#back at it again with my future mikey design

[cherrytraveller]

blood like soap it washes away your innocence.

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[paintedkinzy-88]

Let's take a step back (or rather, forward) and indulge my wandering mind. Behold! Bad Future Dragos!

I want it to be clear that these are at the... latest point in their lives (AKA, before they die) rather than all at the same time. The design choices are very deliberate in that case.

As always, off I ramble---

Raphael was often called the "Umbrella" of the Resistance, due to his habit of shielding those around him with his wings. He's always done this, ever since he was a dragonet, but the danger is much more real now, and he has a lot more people to protect. As it is, his wings are torn beyond repair. Unless he uses his Ninpo, flying is no longer an option. It's also because of this tendency to constantly throw himself into the front lines that he lost one of his legs. Lucky, Donnie was able to craft multiple prosthetics for him, as his size grew bigger and bigger each day, at a much faster rate than his brothers. Unfortunately, this also made him a bigger target, as he was the first Hamato casualty.

Speaking of Donnie, that serpent held the Resistance together, no doubt about it. He wasn't often put on the battlefield, as his skills were much more needed within their bases building defenses, weapons, armor, indoor gardens, and so much more. He was essential to their survival, working the hardest out of the group of engineers and construction workers they were able to recruit. However, after loosing his tail, back leg, and, temporarily, his voice to Krang hounds, he was kept strictly on base only, much to his dismay. With his focus so narrowed down to just build build build, Donnie created more and more pieces of tech to help him do so, like multiple Shelldon bodies and a constant supply of robot arms (that could of course be used as weapons in a pinch). In the end, keeping him so guarded didn't matter. When one of their hideouts was ransacked before they could escape, Donnie stayed behind to initiate a self destruct. He took out the sister Krang in the blast, as well as a sizable chunk of their army.

Leo was the seemingly fearless leader of the survivors, his way of words convincing countless people of all kinds to join their forces. He actually only took charge after Draxum's death, since the yokai had previous experiences in mass wars and lead them as well as he could prior to Leo. His fins have certainly seen better days, but swimming wasn't much of an option after a few years anyways, as the Krang eventually made the oceans far to toxic to be in. Eventually, with his fins so torn up, Donnie did make him prosthetic wings, as attacking from the air was such an incredible advantage. He also ended up taking one of Raph's old arms after a wound left them having to amputate, and resources to build a brand new one were slim pickings. Sadly, after Donnie's passing, there wasn't anyone with the same knowledge to fix and manage the wings, leading to them eventually just breaking off. Leo mostly uses them to stab aliens now.

Mikey gained a growing group of worshippers rather quickly. He hates it immensely, but his family finds it hilarious. With his mystic powers only gaining strength, and getting increasingly flashy as well, it wasn't too much of a surprise that people would see him as an angel, godlike figure, or deity. He was the heaviest hitter of the Resistance, even before Raph's passing, and spent any free time he had either speaking to their ancestors or helping people nurture the little remaining hope in their base. Despite being almost constantly on the frontlines of the worst battles, Mikey has the fewest scars.

AND, FINALLY: Heights. With a quickly added April to help out. Again, these are at the latest stage of their lives, because Raph would definitely have been Much Bigger Than That had he lived to be Leo's old man age.

(And Donnie has always been the taller twin. It's not his fault Leo had more time to gain a few inches on him.)

[dreadpirateella]

uhhhh so I couldn't wait and finished The Neon Void... AND I HAVE THOUGHTS

putting a cut here bc this is gonna be loooong

and spoilers for all of Neon Void ofc

Dude ok just the writing in this?? This fic is SO well written like omg. All of the action scenes come across SO well, and as someone who can't write a fight scene to save my life, I just really appreciate that. Everything is so easy to follow.

AND THE DIALOGUE???? SO perfect omg. Everything felt so in character like this could be a whole season of the show. The way Leo's hysteria is written is just so crazy and so incredible. Like it's so clear that he's losing his mind but also so clear that he's still Leo. I'm just in love with it

and the looming threat of the Krang parasite?? Such a good like consistent villain. You can never go too long without remembering its presence and realizing what a massive threat it is!

The miscommunication between Leo and everyone else about what he plans to do with the key is also just incredible. The way they thought he was so far gone as to use it to release the Krang? That's just so heartbreaking.

AND THE REVEAL???? I just need to talk about it like genuinely it's SO well done. It feels a little out of nowhere (/pos!!!) and I really think it works bc it just totally catches everyone by surprise. Leo not even realizing that he's exposed until a few seconds pass it just perfect. Wondering why his entire family is staring at him like that and then realizing that they know is just *chefs kiss*

I LOVE everyone's anger when Void messed with Leo's stuff. Him stealing Donnie's bracelet and messing up his room, like you can feel the anger from the rest of the family and it's SO good.

also side note??? Mikey cutting Leo's arm off??? freaking awesome I LOVE when Mikey gets to go crazy

The emotions in this fic are just SO palpable. Like I felt the grief and heartache and confusion and anger radiating off of these characters through my screen. Every chapter is just so soaked with emotion it's freaking incredible. The writing in this fic is just phenomenal.

The brother's ninpo calming down and comforting Leo is also just such a good little repeated detail. Leo finally being able to contact his ancestors because he's back with his family once again is just SO good and so sweet. Karai is the most comforting presence known to man 😭

AND FUTURE LEO AT THE END???? was NOT expecting that I love it so dang much. Everyone in Leo's little mindscape journey at the end just yelling at him to go back to his family is just so so so sweet to read. And Leo's decision when he destroyed the key to stay with his family was just so beautiful. It just felt so right.

And everyone's reactions to every situation just feel so natural!!! I was reading it and something would happen and I'd be like of course that's how they'd respond to that! All of the Hamatos having that realization hit them that yes this is Leo and yes he's actually here is just so bittersweet to read. Knowing they grieved for FIVE years and now here he is right in front of them. It's just so emotional

I'm definitely gonna have more thoughts about this as more time passes so maybe expect more rambles?? and maybe some fanart too!!! Void's design is just too cool not to draw.

This fic sent me on a roller-coaster of emotions and I couldn't be more thankful for it. Thank you SO MUCH @sugarpasteltmnt for writing and sharing this incredible piece of art with all of us. You're incredible.

TLDR: I'm in love with this fic please go read it I'm gonna think about it for the rest of my life

[tmntforeverinmyheart]

I unironically love the mutant apocalypse, and really wish there was more content of it. I mean it paved the way for rises future that fans seem to worship. It’s unfortunate that the designs kinda sucked (looking at you leo) and how the bridge between the mutagen bomb and 50 years into the further is basically unknown. Like how did leo of all people become a cruel wasteland king? What tragic accident befell casey, april and karai for them to be nonexistent? What did raph and donnie do for 50 years? What happened to mikey to make him go crazy? So many questions left unanswered, so im gonna make content of my version of the mutant apocalypse for awhile cause i love them, it feeds my angsty soul lol

Leo retains bits and pieces of his past life. Unfortunately most of his memories have become disconnected from each other. He remembers a man or a mutant? Spikes of metal and skin, silver armour encasing his whole body, the man’s heart, pulsing with green. Green what? Leo didn’t know. He remembers colours, red, purple and orange. One radiating warmth and a fiery temper, one cold and calculating but with a softness, one filled with love and brightness. What do they mean? He thought back to the man (mutant?) how monstrous he looked. looking down at himself he could see the resemblance between the memory and his reality. The man felt most familiar, and unlike the colours was more in focus. He carried an air of superiority and held himself with pride. Leo wanted to be like him. A path has been chosen for him and he will follow it.

Note: Leo does not actually remember his name, I just wanted to make it obvious who the character was.

Tw blood

Donnie and Raph stayed together. Raph had to be his younger brothers protector, in this strange new world their ninja skills wouldn’t be enough, not in the state they were in. They wandered together, searching for their missing family members. Surviving on through the ever changing climate on scraps, raw meat, mutant flesh, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was staying alive and finding their brothers.

