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Donatello is the apocalypse boogeyman!!!

I finally started crunching out more ideas for my Continuum AU and came up with this.

To start, theres the ration issue:

I think the resistance creating a whole economy around rations/water is such a realistic concept because its exactly what humans would do if given the chance.

The turtles were so busy trying to stabilize the resistance and keep everyone alive that by the time they realized people had basically rebuilt capitalism underground, the mindset was already too rooted to fully stop. Survivors start trading water, medicine, food, favors, protection, all of it. Rich/poor dynamics start forming again because people naturally assign value to scarce resources. Even after the turtles try to stop it, there will be some greedy mfers that push to keep the system alive.

And Donnie would take that INSANELY personally.

He is already protective of ‘The Oasis’. I’ll have to post an explanation of this as well. Basically the ocean is destroyed and turned into a toxic sludge. The oasis is the culmination of a six month hyperfixation I fell into and mark watney’d the crap out of to find a realistic way for the characters to turn it back into drinking water.

Every ration and water quota was carefully calculated with peoples health in mind. Hydration, caloric intake, nutrient deficiencies, medicine interactions, labor requirements, survival odds, all of it. To him, the ration system is his baby, it keeps people alive instead of simply living.

So when people manipulate it for profit, what he hears is:

“Your work doesn’t matter.”

“These people are expendable.”

“Survival can be monetized.”

I‘m imagining this hitting a head when a weak mother collapses from dehydration and almost dies because somebody manipulated her to trade away her water for something else. Donnie would become genuinely dangerous over that.

He would actively hunt these idiots, one of the only times he leaves the lab being when he finally finds one of the idiots and goes on a ‘manhunt’.

In his mind: “Someone almost died because you idiots wanted to play economy. Obviously a lesson should be learned here.”

Which would be completely accurate, but the apocalypse absolutely makes him more unstable over time. I like to imagine that he already had poor opinions of humans, not to mention he already struggled socially before everything fell apart

Now add:

• years underground

• severe sleep deprivation

• almost no healthy socialization

• constant pressure of keeping everyone alive

• Total isolation from other survivors

• stress

• exhaustion

He becomes more and more detached and unhinged as the years go on.

I absolutely LOVE unhinged Donnie and no one can stop me from implementing him!!!!

I like to imagine he’s already an emotionally driven person, so while his “normal” would be closed off and cold, his mood swings would be like ADHD on crack.

So when someone REALLY crosses a line, especially involving civilians or children suffering because of greed, his anger becomes loud and explosive. Yelling, destruction, collateral damage, the whole thing.

His “manhunts” would basically become events in the resistance because whenever Donnie leaves the lab specifically to hunt someone down, chaos follows.

Yelling, explosions, collateral damage, Leo trying to stop him from killing someone while Donnie publicly begs to at least maim them with a psychotic grin.

He doesn’t realize how loud or destructive he’s being, in his mind he’s simply policing dangerous idiots.

Meanwhile the rest of the resistance is like:

“Oh god. Donnie left the lab. Everyone run!”

And that’s when he starts turning into a cryptid instead of a resistance leader.

Eventually people learn to duck for cover or scatter when he’s near. This turns him leaving the lab into a bad omen or a shitty weather forecast.

Cue the shining reference: “Donnie’s here!”

Now when the adults act the way they do, you better bet the children are going to take that and run with it.

To the survivors, especially the kids, he stops feeling like a person and starts feeling like folklore. Think about it from their perspective:

• 7ft tall exhausted mutant

• covered in grease

• glowing purple tech

• Most likely with his face covered

• muttering to himself

• appears silently in tunnels

• Always accidentally jump scaring people

• only comes out to cause chaos

That’s not a guy anymore, that’s an urban legend

And kids would ABSOLUTELY start making up insane stories:

“The Scientist watches through the vents.”

“The cameras are hidden in the walls.”

“He drags thieves into the lab.”

“He mutates people.”

“He doesn’t sleep.”

“I heard a kid snuck into his lab on a dare and was turned into a monster/never seen again”

“He hears water theft through pipes.”

“He replaced his organs with machines.”

“He built Delta in a lab.”

And parents would 100% use him as a boogeyman to get their kids to listen because parents already do that in real life.

