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i've been thinking about what my personal tmnt headcanons are when it to comes to the ot4. in general, i have a pretty big raph/mikey bias, but i also just tend to imagine all four of them are in a relationship. it just makes sense to me that they would all be codependent and incestuous in some way. what i've been more interested by lately is how those incestuous feelings started, and i imagine the answer is different for all of them.
mikey: he first developed a crush on raph when he was about 8. raph may be irritable and hard to get along with, but he's so much fun to be with, and mikey is really attracted to that. their push and pull dynamic got really twisted into something else inside his head, but he wouldn't really figure out what those feelings meant until he was around 10. by that time he'd already started crushing on leo, because how can he not fall for his cool older brother? he falls for donnie last, when they're already about 15. by that point he has adopted the habit of wasting time in donnie's lab, much to donnie's annoyance, so they end up spending a lot of time together. the proximity made it really easy for him to catch feelings.
donnie: he started crushing on leo when he was 14. raph and mikey are loud and messy and so frustrating to talk to, but leo is so much easier to be with. and that made him an ideal first crush. due to internalized homophobia/the incest taboo, he'd repress those feelings and wouldn't come to terms with them until he was much older. i don't even think he even perceived it as a crush honestly. he would next start crushing on mikey, at around the same time mikey was also developing feelings for him. he wouldn't catch feelings for raph until he was about 18, mostly because they both deal poorly with intimacy, so it'd take them a long time to become truly close and allow any feelings to form.
raph: his first crushes were on mikey and leo. he developed both at the same time when he was 8. he has intense relationships with both, so it makes sense to me that he would perceive them both very similarly. he wouldn't think of donnie in that way until he was 18.
leo: his first crush would be on raph, when he was 10. like i said, those two have a pretty intense relationship, so it feels like they would catch feelings for each other when they were young. his second crush would be donnie, at around 14,. and his last crush would be mikey at 16, i imagine mikey would be last because i can see leo struggling to think of his little brother in that way.
on a related note, i think they all had different "oh shit, i'm in love with my brother" moments. mikey would realize at 10, donnie at 17, leo at 18 and raph at 16.
mikey: he first developed a crush on raph when he was about 8. raph may be irritable and hard to get along with, but he's so much fun to be with, and mikey is really attracted to that. their push and pull dynamic got really twisted into something else inside his head, but he wouldn't really figure out what those feelings meant until he was around 10. by that time he'd already started crushing on leo, because how can he not fall for his cool older brother? he falls for donnie last, when they're already about 15. by that point he has adopted the habit of wasting time in donnie's lab, much to donnie's annoyance, so they end up spending a lot of time together. the proximity made it really easy for him to catch feelings.
donnie: he started crushing on leo when he was 14. raph and mikey are loud and messy and so frustrating to talk to, but leo is so much easier to be with. and that made him an ideal first crush. due to internalized homophobia/the incest taboo, he'd repress those feelings and wouldn't come to terms with them until he was much older. i don't even think he even perceived it as a crush honestly. he would next start crushing on mikey, at around the same time mikey was also developing feelings for him. he wouldn't catch feelings for raph until he was about 18, mostly because they both deal poorly with intimacy, so it'd take them a long time to become truly close and allow any feelings to form.
raph: his first crushes were on mikey and leo. he developed both at the same time when he was 8. he has intense relationships with both, so it makes sense to me that he would perceive them both very similarly. he wouldn't think of donnie in that way until he was 18.
leo: his first crush would be on raph, when he was 10. like i said, those two have a pretty intense relationship, so it feels like they would catch feelings for each other when they were young. his second crush would be donnie, at around 14,. and his last crush would be mikey at 16, i imagine mikey would be last because i can see leo struggling to think of his little brother in that way.
on a related note, i think they all had different "oh shit, i'm in love with my brother" moments. mikey would realize at 10, donnie at 17, leo at 18 and raph at 16.