Mikey was separated from his brothers in the aftermath of the mutagen bomb, Eventually finding his way back to the sewer. His home was in disarray. Luckily he still had one friend he could count on. Ice cream kitty practically hug-attacked mikey when he opened the freezer. Mikey stayed in his home, finishing off the food in the fridge and cupboard. There wasn’t much to do really. He played cards with kitty. Failed to meditate, and looked at old photos. 10 years passed by and eventually the fridge and freezer stopped working and he had to go searching for another safe haven to keep his friend from melting. He found a still working pizza place and hunkered down. This pattern continued for a number of years. He traveled all over New York to different grocery, ice cream and pizza stores to keep kitty alive. Mikey became sickly from eating so much outdated and even moldy food. Mikey had to resort to eating his infinite ice cream friend. He grew hair at some point, which was odd (he didn’t even know that was possible), it was curly and unkept. He would braid his hair into different shapes to pass the time. The world around him was crumbling, seeming more and more out of a sci-fi movie everyday. He stayed in his head a lot, imagining a whole new reality where he still had his family. But he couldn’t completely discount his reality, after all he had ice cream kitty.

Until he didn’t…

During his travels, Leo met many mutants. One in particular just wouldn’t leave him alone. Their first encounter was a battle over a rotten carcass. She attacked, wrapping her long body around his lower leg, cutting off his circulation. He attacked her back, swiping at her with his claws. He remembered the man with the spikes, and manipulated the skin of his arm, forming two hard spikes, he swiped at her again. She backed off with a haunted look in her eyes. “Shredder” she said quietly, before slithering away.

[ruija]

HOKAY, I'm done with work, time to gush about turtle comics.

Putting it under read more so I don't spoil anyone.

Wowie! The future turtles are from the GOOD TIMELINE. That's interesting!! I wouldn't put too much weight on the designs, tbh. The whole comic is clearly drawn pretty hastily, and seems like Andy mostly just took the designs from the movie. They look way too old for being barely in their 40s, especially if they didn't have to live in an apocalypse for 20 years.

But ofc other stressful things can happen in two decades. Raph's lost an eye and arm huh. The present Raph has the rips on his mask, but no eyepatch, so maybe his sight got worse over time? (most likely Andy was just drawing whatever, and there's no deeper thought behind it lol. But we can have fun)

LMAO the truth comes out! Future Donnie's bad fashion sense was not a product of the Kraang Apocalypse. Man just decided to wear that.

Ah, Leo-angsters are getting fed again. Your own mystics betray and strand you in unknown universes, away from family for months, and once you come back your dad has died? Whooof! And relatively soon after the Kraang invasion? Whooof x2!

Mikey can just willy-nilly create time portals now? Huh. And they're friends with Renet!!!! Guess she taught him to do this stuff less costly.

FRIDA!!!! A design for her! A reunion! that's fun! <3

The Leos interacting is pretty cute.

I CAN'T BELIEVE SPLINTER IS FUCKING DEAD

Honestly, I'm cracking up, what the hell.

"Ohh, my dear family, thank you for everything. Farewell... Oh, and you have some long lost siblings lol" *dies*

Rip Splints, trolling until the end o7

Sweet to see Piebald, both Caseys and Draxum all present. And Draxum became their stay-at-home-dad in the future? That's cute :D I like the "Draxum steps up as a dad, after Splinter passes" trope in fics. (I guess Todd also lives with them....? lol)

"See you in a few years." "Hard pause" instead of The end.

HELLO??? HELLO??!?! !!!!!!!!!!!!

Gosh, the Rise comic was such a treat. It's pretty chaotic and idk how canon you can consider it as, but Andy crammed so many interesting plotty things into just 8 pages! Really fun and delicious tidbits for us to play with heehee!

Not to mention the very hopeful ending, possibly hinting for a come-back ;;;____;;;; OOOOHHHHH I am on my knees, begging.

I was also very excited for the 2003 comic, but that ended up being mostly eye candy and vibing. Not to say, I wasn't incredibly fond and happy to see the 2k3 turtles again <3 They look so good, oh my babygirls, all of them!! (brb I'm also low-key crying at how Splinter describes his sons)

[jellyvibes710]

2024 has approached and has smacked me in the face, where the hell the new year come from??

Anyways, my drawings this year 😎

The first three are from an eddsworld comic I'm working on, I decided to pick up a pencil after about two years without drawing and it became a side project, it's hard to believe that a small (well, not very small) project lead me to all this 👀💙💜❤️🧡

I can't believe the improvement over a year, that's insane.

I just wanted to thank you guys for helping me find the motivation to start drawing again, I never thought I'd come so far and honestly I can't thank you guys enough, I'm awful with words but thank you thank you thank you.

Especially special thanks to @abbeyofcyn @skylabrea @wandering-ghost @the-fluidiest-gender @ilivelikeimtrying (I really hope I didn't forget anybody, I'm bad with names ahhhh) you all helped me in more ways than I can count and I'm grateful to have you guys in my life ��

For once in a long time I'm looking forward to what's ahead, admittedly bad start but I'm still looking forward to what's to come, so to start off a new year I figured I'll show you all what's to come after little baby blue is complete

Spoilers ;]

The first drawings of this year too

Originally I wanted to do a future au that focused on Casey Jr and his life in the apocalypse, but little baby blue was created instead and being honest, I thought about it for like two days then jumped right in because I got excited, so the first few parts up till recently have been completely off the top of my head, I have everything planned, every detail, I got scripts and future parts sketched out as rough drafts, I have Playlists for future animations, I planned everything but the very very beginning, so oops.

But LAST HOPE AU will be a prequel to little baby blue, everything in little baby blue will link back and connect with last hope and vice versa, there has already been hints and foreshadowing in little baby blue that tie in with last hope, events that have happened in Casey's timeliness have already started to appear, just not in the way it had in his time. Everything will tie together in a neat little bow hehe.

We do get small snippets of Casey's past in Little Baby Blue but the story mainly focuses on leo and his brothers. Last Hope is dedicated to Casey Jr and his story that lead to the events of LBB.

A small bit of detail of the characters Casey mainly interacts with

Donnie makes more than just guns with his ninpo as you can see, he saves close combat weapons for his most bloodlust of days, especially when his family gets hurt. His hands are scarred from building the best tech he can with what little he's got, all his family wears this specially designed tech because out of everybody he wants to keep his dum dum brother's, April and Cassandra alive the most. He has the base in heavy lockdown and has strict system when it comes to missions that him and leo enforced to ensure maximum survival, donnie is cold blooded and fierce and only allows his family into his tech room that's heavily secured. When Casey Jr is born Donnies "emotionally unavailable" image gets turned to dust and genuinely gets excited when it's his turn to watch Jr, it's the only time he's actively away from his tech and security systems is to watch Casey Jr but he doesn't worry about it because if he's not there S.H.E.L.D.O.N. is on watch and notifies donnie when it's an emergency or something important, once Jr is old enough he allows Casey into his tech room and teaches Casey about how his tech works and how it operates.

Mikey never reaches his old man stage, only being 40 when the events of the movie take place. This is mainly due to the fact that he never learned how to cure kraang infected survivors, once someone is infected they couldn't be saved. He's at his most powerful protecting those closest to him and is still the main cook, him and donnie are the last line of defense if the base is ever attacked. He's the most connected to their family ninpo, him and leo work together to try and reawaken Leo's powers and were actually successful until leo lost his arm, he could never find out what had Leo's ninpo in a chokehold. Him and Casey have an entire room dedicated to wall art and often when mikey watches Casey they need to bathe all the paint off him afterwards, It's the only room full of color and is open to everyone to sit and enjoy the colors.

Raph is big, angry, intimating and powerful, but he is the kindest heart you'll find in the turtle group. Him and Cassandra go on missions together most of the times and he took her passing the hardest, he was a father figure to Casey Jr and despite being the biggest turtle he was the most gentle with Jr. He passed suddenly but died protecting those he loved most. Mikey talks with raph A lot after his death and donnie chimes in from time to time but unfortunately leo is unable to reach raph but knows he's there.

Leo is the leader of the resistance, he's looked up too as much as he's looked down upon, he doesn't take kindly to insults about his family and will put you in your place if one is threatened. He bugs Donnie a lot and try to do their traditional twin night as often as they can, along with being leader of the resistance he also helps Mikey cook, he helps Raph make clothes, and helps Donnie with security, he doesn't have time to watch Casey but always keeps an eye on him, sometimes when dee and Leo have twin nights they bring Casey with, after Leo loses his arm Casey is attached to his hip and after Raphs death Leo takes Casey under his wing and teaches him everything he needs to know to survive.

