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The Creature. Part 2/2

Part 1/2

It is always the one who doesn’t want to be near the cat that inevitably becomes the cat’s favorite. It is a universal law

I used to be so scared of my roommates cat before we moved in together, but now the little guy absolutely loves me. He is obsessed with cuddles. He lays on all my stuff. He trips me by rubbing up on my legs wherever I go. He hangs out with me all the time, it’s so cute.

Turns out my man just had a resting bitch face and didn’t want me to leave whenever I would visit, who knew lol

How old even are you? Part 2/2

Part 1/2

Oh, poor Mikey. According to the good future comic, there isn’t even a reason for you to age like milk. I’m so sorry for your hair loss

I know there’s a lot of angst about the future timeline, but what if they’re all a little goofy silly about it lol

Also I bet that it’d be way funnier if Casey started getting really cryptic about the future. Like imagine how many pranks he could pull. Guy was taught by these ridiculous turtles who in turn were raised by Splinter, half of their lessons are just practical jokes and dares lol

How old even are you? Part 1/2

Part 2/2

That moment when your mentor figure is all of a sudden a gangly and insufferable teenager who follows none of his future advice. Like, what do you even do with that? They all talk and act the exact same but they’re all completely different people. It’s probably hilarious in non life threatening situations tho

The dramatic irony of seeing the adult that scolded you in the future doing the same dumb shit. I once watched old home videos of my parents as kids and it was some of the weirdest and funniest things I’ve ever seen lmao

Good Listener, Part 3

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My brother and I couldn’t be more different in our interests, and if we were strangers I doubt we would find anything we had in common. Even so, he and I talk quite often. No matter how much we might not understand the things the other likes, we care about each other enough to listen and learn.

I feel like Donnie and Mikey would be the same. Polar opposites, but that’s exactly why they get along so well.

Sometimes when I’m confused at how to comfort someone, I’ll ask if they need to vent or if they need advice. I can get really frustrated sometimes when I get unsolicited advice, so it helps me not make them feel any worse if they just need a shoulder to lean on. Sometimes that’s all you need :)

Anyways! My favorite kind of character relationship is one where they can just be comfortable vibing in the same room doing their own thing parallel the other while listening to them talk about it. Great basis for friendship. Very relatable lol

Good Listener, Part 2

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I’ve always felt like I’m inadequate at comforting others, since I find it rather hard to empathize even if I can sympathize. My first instinct is always to try and fix whatever hurt them, but more often than not, things are rarely so simple as to have an easy fix. Sometimes all you can do is offer your support.

So, I’m relating to Donnie in this one! I get so internally flustered when I have to comfort a crying person lol, not that I’m going to let them know that. However, this is also inspired by my oldest brother, who is very similar to me in that way. Even if he had no clue what to do with his little sibling bawling their eyes out over something silly, he still cared enough to sit with me until I calmed down, no matter how confused he was with my dramatics lmao

Mikey might be crying, but don’t worry. He’s a growing boy and he’s got some big emotions to figure out still, but nothing terrible caused this. If anything he probably got some light teasing from the others and it hit a bit of a sore spot. He’ll be alright lol

Good Listener, Part 1

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The third in my comics reflecting on the older brothers’ reminiscing on their youngest growing up.

I absolutely love to hear people talk about the stuff they like, even if it’s usually something I couldn’t care less about otherwise. If someone is excited, I’m excited for them, and it’s fun to have a litany of random knowledge and fun facts from everywhere! There’s so much to learn from listening to people who are passionate :)

I like to think Mikey is the same. He tends to hang out in the background and enjoy the antics around him in the show when he isn’t goofing around himself.

The next part gets a little melancholy, but I swear it’s not actually angsty! Y’all got so scared for Leo last time lmao

Little Shadow 2/2

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When I was little I thought my brother was the coolest person in the world. I wanted to be just like him!

Now that I’m older though, I’ve grown into my own person. Now, my brother and I can stand on equal footing, side by side. Whenever he asks for my help or advice, I will always remember how much he helped me when I was young, and I am immensely grateful to be able to do the same for him.

I don’t know if he misses having a little shadow, but I know he’s proud of me :)

Little Shadow 1/2

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I would mimic absolutely everything my immediate older brother would do as a kid. I’d get his too small shirts, I’d always play as player two, and I’d follow him around and play all sorts of games with him every chance I would get. I was his little shadow all throughout our childhood.

It gets annoying though, to have to entertain your little sibling when you just want to hang out with your friends. As we grew older we formed our own friend groups and got our own interests separate from one another.

I will always look fondly on those days though :)

Finding Draxum

A little comic of Mikey finding Draxum in the street after he got drained by the Shredder suit. The original idea for this storyline was that Draxum would align himself with the Hamatos for a time while The Shredder took over the city, until his ego and obsession with prophesy led him to betray them once more. This time he would get no third chance, and Mikey would be the one to draw the line and tell him so before making him leave the city for good.

I love TMNT for its found family! But having had to cut off irl blood relatives before despite how many chances they were given, I kind of like Draxum as a villain despite him being the creator of the turtles. But that’s just me!

This doesn’t lead to his nice canonical show self in my mind , though it can totally still be read that way :)

Free protein lol

Inspired by 1) my childhood dog, who would immediately start chewing faster if anyone noticed him eating non edible things and 2) my brother, who ate a beetle that one time for no other reason than to prove he could.

