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taizi · 1 year

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Hi, not sure if you're still taking prompts, but I love your Human Splinter AU and was wondering how that would change his relationship with Raph. It seems like while he still has trauma, he doesn't have to deal with the dysphoria of suddenly having a rat body, and that make's parenting a little easier. Does that make things a little easier on Raph too?

There is a suspicious amount of giggling coming in the direction of the living room, when Yoshi is entirely positive all four turtles went down for their nap half an hour ago.

He peeks into the room and finds Raphael, laying on his front, kicking his tiny feet in the air, pouring over the comic book Hala’s daughter gave him. He doesn’t seem to notice Yoshi in the hall, as absorbed as he is.

His little turtles have keen senses. Yoshi thinks they’ll be incredible when they’re older. He also thinks he’ll treasure this—these early years, when everything is brand-new and precious, when his babies are clumsy and earnest and wide-eyed—when he can still creep up behind Raphael on silent feet and scoop him into his arms and surprise him into a squawk and then ringing peals of high, sweet laughter.

“What is this? What could this be?” Yoshi says, sing-song. “A little turtle running amok? Evading naptime? Breaching our contract?”

“Papa,” Raphael says, smiling toothily. He was the last of the four to begin speaking and sometimes he still has nonverbal days. Every time he says anything it’s like winning a goddamn prize.

Yoshi finds himself smiling back without making any conscious decision to.

“What are you up to, apple pie?” he asks. “Must be big, exciting things. Loop me in.”

Raphael waves his arms and declares gleefully, “Superheroes!”

Ah, yes. We’re still on that, Yoshi thinks, careful not to let Raphael see his expression of distaste as he stoops to pick up what turns out to be a Fantastic Four comic.

It’s one thing for his boys to find an old Jupiter Jim movie on cable TV and run around the house shooting imaginary blasters at imaginary aliens for four consecutive days afterwards. This hero thing is something else.

And he knows just who to blame.

Grandpa Sho found out about his great-grandchildren the way the rest of the world did—through the tabloids.

Apparently the pediatrician Yoshi had reached out to had decided the hefty NDA she’d signed was no more than a fancy piece of stationery, and the siren call of TMZ was too tempting to ignore.

Yoshi set his lawyers upon the asshole’s practice in the manner of a hunter releasing a pack of particularly bloodthirsty foxhounds, but the damage was done. The secret was out.

Naturally, the media ate it all up. Hala was an order of magnitude more pissed off about it than the uselessly shell-shocked Yoshi was, because as much as she might pretend otherwise, those turtles were basically her nephews. Her daughter had become their honorary big sister within about five minutes of meeting them in the first place. Hala was fully prepared to take this whole thing personally.

She told Yoshi not to read any articles, to stay off the Internet. It didn’t stop the barrage of e-mails and phone calls. It didn’t stop Yoshi from refusing to leave his house for an entire week because of the paparazzi parked outside.

And it didn’t stop Grandpa Sho from showing up on his doorstep. Apparently that bridge hadn’t been as thoroughly burned as Yoshi believed. The first thing he thought, when he saw his grandpa, was you look so old. It settled with a pang in the pit of his stomach.

The second thing—embarrassingly—was also what came out of his mouth. He hadn’t seen his grandpa in years, and the last time they spoke was in anger, but in some ways Yoshi was still his child.

“How do you fix a cold?” he blurted, right there on the doorstep. “He’s all stuffy and miserable and he won’t stop crying and he hates everything.”

Sho would have been well within his rights to be passive-aggressive, or petty, or even outright angry. Yoshi certainly would have been in his shoes. But Sho was better at putting duty before his own feelings, so he only nodded, and let himself inside.

“You sound exactly like your mother did when you were a baby,” he said, as if it wasn’t painful to say. “Not to worry. I know all the tricks.”

He did do a bit of a double-take when he saw the shape of Yoshi’s distraught toddler, but the surprise faded from his face quickly. He had always believed in all that mystic mumbo-jumbo that Yoshi had only recently learned firsthand was actually not mumbo-jumbo, after all. He took in the green skin and half-shells gracefully and ordered the inconsolable Michelangelo a lukewarm bubble-bath.

It became a whole thing, because the boys were as thick as thieves on a good day, and absolutely ready to fight god at the barest hint that they might be separated on a bad one. The bathroom ended up minorly flooded, but his kids were happy. They loved baths. They were swimming around each other in circles until even fussy Michelangelo was smiling. Sharing the moment with Sho—the two of them half-soaked and weary and bursting with affection for the rambunctious little monsters in their care—felt healing.

Grandpa Sho stayed for a few days. It was a relief to have him there, an extra set of hands. Someone Yoshi could trust, because despite everything else they had become to each other, they were still family.

The turtles were curious about him, this familiar stranger in their midst. They started absorbing Japanese within the first hour of his visit, even though Yoshi largely spoke in English. It was—nice. It reminded Yoshi of being a child himself, trailing after his jiji like a duckling.

And then one night, he let Sho tuck the boys into bed while he washed the dishes from dinner. He wandered into the nursery in the middle of a familiar story. A story that had followed Yoshi through life like a ghost, that echoed in almost all of his trauma-fueled nightmares.

The story of their clan and their duty.

Yoshi must have blacked out. He thinks he might have had an out-of-body experience. He remembers ripping the turtles out of Sho’s arms and backing away to the other side of the room and the pained way Sho’s face folded—hurt, guilt, decades-old grief.

“Don’t you dare,” Yoshi said, a whisper, because he was too furious and heartsick and terrified to speak any louder. He’d clutched his babies as tight as he could without hurting them, unreasonably afraid someone might reach out of thin air and snatch them away.

“Anata wa hitori janai,” his mother had said, the last thing she ever said. It was important but it felt like such a lie. Yoshi was alone. He’d always been alone. His sons were already better off than he was—there were four of them. He would make it his life’s mission to ensure they got to keep each other.

Then Grandpa Sho had surprised the hell out of him by saying, “I’m sorry.” He said it again in Japanese, full and formal, and Yoshi was shaken out of his stupor by sheer disbelief. “I only wanted—I only meant that they are Hamato. They are family. Whether or not you teach them what I have taught you, they will belong.”

He left not long after that, two weeks ago now. They haven’t spoken since.

And now Yoshi’s oldest son is full of half-formed ideas about heroics—concepts like ‘the greater good’ and ‘defeating evil’ that would go completely over his head, except that it’s the same sort of thing his favorite cartoon characters say.

“Hiijiji said our family is made of heroes,” Raphael says brightly. “So I’ll be one, too! And I’ll protect Leo and Donnie and Mikey when the bad guy comes.”

Yoshi can’t even speak for a moment. He has to wrestle with the lump in his throat for long enough that Raphael gets distracted and starts pawing at his hair.

His kids are so good. He can’t get over it. They were created to be super-soldiers, but all Yoshi sees are little goofballs with colorful personalities and giant hearts made of solid gold. He’s begun teaching them ninjutsu, in effort to curb some of their inexhaustible energy, and they’ve taken to it like ducks (or turtles) to water. Their brains are developing faster than those of human children their age—Donatello has the makings of an outright genius, and Leonardo is clever enough to talk circles around Yoshi in his sleep.

If they decided to become heroes, there isn’t a doubt in Yoshi’s mind that they could do it. And they’d be the best.

Raphael is all of six years old and the only things he should be preoccupied with are his siblings stealing his toys and that new Jupiter Jim DVD April promised to bring over this weekend. He shouldn’t be worried about the bad guy.

But now he’s got it into his head that he has this huge responsibility. He’s bigger and stronger than his siblings, so it falls on him to look after them. They clamber around on him like he’s their own personal jungle-gym, and he oversees bedtime rituals and boo-boos, and holds their hands when they reach out to him like it’s his job.

He doesn’t seem to mind that there is no big brother to do the same for him but he’s six. He wants someone to hold his hand, too.

Yoshi is keeping an eye on it. The last thing he wants is for Raphael to grow up too fast.

You can depend on me, he wants to say. It’s not all on your tiny little shoulders. That’s my job. It’s what I’m here for.