Cassandra is the mother of Casey Jr, she’s crazy fearless and insanely strong for being human. Even when she was pregnant she was trying to kick kraang butts, after Jr was born she settled down for a few months with April at her side who was teaching her how to properly handle an infant. After those few months though she was right back to her crazed energy and fighting spirit, she took it upon herself to teach the other mothers how to fight off kraang while protecting their kids, one example is kicking kraang face while burping child. Multitasking at its finest. She was in her sons life till he was 3 1/2 years old and she tragically lost her life, we will witness how she lost her life in little baby blue through one of the flashbacks Casey has and it’ll also be in last hope, sadly Casey was there to witness his mother’s final moments.

The one, the only, April O’Neal! Commander and right hand lady of the resistance, she’s always around the base trying her best to help lessen the load on Leo’s shoulders while still trying to be her bubbly self. She’s mostly helping her mother out in the medbay though and was there to help save Leo’s life multiple times, always followed by treating the soft shells wounds shortly after his freak outs. She’s not very well trained in medicine but her mother and Leo have taught her most of the basics knowledge for when she’s in battle and is needed. She is one of the few that survives till the events of the movie

I look forward to what's coming in little baby blue, and for what's to come in LAST HOPE. I hope you all are as excited as I am hehehe

There is WAY, W A Y more details and story but I don't want to spoil the whole thing ;]

Also as a bonus, if anyone is interested or just curious, l'll answer any questions either regarding little baby blue or last hope. Though depending on the question you may get spoilers, you've been warned 🫡

[yellowhollyhock]

Rise Future Leo is so important to me

I just. It's just.

Like on the first watch through it sticks out a lot how much he's changed. But the thing is the thing is

"Hope is a ninja's greatest weapon" and then young Leo being like "ooh new catchphrase" like I know it's a time travel joke but listen. He lost everything. His entire family, his entire city, literally even parts of his body, and ultimately his entire timeline. Do you know how much grief can change a person fundamentally? Do you realize how hard it is to hang onto the little things that used to make you happy? Sometimes you just have to find new little things, and let go of who you used to be. Sometimes that's better.

But the fact that after every one of these losses, for all the things he let go of, Leo held onto his one-liners and catchphrases--I can't I can't he's so. Like the strength that takes? The deliberate choice that had to be? And the way he's using it more maturely to lift others up instead of to mask his insecurities, but also the way it's both and has always been both. GAH

And it's just it's just like. It really emphasizes the strengths that Leo had in the show all along, because. At first when I first watched the movie, I felt like they kinda nerfed his character? Why is he acting all irresponsible, sure he presents that way but rise Leo usually is actually pretty careful and aware of himself. Like especially his family's safety. But then it makes so much sense because he's just been given all this responsibility and he's trying to figure out how to deal with that.

And it's the moments. It's. When he says something or looks at someone and infuses that hope into them, like he's literally handing them a weapon. It happens in the show too (Donnie in the basketball episode comes to mind, and of course the classic "where are my brothers"), but the movie really builds to focus on those moments. And that's so very at the core of what makes a character Leonardo. It's that reservoir of inner strength that he learns how to share.

That ability to hang onto hope when it doesn't make any sense, and then persuade others to feel it. 87's corniness and charging into all kinds of dangerous situations, 03's sappy speeches and dangerous level of trust in everyone ever, the way 12 grows from pushing and demanding to encouraging and believing. Even 07 Leo, the Worst from what we saw of him--it's the changes in Donnie and Mikey when they see him again that make me believe that guy is in there. He's been the one putting hope in their hands when they couldn't find it anywhere else and that's why they felt so betrayed and abandoned. Splinter literally says to Donnie "if you cannot learn to recognize [where your brothers are weak and how to be strong for them], all hope is lost for our family." Honestly I think Raph is the only one, including April and Casey, who actually did keep that weapon in his hand after Leo left. He's the one who still believes he can save the city, ya know? And maybe also never really gave up on Leo coming back, which is why he also couldn't let go of the anger that it took so long.

It's like this okay: hope is a sword, love is a shield. It's Leo and Raph. Hope and Love bro ❤️🩵

And the Rise turtles brought this into focus because of how they flipped around some of their superficial traits.

I don't know you guys the fact that 'you are not alone' became Raph's big moment and 'hope is a ninja's greatest weapon' became Leo's just makes me insane a little bit. I don't think my brain was designed for this many emotions.

[echonvoid]

Hero costumes! For when the bois finally get their rhythm back

Donnie:

Hero Name: ??? Not really sure yet but probably a chess term or definitely one of his many fake names (*cough cough* Von Ryan *cough cough*)

Fun fact: I based his future design on @sheltered-uno’s WROR Au! Future Donnie Design. It’s a really fun design. Definitely fit a “future hero in the making” vibe I was going for. Also, mans is ripped as hell and has the build of an Olympian throwing sport player. He has canonically picked up and threw a 50-100 lb circular weight used for lifting exercises. Not pictured: His small rat/turtle tail that he got from splinter. Very similar to Raph’s, except his can stretch like elastigirl. Much more versatile

Leo:

Hero Name: Neon Leon

Fun fact: his face mask thingy is a brace/protective armor for his face and jaw, since Krang nearly knocked it clean off his face. It’s led screen can do pretty much whatever he wants. He has armor based off of CJ’s and metallic talons he wears on his feet, which function in much the same way as actual birds talons do. Not pictured: His huge ass Lou jitsu ears. They’re very similar to Raph’s

Raph:

Hero Name: Red Angel (of Preventing Harm)

Weapon: Tonfas

Random fact: he has the most of splinter’s quirk’s physical traits. He has splinter’s ears and his long ass tail. I tried to make him look more like a alligator snapping turtle dragon. Also, donnie made him a tech monocular so he can use both eyes in combat. It’ll switch eyes depending on which spectrum he needs to see through (visible or ultraviolet; but he can turn them into a full pair of glasses to see into other spectrums too)

Mikey:

Hero Name: Dr. Flambé???? (he wanted Magic Mikey, which Raph instantly Vetoed) Honestly the bois are definitely considered as underground heroes, since they plan on going back to New York and living on the down low again. So the names are mostly them being teenagers and having fun. Raph just happens to have a dope ass vigilante name already

Fun Fact: Mikey’s design was based off of this design by @meandtheyeehaws : (and thanks to @that1randomname for helping me figure out who it was)

I don’t know how else to tag this since it’s cross platforms (and I found it on YouTube so that was something) but I’m super grateful cuz it’s not easy to design superhero costumes for characters whose costumes have been them in the nude for 35 years (and they are very visible)!so I really was needing the inspiration. And yes Mikey definitely uses his art skills while fighting. He learned that from Mina

They don’t all go by just he/him but I’m so fucking tired and it’s too late to try to vary my pronoun usage for them at the mo

[murdersansy]

For my practice I decided I needed stable design that I would not change in the future. So here are those(I did nothing to the series design since I love to see how much character development they had) but whatever here are those with the added headcanons for the post-movies one's that comes with it. ;p

Raph

- Right arm covered in scars from kraang possession

- half-blind in right eye

- nightmares/insomnia( hangs out with Leo in those moments )/ Ptsd

- terrified he will hurt his brothers again

- 2× more protective

- the new chef under Mikey's watch

- in therapy with Dr. feelings

- carries all the medical equipment of all the brothers in his back pouch

Leo

- Has a limp in left leg (badly injured leg from prison dimension

- weak cracked shell and plastron from kraamg beat down.

- in therapy with Dr. feelings

- brothers have become strongly protective of him

- PTSD/nightmares

- deeply traumatized

- first medic (was on break while he was healing but came back to it)

- gay as fuck

Donnie

- scars on shoulder,neck and shell from being ripped out of the tecnodrome

- sensory overload because of the tentacles from the kraang ship

- wears a jacket when out of his battleshell

- had to be a medic in the aftermath as Leo was out of commission.

- second medic

- in therapy with Dr. feelings

- hearing loss on 50% in left ear from disconnecting with the ship ( as a hearing aid)

- stopped wearing contact lenses and returned to glasses

Mikey

- scars from opening the portal

- nerve damage/weakned immune system/mystic sickness

- Dr. Feelings working extra shifts to help his brothers (he needs help)

- arms are completely shot so he uses telekinesis

- eyes changed from blue to gold when his powers overloaded from the portal

- had to hang the apron and pass it to Raph while he trains to do things without his arms

[mimzaucracks]

First post on sideblog, let’s goooo!

