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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]

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!

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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!

Sick Days

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Whenever I feel sick, I pull every blanket and pillow from my room and curl up in a corner on the floor. I drew this inside of said blanket pile :(

Despite being genetically engineered magic super soldiers, I’m sure the kids have had their share of off days, what with them running around New York sewers and all. Reptiles can be pretty sensitive to environmental conditions.

According to some googling, reptiles can’t actually get fevers though as they can’t raise their own body temperature. They also don’t truly shiver, though they can simulate it voluntarily. As mutants, the boys probably aren’t purely cold blooded, and have some control over their internal temperature due to their mammalian traits.

Movie night at Aprils!

I love their friendship, in any iteration, but Rise April is definitely one of my favorites! She’s just so chill and unhinged at the same time.

Leo would be an absolute nightmare in card games. Boy loves magic, messing with people, and winning games no matter how many enemies he makes in the process. God forbid he ever touch a monopoly board, the Hamatos would tear each other apart lol

My older brother loves card and board games a lot, and I thought with Leo’s bits of canon characterization he would like them too! My brother and I play Spirit Island and Gloomhaven whenever we can, and it’s super fun to raise the difficulty to insane levels and still manage to beat the odds with insanely lucky card plays right when it’s down to the wire. I bet Splinter played games with them as a good way for the turtles to learn teamwork and strategy!

Rip my Halloween candy though. I was never the best at games…

Taco Crimes

Donnie would absolutely blow a fuse if someone ruined their books with how sacred he was to that mint condition comic, and I’m sure Mikey thinks cooking is an art. Cross either of them and it’s hell to pay!

I read a lot of book series that had been handed down to me by my siblings, but you could really tell whose they were before based on their condition. One sibling left foodstains and dog ears, another left spine breaks and ripped paperbacks, and the final would threaten my life if I so much as dented a page. Such is life with shared things

I guess you could say those books were well loved, for better or for worse lol

No matter how big they get, they’ll always be a little sibling

I bet it’s a point of pride for Raph that he can so easily cart his brothers around, no matter how big they get! It’s so cute how they use him like a jungle gym. The unmade episode where it showed how close he and Mikey once were leaves a bit of a bittersweet feeling that really hits home for someone who also was close to their oldest sibling in a way much different than we are now.

When I was little I was so used to just being hauled around like a sack of flour, be it by my parents or siblings, that I would constantly ask to be carried everywhere. This is particularly inspired by my oldest sister, who would do strength training by carrying me on her back on hikes alongside her weighted equipment. Absolute madwoman.

Imagine some bad guy gets the upper hand, but Raph just lets his brothers off his shell like Goku taking off his training weights and punches them to oblivion lol