rise of the tmnt
word count: 4k
pairing: leo & mikey
i wrote this for one of my very favorite people and best friends, the bentley to my bookshop and ben to my sammy and mikey to my leo. HAPPY BIRTHDAY @mykimouser! i'm genuinely better off for having you in my life, it would be significantly darker around here without you. i hope your day is absolutely amazing and you're surrounded by people who love you and you get everything you want forever <3
title borrowed from bummerland by AJR
read on ao3
x
If you asked Mikey if he was protective of Leo, he would say of course he is! He wouldn’t even have to think about it, what kind of question is that? He’s protective of everything and everyone he loves, and he loves all his siblings more than life itself.
If you asked Mikey if he was overprotective of Leo, he would say whaaaat? I don’t—I think you’re breaking up actually, shhhcchhkkchhssh—and he’d artfully dodge the conversation by literally sprinting away from it.
The thing is, Mikey knows how annoying it is to have well-meaning loved ones go into hypervigilant mode anytime they come within a five-foot radius of your person. He’s been lobbying since he was twelve for Raph to take the kid gloves off! And throw them far away!! Down a deep hole that Donnie could fill with cement and Leo could plant fake biohazard warning signs around so that no one would ever dare excavate!!
But Leo has always been independent, more than any of the rest of them. More than maybe he really wanted to be. He takes care of himself, like he has to—like there aren’t a half dozen people around him who would happily do it, who want to do it, who would jump at the first chance to prove that he can depend on them for anything.
Mikey doesn’t know when Leo got this idea in his head that dealing with him is a chore but it’s an idea that grew up with him. That grew about ten feet taller after the Krang invasion. It’s always towering over them, keeping Leo even further from the people who love him with both its long unwanted arms.
Sometimes Mikey can slink past those arms and find the hole that Leo hides in and climb in there with him. He’s the best at it, because he’s the smallest, and the one their enemy’s eyes tend to jump right over when they’re sussing out a fight. He can go places the others can’t. And it’s a rule of the universe that once he gets within hugging distance of his brothers, they’re compelled at a molecular level to hug him.
When they’re holed up together, in that place Leo goes to when he’s alone, it gets a little warmer but it’s still cold. It feels like one of those early winter mornings when the shadows are the longest and darkest and cover more ground than they do the rest of the year and Mikey is just waiting for that spring thaw. He’s been waiting for what feels like forever, but he knows it’ll come. He knows it will.
Two months after the invasion, the sun peeks out.
“I’m going to tío’s,” Leo announces to the lair, one foot out the door already.
There’s an immediate crash from the lab, and the familiar sound of a weighted barbell falling on a snapper’s chest from the dojo, as two older brothers scramble to either throw their entire weight into stopping him somehow (impossible) or at least convince him that one of them should tag along (more likely, but Leo would not be happy about it).
Mikey scrambles from his upside-down seat on the sofa to poke his head over the back of it and call out, “Can I come?”
Leo glances back down the hall, probably calculating the seconds until his quick escape is botched, but then he looks back at Mikey with that crooked, mischievous smile that’s been Mikey’s favorite since he was two.
“Grab your shoes, Miguelito. We’re prison breaking.”
“Gimme two shakes!” Mikey says over his shoulder, already bolting for his room.
Mikey’s arms have mostly healed up from the golden portal he opened into the Prison Dimension. There isn’t a crack or a scar left but the lingering nerve damage is killer. The colorful custom arm braces that Draxum sourced for him help a lot and he’s good about remembering to wear them—so there is really no reason for their entire family to be such worrywarts about it. Especially when Don’s shell is still too tender for battle armor and Raph’s lucky he can still see out of his right eye.
“It’s because you’re both the babies,” April said a few weeks into their collective recovery period, poking Mikey right on the beak that he had wrinkled in frustration. “The youngest in the whole clan. Even Casey Jr.’s older than you two. Deal with it.”
Donatello is technically a month older than his twin, not that either of them care about pesky things like birth dates. They’re twins in their souls. Even though that means Leo has to grit his teeth and plot convoluted revenge when Donnie dares play the older twin card.
But also, Mikey knows even though no one has come out and said it, they’re the two who scared the rest of their family the most.
Donnie and Raph did what they had to do because it was their direct responsibility. Donnie was the only person alive who could have piloted the Technodrome with some degree of success even without his ninpo-powered technopathy. And Raph gave Leo his escape pod because his top priorities have always started and ended with his little brothers. If there had been another way out, he would have taken it.
Mikey was willing to disintegrate to get Leo out, holding that portal open even though it hurt, even though every ounce of instinct and intuition was telling him to let go, even though he had no way of really knowing it would work the way he wanted it to. Leo threw himself feet first into hell for the rest of them and came out the other side broken and bleeding and traumatized, and he wasn’t sorry he did it. He would do it again, and again, and again.
So—Mikey gets it. He does.
It doesn’t stop him from cramming his Jordans on and snatching up the nearest hoodie—pink; he never gave that back to Raphie, oops. He whirls around to find Leo in his doorway, sword slung over his shoulder, weight braced on the neon blue foldable crutch in his opposite arm.
“Little rowdy back there,” Leo says peacefully, regarding the state of chaos in the lair as their older brothers actively hunt them down. “Let’s take off from here.”
“You got it, boss,” Mikey chirped, hopping in place as he tied his shoe.
The cyan portal opens as easily as April opens her bedroom window to usher them in for a movie night, bright and inviting. Having opened a portal of his own, Mikey has a brand-new appreciation for how incredible Leo’s ninpo is. He’s never hesitated to hop right through, even back when Leo was still getting the hang of it—either he’ll go where he’s meant to, or he’ll have a fun adventure wherever he does end up. Literally win-win.
He steps out into Run of the Mill’s back of house. A harried server pauses mid-step to give him a strange look. Then she visibly clocks the blue of the portal behind him, rolls her eyes and continues on her way. Mikey beams at her retreating figure. She should know who Leo is, Leo is the best.
Leo takes long enough to join him that Mikey has started poking around in the dry storage area.
“Raph caught me,” Leo says faux-somberly. “I let him know we’d be home by dinner.”
“With some calzones as a peace offering,” Mikey says with a nod, matching his grave tone. It makes Leo crack a smile, because it’s always charming to him when his siblings commit to the bit.
“Can I please get through for a can of tomato paste,” a salamander yokai in an apron and unnecessary hairnet says loudly from behind them. Oh, they are kind of just hogging the whole doorway, huh?
“Weeeell, since you said please,” Leo replies, steering Mikey by the shoulders out of dry storage through the prep kitchen and out the employees-only door.
Mikey ambles along agreeably, and accepts the hot basket of mozzy sticks Leo plops into his hands without questioning where it came from, and hops up into a seat at the bar since the dining room is pretty full.
“I’m gonna go bug tío Hueso for a bit,” Leo says. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and if you do—”
“—deny everything and throw Draxum under the bus however I possibly can,” Mikey recites. He would never actually throw dad under the bus—unless it was a really funny bus—but they both know that so there’s no point bringing it up.
“You’re my favorite,” Leo tells him. He knocks his knuckles on the bartop to get the attention of the rabbit yokai back there and wiggles his fingers in a wave when he has it. The yokai’s fur poofs a bit, like always, and he immediately drops the handful of forks he was holding with a noisy clatter. Then Leo whirls off to go make trouble elsewhere, crutch slowing him down not at all.
The rabbit yokai is one Mikey knows pretty well from a hundred other afternoons just like this one. Usagi isn’t old enough to serve drinks, but he likes to roll silverware behind the bar so he can prop his phone up beneath the counter and watch TikToks. He always watches the Hamatos when they come in—maybe one Hamato in particular.
It would probably make him less flustered around Leo if he knew that Leo’s entire family had a betting pool going on the two of them. Or maybe it would make it worse. Hmmmm. Mikey won’t mention it just in case.
“Hi, Usagi,” Mikey says cheerfully, popping open the lid on the marinara sauce nestled into his ill-gotten gains. “Mozzy stick?”
“Hi, Mikey,” Usagi replies. “No, thanks. I’ve already eaten like a million garlic knots today and señor Hueso is making me take the leftover lasagna home since Auntie isn’t back until—” He cuts himself off, embarrassed. He always volunteers a ton of information and then wrongly assumes his friends don’t want to hear about all of that and reels himself back in. “Anyway! How are things?”
“Good!” Mikey says. “I’ve been one-hundred percenting all my Pokemon games since I’m stuck inside so much.”
Instead of remarking on that, or on the bright eye-catching colors of his arm braces, Usagi says, “Woah, even Diamond?”
“Yeah! Ohmigosh, I forgot to tell you, I caught Feebas!” Mikey pulls his phone out to show him proof, the victorious picture taken of his Switch screen. “I finally had to just lock in and totally ignore my phone for like two hours. Raph definitely thought I died when I didn’t reply to a meme Donnie sent in our group chat. Check it out!”
Usagi leans over the bar to see and his reaction is everything Mikey could have hoped for. He gasps, “It’s a shiny?”
“It’s a shiny!” Mikey hollers, then ducks his head a bit when the actual bartender gives the two of them a pointed look. Tucking his phone away, he says, “So what is your aunt up to? And what does it have to do with leftover lasagna?”
“Oh! Well, she’s visiting with her sister, and I told her I could definitely fend for myself while she was gone, but yesterday there was kind of an incident with the microwave—”
Someone settles into a stool at Mikey’s right, and cuts right over Usagi to say, “Hey, Michael, right?”
Mikey glances over to find a really tall cat yokai, tawny fur with a black rosette pattern which makes Mikey think of a jaguar, except his ears are long and fluffy, and his face is distinctly more human than feline.
“Half-right,” Mikey responds, frowning. “You just completely talked over my friend, bee tee dubs.”
“I’m sorry!” the cat is quick to apologize. “I didn’t realize you were friends, I thought he just worked here. You don’t mind, do you?” he adds to Usagi.
Usagi has the deer-in-headlights look of someone thrust into a social interaction they Do Not Want To Have, and Mikey cringes a little at himself for it. Resolving to make it up to him later, he swivels in his seat to get the attention back on himself.
“What’s up?” he says, hoping they can speedrun whatever this is.
“I was just wondering how you’ve been since the invasion,” the cat says. “We haven’t seen you or your brothers around here much recently.”
“Yeah, we’ve been spending more time at home,” Mikey says, the usual canned response they’ve taken to giving when their friends and associates wonder about their less frequent appearances lately. “We had some close calls but—you know, we won, so.”
Usagi’s ear twitches, and his mouth turns down, and he gives the silverware he’s rolling his full attention. He has a lot of feelings about the Hamatos being involved in a huge fight that he was completely unaware of until it was long over. Mikey thinks he would have helped if they’d asked him to. He’d definitely do anything if Leo asked. But how could they ask?
The cat yokai says, “Yeah, I saw the footage. Very impressive.”
Mikey frowns and stops turning his seat back and forth. “Donnie—my brother wiped all the footage with us in it.”
“I’m sure he did. But someone captured a few minutes of your battle on a scrying mirror and it made the rounds down here.”
Ugh, magic, Mikey thinks with derision for the very first time in his life.
He makes a mental note to ask Draxum about how they can get rid of that footage, too.
If Draxum doesn’t know, Big Mama will. Leo is her favorite.
“Did I see Leonardo come in with you?” the yokai is saying, leaning in a little. “A few of my buddies and I, we were wondering if we could interest him in a proposal.”
A suspicious little animal in the back of Mikey’s brain sits up straight and starts paying attention. It’s weird that the guy guessed at Mikey’s name but knows Leo’s. It’s weird that he’s been paying attention to their comings and goings from the one place in the Hidden Cities they frequent regularly. And it’s weird that he has a proposal for a teenager.
On the other side of the bar, Usagi’s eyes are dark and watchful. He and Leo can talk shop about kenjutsu for hours at a time, and in this second Mikey doesn’t have trouble imagining Usagi with a sword in his hand.
“Why?” Mikey says.
“Those portals—I’ve never seen anything like it,” the cat says. “He could do so much with that ability. I’m sure he’s got people falling over themselves left and right to offer him work, but my employer could probably double any standing offers.”
He still sounds surface-level friendly and admiring, but there’s a rot beneath it all, sickly-sweet. A greed. Mikey abruptly wants this guy at least one ocean and a language barrier away from himself and his big brother.
Yeah, Leo’s portals are second-to-none. It’s incredible, the way he can think in three different places at once and account for every single sibling on the field like he’s playing 5D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. He makes it look easy because he’s Leo, and that’s what he does—he makes impossible stuff look like a breeze. Give his ninpo to a clown like this cat and they wouldn’t be able to accomplish a tenth of what Leo has in two years. Even if they had a hundred years.
And Mikey can feel himself falling into that trap that Raphael so often falls into—that Donatello is guilty of tripping into now and then—the overprotective one. In the same second he thinks about how capable and cool Leo is, he’s thinking about how he would do anything to keep creeps like this away from him. He’s thinking about how Leo deserves to be around people who like him and appreciate him for him, and not for what he can do for them.
“He’s sixteen,” Mikey says coldly. To him, sixteen feels very grown-up, but he makes sure to say it the way everyone else in his family constantly says it. “If he wanted a job, he’d work here.”
“Oh, yes!” Usagi blurts. Then, “Uh, I mean, we’re hiring.”
“A guy who can portal like that, taking pizza orders? Please,” the yokai says with an amiable grin, like they’re all in on the joke together. “Seriously, can I give you my card? Let him think about it. He could, uh—do some real good. For the community, you know? The Krang left a mark everywhere, even here. If he wanted to give back, there are lots of opportunities.”
He takes a monochrome business card out of his wallet and slides it across the bar. Mikey doesn’t even look at it. He can feel himself getting really, properly angry.
Leo’s too clever to get played, but he’s so guilt-motivated. He’s got that huge shadow hanging over him that convinces him so easily that he has all this stuff he has to make up for. He has all this love he has to earn. If this creep framed his job opportunity to Leo as a way to give back, to help people in the wake of an invasion he entirely blames himself for, then Leo would be lured right in. It wouldn’t even be hard.
Michelangelo is so. Sick. Of this guy.
“Can I just save you the time?” he says, smiling super brightly. “He’s not interested.”
The yokai’s smile fades a little, expression distinctly less friendly, but just for a second. He looks at something above Mikey’s head, and the smile stretches back out again.
“I’ll wait to hear that from him,” the guy says, nodding to indicate something behind Mikey.
Looking over his shoulder, Mikey sees Leo and Hueso chatting as they emerge from the office. Leo is waving his hand while he tells whatever story he’s telling, bright and animated, a far cry from that frightened boy they pulled out of the Prison Dimension. He feels safe here and he doesn’t have to put on a performance for anybody here and it shows. It’s why Raph let him go earlier without much of an argument.
Mikey isn’t about to let anybody ruin it for him.
Hueso wouldn’t exactly thank him for starting a brawl in his restaurant during the late lunch rush—and Mikey’s done a really good job of not getting banned this month!
So sabotage it is.
He’s the youngest of five—six, now, with the addition of Junior to their ranks—and when it comes to big, wounded eyes and crocodile tears to shake dad off his trail and throw another sibling under the bus, nobody does it better than him.
Moving fast, Mikey pitches himself sideways off his seat. The stool clatters over noisily and Leo looks up in time to see Mikey hit the floor. Picture-perfect.
“Ow!” he cries out, only half-faked. He did kind of land on one of his wrists a little too hard.
“What the hell,” the yokai says dumbly.
Leonardo is beside Mikey so fast, Mikey’s not one-hundred percent convinced he didn’t teleport himself there. He crouches, broken knee and all, and says, “Gravity two-hundred and eight, Angie zero.”
“No fair,” Mikey protests, sitting up. “It was two-hundred and two yesterday.”
“Well, this wipe-out was embarrassing enough it’s worth multiple points.”
Despite his teasing, Leo is entirely focused as he tests Mikey’s wrist for pain. When that doesn’t cause more than a wince, he pulls at the velcro straps until it’s loose enough to slide off. Mikey patiently endures Doctor Leon’s careful assessment of his arm, and buckles the brace back on when he’s allowed to.
“What the heck happened?” Leo only asks when Mikey is helping him to his feet.
“That guy pushed me down,” Mikey said immediately, head lowered enough that he has to look up more than usual to meet Leo’s eyes.
“What?” the yokai snaps. “I didn’t push you down!”
“Oh, right, I just decided to fall down for no reason,” Mikey shoots back sarcastically.
“That’s exactly what you did!”
Leo glances at Usagi, the only eye-witness. Usagi says, to the cat yokai, “I saw the whole thing, man. You’re really gonna sit there and lie?”
Oh, we’re keeping you, Mikey thinks gleefully, almost forgetting to ham up his hurt expression.
The cat yokai is definitely pissed off, but Leo stands up tall and steps in front of Mikey, his body language daring the guy to say one unkind word about his little brother. Hueso takes over before anything unfortunate can happen, encouraging the yokai to get his food to go and also to consider never coming back to this establishment since he thinks it’s acceptable behavior to bully a child, et cetera. All in a day’s work.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mikey sees Usagi sweep the business card off the bar and probably into the trash somewhere behind it.
They hang out at the bar for the rest of the afternoon. Usagi isn’t on the floor today, restocking and cleaning and running food instead, so he gets away with chatting and sneaking them free cranberries-on-the-rocks up until they leave. Leo finds out about the leftover lasagna situation and convinces the rabbit to come over for dinner, including a calzone for him in their take-home order to sweeten the deal.
“Uh,” Usagi says, “sure. Okay. That’d be—yeah.”
“Nice,” Leo says. He sounds way cooler about it than Mikey knows for a fact that he is on the inside. But that’s Leo to a tee—make it look easy. Don’t let anybody in on the big secret that you struggle, too. You have to unlock like fourteen friendship tiers before you get on the other side of all that.
They portal most of the way to their favorite manhole back home, walking the final city block for a few extra minutes under the warm red evening sky.
“So what happened with Puss in Boots back there?” Leo says apropos of nothing, when Mikey’s dramatic rendition of his capture of the Feebas and ultimate one-hundred percent completion of Brilliant Diamond has winded down.
Mikey looks at him sidelong, but Leo is still looking ahead. He does kind of need to pay attention, the city sidewalks aren’t always clear, but that usually doesn’t stop him from looking at his brothers while they talk, to his brothers’ eternal exasperation.
“I told you, he pushed me.”
“Uh-huh. And what actually happened?”
Ughhhhhh, Mikey has only fooled Leo like three times in his entire life, why did he automatically assume this would be success story number four?
“That guy was weird,” Mikey mutters. He watches the ground while they walk, his untied shoelace flapping around with every step. “He knew about your portals and wanted stuff from you. He was super shady, Lee! He was like if Kingpin from the Spider-Man comics and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast had a baby. And were cats.”
Leo snorts, and Mikey jerks around so fast he’s not able to hide his smile in time.
Aha! Mikey thinks, doing cartwheels in his mind. He laughed, I win!
“I’m not gonna let anybody walk all over you,” Mikey says, clenching one fist in front of him. “I know that you don’t need anybody looking out for you—believe me, I know.” They share a commiserating look, two little brothers against the world. Leo looks distinctly amused, like everything Mikey does is worth watching and bragging about later. “But I just love you so much, Leo. If this was a perfect world, everyone would love you as much as I do. But since that’s impossible, and no one will ever usurp me from my number one spot as your biggest fan, then I’ll settle for everyone at least liking you as much as I do. Which is still a pretty high bar, but it’s doable. If they just put the hours in, if they, you know, worked for it—”
“Oh my god, Miguel, stop,” Leo says, pushing at his shoulder. Mikey sways sideways with the push and comes right back, undeterred.
“I’m unstoppable!” he hollers, lifting both arms and punching his fists up above his head.
“Yeah,” Leonardo says, sounding like his old self again—sixteen years old, the whole world in his corner. “You’re the best.”
Mikey thinks he could do anything, he could light up the sky, he could punch a hole in the dimension, he could travel through time—he can definitely protect his brother. He’s the only person in the world who can get away with doing it, after all. That’s a big responsibility. Good thing Mikey is big enough to hold it.
Daylight is only an afterthought in the sky now, all those rich autumn colors dimming into deep, vivid hues of purple and blue. The tunnel home is just around the corner, and they’ll have to reheat the food when they get there, but they’ll have to reheat Usagi’s anyway.
When Leo reaches over and strings his arm around Mikey’s shoulders, Mikey adjusts his stride, shuffles his takeout bags to one hand, and puts his arm around Leo right back.
“Thanks, Mike,” Leo says. “For being on my team. I know I don’t make it easy.”
“Your team is the only place I wanna be,” Mikey announces, when he’s sure his voice won’t wobble and give the wet sheen in his eyes away. “If you ever try to kick me out I will make your life a living hell. It seriously would not be worth it for you. Don’t tell Raph I said hell.”
Leo throws back his head and laughs for real. His crutch skids on a dead leaf and since they’re attached to each other they both stumble wildly and almost drop the calzones and get dirty looks from other Manhattanites. It’s the kind of moment that becomes the kind of memory that settles deep in the core of a person, never to be forgotten.
And Mikey sees it—spring. The sun is finally coming out. Someday really soon, he thinks, those shadows that cling to Leo will have to find someone else to haunt.
Until then, he can be sunshine enough for them both.
For your brainwash au, do we get so see exactly how Donnie got captured by Kendra? And would this au be a full comic or just bits and pieces here and there? (Not pressuring just curious) Love the au and I hope you’re having a good day! :)
Don’t know why, but I felt like writing this part out instead of drawing it! (Sorry for bad grammar. I wrote this lying in bed, sleep deprived and did no editing)
——
The sad, pained look on his little brother’s face is enough to set off that dark protective fire in Donatello’s belly. And Michael has been a tiny storm of negative emotions since Leo slapped the small cast on his ankle. Donnie may not be able to pick apart and decipher all of the subtitles his brother is feeling right now, but he knows he’s in pain, and that’s enough.
“How many strips of bacon do you think we can get from Meat Sweat’s corpse?” Donnie ponders as he wraps an arm around his little brother’s shoulders, and carefully pulls him closer. Mikey lets out a quiet huff, but the joke doesn’t land the way Donnie had been hoping.
“Michael?”
“I’m okay,” Mikey assures. Then a hesitant second later adds, “it’s stupid.”
“Oh well if it’s stupid, allow me to grab ‘Nardo. He might be able to help you better.”
That gets the laugh he was looking for.
“I’m not in pain or anything. It’s just, tonight was the midnight signing of Joshua Bear’s new cook book. He’s a YouTuber chef that I’ve been following for years, and I went to his first release…I really wanted the second for my collection.”
Donatello does vaguely remember Angelo telling Raph something about this event last night, during dinner. He’d been so excited, and now he looks crushed at the idea of missing it.
“What if I went?” At the suggestion, Mikey’s face becomes brighter than a super nova, almost too bright for Donnie to stare at directly. It takes a moment for Michael to really calm down enough to speak.
“You’d really go wait in line for three hours? Just to get a book?” Donatello laughs at the question. Any opportunity in which his brothers were interested in the world of literature, no matter the subject (except maybe geology) was a time to be supportive.
Mikey pulls him in for a tight hug, and holds up his phone to snap a picture of them. Donnie snorts and slides out of his little brother’s hammock, careful not to disturb it too much. Mikey is already bouncing enough that he’s in danger of falling out.
“Yes, yes. Sing my praises on all your media socials. Let the world know how I’m your favorite older sibling!” Mikey drops the phone to his chest and holds his arms up, practically vibrating for one more hug. Donnie complies. He’s long given up maintaining his bad boy image when it’s just the two of them.
“You’re the best, Donnie! Really!” The words do a hell of a job replacing that previous fury he’d been harboring, the smile and warmth coming from Mikey, now fully restored. The proper order of the universe righted with a simple solution. This was what he loved most about being a brother. Fixing his siblings problems, in any way he could. And if healing the broken bone outright was (for now) out of his control—at least he could do this.
Donnie glances at his watch and notes he should get going if the turn out is going to be as big as Angelo predicts. He sneaks past the living room where he can hear his other two brethren yelling over a game of Mario Kart. He has zero interest in either of his brothers tagging along. He loves them, but neither are suited to standing in a long line for hours. For the last Jupiter Jim reboot, Donatello was seconds away from a double fratricide before they were even allowed into the theater.
Besides. He’s practically 18 (in four weeks). He can run up to the surface for a few hours, without having to call upon the archaic buddy system.
———
He’s in line for about an hour, when he sees suspicious movement out the corner of his eye. A young woman, parting the line a little ways ahead from where he stands, walks quickly into the closest alley. That alone might be no cause for alarm—maybe it’s a short cut. But the tall, hooded creep trailing after her, has his metaphorical hackles rising. It’s a clear case of sinister intentions. He quickly glances around to see if anyone else has witnessed this, but he’s the only one who seems to be showing any type of concern. Typical New York.
“What a town” Donnie sighs. He doesn’t bother asking the old man behind him to save his spot, seeing as he’s practically at the end of the line, and quickly races to the alley to play hero.
It’s a deep one, the lights of the street not quite hitting all the eerie nooks and crannies. Plenty of blind spots.
“Hello there? Stalker and or damsel in distress? Is anyone in need of assistance? Anyone hopefully bear maced and in need of a being escorted to the nearest precinct?”
No answer.
The non-existent hairs on Donnie’s arms stand straight up. Just as he’s reaching for his ninpo to materialize a bo-staff, something thick wraps around his neck from behind. The arm is almost as big as Raphael’s, if lacking in the muscle department.
But before his can break the hold, the solid feeling of a needle slides into the meat of his neck and something rushes into his veins. Within seconds he’s released and stumbling from the lack of support.
Someone is talking to him. It takes a second of his gaze bouncing around to pick them out. Mildly embarrassing, considering they’re standing right in front of him now. Out of all the colors popping in and out of his vision, Donnie only just catches the same turquoise hoodie that seemed to belong to the unassuming young woman.
A honey pot trap, he realizes, stumbling and falling pathetically backwards on his own ass.
He sees pink hair and is almost relieved, if humiliated. With all their enemies, the Purple Dragons are D tier. But the chances he can free himself before his brothers even notice his absence is high. Just the thought of the savage teasing he would be forced to endure if his brothers found out—Donatello is not eager to hear any of it.
As the nauseating colors finally bleed away, and start to leave black growing in their wake, Donatello swears to cause a big explosion on his way out.
you've probably heard it before, but half-assed is better than no-assed. don't let perfect stand in the way of done. a 0 on your report card is worse than a 50. do it scared. do it wrong. do it ugly, just do it. do not wait for the perfect day to have your little treat. make a day better with the treat. life is for the living. make outsider art
It’s kinda charming sometimes. Like oh you think everyone in an organized crime syndicate would be good at talking about their feelings. That’s kinda cute.
I don’t say this stuff to discourage anyone from trying stuff out. It’s just interesting to me what people tend to do before they get more practice at writing. There is this natural instinct to make all your imaginary friends in your head get along with each other. Sometimes that’s not terribly entertaining though, unfortunately. Could be funny under the right circumstances.
read poetry!
read good poetry, read bad poetry, read poetry about stuff you like and don't like, topics you're familiar with, and ESPECIALLY stuff you're not familiar with. just read.
be specific
in general, you want your poem to feel personal while also being memorable. adding some specificity can help with both. I feel like a good way to achieve this is to frame the ideas of your poem in a narrative/story. this also includes avoiding cliches. in most mediums cliches can help effectively establish certain pieces of information and possibly be fun. but using cliches can often subtract from the uniqueness of your writing.
don't directly state your feelings.
this one I feel like a lot of new poets struggle with at first. instead of directly stating an emotion, you can convey the same information through other means, like atmosphere and tone. this also helps you deliver an emotional impact. it's hard to feel sad when the writer is telling you that the situation is sad.
be intentional
don't make choices "just because." poetry is a very dense medium, and every word, every line break, and every use of punctuation should have a reasoning behind it. sometimes I find that a single line or word in a poem I write can completely contradict everything else I established. sometimes there isn't a concrete explanation for a choice and it's mostly meant to create or add to some kind of vague feeling, and that's okay. As long as you know why you made that choice, it's intentional.
5. ignore any of the rules if you feel like it doesn't work for your writing.
this is the golden rule of all writing. often when I give a piece of advice about writing people give highly specific examples where it might not apply. but the truth is there are no hard rules of writing, just guidelines. if it works, it works. if it doesn't, it doesn't.
Things to Keep in Mind While Writing Poetry: for "Pretentious Poets"
(Long Post)
Let's start this off with an important reminder. In poetry, we should never assume "I" or any first-person pronouns are the same as the poet/author. They relate to the speaker of the poem, who may or may not be the poet. The speaker is like a characer in a story. With that being said, be prepared for many readers to conflate the two no matter what - and let's be honest, many times you do intend the "I" in poems to be you, the poet.
In poetry, there is a tendency to meditate on philosophical concepts, right? And something interesting often happens when we meditate on the meaning of life, the nature of man, etc., etc. We get big egos. We get pretentious and think we have all the right answers and start blaming everyone else, developing a "me vs. them" mentality even if we don't mean to.
This can lead our poems to sound pretentious, preachy, or more arrogant than we intend. In attempting to condemn what we see wrong and rewrite reality to mach our own ideals, we forget that we too are often responsible of the same vices of which we accuse our fellow human beings.
This habit can lead us to do many harmful things in poetry, including but not limited to the below:
Imposing our own thoughts on other living things (including animals, which are definitely not sharing our same thoughts and perspectives). I recommend reading "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop if you want a fantastic example of a poem that uses an animal to talk about human ideas and then by the end appropriately lets it go. But this one can be super terrible in some cases. Remember those wretched people who tried to claim slaves were happy because they would sing in the plantation fields? Yeah, never assume you know what another person is thinking and never impose your thoughts on them.
Using the suffering of people we know to make a point. Example: you might write a poem about a loved one's death to stake a claim about the unfairness of the world. Well, don't forget that you are writing about a real person. Make sure you do that person justice and don't just use them as a springboard or a symbol. Your loved one is MORE than a symbol. Much more. You might be so caught up in your heightened emotions, you don't even realize. But no one is just a symbol for your poem! Yes, suffering can be included in poems. But should it be romanticized at the cost of another human being?
Positioning yourself as the know-it-all saint, God's mouthpiece. Preacher Poet. "Look at all these people and all the ways they have ruined the world! Let me teach you the truth!" Well, bud, take a look in the mirror. I bet you've hurt someone else. I bet you've contributed to the destruction of the environment. I know you don't want to come off as holier-than-thou in your poems. This can lead to the below issue too.
Ignoring all the bad things to save face. You know that Facebook friend you have you're super jealous of? The one who's always posting flawless pictures of her super-amazing family while you're miserably scrolling along, wondering how anyone can be so happy. Like those white-teethed people on Facebook, perfect, sugary-saccharine poems about good ol' you start to give more cavities than joy. You're not the perfect FB person in real life, so don't be that in poems. Not saying to air all your dirty laundry for the world to see, but a good reader can point out fake-cheer. There's an opposite way to go, too (see below).
Competing in the trauma/oppressed Olympics. "I am the most hurt person alive. Everything that has happened to me is the worst thing ever and no one understands." I don't think I need to elaborate much on this one, but open your mind while writing and remember the plight of others as much as your own. Many people do understand and poetry can be a beautiful way of connecting to other people and sharing our truths. We love to write about our trauma because it helps us work through it in a healthy way, but we shouldn't diminish others' pain to do this.
Assuming you know everything. Spoiler: you don't. No need to keep reading your poem. One of the best parts of poetry is its inquistive nature. Poets and readers can ponder a question together, and what is more intimate, more lovely than that?
All this is to say that poetry requires a kind of self-awareness and empathy some other forms of writing don't. It's personal. It's both private and open. Can you get away with the above if you're an amazing, self-aware poet? Sure. Can you break the rules and write a satirical poem, purposely positioning yourself as a pretenious a-hole? Yeah. But the issue is that a lot of beginning poets are making these mistakes very genuinely and might be a little horrified to realize how their poems come across to some readers. I believe in the goodness of most people deep down.
Anyway, stay mindful, poets.
[P.S. No, I don't know everything either! I think tip and advice articles can start to sound know-it-all themselves. I just compile thoughts and ideas I've gathered and have learned from others along the way that I find useful :) We're all learning, right? I'm just really passionate].
Recently I found a list I made several months ago of Big Mama words that she uses in canon, so I thought I'd share it. (Note: this is not complete and the notes on meaning/use are limited by what I guessed from context.)
Biddily-boo: auction, bidding
Bimbally bugs: no particularly new meaning, her way of saying bugs
Contrapulation: complex object, contraption
Crackadoo: mess, disturbance
Dimbally door: no particularly new meaning, her way of saying door
Fantumptuous: very good, fabulous, amazing
Fizzy-winkle: mess, chaos
Fuggy-doodles: thieves
Hollydoo: apparently a sort of limb
Malutacious monsters: positive apparently
Meddle-doos: meddlers, irritants
Oh, giggily-pin: exclamation
Scramulent: good, pleasing (occasionally used sarcastically)
Scrumbulent: good, pleasing
Silly-billy: silly
Skanktonious: stinky, repulsive
Tissle-tassle: problem, possibly a little issue that gets bigger
Thrashy-diddle: fight
And I organized them alphabetically because it was fun. If anyone has more, feel free to add!
i just saw a tiktok (<- cursed cursed site) that started out good, talking about how "show don't tell" is something you should keep in mind. It used the example of "instead of saying 'she opened the door', try 'her shaking hand twisted the doorknob, letting out a loud creak'".
And, yeah, if you're trying to convey the hesitance, fear, and eventual sucking-it-up that seems to be going on in the scene, that's great.
But.
The tiktok ended with, "see? Showing is ALWAYS better." And I just...
Friends & enemies, that's how you end up with that insufferable always-showing always-active YA writing style that does not know when to just shut up and say "she opened the door".
Because, yeah, I'll say it. Sometimes "she opened the door" IS better. Sometimes, the act of opening the door is literally just announcing a setting change, and you don't need to focus on it.
Show don't tell is about conveying important or relevant information, not about literally everything you're writing. You're allowed to say "she opened the door" & similar, and in fact, I encourage it in many scenarios.
SHOW if it's story relevant. Setting the scene, conveying description, revealing something important about plot and character.
TELL if you need to get from point A to point B. You can follow an argument with a boyfriend with "She got in the car." We don't need more than that, all the emotion and umph of the scene has come before.
Don't drive yourself crazy thinking you have to describe everything in detail.
there’s a reason an orchestra isn’t just everyone honking their shit as loud as they can for as long as they can all at once. if you paint a canvas uniformly with every single paint you have, you do not end up with a picture. if you make sure every sentence of your story is equally dramatic, you don’t end up with drama or a story, just a hilarious pulp.
Something that I think is kind of interesting is that both Leo & Raph’s actions towards the start of the movie could arguably possibly be a response to everything that happened with the Shredder towards the end of season 2.
Raph: My Tonfa’s!
In the episode Shreddy or Not, the Shredder overwhelms the Hamato Clan & the Turtles end up loosing Karai & having to leave Draxum & Splinter behind in order to escape which ends up putting a pressure on Raph to now figure out how to defeat the Shredder & protect his family.
Raph: Why can’t I do this? I’m failing you
Throughout the episode Anataway Hitorijanai Raph, is stressed at the thought of fighting the Shredder again & admits that he thinks he’s failing his family when he doesn’t know how to protect them. However even after the Shredder is defeated the fear that he won’t be able to protect his family & that they’ll face an enemy that will outmatch them again is one that Raph still has.
Raph: Stop distracting Raph! We were supposed to be training–
Which is possibly why Raph is so insistent about training towards the start of the movie, Raph might be scared that another threat that they are unprepared for like the Shredder might come along again & that he and his family will be outmatched again.
Leo: And do I need to remind you who has four shells and defeated the Shredder?
Raph: [Growls]
Leo: H-hey!
Another possible example of how Raph is still effected by the events with the Shredder towards the start of the movie is that Raph kind of only gets confrontational with Leo when the Shredder is mentioned, before Raph sort of sounds more exasperated than angry but after the Shredder is mentioned Raph kind of gets noticeably upset & even goes as far as to knock the pizza out of Leo’s hand.
Raph: The Foot Clan?
Another piece of evidence that kind of show that Raph is still trying to deal with what happened with the Shredder is the look of fear that appears on his face when the Foot Clan show up as the Foot Clan are linked to everything that happened with the Shredder.
It has only been a few months since the Hamato Clan’s final battle with the Shredder & Raph is kind of desperately trying to make sure that his family never have to go through what they did with the Shredder again which might be why he was pushing for Leo to take training & heroics more seriously.
Splinter: Oh and Blue, you are the leader now
Leo: Wait!? What!?
In contrast to Raph who wants to prepare for the next threat or the next challenge or the next enemy so that the family will be ready, Leo could possibly be desperately holding onto the way things used to be.
Leo: The whole world is counting on you… to break the pizza box stack record! One-hundred, twenty-five boxes! You know they say it couldn’t be done, but look who’s doing it
When we see the present version of Leo at the beginning of the movie, he’s trying to break the pizza box stack record & it is that kind of activity that the Turtles used to do all the time.
In the very first episode of Rise we see the Turtles sneak onto a roof in order to jump into a pool, which are the kind of activities that Leo & his brothers used to do together before they suddenly had to deal with threats like Draxum, Big Mama & the Foot Clan. The fact that there is even a pizza box stack record for Leo to try to break also shows that balancing pizza boxes on their heads is something that Leo & his brothers used to do together only now Leo is being told that it is a waste of time.
Something that I think might be kind of important is the fact that it isn’t simply Leo being placed into the leadership possession that Leo has to deal with but rather Leo has to deal with multiple other aspects of his life changing in between the events of the end of season 2 & the start of the movie as well; as the Shredder had destroyed the Turtle’s old lair & they had to find a new one.
In the movie the Hamato Clan are still moving into the new lair which is why moving boxes can be seen throughout the new lair, considering that moving can be difficult for a lot of people normally the fact that Leo’s childhood home was destroyed in such a way that it would be hard to even visit it again might have possibly made moving even harder for Leo.
Donnie: I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up, he’s crushing us!
Leo: Really? ‘Cause I thought my overall ninjocity was totally working
Raph: So what if I say he- that word a lot. It’s a good word. We need to be that word.
Leo: Relax Raph. We’ve got this hero thing wired. I mean, our ninjocity is off the charts
Not only is Leo dealing with suddenly being placed in a new position in his family as a leader but Leo also kind of literally lost a piece of his childhood with loosing the old lair, in the events between the end of season 2 & the start of the movie Leo’s life has been full of changes & it is arguably stressing him out as seen when Leo uses the word ‘ninjocity’ towards the start of the movie which is usually a word Leo only really uses in stressful situations such as in the episode Many Unhappy Returns when the Hamato Clan was facing the Shredder for the first time.
With so much in Leo’s life changing it could be possible that Leo is trying to make things go back to the way things used to be by doing the things that he & his brothers used to do & trying to act like nothing has changed.
Leo: Relax. We’ll do what we always do. Ninja in, ninja their faces, ninja out.
Even in the original plan to rescue Raph, Leo uses the phrase ‘we’ll do what we always do’, for a lot of the movie there’s a part of Leo that wants to act like nothing has changed.
It could be possible that a lot of the reason for Leo & Raph clashing at the beginning of the movie is because Raph is desperately trying to prepare for the future, while Leo is desperately trying to hold on to the past.
long distance mutuals <- used to be in the same fandom together and have both moved on to other fandoms but stay mutuals and wave at each other when passing by (scrolling on dash) and catch up when we can (liking each others posts)
there is nothing wrong with being mediocre. there is nothing wrong with not being the best at everything you do. there is no guilt in doing the bare minimum because you have no energy to do more than that. “living your life to the fullest” can mean different things for you at different times in your life. sometimes, it is achieving your goals and fulfilling your purpose, and sometimes, it is allowing yourself to rest and just get through it.
you deserve the space to simply be. to exist, to witness, to breathe, and to find peace.
So everyone’s been punching back for @somerandomdudelmao post. If you know, you know, and if you don’t where have you been? And I saw one of the reblog’s today of Casey and Donnie and it got the cogs in my brain running. So here is a potentially possible outcome for the future:
———————
Here’s the thing. Casey knew the fight was over. They had won and the Krang weren’t here anymore. Of course, the entire event hadn’t come without its own consequences. Most of downtown New York had been destroyed. People had been injured and people had died. The government had stepped in to take care of most of the tragedy. And the event itself made international news.
But Casey didn’t care about most of that. He wasn’t even sure what most of it meant, just the ramblings he heard from the family as they recovered. They hadn’t left the lair since that day. They couldn’t afford too. The city was in a state of panic, and all of them had sustained injuries, the worst of which being Leonardo.
He had been asleep for days. It was vital for recovery, Casey knew, but the whole thing made him incredibly nervous. Casey felt like a little kid again, sitting on a chair with his knees up to his chest, just watching him. Donatello rarely left Leo’s side either. His own injuries meant he needed attention, and with Leo out, he had the best medical expertise on the machines they’d hooked him up too. Casey often asked questions, which Donnie was eager to answer. That much was the same.
Casey had long since changed out of his resistance garb, being offered a variety of clothes from each of the boys. He never let go of his mask though. That was much too important to him. Gifts and reminders from all the people he loved most.
He was alone today. With Leo. Donatello had entrusted him with enough information for any sort of emergency. But it meant he was allowed to think. He fiddled with the mask in his hands, tracing the markings he had painted on and the scratches it had received out on the field. He let his legs fall into a cross-cross as he slipped the mask onto his face and turned it on. Uncle Tello had left many tidbits of information, recordings and plans for an eventual future where we had won. Not even in his wild imaginations could he have imagined that future in the past. And now there were a million things Casey wanted answered that weren’t saved on his Uncles little device. He had a favorite file, however. One he’d rewatched a million times before.
“Is it working?” He watched Uncle Tello tilt up the camera. Behind him were all the people he loved: Sensei Leonardo, Master Michelangelo, robotic Uncle Raph, Commander O’Niel, and himself.
“It may be older than us, but it still works,” Uncle Tello replied.
“The little red light is blinking right?” Master Michelangelo flew over, looking at the camera upside down with amazement. Uncle Tello pushed him outta the way.
“Despite its primitive nature, it seems to be completely intact. Nothing askew. It’s quite impressive. Great find, Casey Jones.”
Sensei scooped up the kid and ruffled his hair.
“There’s not much storage space left on the card, so we better make it short and sweet. How about a picture? For my archives.” Everybody gathered close together as the timer started counting down. “Everybody say: Genius Built Apparel rules!!”
The video stopped there. Paused on a picture of all of them together. Casey couldn’t help but let out a couple tears, hidden by the mask. It might have been the apocalypse, but it was familiar and comforting, and here, they had all been happy.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Unc- Donatello!” Casey looked over, his view still obstructed by the photo paused on his screen. “No, no everything is fine, I was just-“ he pulled his mask off and wiped away whatever remnants of tears he had before he looked up at the turtle who had just entered the room. He didn’t have any of his tech on, using his wooden Bo staff to assist his walking, and his bandages had been covered by the presence of an oversized purple hoodie. Casey stared at him, “reliving old memories. Un- Donnie, are you feeling alright?” Casey stood up, panic ever present on the boys face.
Donnie just gave a perplexing look in response. “Are you?”
“I-“ The Krang are gone, Casey. This isn’t like when Uncle Tello got sick. This isn’t the same. There’s no way the Krang would’ve- could’ve. They couldn’t have. How would they? Tears fell down Casey’s face as he sat back down.
Donnie regretted asking the second he had. He wasn’t any good with this sort of stuff and he had clearly been crying before and now he was crying again. There was something on his mind. “I’ll go get Mikey-“
Casey grabbed Donnie’s hand, and his immediate response was to pull away, but he suppressed the urge when he felt how clammy Casey’s hands were, and how they shook just a little. “Uncle Tello, you- you aren’t going to die, are you?”
Donnie had never heard Casey call him that before. And he said it softly, and nervously, not even looking him in the eyes.
“You think a quarrel with an alien species is enough to get rid of me?”
Casey didn’t say anything. In fact what Donnie said didn’t seem to help the situation any at all. And Donnie was starting to put all the little pieces together. Something had happened to him in the future. Something not good.
“Casey, did something happen to me in the future? Did-“ he wasn’t sure if he should ask it but his curiosity took ahold of him, “did I die?”
Casey lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Donnie. Which was a surprising response, but all he needed to know the answer was yes. Despite how quickly it had happened, Casey was incredibly gentle about it. His hands still shook a little as he rested his head into Donnie’s chest.
Honestly, Donnie was a little upset by all this new information. He hadn’t survived the apocalypse, and he had been close to Casey Jones, who had to witness his death. He couldn’t imagine how crazy this entire week had been for Casey. Donnie still wasn’t sure what exactly caused this reaction from him, but slowly, he leaned down, grabbing around Casey’s back and hugging tightly.
Casey let out a breath and hugged tighter, absolutely collapsing, shaking incredibly and crying into Donnie’s favorite purple hoodie. Keep it together, the hoodie can always be washed. For once, Donnie didn’t need to wonder what to do, because this felt like enough. And no words needed to be said.
Only in Casey’s wildest dreams was he able to hug Uncle Tello again. He knew Donnie was never a big fan of physical affection but he’d always seemed to make an exception for him. Old or young, and for a minute it didn’t matter that this wasn’t the Donnie he knew. It didn’t matter that they were now the same age, or that Casey was actually taller. Or how he could feel Donnie loosening and trying to end it. No matter how long this moment was, it would never be long enough.
———————
Ahahaha. I don’t even know. Thanks for reading. Likes and Reblogs appreciated!!
An ongoing debate within the fandom is whether or not Leo fell on purpose during the episode Lair Games
Leo: Donnie? Donnie are you okay?
Donnie: You did this! You’ll do anything to win! My ankle! My moment!
Some people have said that Leo might have fallen on purpose in order to win due to his competitive nature while others have said that Leo looked too surprised at Splinter declaring him the winner of the event to have fallen on purpose.
Splinter: Purple hit the ground first! Blue wins!
Other arguments used for Leo having not fallen on purpose are that the fall most likely hurt for Leo as well as Donnie & that Leo would never intentionally actually hurt a family member considering how important family is to Leo. A counter argument for this have been people saying that Leo didn’t mean to hurt Donnie by falling & that was the only part that was an accident.
However there is a piece of evidence that might mean that Leo did not fall on purpose & that is his family thinking that he did do it on purpose.
Mikey: And that’s when Leo fell, or did he?
April: So you think he did it on purpose?
Mikey: [Nods]
Donnie: It was Leo! He did it on purpose!
Leo: I’m only talking to you to set the record straight, I didn’t do it on purpose! I mean how could I? I had half a fridge on my chin!
Donnie: I’m sorry can I have a moment?
In the episode Lair Games most of the Hamato Clan seem convinced that Leo fell on purpose with Donnie & Mikey even saying so & April arguably taking Donnie’s side in the interviews. However a running gag within Rise is that whenever one of Leo’s family members try to make assumptions on what Leo’s doing we’re shown Leo doing basically the opposite of what they’ve just said.
Raph: Hey! Where’s Leo?
Mikey: I’m sure wherever he is, he’s trying to save us
Raph: Leo probably talked his way straight into Big Mamma’s dungeon
Whenever Leo’s family tries to predict what Leo will do, Leo’s family is almost always wrong whenever they try to assume Leo’s actions. In contrast when Leo tries to guess his families actions, he is almost always right.
Leo: Look I bet the only reason we’re here right now is ‘cause Donnie inputted coordinates of blah blah blah
Donnie: After inputting Shredder’s previous coordinates on the X-Y-Z and D for Donnie axis, I have calculated that this is the sight of our final resting spot. I mean go team?
Leo: Mikey Razzed his Tazz
Mikey: Whip-o-Rama!
Leo: April finally used her crane license
April: ‘Why would you get a crane license April?’ BECAUSE THIS!
Leo: And Raph is going to put it all together in a plan to defeat that led head with this mystic collar
Raph: Wow Leo that’s remarkably accurate
Raph: He’s back. Prepare for Operation Fire, Hanky, Tickle, Collar!
Leo: Yeah!
It is a slight running gag in Rise is that Leo is able to predict his families actions to a near perfect degree but whenever his family try to predict or assume Leo’s actions they are almost always wrong to a near comical degree, meaning that Leo’s family assuming he fell on purpose in the episode Lair Games might actually be evidence that Leo fell by accident instead.
never got around to fully finishing this but I got bitten by brain worms about this song in regards to Like Father Like Son by @eternalglitch so I just had to do a lil bit of art for my two favorite scenes in the fic
Rlly love that Star Trek and Star Wars are aptly named to show EXACTLY what is different about them, but people only focus on the “star” part and therefore assume they’re comparable.
Star WARS: This is WAR so we have GLOW SWORDS and CLONES and we SHOOT each other with magic FORCE that we control with our fucking MINDS. Epic BATTLES and political CONFLICT. I love CRIME I am a CRIMINAL bitchessssss also this is my robot friend.
Star TREK: ah, yes, we’re going to trek through space. I brought these biological samples. take a little jaunt. discover a species. have an expedition. here’s a cool rock. this is just a wee hike to the next galaxy. I just released an immortal entity from eternal suffering. isn’t this a lovely trip we’re having. oh and this is my robot friend.