He doesn’t think Raphael is old enough to understand that in its entirety. So instead, when he’s sure he can speak without a wobble in his voice, Yoshi says, “There better be room for me in all these plans. I’m a hero, too, you know—you’ve seen me on TV!”

His son claps his hands together, brimming with delight. The turtles don’t really know what it means that their father is a famous actor, but they get so excited when they see Lou Jitsu on screen. They quote his movies a lot, it’s becoming a whole thing, and it’s so cute Yoshi might die.

“You’ll help fight the bad guy?” Raphael asks, like it’s the absolute best idea he’s ever heard.

“There’s not even gonna be any bad guy left for you, firebug,” Yoshi tells him. “I’m gonna beat him so quick you’ll barely see it. He’s just gonna be a big blur and you’ll wonder what the heck that was and then it’ll be over. And then we’ll go out for ice cream and forget all about it.”

He says it playfully and it makes Raphael giggle, but inwardly it takes the form of a prayer.

If there has to be a war, let it be Yoshi’s. Let his children be children for as long as they can.

“And hiijiji can come, too!” Raphael adds.

Yoshi is learning how to pick his battles. Maybe he doesn’t want to fight this battle anyway. Maybe he can begin to peel his fingers open from the fists he curled them into when he was a child. Maybe he can start to let it go.

With Raphael gazing up at him like this, like Yoshi really is a superhero, Yoshi thinks he can do just about anything.

“Okay,” he says. It doesn’t even cost him to say it. “Jiji can come, too.”

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #hamato yoshi #lou jitsu #hamato raphael #human splinter au #my writing #prompt #anonymous #tmnt fic #pushing my great grandpa sho agenda

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seancamerons · 7 months

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So here is a genuine question so, if denim vests, dresses, pleated denim skirts, and even shoes, pretty much all denim everything, flares too, crops, shrunken blazers, and even gauchos are making a comeback...

How long will it be before sequined shrugs or regular shrugs and layering make a return from a roughly 18 year hibernation?

Like you ask yourself in a store off racks or see on teens and the early twenties and generally younger humans walking down the street, is it like 2006 again?

Even Timberlake is supposedly collabbing with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado. NSYNC, in full as a five piece, who mind you, has been split up for well over almost 20ish years, may even might reunite. It feels crazy. 2006 was what? A whole adult has been born lived their entire toddler and adloscnet eras and is now currently in 2023, an adult since then. That is crazy.

I can’t believe im saying this, but I am lowkey here for it, and dare I say interested and entertained. In the same breath boom, I feel dreadfully old. Even the members of my generation peers and the 40ish members of NSYNC. I joke about it often to myself, but ugh, it's not really a good feeling despite physically being fine as to be expected. The thirties suck.

The gods of fashion say fashion comes in cycles. I suppose this is what it means. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

I refuse to be old or become old. I make an effort though I lowkey wish I had a cocktail like Meryl Streep had in Death Becomes Her where I remain ageless and can wear all the beautiful clothes with a yoga toned body and looks to match. Life ain't like the movies, and you see all or most of the clothes you donned in middle school or high school on teen children or on the youth of today. I didn't sign up for this.

Yikes, this is how my mom probably when flares came back in the late 1990's or when I was obsessed with watching Nick at Nite or TV Land with the shows of her time like it was brand new. Let's also not forget the VH1 and 80s obsessions. It's a boomerang, it's a cycle and it's driving me crazy.

#fashion #observations #things i see when i shop #2000s nostalgia #you wanna feel a little humbled? go to the wild fable section its a 2000s dream i promise you its impressive #its like the trl era #it also hurts a bit #i envy those who can pull off those bold looks #rant #i feel like grandpa lou in rugrats like in my day #it may not be 15 miles up the hill in the snow and back again the cold winter and school but somewhat similar #a toddler liked my purse at target or walmart and she deadass said that ladys bag is so cute!#lady?#i do not understand how now i hear ma'am or ms address #yet still get carded for drinks and a pack of smokes #we live a strange world i wanna fib forever #no one in my life wanna play along with me being 29 forever lol ive been “29” for 3 years lol bc 2020 didnt count #my post #personalish?

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