まどほむ by Shru [pixiv] [twitter] 

Any fun facts or doodles for your new Mikey au that you have or can share???

Sure! Oh, how about the exact reason Splinter thinks Mikey's talking to their ancestor!

I said it was a silly misunderstanding lol. (i think the conversation between Splints and Mikey gets sad after that though, at least for splinter. B/c at some point Mikey admits they're his age and turtles so Splinter assumes he's hanging out with the spirits of his brothers, who either aged as spirits or made themselves look that age so they could play with Mikey. That's part of the reason he never tries to stop Mikey from hanging out with them, b/c he doesn't think he should separate brothers like that, even if two of them are 'dead'.)

Also, bonus fun fact. Mikey's able to meet with them so regularly b/c splinter takes him and Raph out to the scrap yard every couple weeks. He lets them roam and explore b/c he figures they can't get into much trouble there since it's mostly abandoned and everything's already broken. So Mikey slips out of the scrap yard and to a nearby alleyway to hang out with the twins. and as long as he comes back when he hears splinter call for him, he's fine.

Thank you!

This is part 1! Part 2 can be found here~

Masterpost for context and all!

You know for being a comic about 2 Leo's.. god do I love to draw Donnie!! I think its the mix of his easy to draw shape + eyebrows are fun to play around with

Got any more ideas if Raph being a telepath?

Yep! i was just thinking i should probably do some sort of summery about his telepathy abilities so it's less vague and more solid. (if anyone has anything they want to add, feel free.)

soooo i'mma gonna put this under a 'read more' since...um...i may have went a little off the rails again. like 1.2k off the rails.

So yeah. Info dump under the break!

Like the twins, Raph has had these powers for his whole life. Unlike them he's actually aware he has them and just doesn't realize his brothers don't.

At the start, it's mostly just psychic bonds he shares with his brothers. Little strings of emotions that are always running in the background; if he focused on one of the bonds he can pick up on some vague thoughts. Unfortunately thoughts aren't the easiest to translate so he can really only understand the gist of what each sibling is thinking. (Like Mikey's thoughts are bright colors and pictures often too abstract for Raph to fully understand, Leo's were words but they scattered around so fast the ones he can pick up didn't always make sense together, and Donnie's were a seemingly random mix of images, numbers, and words that Raph had trouble understanding how they would relate let alone what Donnie was thinking of to make them do so.) But he learned each thought language enough to know when one of them had something wrong or if they needed him for something.

When he was little, he had a knack for knowing exactly what each of his siblings needed. Splinter couldn't get Mikey to eat dinner? Raph tells him Mikey has an upset stomach but will eat some chicken noodle soup if given to him. Donnie crying for seemingly no reason? Raph magically appears with some earmuffs explaining it's too loud for Donnie today. Leo's cranky and keeps snapping at his siblings? Raph somehow knows he didn't sleep a lot last night because of a nightmare and is already wrapping him in a hug intent not to let him go until he takes a nap.

Splinter asked him about it once and Raph simply said that "They tell me in my head." which a confused Splinter took as a toddler's way of saying 'he just knew.' Raph, on the other hand, took that whole conversation as 'oh it must be rude to talk about your siblings' thoughts like that' and, not wanting to be rude, never outwardly explains it again.

Later on when Splinter taught them about the Ninja Mind Meld, he thought that is what he's been doing this entire time.

fun fact! (that i just came up with)

Raph doesn't actually know how to legitimately mind meld the way Splinter tried to teach them. For this Mind Melds are just sharing a singular thought with one teammate. (ie battle plans.) All Raph does is tune into his bond and pickup on whatever thought his brother is trying to send him (which is a lot easier to understand b/c they actively want to be understood) and goes with it. None of his brothers have questioned why it's so much easier to 'mind meld' with Raph, or why Raph seems to pickup on the thought they want to send almost before they actually send it.

SO! Savage episodes!

Savage episodes, are when Raph's bonds go quiet too quickly for him to compensate/prepare. Those bonds strengthen and weaken by distance. So the combined stress of finding himself physically alone, the constant hum of his siblings suddenly disappearing, and his head going silent, sends him into a panicked savage Raph episode.

Sometimes his brothers can snap him out of it if they come back in range quick enough so Raph can hear them again. But the longer he's in a savage episode, the more he starts actively suppressing the silent bonds on instinct and his brothers will have to snap him out of the episode first before he reopens them.

AFTER NIMPO

After the Nimpo gets unlocked, Raph's powers get stronger to the point where he can hear his siblings thoughts all the time even if he's not trying. He has to start actively keeping the bonds partially suppressed just to get some semblance of quiet like he had before (basically the bond is stronger now so he's actively limiting it to only let through what it used to before.) He also finds that with the bonds so much stronger, the distance he can go without them going silent has drastically lengthened. He can be half way across the city hanging out with Cass (b/c Casey and Raph r bffs in every version. those are the facts.) and still know exactly what Mikey is making for dinner that night if he wanted to.

He can now also see further into their minds, even see their dreams (not that he does that often. I think he accidentally ended up in one of Leo's dreams turned visions once. He only actively tries to do it when Donnie ends up in that waking vision and they're trying to snap him out of it.)(OH! Wait! What if Raph's accidentally Dream hopping most night! like he goes to sleep and just keeps ending up in his brother's dreams! like sometimes he'll sleep and have his own but now a lot of the time he has to put up with the ridiculousness that is his brothers' dreams. (or simply coax them through nightmares from the inside.) I kinda like that.)

He now finds he can also tune into minds that aren't his brothers, not nearly to the extent he can with his siblings, but enough that he can pick up on surface thoughts and feelings. (but, again, the thought language barrier is a thing. it takes time to translate each person's way of thinking, time he doesn't really want to put into b/c it feels rude to invade their privacy like that. Cass is probably the only one he actually does so with b/c once she heard he can do that, she wouldn't stop bullying him to try it on her lol.)

He might be able to form new bonds like he has with his siblings but i'm not exactly sure about that. (maybe it's something he will grow into? again, idk.)

HOW THE POWER'S DISCOVERED

ok, so everyone else finds out about Raph's telepathy very casually. Like everyone (Draxum included) is there probably talking about the twins' visions. (this is post first waking visions so everyone knows about them by now.) And Leo says at one point that Raph's almost always there when he wakes up from a vision to give him a hug. to which Donnie states that Raph seems to always know when he's had one as well.

Raph just shrugs saying "Raph can't see your visions so if Raph can't see what you're seeing then Raph knows it's a vision."

Draxum asks him to elaborate. And Raph calls it 'mind meld' but it becomes increasingly clear that whatever Raph is describing is not ninja mind melding.

by then, Draxum is just beside himself. When he had created them, all he wanted was basic super soldiers. Instead he ended up with both seers, an OP mystic user that can bend the fabric of time to his whim, and an extremely powerful telepath.

if they had stayed at his side the earth would have been doomed.

no wonder he lost so damn much to these teens when he was their enemy.

Ok, so that turned out a lot longer than i thought it would. So yeah. Hope you enjoyed this info dump!

Thank yoU!

Look at them ! thay’re so cute *^* ~

"Listen," one guard said, "I know we have only just met-"

"No," the other guard said, "we've worked together for years!"

"-but you can trust me when I say-"

"I can't, you have the curse that's opposite from mine!"

"I don't care for you at all."

"Well, I… oh… I love you too."

friendly reminder to everyone that first draft just needs to exist.

it doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to be there. stories go through so many different drafts that nobody is gonna care if your first draft is a little messy.

you can’t edit and clean up something that doesn’t exist, so make it exist!

A messy sketch of a scene that I felt was missing from the end of the movie.

Mikey seriously deserves some mad recognition for pulling off that stunt!!

Apparently a part of the reason why farmed bees stay in the beehives that humans build for them is because the farm hives are safer and sturdier. I don't know how a busy Discord server's worth of bugs that only have one brain cell each would logically conclude that the humans protect them from outside threats, illness and parasites, but if I understood right, the bees would be free to move away and build a new nest somewhere else any time they'd want, and they simply choose not to.

You know how in almost every culture, people have some concept of "if I sacrifice something that I made/grew/produced to the Gods, they will ward me and my harvest from evil"?

So, in a way, don't the bees willingly sacrifice a part of their harvest to an entity not only far greater than them, but nearly beyond their comprehension, in exchange for protection against natural forces wildly outside of their own control?

So tell me, beekeepers, what are you to your bees, if not a mildly eldritch God?

Many thanks to @1000sunnygo for translating the remaining fourth light novel story. 🙏🙏 It's bookended by segments in 2050, but the main portion is set on January 28, 2046.

The ending that was included for this story's rerelease in the light novel is the inspiration for the top two photos in the series' fourth anniversary art:

Which is 🥺🥺🤧

Small smattering of reactions under the cut:

Emma knowing deep in her bones how amazing Don and Gilda are, even without her memories 🤧🤧

REAL FUCKING DON AND GILDA APPRECIATION HOURS HERE 👏 👏

(Chapter 59)

Me, treasuring any crumb of Don and Emma interactions:

They take their responsibility so seriously 🥺🤧 goodest kids

FJLDSFLJEASD Gilda immediately shutting that shit down after what happened with Emma fainting two weeks ago…

…only to come to the conclusion this is exactly the kind of shit the trio would pull, in the same way that's conveniently summarized in "The Chess Proverb" short story:

With the spark of unconventionality that Emma brings and her drive to achieve the seemingly impossible to balance out Ray's wisdom and pragmatism and Norman's cunning and ruthlessness in execution.

They admire the trio so much after all the years they spent looking out for them and they want to do them proud, and then the look on their faces when Emma and Ray choose them to accompany them on the search for Cuvitidala and the Seven Walls without hesitation because of how much trust they have in them after everything they've been through—

Also this is hardcore I'm so proud of these two little ten year olds and how in sync they are throughout this whole thing.

"smiled softly" oh son I'm soft

Also yes you better be heaping praise on them after everything, including making Gilda cry which is a tragedy in its own right

And a little bit of Raydon banter at the end too to complement what we got in "Operation Stormy Night," beautiful. 🖤❤️🙏