composure altogether.
"My son," She managed to voice her hurt, her throat feeling raw and broken as she wailed. "Sora...my baby, no!"