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I love how you make Draxum actually love Galois, seeing him being an affectionate parent is so refreshing, I don't really see it that often in fanfics

Something that a lot of fanworks were doing at the time was make Draxum a colossal asshole. The extremely popular one everyone is thinking of, that one in particular. He's just evil for evil's sake, and that never made sense.

Like, for one, it is established that he's emotionally attached to the turtles, even if he tries to act like he isn't. He's overjoyed upon finding out that they're alive, and he tries multiple times to convince them to join him so he can avoid killing them. (ignoring how he threw Leo off a roof-honestly, fair, it was Leo) He only loses interest in them and starts acting like a jackass after the Foot bring him in on their dark armor plan, and I haven't ruled out the possibility that the armor itself has a magically corrupting influence that could have fucked with him.

But even ignoring all that, he's just...not sadistic? Like, I know he embraces the 'evil' label, but that's played for laughs. Draxum is doing all this because he thinks that his work is for good, that it's necessary to protect his people. He might be willing to do awful things to achieve his aims, but he's not going to do it for no reason.

And there's no reason at all for him to be terrible to the turtles, especially in AUs where he raised them. Even if you don't write him as having fatherly feelings. He wouldn't go "chuck him into battle and see what happens, it's whatever if he dies." He put a lot of work into these kids, he's not going to waste it. He wouldn't deprive these kids of food, rest, medical care, whatever, because that would run contrary to achieving his goals. It's in his best interest to have the turtles in good health, mentally and physically, so even if he's a hardass who demands perfection and age-inappropriate levels of training, he's still going to nag them to eat their vegetables and nurse them when they're sick. That would be the course of action most beneficial to his cause.

And Donnie especially, like, I get that people harp on the softshell thing for angst reasons, but Draxum of all people would care the least. The fact that he chose a softshell and all his reasons for doing so aside, Donnie's intelligence would be a huge asset to Draxum and he would be a fucking idiot not to see that. He would not ignore Donnie's existing talents to pine for some imaginary warrior Draxum pictured-that warrior doesn't exist, will never exist, and mooning over him won't help Draxum achieve his goals. Using the funny purple science child will. Draxum is a practical man. He's not going to be stupid about it.

Ergo, I went the opposite way a lot of these fanfics were going. I do feel like it genuinely suits him. The man heart-eyed the turtles immediately upon laying eyes on them, this fucker would absolutely get irreversibly attached to a child within a few days of him lying on his lab table. Also this story is just the latest edition in me writing out my daddy issues, so I live cathartically through a father loving his kid.

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Oh hey, we finally ticked over.

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If the 3rd book is about getting Donatello back, is the 4th one about him reintegrating with his family?

That is one of the things that happens in Book 4, yes.

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Lars of the stars spin off real???? Thoughts??

Good for him? Was never that into Lars, but I'm glad he's having fun.

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how many books do you plan on making? 👀

There will be four in total.

The last book will be entitled 'The Once and Future Prince.' Because all these titles are Twilight Zone references and that's quite appropriate.

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Does Draxum see all of the turtles (Leo, Mickey, Raph and the actual Donnie) as his sons or is it only "Galois"?

It's...complicated.

He doesn't acknowledge any of them as his sons, not even in his own head. They never were his sons, Lou stole them before he could bring himself to call them that and they refused to be his sons when he found them again as teenagers. Those relationships never existed.

But Draxum is keenly aware that if certain events had occurred just a little differently, then they would have been his sons. He might have had similar relationships with them as he has with Galois, would have loved them as he loves Galois. He knows there's no point in dwelling on it-this is what happened in this universe, he can't afford to become emotionally compromised by hypotheticals. The turtles hate him, and he would be foolish not to react accordingly. But what could have been still lingers in the back of his mind.

This has all been made 300% harder by Raph living with him as well, because he's practically a walking phantom of this alternate timeline. If Lou hadn't kidnapped the turtles, Raphael would be stomping around in Draxum's kitchen every morning and constantly annoying him by not reracking his weights-and look, that's exactly what he's doing right now. He's a constant reminder of the son he could have had, should have had, yet he is not Draxum's son. Raphael hates him, he has good reason to hate him, he only acts like he doesn't to keep the peace. Raphael sees Lou Jitsu as his father, and he knows the truth about what Draxum did. Raphael is not his son and it would be foolish to develop fatherly feelings for him, especially as Draxum needs to be ready to sacrifice him without hesitation if it comes to it. Galois is his son. He has to come before Raphael.