“If you don’t finish your food, the scientist will sneak into your room at night and eat your toes.” (This works personally because ive told my nieces this about the boogeyman to make them sleep…. It didn’t work…. But it was still funny)

“Go to sleep before the scientist finds out your up past lights out.”

“Don’t waste water or he’ll crawl out of the vents.”

Meanwhile Donnie is a dum dum for interaction and has absolutely NO IDEA any of this is happening. He genuinely thinks people scattering around him is respect or acknowledgment of his authority

EXAMPLE: The Ball Scene

The brothers finally convince him to leave the lab and physically walk through the base instead of monitoring everything through screens. There’s a group of kids playing with a ball. They look up, see Tello, immediately scream and scatter. Ball rolling away abandoned and everything.

And dum dum Tello’s just standing there mid sip of coffee like:

“…What just happened.” Or “hm, must’ve been a spider on the ball”

Meanwhile Leo is in the background trying not to die laughing, “Kids are weird.”

ANOTHER EXAMPLE: Hallway Scene.

Some teens are sneaking around after lights out, up to normal teenage shenanigans and hear whistling echoing through the tunnels. They turn the corner and come face to face with Donnie. Meanwhile he’s literally just on his way to fix something because he likes wandering around at night when people are asleep and he doesn’t have to socialize. And can you blame a relaxed man for whistling?

The teens immediately panic and trip over themselves trying to flee while Donnie just sighs and thinks, “Good. They realized they shouldn’t be out this late.” And continues on his way to fix whatever while thinking he stopped some teen trouble.

meanwhile those teens thought they almost had their organs harvested and are NEVER emotionally recovering from their real life cryptid encounter

And it needs to be set up in a way that there’s ALWAYS some simple explanation for him to jump to instead of mass fear that stops him from realizing what’s actually going on.

And you better BET Leo absolutely feeds these rumors because he thinks it’s hilarious. It probably started as one joke to entertain nervous kids and spiraled completely out of control.

Kid: “Is it true the scientist watches us through the vents?”

Leo: “Nah.”

dramatic pause

“The cameras are in the walls.”

Children gasping horrified while Mikey smacks Leo upside the head.

And Leo would totally tell horror stories during blackouts too:

“Legend says if you waste water, he appears behind you holding a clipboard.”

Meanwhile somewhere else in the base Donnie sneezes violently for no reason

The best part is Leo would NEVER tell Donnie about any of this because he has his own personal comedy show going on. Why ruin one of the only fun things left in the apocalypse?

This will go on for YEARS, to the point that even delta gets in on the joke

Eventually Donnie finally realizes that he’s the only common denominator to people’s weird reactions.

Probably corners Leo because he KNOWS Leo’s hiding something.

“You’re aware of something.”

“I’m aware of lots of things.”

“Leonardo.”

“Donatello.”

“…Why are people running from me.”

Leo is staring VERY aggressively at the wall because if he makes eye contact he’s going to start laughing.

“I think you’re imagining things.”

“Children screamed.”

“Kids are dramatic.”

“Leonardo a child threw a shoe at me today.”

And Leo’s trying to cough-laugh into his arm while pretending he’s fine while Donnie stares at him with crossed arms because he KNOWS Leo only avoids eye contact when:

• lying

• hiding something

• or about to do something stupid

And if Donnie ever actually learns the rumors his response wouldn’t even be embarrassment

Just genuine confusion.

“Why would I eat toes? …There’s no nutritional benefit.”

And then Leo IMMEDIATELY makes it worse afterward by telling the kids:

“HE DENIED THE TOE THING SPECIFICALLY.”

Which escalates the rumors even MORE.

Congratulations Leo. Now the children believes Donnie consumes organs selectively.

And the important thing is that the rumors are funny, but their based off of truth, making them spiral easier. Because Donnie genuinely is terrifying when somebody threatens survival systems. He would absolutely hunt someone down over ration crimes. I also headcannon Donnie as someone who doesn’t realize how to control his lethality levels. The resistance basically created folklore around an exhausted mutant genius keeping everyone alive through sheer spite, caffeine, and unresolved emotional damage.

To sum everything up: Donatello is the apocalypse boogeyman.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, ill be busy imagining Donnie’s face as he describes a terrified child throwing a shoe at him.

peep the emotes that i did for the zine!

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