Image ID 1.0: The uppermost image is an image dump of rendered sketches of a ROTTMNT: The Movie AU version of Renet. She’s a young black girl, about the same age as April in the film, and she shares a striking resemblance to her, short for Renet’s hair being bleached blond. The drawings included in pictures described later, and in the bottom left corner is a photograph of the pencil sketches from a notebook. The text in the image reads:

Renet (ROTTMNT MOVIE AU)

- F!April’s daughter

- Master Michela[n]gelo’s protégé

- Got sent back before Casey but got stuck in limbo; emerged after events of the movie.

- Possibly a clone of April

(End ID)

I was rather disappointed we got another Casey as the MC in the movie instead of her, so it got me wondering if she could fill the same role as him. In my opinion she can, and that birthed this AU idea. Her being Future April’s daughter and Mikey’s protégé fit too perfectly, so I would actually have her be Jr.’s old childhood friend who was missing for many years (in limbo), so both of them are happy to see each other again in the present new timeline.

Regarding the “possible clone” comment: Many headcanon Casey Sr. either finding Jr. in a dumpster somewhere and adopting him, or that she asked Draxum to clone her. I’ve never really subscribed to either, since he does look very similar to her (which makes me think they are biologically related), but his temperament is basically the complete opposite of hers (which refutes the clone theory in my head). I always just assumed Cassandra had a boyfriend too irrelevant to mention in the show, even long before the movie released. I figure he’s her biological son, but he inherited his father’s temperament (and his mother’s looks). That being said, I’m willing to apply the cloning idea to Renet. I cannot picture April with a man, ever, so I can see her demanding Draxum clone her to give her a daughter. Maybe the kinder side of April’s personality is stronger in Renet since she grew up in an environment where kindness and hope are the only things keeping a community together and its members sane. Maybe she even adopted some of her other mom’s (Sunita’s) traits, who knows?

Image ID 2.1: A 3/4 view of Renet’s head, drawn in a style very close to the show’s/movie’s. She’s looking forward, away from the viewer, smiling slightly with a little of her teeth showing. She wears her blond hair in a ponytail like April did in the show’s finale arc, and she has a blue headband and a decorative silver tiara resembling a clock (10, 11, 12, 1 and 2), which bears a slight resemblance to the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Her cape is the same shade of indigo as her headband, and the cloak’s collar is majorly oversized, revealing her neck. She has an earring in the shape of an hourglass. (End ID)

Image ID 2.2: A fully rendered illustration (not in the style of the show/movie) of Renet and a teenage April from the end of the movie in front of a sunset. They are standing in profile towards each other, with Renet on the right, holding April’s hand in her left and her time sceptre in her right. April’s expression is slightly confused whereas Renet’s is tender and happy. A small speech bubble reads “Hi mom.” Renet’s chest plate/plastron is brown/dark orange to mirror Casey Jr.’s teal, showing her connection to Michelangelo, much like Casey’s shows his connection to Leonardo. (End ID)

I’m not entirely sure on her cloak’s exact design yet. If you look closely at the pencil sketch of her body, you can slightly see Donnie’s Genius-Built Apparel ‘D’ logo on her sleeves. I left it out of the illustration with April by accident, but I’m not sure whether I necessarily want his logo in those spots on her cloak. Maybe it’s at the bottom of the tail? I’m also not sure whether I want it to have those glitter-esque particle effects from the bust drawing; it’s not really a design element in-canon. Although, I do find it very pretty.

[whattraintracks]

Adventures in Turtle-Sitting - I have been warned that this episode is nothing like the ‘87 ep of the same name. Sad day.

uh, Leo, quick q: what does it mean to get turtle waxed?

ahhhhhh, it’s double-mutated Donny already 😭

holy heck, he’s HUGE

April and Casey dressed up for each other in different directions

they’re so sweet and clearly didn’t communicate their plans, I’m cracking up

can Donny not be trusted at home alone??? why did they drop him off at April’s???

honestly, one of THE most sibling things to me in this show is April’s willingness to drop everything for the turtles and how often this gets in the way of Casey romancing her

sickly mutant ninja turtle lol

gosh, Casey is so sweet with Don here

good future big brother-in-law behavior

why was it so easy to black out the city, though? seems like a serious design flaw

ahhhhhh poor Donny

Stockman lives

again

true comic book character behavior

rude. how come double-mutated Donny gets a tail but not normal Donny

I’ve heard about this, but gosh 😭 I can’t believe Don goes down to Kirby’s old apartment

like he's so scared and stressed and in pain, but he still remembers this is a safe space

probably also knows it's somewhere he can go where no one will get hurt

ack my heart

mad respect to Casey for fist fighting double mutated Don

okay April, I get that you’re stressed and kind of in danger, but you could have explained that so much better

“why couldn’t you let me finally rest in peace!” oh really love that Baxter says this

good to know he’s tired and done with this, too

this might be my fav shot of the episode

no, no, Leo, let Raph finish, I wanna hear what he’s gonna do to Bishop

had to check it wasn’t my imagination, but yeah LH does have a new voice actor in this ep

darn, I really liked FB Owens’ voice

and now Don’s trying to go home 😭😭😭

Mikey verbally gulped lol

this has got to be bringing up so many bad memories for LH

really glad we have optimistic, hopeful, fearless leader Leo back for all of this

[eccentric-nucleus]

so, i finally finished (posting) my huge, novel-length teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfic. i just posted the final epilogue over on ao3!

here is my director's commentary on it, if you want to read even more about it. this contains spoilers for the whole thing. maybe read the epilogue first and sit with that for a minute. also this will probably be pretty incoherent if you haven't read the whole thing. it's just a disconnected series of thoughts i have about the story, really

man, this story. this is maybe the longest thing i've ever written? like 'the new hive' and 'hell game' had more words (i think) but they were mostly a disconnected series of sex scenes with thin connective tissue between them. this is ~200k words of a single, linear, mostly-plot narrative. i'm writing scenes that aren't just about getting the two leads to fuck!! that's weird. it's definitely the most ambitious thing i've written. kind of weird that it's tmnt fanfic. that's just how it worked out, i guess.

so back in 2022 i watched the rise of the tmnt movie because people kept talking about the animation quality of the fights and that got me into a spiral of actually paying attention to the ninja turtles. i had never been into them & genuinely i think a huge part of getting into tmnt stuff was that rise actually varied the design of the turtles so that they weren't all basically identical save for color-coding. turns out visual design was the missing mystery ingredient.

also in 2022 i was burning out on writing 'goblin cave', when what i had intended to be a fun little writing exercise ended up getting algorithmically surfaced and getting me hundreds of comments on each chapter. that got a little stressful and i wasn't really enjoying that, so i stopped. but i was like, hmm you know i mostly just write weird porn but maybe i should write something a little more ambitious. with a plot, and everything. 'goblin cave' was (in my mind) all about a character who was created for violence deciding art was a much more worthwhile pursuit. but the main character of that doesn't know what art is. because it's a magical dungeon core. and i was still thinking a lot about dead zones of the imagination, by david graeber. so i was like, okay, let's do this again but in a slightly more self-authentic way and make it weird gay porn with weird animal dicks. let's give michelangelo ninjaturtle a monologue about how the powerful are utterly insulated from any consequence.

(also early on, after watching most of rottmnt, i stumbled across this blog post about the tmnt comics and the end of the world. that ended up being deeply influential on the fic too. i've been kinda in a state for the past few years and this fic is absolutely a part of me working through a lot of complicated feelings about the world and the future. lol people talk so much about people writing dark fic 'to cope' but this was pretty much the first time i've outsourced my emotional processing by having bad things happen to fictional characters.)

so uhhh where to start here. the setting of the fic is this complicated messy mashup of a half-dozen tmnt continuities. it's very rise-heavy, since... that was the only series i had watched(/read) when i had determined the major plot points, but there's a lot of bits and pieces from all over.

to roughly outline the characters here, a huge influence on mikey's personality in this is... mikey's 'dr delicate touch' persona in rottmnt. in the sense that... okay yes yes that is a kid's show and all of his dr delicate touch lines are, you know, setups and punchlines. you think he's going to be nice but actually he's mean! etc. but in-universe it's like, wait hold on a second. mikey is like the most emotionally-intelligent of the four. he absolutely knows when people are on the edge of flipping out and need a calming out to a stressful situation. and instead he freaks them out more! mikey's hobby is: being mean to his friends & family, for fun! what a fun character trait.

i was thinking about this tweet a lot, too. i read some writing advice once that people tend to make characters who are supposed to be likable too squeaky-clean. nothing but positive character traits for them! but actually every 'positive' character trait is exactly the same as a 'negative' one; it's just a matter of focus and degree. a character is light-hearted and comedic? they can never take things seriously, even when they really should. a character is willing to do anything to protect the people they love? so they're violent and threatening and scary if they happen to decide you're something that they need to protect against. etc. i was really dedicated in this to bringing out the worst characteristics of everybody's personalities.