And his feelings on Donnie vs. Galois? They are complicated in dimensions that haven't even been invented yet.

For one, he maintains a separation between Galois and Donatello in his own mind. He tries to, at least. Donatello was the rat's son, he tells himself, and he considers Donatello's hypnosis to be his death. Galois might inhabit the body he left behind, but he's not the same person. That's not at all how the spell worked, Draxum knows that. But that's what he tells himself.

He lies to himself a lot. Living with himself would be a lot easier if his fabricated version of events were true: if the turtles weren't his sons in any universe because he only created one, if Donatello had actually died through no fault of Draxum's, if Draxum hadn't taken another father's child away from him. If he hadn't hurt his own son like this. It's easier to just tell himself that, to pretend it's all true. But Draxum too intelligent to fool himself.

He knows objectively that Galois is still Donatello, that Lou Jitsu stole his children and then Draxum did the same to him, that he did terrible things to the one person in the world he loves more than he's ever loved anything. But if he lived with that weighing him down then he would be immobilized. Maybe when his work is done, then he can come to terms with what happened. Accept what he did. Let the weight crush him, if it comes to that. But he needs to save the world first. For his son most of all. So for now, he lies.

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Like when my sister was little, we said that anyone who kidnapped her would give her back as soon as they realized how much she talked. Sounds like a Leo thing.

Idk if this makes sense, but Draxum is a baby sling dad while Splinter is a leash dad.

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I just had a thought. Bella has probably never seen The Lion King. It came out after she withdrew from the human world, and if she ever heard of it since then she probably thought 'Hamlet with lions' sounded stupid. The boys are, of course, aghast.

So I was thinking after all this blows over I should have Leo take her to the Broadway show. He looks over during the second act and she is just bawling.

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Idk if this makes sense, but Draxum is a baby sling dad while Splinter is a leash dad.

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I drew Galois as a rabbit today and thought you might want to see

Oh don't worry I drew a version with goggles too

This definitely happened because I was listening to Mad Dog by The Crane Wives and drew some comparisons to Galois and doth Raph... rabbits are generally known for being hunted animals... Also the line "who's gonna keep you happy? Who's gonna keep you safe?" AUGH I WISH I COULD ANIMATE

This is so random and funny like ??? Holy shit. I love you.

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I am just beginning the Galois portion of your newest chapter and aahh I loved Leo‘s part!! I was kind of looking forward to him going to Colorado, but Im also glad you didn‘t do it bc you already research a lot for this fic and adding Colorado landscape and more to that sounds exhausting

Lucky Splinter for not losing another son, that would have been a disaster

I also love Leo taking pride in his expanding vocabulary, it feels like a fourth wall break kinda bc bro what are you doing reading the same lines as me xD

Anyway, I immediately clocked something in Galois part which I wanted to ask you about!! Draxum apparently forbade him from researching the many organisations that want to kidnap him and he „for some reason he stuck to this [order]“, my first thought was that this was a stipulation of his mind control, but my question would be why?? What possible effect could him researching institutions that want him have on the spell?

I am so excited to read the rest, it sometimes takes a bit for me to read the newest chapter since I tend to reread what happened before and I am a very slow reader unfortunately, but its always worth it with your chapters!!

Leo would have been in a bunker the entire time, so I actually wouldn't have had much to research. I wouldn't have to look up buildings in Denver and cross-reference Google Maps like I do with NYC. Leo's view of Colorado would basically be like: "yeah. Those are mountains. Sick." Maybe he'd have some internal commentary about how weird the altitude feels, if he was let outside at all he'd probably balk at how cold it is. The EPF doesn't exist irl so I'd have a lot of artistic freedom to decide how they operate and what their base looks like. Like how I don't have to worry about topography when it comes to the Hidden City, it doesn't exist irl and the show is incredibly vague on how it's laid out so virtually anything I say about it could be correct.

...Though I did end up doing tons of research on how cities come together, how different ethnic groups are formed and adapt and create exclaves that shape the local culture, and pulling history from various parts of the world at different periods of time to make up fake histories for these groups and knit them together in a believable way. Most of which never makes it into the story. None of it required or expected. I probably would have done a deep dive into American history, fleshed out the history of the EPF and how it fit into everything, the backgrounds of the various characters I'd end up introducing. Yeah, it's probably for the best that I leave all that alone.

Regardless, I always intended for Leo to be saved at the last minute. I could definitely make a story out of Leo getting kidnapped to Colorado and having to live with homophobe men in black for a bit, but that would take us out of the established dynamic very abruptly, and considering that's happening to Gale at the same time it would just be too much. Plus this is already so fucking long. And I do have in-universe dates for major plot events, Leo can't be out of the game for more than a few months.

If anyone has the power to break the fourth wall, it's Leo. Even though I did have Gale break it a bit in Book 2...we'll just say it's a twin thing.

So the thing about Hypno's spell-it's over with. The effects fade after a few days, if they waved some sort of mystic detector in front of him (which they probably did when Hidden City CPS was called on them) he would come up totally clean because he's not under the effects of any spell right now. And despite what a lot of people are thinking, it does not make him magically obedient. Gale has the power to resist Draxum if he wants; he just doesn't. Gale is still very much Donnie, and Donnie is a people-pleaser who craves approval from parental figures and like-minded peers. Draxum supports and validates him in the way he doesn't remember craving his entire life, he's exactly the kind of parent Donnie would thrive under and would want to make happy. He obeys Draxum because he wants to. And even then he sometimes just ignores the orders he doesn't like because he's a teenager and still a little shit.

What the spell did do was make Donnie incredibly impressionable. Anything he was told while under the spell, he couldn't refute. It was cemented in his brain as his new truth, and if something conflicted with it then his brain would favor the new information and discard it. He was told his name was Galois, that Draxum was his father. And so it was. Any knowledge or memories that contradicted this were dismissed. This only lasted a few days, the first day or so when Galois was unconscious and Draxum laid most of the groundwork and then the days Gale spent in bed isolated from everyone but Draxum, purportedly because his immune system was so weak he couldn't risk visitors but in reality Draxum was poking at the conditioning and gently solidifying his mental state. By the time he was allowed to see Huginn and Muninn, the spell had completely worn off.

With one caveat. When Gale was in this super impressionable state, Draxum told him that he would never lie to him. And Gale had no choice but to take this as fact.

Now, it's not as powerful as being under a real spell. It is possible for him to realize that Draxum is lying to him, he even does it with Tigerclaw once. But it's very difficult to overcome that initial "I will never lie to you" programming and accept it. It worked with Tigerclaw that one time because Tigerclaw 1) was a reliable source who his father had told him was safe to trust, and 2) had evidence Galois couldn't refute. Plus the fact that it was framed as more of a 'little white lie' rather than something that would have major ramifications or cause him to rethink stuff, that made it much easier to swallow. And it specifically has to be directed at him, he can recognize when Draxum lies to others but it won't even occur to him to question Draxum's truthfullness when it's aimed at him.

So as far as Draxum's order not to look into kidnapping plans, there was zero magic involved there. It was literally just Draxum being a dad and knowing Gale would obsess over it and have a negative effect on his mental health, so he told him not to. And Donnie probably would have done so anyway, but Gale has so much trauma related to his various kidnappings already that he basically went "yeah, you're probably right, I'll just stress myself doing that. I'll let you deal with it and keep myself too busy to worry about it." Which worked fine until this happened.

Bro this chapter took me like three months to write. It hasn't even been three weeks since I posted. Honestly I appreciate still getting engagement, it feels super disheartening to spend so long on something and then all activity dries up in a day or two. Like you spent days making a super beautiful cake and everyone just shoved it in their mouths without tasting and left. Plus I've also been hit with the depression hammer, I've accomplished literally nothing in weeks so I can't talk.

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I'm not sure how much of this I'll actually write in, but Splinter has 100% integrated himself into a group of church ladies. He doesn't attend church with them obviously, but they do their handcrafts together and show off their knitting/cross-stitch projects. Trade embarrassing stories about their kids. If they weren't living in a subway station right now they'd be trading casseroles back and forth.

And they gossip. Oh lord. The gossip.

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Just started reading your fics and I'm so obsessed ‼️‼️‼️ it's so gooddddd

Welcome! Also I'm sorry about the week you're about to lose.

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DONNIE, CASS, MY BABIES, SOMEONE GET THEM OUT OF THERE 😭💔💔💔

They don't get a lawyer unfortunately.

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Read the latest chapter.

I love your writing.

❤️

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Feel like making some Fanart... Is there any way to send some Fanart without posting on Tumblr or AO3? 😭

I do have anon messages open, but I don't believe you can submit pictures anonymously though.