We also had a moth infestation once when I was a kid, and every time I went to check if the cereal was covered in moths or not, that same brother would tease me to eat it anyways for the extra protein >:p

My childhood dog was a big ol’ Rottweiler! Lovely dog, so gentle even when my ten year old self was trying to pry paper towels out from between his teeth lol

Mikey skeletal anatomy! Click for better quality

Box turtles are the kinds of turtles who can fully fit into and close their shells along a single hinge in their plastron, which once closed is extremely hard to break into for any kind of predator especially if they cannot get a proper grip on the dome of the shell. Box turtles are also usually found in plains rather than ponds, and while they need water to survive and keep hydrated and can swim well, they’re not generally considered aquatic. Box turtles do have an interesting adaptation due to their more northern range of being able to survive freezing temperatures for a short period of time by slowing their metabolism outside of seasonal brumation (similar to hibernation, but more of a dormant state) if absolutely needed.

After watching TMNT ‘03 where the turtles meditate to save oxygen and prevent suffocation in a broken airlock, I thought, why not mix their ninja ability to conceal their body heat and breath and mix it with a turtles natural ability to brumate? Perhaps the brothers could enter into a completely dormant state on command with enough training in order to survive extreme situations or astral project in some form. Just a fun thought to tie their strong mystic powers with their physical abilities!

Although I use the term heterothermy to refer to them being able to vary between generating their own body heat while active and relying on environmental temperature while inactive, the intricacies of understanding thermal regulation in animals eludes me. If there’s a term that fits better, go ahead! I’m not a biologist so you probably know better lol

These are all my personal head cannons! You can use em’ as reference or not, whichever you prefer :)

[General][Raph][Donnie][Leo][Splinter]

Anatomical studies!

So, there was a line in TMNT’03 when Raph complains about his ribs that got me thinking, isn’t a turtles shell their ribs?

So, I did a little looking into the skeletal structure of turtles and how it might apply to the brothers, particularly the Rise brothers as they’re all different species. Here’s the little chart of common bone and scute patterns, and some speculation on how their reptilian features affects them!

I’ll post my individual skeletal studies after!

[Raph] [Donnie] [Leo] [Mikey] [Splinter]

Tech Support: Part 3

[1-2-3]

Yes, this was a real thing we had to help with once.

Even though he complains, Donnie feels a lot of pride being looked to as the family expert for these things, I’m sure. For all that Splinter probably doesn’t know the deep intricacies of computers, I’ll bet he knows the basics. Could there be a deeper meaning to his confusion?

I personally headcanon that Splinter is the one who introduced computers, phones, and appliances to his sons way back in the dumpster diving days, and probably showed Donnie how to fix his first toaster or something. However, the special interest kicked in hard and pretty soon Donnie could run circles around Splinter when it came to fixing and engineering stuff. Perhaps, this is a way Splinter can find time to partake in Donnie’s interests and boost his confidence despite being way out of his depth on technical know-how himself.

When you don’t have a lot, it’s important to be resourceful and handy with a quick fix. Donnie had to have started building stuff somewhere!

It makes it all the more bittersweet if they were really close only to have Splinter struggle to bond with Donnie when he’s a little older. Don’t worry though, they’ll figure it out :)

Tech Support: Part 2

[1-2-3]

He can be very particular in how he receives help.

My siblings and I did used to just gather and silently look at each other in shared pity for the one of us assigned IT duty after the one time he got a scratched disk to work at movie night. My brother started writing little sticky note guides on how to work the right TV remote and things, to save us all the trouble.

I raise you: What if Rise Mikey had a cat tho

Just a little doodle of a potential pet for the brothers! I named him Slice because Klunk is usually orange like a pizza slice, and Raph’s pet turtle in ‘12 is named Spike or Slash. They found him eating pizza in a dumpster.

Like all friendly orange cats, he shall be loyal as a dog and dumb as a rock! Mayhem probably begrudgingly tolerates him. His paws are big cause he’ll grow to be be a big fella someday.

Partially inspired by my housemates’ cats, who are silly and big respectively.

Shell quirks! Part 4, Mikey!

[1-2-3-4]

As a box turtle, Mikey can close his shell completely to keep out anything that might get in to bother him! Like annoying brothers, for example. Outta sight, outta mind lol

I used to make tons of Christmas cookies with extended family that I would bring home after the holiday, but alas, every single one would disappear come morning without a crumb for me. Either Santa stuck around another night or I lived with ravenous wolves rather than people! I ended up having to hide the stash to dole them out at a reasonable pace (while saving myself my share) lol

Shell quirks! Part 1, Raph!

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While snapping turtles limbs are too big to fit into their teeny plastron, they can still pull their heads back pretty far! It can look a bit spooky, with their big jaws hissing at you from the dark cavern of their shoulders. I’ve had one too many a brush with Raph’s common cousins while fishing.

He’d probably keep the ability to hide his head tho! Could make for some fun hijinks, either in pranks or fights. He’d make a pretty good Headless Horseman on Halloween I bet. Mikey could pull the opposite and be the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail lol

Related to that, my family got a gag gift in the form of a Black Knight plushie with removable limbs and little red ribbons inside as a kid. The four of us caused a lot of grey hairs with our antics back then, of that I am sure!