mikey was also very deeply inspired by: all the garbage progression fantasy stuff i've been reading. i've complained about this several times on this very blog, but a constant theme in most progression fantasy is 1. the main character will constantly get more and more powerful and 2. the main character will never really have their relationship with the rest of the world changed via that power. it's just stat-ups. they just have higher stats so they're more powerful. mikey is the most powerful person on the planet and it's fucking ruining his life. he knows that there's nobody capable of actually checking his behavior, & he's in this constant state of thinking he's maybe a few bad days away from murdering half the planet and incredibly aware there's not really anything he can do about that aside from constantly worry. he's kind of an anxious mess.

mikey absolutely thinks it's more ethical to murder somebody out of the sheer glee of seeing people crushed before you than murdering somebody for something as tedious as mob orders. you're satisfying a deep, raw desire felt from the heart! that's good!

what he'd like to do, in some sense, is just hang out in his studio and chill with other artists, but he knows the world is not gonna let him do that. things will come up. a lot of his being a creepy bystander thing while people get murdered is b/c he's very much formulated his morality to be like... it is not his responsibility to fix other people's problems. other people will do what they want and that has no bearing on him. is that a pretty cowardly and self-serving morality? sure! but he was kinda designed to rule the world & his flinch away from that pretty much defines him as a character in this. that's kinda the morality he needed to end up on to convince himself not to be a genocide machine.

he's incredibly aware he could basically be a superhero, & all it would take is... giving up on all his hopes and dreams and constantly engage with his abilities. and being a superhero isn't that many steps removed from living up to his full design spec and just taking over the world and ruling as god-emperror. idk how well i hit all those notes in the actual fic, but, that's what i was going for. mikey as the narrator clearly doesn't want to talk or think about it so it's never really directly confronted.

raph is... okay so i guess a fairly common piece of fanon, for rise especially, is to characterise raph as having multiple personalities? whether that's him just having alters or him having full-blown MPD depends on the fic. my fun little nod to that is that he's kind of a disassociative mess. he has kind of failed to reconcile the disparate aspects of his personality and he switches between one of several different facades depending on the situation. also, you know. the trauma.

(i didn't really mean for it to be as such, but there is this theme in the story about names? despite everything else mikey has a crystal-clear self-conception of himself and has one name, which he gave himself. raph, who has kinda failed to build his own personality, has a collection of name other people have given him, none of which he feels actually fits him. donnie has a more fluid self-identity and also has roughly a million aliases and false identities & constantly slips in and out of character when it's convenient. leatherhead still going by the name mikey gave him goes hand-in-hand with that bit where mikey meanly thinks about how maybe leatherhead's entire self-conception is hung up on something mikey said to him once, etc. this is one of those things that i'd go back and make more present if i did go back and clean up the rough draft, b/c as it is it's there, but it doesn't really do a whole lot.)

--

this fic was inspired by... i had read a few big aus that were just like, taking the characters and loose bits of setting and going off in completely different directions. some of NeiNing's aus were a definite influence, plus like, this one au where raph is an ex-con mechanic, etc, etc. just like "i am going to play out a completely unrelated drama using turtles as the dolls". maybe most directly influential was Of Knights and Thieves, where donnie & mikey are corporate espionage hacker/thief types and raph & leo are do-gooder vigilantes. the original concept for this was much more heavily focused on the art forgery. in a very early draft the idea was leo would get involved much more actively in trying to track down the creator of the false takenobus. then i was like, "i am going to crash a completely separate story concept about the dark armor into the side of this art-forgery story". the filename for the story is still 'lol grindr hookup art thief'. that is not really where the story went.

oh man, the art stuff. i made some posts about this at the time! that are now several years old. here's one! i did end up getting a traditional woodcut printing of Tokaido 53 stations, no. 11, Hokone. in a lot of ways doing all the art research was more satisfying and fun than writing the extensive downward spiral that was the latter half of the fic. but, hey, that's life too i guess.

also raph in this is... okay, so, i don't mean this in a mean way. i really liked the fics! but cndrow has written several raph/donnie fics where raph is just like... like a repeated theme in them is raph confessing eternal love & talking about how he's like, mentally planning on them being together forever. on the first date. and sure sure everybody has different tastes; i'm absolutely sure that my interest in guys who are mean leads to some stories that are extremely offputting to some people, etc. but it's like, oh man, raph, please slow your roll a little. if somebody said they were planning our future wedding all of ten minutes into talking to me i would flee the room. & the raph in blinded by the summer sun is very much inspired by that. sadly, i never fully committed to that. originally i even had a line in chapter 9 where slash was like 'please tell me you didn't drop the 'i love you forever' on this guy already' to imply that that was, you know, a theme for raph, but i chickened out and cut it. raph as a kind of rolling series of bad relationships characterized by him falling forever in love w/ his latest crush until the relationship detonates and leaves him not really understanding how things went wrong. but i don't think that's expressed well like, at all. but that ideally should characterize a large part of why he keeps chasing after mikey even well after the point where it would be reasonable to disengage. also to convey some of the downsides of a character believing in true love. it's rough out there in the world.

also thank you tumblr user averyterrible for writing this goncharov post. that was the point in the story where i was like, actually i have been writing raph as way too much of a sad boy. if i want to play in the space of crime drama, there needs to be some crime! he's a yakuza assassin. he needs to chop off somebody's fingers with bolt cutters.

--

to me, the central question in the fic isn't really 'will the mikey/raph relationship work out' or 'will mikey succeed in his plans', it's 'why is mikey doing these things'. & i think the leatherhead chunks in chapter 23 finally give enough context to what's going on with mikey to let people answer that? like oh, mikey is a mess.

(lol the initial setup for the early chapters are supposed to give an audience response of like, "oh no, raph has some dangerous secrets" "oh no, raph is a violent yakuza murderer! i hope mikey is going to be okay interacting with raph" "...oh no, i hope raph is going to be okay interacting with mikey")

a lot of the story really is about how... mikey & raph's relationship is in a lot of ways very adolescent? they have not had a lot of prior experience with healthy relationships, and they're trying, but, uhhhhhhh. mikey likes to act like he's so cool and above-it-all and unaffected by things happening, but that's actually just b/c he doesn't really care about most things. when something happens that he genuinely doesn't like he immediately snaps and has a giant meltdown. (we see this once with raph, when mikey has a panic attack and throws up when raph blows him off wrt warning him of bishop, and once with donny about the armor, where mike immediately starts tantruming and threatening to kill himself. mikey is very bad at resolving conflict. he's kind of a brat, actually.)

like every character in this is in some way their worst self. they're all pretty awful people. but they're all also trying to... grapple with their place in the world and try to be better people. to even figure out what 'better' means. this is a story about how 'being a good person' is a constant struggle, not to 'do the right thing', but to even figure out what's 'right'. it's about picking yourself up again after a bad period and going, well, let's keep going. like mikey has a lot of traits but one that i, the author, actually think is fairly admirable is his ability to get back up and keep going after a really bad period. which is funny b/c characterwise that goes hand-in-hand with his callousness. just shrug off all the misery you caused other people, i guess! see above about positive/negative character traits.

(also uh there's another tmnt fic author whose work has a lot of... a Bad Guy is constructed/identified. then helpless children (or teens!) are rescued from him. then the bad guy is ruthlessly & violently murdered. sometimes onscreen, sometimes offscreen. and then it's nothing but chapter after chapter of people being happy and cutesy to each other. and like, i get it. but the, like, recurring theme there of the Bad Guy having done something fundamentally unforgivable that separates from all understanding & mercy, to which the only justice is a violent death, just strikes me as... simplistic. sometimes people do really awful things and part of grappling with that as an adult with an adult moral conceptualization is realizing that you gotta look past your initial reflex to punishment.

or like, mikey's whole childhood in this really fucked him up but a huge part of his identity is him having to form an identity from that. having to make the determination of which parts of him are 'him' and which parts were done to him. lol @ him aggressively and extensively rejecting everything about what draxum made him to do & then blithely being like 'we were engineered to eat humans anyway' as a defense for all the corpse-eating. mikey you just like eating people & have decided that part does align with your self-identity. mikey would really not appreciate anybody being like 'i'm sorry nobody saved you from that' b/c that (to him) would basically be the same as them saying they thought he was fundamentally, irreparably damaged & was going to be forever incapable of being anything other than what draxum made him to be. he wouldn't take it well.)

uhhh what else. i mean there's a lot. fun fact pretty much every time mikey gets mad at somebody else he's hugely projecting. even his pacifism is like... hmm maybe he should have killed draxum. a lot of his talk @ raph about splinter is secretly mikey relitigating his feelings about draxum. oh what's that mikey you think that splinter is only playing happy family b/c he's immortal and he has infinite time to spend humoring somebody's illusions but that when push comes to shove he'll drop all that? gee i wonder if that might apply to any dynamics in mikey's own life. lol at mikey being like "wow red your life is kind of a fucked-up nightmare of weird psychopaths playing like they're happy family" and then two chapters is like "hey come meet my family. we live in my genocidal dad's bombed-out lab and we're treating him like a weird racist grandpa". i kinda wanted something that would complicate mikey just being like "i am a pacifist now and i don't kill anybody"; mikey that's all well and good but like half his inner tension comes from not being sure if he should've left draxum alive. that's kinda the mirror to him debating whether or not actually killing leatherhead would've been better. (in a few years shelldon is gonna go through a period of not wanting to talk to any of them. mikey & donnie are better parents than draxum but that's such a low bar.)

(likewise at the end when mikey is like "this is raph's healthiest relationship so far!" to leo, like, this is more mikey projecting. really the raph/casey relationship was probably better for raph & casey, idk, who can say. but is mikey's relationship with raph the healthiest romantic interaction he's ever had? yes, absolutely. we don't get to see the mikey/leatherhead relationship really up-close and personal but it should be pretty clear that it was pretty awful for everybody involved. compared to that, the mikey/raph is absolutely mikey's healthiest relationship so far. just. low bars.)

lol i am a little concerned that mikey's tendency to monologue, & especially his whole political monologue near the end, will get people to think he's just acting as an author's soapbox. i mean, okay, the little author's note where i'm like "as always, mikey is a perfect role model and everybody should do what he does" was a fun little joke. but, oof, the number of fics i've read where the authors feel the need to loudly and repeatedly disclaim that This Story Contains Things The Author Does Not Condone In Real Life is pretty disheartening. way to have absolutely no faith in your audience. but likie, the part where mikey is pretty much flat-out like, "actually i think my moral framework is whatever is necessary to justify my actions" is meant to be pretty damning. maybe not of mikey specifically as a character, just of, you know. the whole world where that's a pretty common outlook among people with power.

--

lets talk about the rape. part of it is that it felt like it would be inauthentic to go through the entire story without mikey seriously violating one of raph's boundaries. part of it is that mikey here kinda has the trifecta of ASPD, ADHD, & bipolar, and the thing with that is it's very easy to just say that but a little more difficult to convey the personality traits involved. this isn't really something ever stated as such in the fic, aside from various people calling mikey crazy + raph calls him a sociopath once. it's kind of too didactic to just flatly state "and this is what's wrong with mikey!" imo. but. this is a story about violent people. imo you can't just gesture to a character with the background level of callousness for the genre and go "okay this is a clinical sign"; you kinda gotta do something more direct. 'wow mikey sure is CRAZY and WEIRD good thing it only shows itself as him being slightly mean to people'. no. mikey has done some pretty horrible things in the past and clearly isn't fully done with that.

(i did pretty much go straight down the list of symptoms there. impulsive, suicidal, aggressive, violent, risky sex, arrogant, limited empathy, no regard for other people or social norms, difficulty with relationships, arson, etc, etc, etc. but it's not like he's a 'realistic' portrayal here, since... i mean, he is a super-powered ninja. there's a level of 'superficial charm' here but we do get enough of mikey's interiority to be able to tell he's a total mess in a way that's not particularly constructed.)

also it's like. raph graphically tortures several people to death & i didn't really feel the need to disclaim that here. murder is usually seen as a lesser crime in fiction than rape. people love their violent blorbos but the second there's the implication of sexual violence people freak out. the usual line people say is that the threat of murder is a little more removed for most people than the threat of rape, which idk if i fully agree with. but part of it is also to draw a line between raph's violence and mikey's boundary violation. like mikey says, well, raph tried to non-consensually murder him a few times too.

anyway i don't think i really stuck the landing with that either, in part b/c raph's response to it. he's a little too pathetically accepting of things at the end instead of being angry + violent. that could use a rewrite or two.

--

honestly i'm kinda sick of this story now? which sucks a little, since i kept realizing things about the story all the way up to the very last moment of editing. if i had waited to post any of this until i was done with the first draft... well, it'd be a very different story if i went back and turned this rough draft into something more complete. i never really did manage to hit the character beats with raph i was hoping to. oh well. like, i still like it. but i can definitely see all of its weak points. i guess that's just part of the process of writing. it'd be worse if you wrote a giant novel and came out on the other side not more aware of your failings as an author.

i feel like raph isn't super well-realized in terms of character motivations. or... his relationships aren't shaded in as well as they could be. if i were redoing this whole thing i'd definitely include some chunks of raph pov just to lay out more concretely what he's doing & what his life is like when he's not in the same scene as mikey. i kinda included that raph+donny conversation at the very end just for jokes, but actually ending every chapter with a little section of non-mikey pov would've helped ground a lot of the characters. raph isn't super well-developed and leo is pretty much incoherent absent external familiarity with his character's deal. they're not conveyed super well, in part because, well, any time mikey is onscreen everybody is having to deal with mikey. it's a problem.

but something that absolutely could have worked as a secondary narrative to the story is the whole thing with raph working w/ the oroku. that was a bit of a late addition to the story. it's meant as a reference to, you know, all the times raphael ends up being compared to/assuming the mantle of the shredder in the comics. but as it is since we don't get any real looks into exactly what's going on in yakuza town when mikey's not around none of that got developed very well, imo.

--

it was very important to me that mikey not learn any lesson here. where things are at in the end are pretty much the exact same as where they were in the beginning. the bit in the pizza scene where he's like 'you guys get to live and i get a boyfriend' is very accurate. literally the only change in mikey's life through this entire thing is that at the end he is in a relationship w/ a guy who he can tell some of what his life is like to. not that it's a super healthy relationship, but it is there.

well, that, and also now he's maybe out of time. (uh, so the laughter at the very end of the epilogue is mikey realizing he's out of time. the whole epilogue really is about how he's got all these conflicting tensions of who-knows-what in his life, & then right in the middle of the tension it's like, whoops, the utrom aren't coming in 10 years or 20 years, they're coming now. and in a week you're gonna be getting some really pointed questions about how you know the utrom envoy. and in a few years, well, there's gonna be some planetary evacuation) like the whole story is about... anxiety. mikey feeling the weight of the future on him in every moment. actually seeing things collapse would be a relief; you'd get the release of all the potentiality collapsing into an actual problem. the moral of the story is you get what you get and in the end all mikey's actions, good or bad or otherwise, have bought him is nine more months of ignoring his problems.

anyway sorry to all the tmnt fans who were expecting a happy cheerful mikey/raph story. this is actually about the fundamental injustice of existence. whoops!

[clemsharmony]

oh my GOD okay concepts for an official 40th anniversary tmnt comics collection. don't even LOOK my way. i'm i'm

oh my GOD oh my god okay ONE. raph. raph with an eyepatch AND his PROSTHETIC ARM. meaning number one. both leo and raph are amputees. i love it when they make the ninja turtles disabled.

two. leo LITERALLY took raphs arm after he died. that shit wasn't from a robot it was just straight up His arm. is that better or worse is that sweeter or 10x more morbid

i KNEW i was onto something giving my future raph one arm

theres just theres LOTS of things making me think. most of all the fact that mikey and cj are here looking basically identical to their movie designs. so raph and donnie can't have died very long before the movie. casey grew up with all 4 brothers — when he went back in time he met all of them again. it wasn't just mikey and leo. people like to write raph as dying before he ever met cj so you have NO IDEA how happy this makes me

also mayhem is tiny and weird and its making me laugh. he's like um like the books!toothless of tmnt with a two thousand year lifespan

aaaAA. OUGHH april. APRIL i see that plastron armour. she's modelled her armour after the turtles and its canon now dont fuuucking talk to me

i want so bad to see these future fucks just messing about. god i pray this comic is lighthearted. let them be happy. media needs to focus less on the never ending hell of the post-apocalypse and more on the normal people living through it

its not gonna be all happy though. i already know. its gonna be about mikey training his mystic powers/ninpō to make portals. look how uncomfortable everyone looks at the fact he can do that shit like

r raph spikey mask ueueue its like my favourite little quirk about his design and he still has it

no talking about donnies ridiculous outfit just the fact that hes there ALIVE looking as fucking stupid as usual

actually what is cj wearing lol

OHHH i could say so much more. SO MUCH MORE. now watch them tear all of this away in the finished art watch them rob raph of his prosthetic and donnie of his hideous overalls

[justalittleobsessed]

How Mike and Mikey Came Up with the Perfect Prank

Mike (@justalittleobsessed) has ideas for pranks, okay? Ones that he needs help with. Good thing that Mikey (@spacemimz) seems like a willing participant in the chaos that Mike wants to cause.

AKA

How Mike and Mikey come up with the most sophisticated and mature prank you've ever seen

Part 3 in "The Adventures of Mike and Mikey"

<- Part 2

@tmnt-fandom-family-reunion

“Ok Mikey, I’ll admit that I was wrong.” Mike tells his younger friend, shaking his head in disappointment. “You see, while being a fashion designer gave me much joy, it was in the end a big fat lie. I didn’t think there could be anything better than that at the time. Then. Then.”

Mike grins, stopping his pacing. This. This right here was his calling and he made a bluff by saying anything else was. How could he make such a mistake with what is happening now? How could he be so foolish as to not tell the future and see what was going to happen? Why did he have to get immortality and not something like premonition? It would’ve totally changed his outlook on previous events.

Whatever. My true calling is here now.

He rubs his hands like an evil villain would in a cheesy spy movie, following it with a matching laugh. “There have been rumors, Mikey. Rumors that are proving to be true. Want to know what it is?” Mikey chirps, urging Mike to continue. “Everyone is going to prank the counselors. That’s right. The greatest pranking event of our time is underway and we all know that I am a master pranker.”

Pulling out a notebook from his belt, he fans through the pages, waving it around this way and that. “This is our key to the best pranks ever, my orange friend. And I want your help to do it.” He opens up to a specific page. A great page. A perfect page one might say.

A perfect prank for me and Mikey. Absolutely beautiful. Well-crafted. Amazing.

Shoving the open notebook into Mikey’s hands, Mike points to an idea in the middle of the page. “What a masterful prank, amiright?”

Mikey’s eyes furrow, looking at the three words Mike pointed too. They’re underlined, bolded, and circled. His friend stares some more. Then he snorts, something that Mike hasn’t ever heard him do before, rolling his eyes. He looks at the page one more time, then back at Mike, nodding.

“Right? Perfect.” He grabs the book back, shoving it into his belt once again. “So it’s maybe a little childish – but then again when aren’t we – but it’s a classic. And it always works. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten my bros with that stupid prank. You think they would figure that one out, right? But nope. The key is to invent lies that are just believable enough for them to look. ‘Made ya look’! I say, then I steal their candy.” He pauses. “Ok well the candy one is mostly at Halloween and Christmas, but the point still stands.”

He plops down in front of his friend who’s already lounging on the ground, putting his hand on his chin in a poor imitation of “The Thinker”. It needs to be good, he knows. But not too over the top, right?

Mike knows these counselors are getting beat on, and he already has some more elaborate pranks set up (him and his twin are moving that along quite nicely) and so this will not only be something small, but something that requires a lot less thought.

“The beauty is in the simplicity,” He continues, and Mikey nods along seriously, “Which is why we need to make it funny, but not crazy.”

Mikey chirps, grabbing his attention as he tries to think of the perfect thing to make the counselors see. He reaches for Mike’s notepad and pen, so he hands them over, getting excited at the look on Mikey’s face. “You got something cooking there, dude?”

He flips to the final page not filled with prank ideas (or just the final page of the notebook), and scribbles something out quickly. Then he hands it back over to the older turtle.

“…a crab?” His friends nod enthusiastically, pointing at the crab and then back at himself with excited chirps. “Oooooo you wanna dress up as a crab and prank them?”

That’s an awesome idea. I knew there was a reason why this little dude was so cool. Well. Other than all the other reasons of course.

“You are a genius. We can swing that, totally. I’ll lead them to you, right? Then,” He snickers, and Mikey follows with a chirp that sounds oddly the same, “Then you’re just there, dancing around in a stupid crab costume. That’s perfect. Love it. Now,” He eyes the box of leftover fashion material from his designer days, “Let’s see about making you that crab costume, huh?”

Pranks with all my friends. This is literally a dream come true.

[the-suicidal-lizard]

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Why Season 3 Would Be A Bad Idea… Nerd Time.

First look at those nerds, those dweebs, those goofs. I love them and want to squeeze them. Okay onward!

I’m gonna get hate for this… and I accept that. But, please hear me out. For personal reasons first of all, I’m happy how it ended because if Venus was introduced as fans theorised I’d be disappointed because Venus is my LEAST favourite character. (Probably because I really disliked the Next Mutation.) Now my personal reasons are out of the way with, let’s get technical.

Have any of you watched a TMNT show where it was consistently good? And I mean, up until the last seasons? Because I haven’t.

The 1987 version was non-linear, much like Rise is, HOWEVER Rise has a beginning and ending. 1987 didn’t, but that was from the 80’s and it was bound to be silly. It was made to sell toys and the episodes were made around the toys, so obviously it wasn’t going to be linear. Then it was cancelled without an actual ending (no shock).

Okay, so! 2003! They actually had a good arc! Season 5 was meant to be the last season, but they were in demand and made Season 6 (Fast Forward) and Season 7 (Back to the Sewers) in which it became ridiculous, repetitive and just boring. The designs were less dark and rough, and more childish and bright. Not to mention even the future ideas were dumb. Like, you offed Shredder plenty of times you don’t need him back! (Thought Season 6 has a soft spot in my heart due to the Dark Turtles.) So it was cancelled without a solid ending.

How about 2012? A similar thing happened. Half way through Season 3 it was already getting a bit silly, I mean they were to space, then there was Dracula, and it was just… so much… like they turned emo at one point! It was insane! (Again, the space arc is special to me due to the Journey into the Centre of Mikey’s Mind.) So again, this was cancelled with a sad excuse of a final episode.

Even the 1990’s Movies! By the third movie, it is agreed upon that that movie is the worst. And The Next Mutation didn’t get a second season, but the again it is generally agreed upon that The Next Mutation is a poor TMNT adaptation. (2007 never got that sequel with the focus on Mikey due to layoffs and the director leaving, and Astro Boy bombed, thus causing the studio to go bankrupt.)

So, what would have happened with Rise? The same thing. By Season whatever, it would become ridiculous, and stupid, maybe repetitive and it would be cancelled without enough time to make a good, solid ending. Rise got Character Development (something 1987 and 2012 didn’t get), a plot with goofy episodes showing the bond in brotherhood (something 2012 didn’t get), a final where everything’s resolved (something none of the previous shows got), and a movie which had a solid story, character development and it didn’t feel like it was for nostalgia sake or even a cash grab. (Something 2012 didn’t get.)

Turtles Forever is a crossover movie with 1987 and 2003, but the marketing was handled poorly and was released for TV rather than a full length movie in the cinema and it was poor due to the style changes for the 2003 gang. Though it is considered to be non-canon, unlike the Rise Movie, and again, unlike the Rise Movie, it wasn’t given a theatrical release.

Now, could there have been more character development for the Rise Gang? Oh definitely! Leo could show his leadership skills developing, Mikey could show his skills developing, Donnie could develop his emotional skills and Raph could help Leo co-lead and develop his skills to relax. Casandra could be given more screen time and character development, as could Draxum and Big Mama. But don’t forget, you guys got a theatrical release movie (at least in China) and the movie never had problems with that release like Turtles Forever (such as ratio problems and cutting time down), you guys got an actual ending to the series, with decent character development and story arcs, and new characters and places. And don’t forget, the seasons always got ridiculous after the first few seasons…

That being said I would still watch Season 3-however many seasons they would do of Rise TMNT, because I like TMNT… I’m just being technical.

[lazyvase]

TMNT TO ME: 2012 Season 2

My memories of episodes. Any episodes not included are ones I completely forgot about. (Now with pictures!)

Anytime MOUSERS appear in an episode, this image will appear to show my love for them:

This image will be seen a lot in this personal retrospective:

Mutation Situation

A very fun return to the series. I remember feeling like the second season started not too long after the end of the last one. Probably because there were pretty sizable gaps between episodes often. While an unusual and unnerving opponent, the fight scene with the Biotroid goes hard, especially when everything literally goes sideways.

Invasion of the Squirrelanoids

Properly horrifying.

Follow the Leader

Love Footbots. Ever since Shredder allied with the Kraang, I was wondering why he didn't use robot soldiers. The normal Foot Soldiers were clearly useless.

Mutagen Man Unleashed

Even in mutated form, Timothy is still a pain in the ass. They should have shattered him. Awesome design though. This episode was my introduction to love triangles, though at the time I merely thought of Casey as an obstacle to Donnie x April, not as a rival. Speaking of Casey, even though I had no knowledge of previous incarnations (or that previous incarnations existed) I knew Casey was going to be someone big as they put emphasis on his name reveal.

Mikey Gets Shellacne

Great to see Baxter again. I plan to make a whole post on this in the future, but I didn't like Rahzar (I'm lukewarm on him currently). Seeing Dogpound be discontinued was and still is disappointing. I mainly didn't like this episode because Mikey looked so disgusting. I made sure to avoid this episode.

Target: April O'Neil

Chrome Dome was also cool.

Slash and Destroy

Intense. Not even Shredder hurt the boys this badly. In this episode they were all limping and bruised and maskless. It was as insane for me then as it is now. The lack of masks really showcase how vulnerable they were. This episode cemented Slash as one of the turtles' biggest threats for me. The pain the turtles were in made it clear how much Slash wanted them DEAD. He had them beaten to a bloody pulp.

The Good, The Bad, and Casey Jones

My first thought when Casey’s fear of rats was revealed was “Gee, I hope for his sake he doesn’t face the Rat King.”

The Kraang Conspiracy

The turtles gaining another human ally made me more certain that Irma would join the group.

Fungus Humongous

I know I watched the premiere of this episode. I think it was around this episode where I started getting sick of Donnie's crush of April. I was rolling my eyes when his greatest fear was April hating him.

Metalhead Rewired

Very fun episode. It was great to see SpiderBytez and Snakeweed again. They had such cool designs and were the DNA for the beginning of the show. It always bothered me we never saw more of them. It's always nice to see Metalhead. Catching all the Star Wars references was so cool to me because back then I was a bigger fan of Star Wars.

Of Rats and Men

This episode convinced me that Irma was going to join the turtles once she learned about them. She was helping them fight the Rat King. The scene of her helping the turtles (without her knowing) reminded me heavily of how Casey helped the turtles fight Mutagen Man (without him knowing).

The Manhattan Project

An absolute banger of a mid-season special. Both new threats were great. Loved the Kraathatrogons. Big worms are always fun. They were all a nice challenge for Donnie, April, and Casey. The real star of this episode was Tiger Claw. The show does an amazing job of setting him up. Instead of just saying he's a force to be reckoned with, they prove it (unlike a certain canine and fish). Tiger Claw easily takes down the turtles on his own. He goes toe-to-toe with Splinter for a good while (unlike a certain canine and fish both going down in one hit). Tiger Claw's plan allows him to successfully capture Splinter. He gets an incredible amount done in his special. He cemented himself as one of the turtles' most powerful and skilled foes.

Mazes & Mutants

Great to see Leatherhead again! Even if wasn’t actually him. I was not the biggest fan of Rockwell's return. Not being a Lord of the Rings fan made this episode a bit grating with its constant references.

The Lonely Mutation of Baxter Stockman

Throughout the series I was wondering when Stockman would become a mutant. Most humans in this series don't stay human for long, so for Stockman to be human for a whole season and a half was an anomaly. Thankfully this episode beautifully delivered. Stockman-Fly rocks. Love his changed voice. Love his new design with the big claw hand (big fan of asymmetry). The sideways mouth was a disgustingly amazing detail. It was everything I was hoping for from a mutation of my favorite bad guy. The final fight with everyone having different means of traveling through the air was so much fun also.

Newtralized!

Newtralizer and Slash made a pretty cool duo. Loved the Kraang-Walker. It was the coolest shit I’ve ever seen. I would have loved a toy of it. Once again, huge Star Wars fan at the time. The end frame for this episode was one of the coolest. It perfectly captured how Newtralizer would return, stronger than ever.

Pizza Face

Everyone disregarding Mikey annoyed me to no end. Still does.

The Wrath of Tiger Claw

An epic return by one of TMNT's coolest villains and a satisfying moment with Karai's realization.

The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto

This is my favorite episode. It just has so much good stuff going for it. The introduction starts off strong. The reintroduction to Steranko (or Weapons Dealer to a young me) does wonders to catch you off your feet. His collection is cool, unique, and a great way to establish the resources this man has available and why he specifically wants the helmet. Zeck's (or Master Thief as I knew him) introduction perfectly captures his goofy and zany personality that I loved. More importantly, it showcased that he liked being thief. He didn't have to steal the spear of destiny. He didn't have to make a replica out of marzipan. He especially didn't have to make Weapons Dealer lick it. But Master Thief did because he wanted to. His introduction makes it clear that (unlike Fishface) Master Thief loves being a master thief. It's not just a profession; it's a passion. He jumps with joy and laughs when stealing. And I agree with that one message board user who said that Master Thief using his mohawk as a weapon is amazing. I liked the lore dump over the Kuro Kabuto. It's so cool to hear the history of The Foot Clan and Shredder's iconic helmet. This particular flashback is so intriguing because for all the grandiosity put behind Koga Takuza, he is never brought up again. The idea of the helmet granting leadership of the Foot Clan is constantly referenced in later seasons, but the founder is only mentioned once, despite the amount of buildup and focus in the flashback. Strange. After the flashback, we get to the highlight of the episode: The Foot Clan on a mission. This episode briefly flips the script of a normal episode. Usually, the turtles are running through the rooftops on a mission. In this episode, the mutant henchman are running through the rooftops on a mission. They even split up into pairs just like the turtles do. Seeing them banter was cathartic. Sad that Stockman couldn't say anything this episode, but his "conversation" with Fishface was still good. Tiger Claw and Rahzar's conversation was obviously a highlight. The chase for the helmet and the fight over it were both so fun. Still, Master Thief managed to steal the show. The line:

"Why is this town so full of freaks?!"

is stuck in my head. All his lines and bits are just so funny. He was so gleefully smug as he made his escape. He even took his defeat in stride. Weapons Dealer basically says to him: "I'm going to beat the ever-loving shit out of you." And Master Thief says:

"That's to be expected."

I thought it was a shame that we would never see him again. He was clearly made to be a one-time enemy.

I was also not expecting Karai bomb.

Plan 10

I remember the marketing for this episode more than the actual episode.

"Who's who? And what happened to Raph?"

I also remember the "pinching your own butt" joke being heavily featured in the trailers.

Vengeance is Mine

I cannot forget this episode. I can never forget this episode.

I always rationalized Leo’s goal of freeing Karai as “Leo loves his family and will do anything for them. Of course he’ll try to save his sister.”

But then, in this episode, you can pinpoint the exact moment my stomach drops.

The two following shots confirmed my horror.

(Brings back painful memories, doesn't it?)

I was nauseous after this brief scene. I nearly didn't finish this episode. The "reward" for finishing this episode was discovering that Karai's inbetween form at the very end was the creepiest shit I had ever seen.

A Chinatown Ghost Story

I could swear this episode came WAY earlier in the season.

Into Dimension X!

I was so excited to see Leatherhead again (for real this time). Dimension X is a fun and wacky place. And it's so good to see Mikey put his brothers in their place. And make them listen to him.

The Invasion

"Finally, it took the whole season, but Irma is finally joining the group."

I was flabbergasted at the reveal, especially since it was Iago from Aladdin of all things. The season finale did not pull any punches. Casey and Raph running through the streets was a sight to behold. Leo's gauntlet was intense. The mech was epic. Leatherhead vs Shredder was everything I ever wanted. Even without the context of previous incarnations, the window scene is unforgettable.

Me seeing April's Dad being mutated AGAIN:

Splinter's defeat was also punch to the gut. I knew he wasn't dead, but still.

The team leaving for the woods was a dour yet perfect note to end the season on.

Looking Back

According to my memories, season 2 was the height of my devotion to TMNT 2012. I was glued to the TV and made sure to catch every episode. I can’t say the same for the following seasons, but that is a story for another time.

Tune in next time when I shall go over my experiences with TMNT gaming.