Ok To Hell With It, Here Are 2 More Pages To My Comic "A Bad Dream"! Sorry For Not Uploading Anything

ok to hell with it, here are 2 more pages to my comic "A bad dream"! Sorry for not uploading anything properly in a while👉👈

I originally just wanted to put the comic here as a complete story (which I will do when I completely finish the comic - I'll just post everything again in one big post), but for now, it seems to me that I can't do this because of my damn school

How to save ROTTMNT

It seems to my brain that my biology class is a perfect place to come up with ideas-

So anyway, future!Mikey, anyone??

sometimes you just

So actually, this was supposed to be a scene about Leo and Donnie, who are standing and discussing the strategy for some kind of fight, but but i screwed up with the Donnie drawing a bit so here is only leo:

Why I Headcanon Raph as an OSDD System / Plural (ROTTMNT)

OK SO there’s this wonderful comic on twitter by @/sho_draws (that i HIGHLY recommend checking out first it’s lovely) that i made a thread about but i also wanna share it here; i have way too many thoughts about this headcanon SO ‼️ here’s why i think raph is a system (plural). it gets a bit long so the explanation is under the cut :]

unfortunately the videos i used for the examples can’t be put here (tumblr only allows one video in a post) so i wrote out some - but not all - of the dialogue. if you’d like to see the clips i reference for full context check out the thread !!

in the episode “man vs sewer” (s2 ep3), raph has a very visceral reaction to being left alone for too long. leo is the one to take this seriously and reminds everyone that:

“you know how savage raph gets when he’s alone. he’ll totally lose it if we don’t find him fast. clock’s ticking.”

he also acts very hostile and defensive, and later in the episode when he switches back he can’t recall much of what happened, only knowing that he “got weird again”. possibly dissociative amnesia ?

“raph! you’re back!”

“back? uh oh…did i get weird again?”

“SUPER weird! even by my standards…”

i think this is some form of structural dissociation. knowing what we know about their childhood i think raph was seriously affected by being alone or lost and may have had to form a coping mechanism around the fear, leading to isolation becoming a trigger for this part who they call “savage raph”.

i think that part embodies a subliminal survival instinct for when he’s isolated and has to fend for himself but doesn’t hold any memories of his brothers. for “raph” raph to come back they use a positive trigger: the midnight special.

at one point raph even says

“at least i kept that part under control”

only to find he hadn’t.

in “pizza puffs” (s2 ep19) he has an argument with a more aggressive part of himself several times in the episode and even ends up beating himself up lmao. i think most systems can relate to arguing with headmates / alters, internally or externally, though knowing how covert these disorders commonly are it’s more internally to keep the system safe and hidden.

singlets also do this to some extent talking to themselves, but in my opinion these other parts he talks to have a few of their own unique key traits. they’re also so aggressively at odds with each other they physically fight (and while it’s true you could explain the reason being he’s canonically not very bright, i don’t think that reasons against it, if that makes sense).

“these guys are lost without me! maybe i should help them…”

“make them do it themselves. it’s the only way they’ll learn.”

“but they’re just kids…”

“AND YOU CAN MAKE THEM MEN!”

. . .

“…hey, bud? did you eat one of these puffs?”

and

“i gotta get in there.”

“NO, they’ll never learn if you always help them, raph.”

“but i can’t just sit here…”

“this is for their own good!”

and

“i knew you guys could do it!”

“no you didn’t! I did!”

“oh? you wanna go?”

“bring it!”

it happens AGAIN several times within “raph’s ride along”, but not with aggressive raph, more of a rational one (s2 ep24). the conversations here are more like reasoning back and forth with someone co-con with him instead of arguing.

“you’re in a pickle, raph! you’re a good guy trapped in a wagon full of baddies who think you’re a crook named heinous green! do you tell them the truth?”

“sure, you could do that. IF YOU WANNA GET CREAMED! you gotta play along until you can get this sorted out.”

“hey, punk! you gonna keep muttering to yourself or are you gonna tell us if you is or is not heinous green?!”

he even accuses other raph of being on the criminal’s side which makes me think he usually finds evidence of his other selves doing things he doesn’t agree with or doesn’t remember. and like the previous example he ends up beating himself up anyways lol

“ugh, every hare-brained plan i come up with works remarkably well! wait a minute…are you in their crew?! are you a mole? HUH?!”

a friend of mine reminded me that raph also speaks in third person all the time !! not all systems do this explicitly out loud but it’s really common to see your actions and yourself in third person when dissociating. not just in context of dissociating, depersonalization, or derealization, but could also just be talking about and referring to the other raphs in his head (to know which is which every single time isn’t necessary since it makes sense either way).

referring to himself in third person happens like almost EVERY episode but one s2 example is ep20 (“sidekick ahoy”).

“a mutant ?! of course…wow. raph really whiffed on this one.”

they also reference the fact that raph has a lot of brain fog (his brothers feel foggy and call it “raph brain”) which is a common symptom of lots of things, but especially dissociative disorders. this happened in s2 ep29 (“the clothes don’t make the turtle”).

“everything is foggy…”

yeah, it’s like we all have raph brain…”

so it must be a common thing they’re used to about raph.

to my understanding it could be osdd1a. osdd (otherwise specified dissociative disorder) is like DID (dissociative identity disorder) but different; osdd1a systems have parts that aren’t fully developed alters but have the telltale amnesia walls and blackout amnesia between them (like when switching front), and osdd1b has more or less fully differentiated alters but no amnesia barriers or full blackout amnesia between them (but do have other forms of amnesia such as emotional amnesia). those are very simplified definitions however.

raph’s parts are still himself but fragmented, not completely different turtles. so this could fall under many forms of multiplicity and structural dissociation, or things that present similarly, like ptsd or bpd, but i think he could be part of a system of similar raphs. it’s common in any system to have some alters be similar to one another visually and personality-wise, as they have to act the same to hide their multiplicity for their safety. it’s also common for not-so-developed alters to only carry out one type of task or role, like how savage raph or aggressive raph are protectively defensive in different ways.

like many people said in replies under the original comic for the headcanon, essentially it’s all different versions of raph and regardless who’s fronting he’s still the incredible, goofy, big brother gentle giant we know and love, who just wants what’s best for his brothers and to keep them safe :] 💖💕

maybe with the exception of savage raph who gets out of control but you get what i mean lol

keep in mind i understand a lot of these moments are exaggerated and played up for laughs, it IS a kids cartoon after all but i find it fits my silly little headcanon so i wanted to write about it !! i do hope i can talk about it more or maybe even make fanart to elaborate on this.

feel free to add on or correct me on things, i’m not an expert, just someone with a dissociative disorder who learned a lot about this stuff and questioned myself for years. i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this !! i’m also just projecting a lot as a raph kinnie lmao.

once again if you haven’t PLEASE GO CHECK OUT SHO’S LITTLE COMIC !!! it’s lovely and gives me the soft fuzzy feelings and was the whole catalyst for me to make these connections in the first place !! while you’re at it go follow them too if you have twitter !!

if you got this far, thank you sm for reading ✨

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and one more thing: