meanandgreen

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Ash
Contact Information: willowslament
Personal Journal: N/A
Age: 27
Characters Played: N/A
IN-CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Raphael
Fandom: Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage Comics)
Age: 17
Canon Point: Following Sons of the Silent Age (TMNT Vol. 1 #28)
Original Universe or Alternate Universe? Original
Personality:

Until recently, Raphael’s world has been very small. All he’s ever known is his family, the dark sewers he grew up in, and his master’s teachings of ninjutsu. Anything he’s learned about the outside world came from television and magazines and the small glimpses he stole from the shadows. He knows the world around him isn’t meant for people like his family; people who’re different. Master Splinter’s burned that into the back of his brain enough. But that doesn’t mean he’s scared. Sometimes it just adds to the thrill of escaping the confines of his dark little world. Sometimes it makes him angry.

From childhood, Raphael has always been unstable. The impulsive one with the hair-trigger temper. The problem child. He lets his emotions dictate his actions and rarely thinks first. One moment, he’s bouncing around, doing flips off the sides of buildings, laughing and entertaining anyone who will watch. The next moment, he’s sullen, restless and snappish. And the next, he’s a hostile maniac coming at you with a wrench. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to how Raph feels and behaves from one day to the next because he has such little control over his internal world. Sometimes he can’t help reacting explosively to things. It’s like the moment he gets overwhelmed, the rational part of his brain shuts off. During his worst fits of rage, he might even black out until the damage has already been done. Raph knows this is a problem, but it seems to be unable to fix it.

Oftentimes this version of Raphael has been considered a sociopath. He loves to fight, he has little regard for rules, and disobeys them without remorse. He’s even admitted to having fun while killing people and enjoying the sight of blood. But that doesn’t mean he’s heartless. Most of his ruthlessness is almost always directed toward criminals; people who would kill him or his family just as eagerly. Raph cares deeply about anyone inside his inner circle of family and friends. Though he often butts heads with Leonardo and ignores his orders, he’s still ferociously loyal to him. And even though he and Donatello don’t have much in common, he always has his back. But out of everyone in the world, he’s closest to Michaelangelo, and protects him fiercely. Even the idea of him getting hurt is enough to make Raph lose his mind. Raphael of course feels love and attachment toward all his family, but Mike is the only one he considers to be his “best friend”.

Outside his inner circle, Raphael sympathizes with the innocent. Though he’s no hero, he has a strong set of personal morals he holds everyone to. Mostly, he believes innocent people should be protected. Anyone who puts them in danger should be punished. Anyone who kills or tries to kill them should be killed. Anyone who tries to hurt his friends or family should be killed. It’s a simple but effective philosophy, and he has no problem taking matters into his own hands.

Raphael also has a special affinity for animals. He loves them and they love him. It seems like he understands them better than people. When he’s around an animal, he’s at his most docile, and plays and talks to them like they’re children. Actual human children don’t hit the same chord, but he does have a sort of gruff, gentle way of handling them.

Over the last couple years, a lot has changed in Raphael’s life. When he was fifteen, he and his brothers saved and befriended April O’Neil, who has opened the door to so much more of the human world. When their first home was destroyed by Stockman’s Mousers, Raph and his brothers moved in with April while they regrouped and searched for the then-missing Splinter. It’s been two years now, and Splinter has since returned, but the family still hasn’t gone back to the sewers. Instead, they’ve been thrown across the galaxy and back again, were plunged even further into their clan war with the Foot, and moved to Casey’s grandmother’s farmhouse in Northampton after almost losing Leonardo to the hands of the Shredder. Ever since then, life has been vastly different than anything Raph has ever experienced, and it’s been hard, but he’s loved the battles and the adventure change tends to bring.

That is, until his run-in with the leech.

During the Northampton summer, Raph’s brothers decided to stick a leech on his foot to get back at him for acting up during a training session. Little did they know that their blood still contained the mutagenic qualities of the toxic goo that made them who they are. The little leech soon mutated into a monstrous killer thirsty for more of Raphael’s tainted blood. Every time the leech managed to feed on Raph, Raph became weaker as it sapped him of his strength and the affects of his mutation. To everyone’s horror, Raph became small and child-like over a period of days, losing most of his humanoid traits. In order to save their brother, Raph’s family went after the now-humanoid leech to exact revenge and hopefully find a way to change him back. It isn’t until their final battle that the tiny turtle Raphael managed to bite the leech and accidentally drank its blood, restoring himself to his previous mutated form.

For all the world, it seemed like a happy ending. But something in Raph had shifted. Instead, he became sullen. Distant. All Raph could think about was the time he’d spent as that child-like little turtle. How happy he’d been. April would hold him in her lap and call him her baby, and he’d chase dragonflies across the yard. There was no anger, no darkness, no violence inside him. It had all been wiped clean. He’d become an animal again. What he was always meant to be; a single one of millions of his kind, no longer alone, swimming together in the clean waters and cool mud. It was good. He was pure. He was free.

And now, back to the way things were, he can feel the blood on his hands. He can feel the crushing loneliness. Mother nature has no place for murderers and freaks. He’d been abandoned by her, rejected by the humans… And then there were all these emotions. Things he’d forgotten how to feel as the little turtle. Things he wishes he never had to feel again. They make him feel dirty inside. Unnatural.

It tortures him to be one of the first and last of his kind, stuck in the limbo between animal and man. It drives him crazy to feel so tainted. But he needs his brothers. Even if he had the chance to go back, he couldn’t forget them. He couldn’t just leave them behind. Not when there’s so little in this world for them already. So he’s stuck. And he’s processing.

Hopefully it’ll get better. Only time will tell.


Is this character immune? Yep
Background:

Because a lot of the Mirage comics were published out of order, and there were many non-canon "guest" issues sprinkled in, I've made a condensed timeline of stuff I'll be considering as "canon" for roleplaying purposes.

Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 #25 ("My Hero!" short)
Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 #38
TMNT Vol. 1 #9
Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 #1
Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 #44 ("The Lessons" short)
Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 #55
TMNT Vol. 1 #1
TMNT Vol. 1 #2
TMNT Vol. 1 #3
Raphael: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
Donatello: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
TMNT Vol. 1 #4
TMNT Vol. 1 #5
TMNT Vol. 1 #6
TMNT Vol. 1 #7
Tales of the TMNT Vol. 1 #3
Michealangelo: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
Leonardo: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
TMNT Vol. 1 #10
TMNT Vol. 1 #11
Tales of the TMNT Vol. 1 #1
TMNT Vol. 1 #14
TMNT Vol. 1 #15
Challenges By Micheal Dooney
TMNT Vol. 1 #13
TMNT Vol. 1 #12
TMNT Vol. 1 #24
TMNT Vol. 1 #25
TMNT Vol. 1 #26
TMNT Vol. 1 #27

Other Notables:
Inventory:
SAMPLES
NETWORK SAMPLE:
LOG SAMPLE: