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Whew, after a breakup, a flu bug, a nasty stomach virus, a car accident, physical therapy, and my vision going bad in one eye, I finally have this next update finished. 2026 has certainly not been kind to me, but I'm hanging in there and hoping to get back to a normal baseline soon. So far it's been about two weeks without something bad happening so I'm hoping whatever AO3 curse struck me down has finally moved on. Thank you everyone for your patience as I try to get all my projects back on track.
Anyways, this was quite a chapter, huh? I'm sure you have lots of questions, and I'm willing to answer some of them, if only because I love character discussion!
So the keen fan might recognize that this whole sequence is a close mirror to Raphael's meditation from the season 1 finale! I always found this segment fascinating and wondered if it had a deeper meaning that was never shown to us due to the show's cancelation. After watching it again some years back I realized how his meditation could not only be an accurate vision, but one that foretold Raph's final moments, the use of time travel to undo their dark future, and his journey into the afterlife with his father as his guide. In the series Raphael had meditated with the intention of "his path being revealed" ...and it certainly was.
The thing about visions is that they seldom make much sense until hindsight can be applied and that's exactly what happened here. Poor Raph thought it wasn't working, but I truly believe that as a creature driven by his heart and instincts he could tap into the spiritual side of the mystic arts in a way similar to Mikey. Where as Leo and Donnie tend to fall back onto logic, the Sunset Duo has always allowed their emotions to be the driving force of their actions. It's why he could easily see Karai when she was a part of April, and why this small meditation session was actually successful. The dum-dumb just didn't put two and two together.
I was originally planning to have the sequence still end with him falling down into the maw of some Krang-like monster but decided that it did not end well with that sort of tone... even if it would have been very symbolic with him being consumed by the Krang. If you want to imagine that happened though, be my guest haha.
Interesting semi-related note, but if you look closely at the back at the giant maw, like a light at the end of the tunnel we see a very familiar blue glow. Something that reminds me a lot of Leo's portals. Perhaps a way out for Raphael that will free him from his own shackles? Funny how this same thing also happened earlier in the series, in which Leo had to use his portals to help them escape the maw of another giant Yokai... albeit it was his portals that got them into trouble in the first place, but that's pretty much exactly how things went down in the movie's plot as well so I find it very poetic...
I just liked having it be a little more symbolic with his final moments being a callback to the series finale instead.
As for the last few shots in the update... I don't want to give too much away, but it sort of feels like maybe Raph's spirit came into contact with a certain someone to help the reignite their ninpo. Hmm... be sure to remember this. It will not be the only occasion!
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But at least we now have an explanation for how both Raph's shell and Donnie's battleshell got up on the wall haha. So glad to finally get to this part of the story and start wrapping up this arc! This is one of the few times I will fully color a panel but it felt necessary to capture the feel of the moment and Mikey's artwork! We do have ONE more update for this arc that will be from a completely different perspective... I'm very much looking forward to sharing it with you guys!
I also wanted to share a special song I had meant to post along with the earlier updates when Mind Raph and Leo are chatting. I have it in my Replica playlist but I'm adding it here because I feel like it captures the relationship between those two perfectly. The strings feel like a somber Leo while the wind instruments are more like a hopeful, almost ethereal Raph, ending with the strings trying to replicate the wonderful energy and joy the winds gave off even after the winds have been silenced entirely. It just feels like them to me and I would highly recommend rereading Leo and mind Raph's conversation with this song if you're in the mood for some feels.
Overall I don't have too much to add to this update considering how well Mikey states it... but I do think there's something to be said for the different ways people deal with loss depending on their relationship to the departed. Ghostbear and many of the survivors saw Raphael as a hero first and a friend/person second. I see this a lot in how people can put their heroes or even movie stars/influencers on a pedestal, but then lose sight of the humanity in those people and how their methods of praise might hurt those closest to the person or even the person themself. I think the best thing we can do is just remember that we are all human, we are all imperfect, and we are all deserving of love and respect both in life and death.
As always, thank you for joining me on this journey!
Happy Rise Art Book Day! Life has been very tiring as I'm still healing and dealing with a bunch of different things, but I still wanted to express my joy for this book with a little piece! It's always fun drawing the turtles as proper teens rather than war torn old people lol! Happy reading everyone!
āThe Incident.ā AKA the event that caused Donnie to make matching visors for all his brothers in Replica. How kind of him. In Leo's defense, I'm sure he needed Deeās visor for a very good reason... but he broke Donnie's favorite mug in the process which is unforgivable.
Sorry been quiet lately, been dealing with a lot of health concerns (yay for aging) as well as a death of someone close to my family, all while still trying to juggle life. Itās been crazy to say the least, so hereās a little comic from my Patreon.
Ah, Replica Leo, you were such a sweet 20-something year old before the fall of the Central Park Colony. Just trying to right all his wrongs and not get into TOO much trouble. Really missed coloring so have a quick study and some expressions. Back to the next update!
Finally allowed to post my two page spread for the Leonardo themed Zine called āLeader in Blue.ā It was so fun getting to work with the whole team at @tmntzines and it was really interesting trying to design an art-piece with the knowledge that it would be cut in half by the book spine.
The leftover sale went live earlier today but apparently it sold out in less than an hour! So crazy! Thank you everyone for your support and so looking forward to the Raph themed one! If you havenāt yet I recommend going to @tmntzines and filling out their Interest Check for the Raph Zine!
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I'm sure some of you might be very confused, but don't worry hopefully it should make sense in the next update. I was initially going to end this chapter when Leo left April, but felt he need to speed things a long a bit more in the story since we still have a lot of ground to cover!
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Hey! Leo finally did the thing!
After showing that shot of Leo after punching *someone* so long ago I finally get to give you the proper context (though many of you had guessed this being the instance)! TED talk time under the cut!
Leoās anger and the way he handles his emotions has always fascinated me. While it was only apparent a few times in the film and series, it was obvious how much it could affect his reasoning. Leonardo in Rise (and many other iterations) has always been the type who would either keep his cool or lose it completely. The moment he does lose it his anger will completely take hold of his otherwise very keen rationality. Whether thatās making shallow claims of being treated like a witch in the Salisbury Witch Trials or attempting to physically attack Casey Jr. after losing Raph, once his emotions hit a breaking point all sense of reason goes out the window. Itās an interesting case of extremes and one that I think is going to get worse before it can get better, especially in the bad future timeline. While he does get better at keeping his emotions under control due to his years as a military dog and leader of the resistance, his fallout is even worse than when he was a kid, leading often to violence. I see him using Krang battles as an outletā¦ but every now and again the deep-seated anger that he feels normally towards himself will be redirected to whatever poor soul dared to set him off.
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