i like character design a normal amount

AU COUNT: 223 (+1000) Kuri | She/Him | Author, Artist, Dweeb

[kurithedweeb]

I thought it was about time I made a main masterpost so here's that. I'm Kuri, she/him.

I do a lot of drawing, writing and worldbuilding, and I have a bajillion projects bouncing around my head at all times (see my AU counter for reference). Some of my works are intended for mature audiences and I am an angst writer at heart, please mind the tags and the ratings, I am not here to curate your experience. I am learning to use my queue, but I am busy full-time irl so there may be pauses and long stretches between updates.

My asks are always open, though! Please drop in and ask me about my AUs and writing anytime. I try to answer asks as soon as possible; if I'm taking a while with yours, I'm probably drawing something for it.

Fic requests are currently CLOSED. Art requests for TMNT are OPEN.

Current hyperfixations are audio dramas, character design, martial weapons and armor, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Click Here for my TMNT AU Masterpost

My Links

Ao3

Ko-fi

My Tags

#kuri draws is where my art stuff goes

#kuri comics is for comics specifically

#kuri writes is where I store my writing

#kuri answers is my ask tag

#kuri sneak peek is my tag for WIP content & may contain spoilers for my upcoming works

#kuri's turtleverse is where all content for my TMNT AUs goes

#turtle talks is where I talk about my TMNT AUs

[shitpostingkats]

Trying to recommend people watch Yu-gi-oh is always an insane pitching experience because the basic premise, what the show's about, and the actual meat-and-potatoes plot mechanics are all extremely different from one another.

The premise for DM is that some kid has an amnesiac ancient egyptian ghost haunting him and various billionaires are going to try to divest him of his jewellery. What DM is about is platonic devotion, staying true to your friends, the all encompassing power of love, and the eventual burden of moving on from death. This entire thing is painted in the aesthetics of 90's punk and visual kei.

The premise for GX is a kid attends card game high school and goes on wacky adventures. What GX is about is growing up, about seeing the world get more and more dark as you get older until you don't think you are the same person anymore, and having to hold onto the things that make you you. The later seasons draw heavy inspiration from lovecraftian cosmic horror.

The premise for 5Ds is a street punk has to team up with new friends and old enemies to fight on behalf of ancient south american space gods. What 5Ds is about is classism, and tools of oppression in a hi-tech futuristic society that is literally powered by magic. The visual language ping pongs between classic cyberpunk grunge and ultra sleek hypermodern.

The premise for Zexal is a different kid with a different amnesiac ghost that lives inside his necklace team up to find his memories. What Zexal is about is human connection, about reaching out a hand into the dark, about not being alone, and the pointlessness of war. This entire thing is themed with elements of the christian bible.

The premise for Arc-V is a theatre kid who travels the worlds spreading cheer and smiles with his circus performances. What Arc-V is about is child soldiers, and indoctrination into the military industrial complex, and the emotional dissonance that forms between events of trauma and day-to-day survival. One of the characters is inexplicably a traditional japanese shinobi.

The premise for VRAINS is a depressed highschooler cybercrime-ing his way through the internet so he can find answers to why he was kidnapped and tortured when he was 8. What VRAINS is about is the future of corporate greed, about healing, about what makes a consciousness, and the poisoning power of hate. A solid 50% of the story is just really good goofs on modern internet culture.

But if you just throw on a random episode of any one of those, the actual construction of any given one are going to be pretty much the same: It's all Card Games babeeeey

[kurithedweeb]

Queue ran out! I’m gonna fill it with a bunch of stuff before I get it going again.

[kurithedweeb]

Rise Roulette: Mill

I had a lot of different ideas for what to name this one. Something about cousins or pizza, but in the end I decided to name it after Senor Hueso’s place, Run of the Mill, since that’s where a lot of things in this AU converge.

Leo & Mikey are together in this one, both sons of Senor Hueso. They both work at Hueso's restaurant as waitstaff and can get really competitive with one-upping each other. Excellent customer service, but they need some ground rules and a referee to keep things from getting out of hand. They have a tally on a whiteboard in the kitchen and frustratingly have been evenly matched for months. Hueso wishes they would take this energy somewhere other than his restaurant sometimes. He is very glad to see that aside from their competitiveness, the brothers are very close.

Raph grew up with Sunita's family. After being lost in the lab explosion, he ended up being brought to a yokai orphanage. He and Sunita went to the same playgrounds as kids and became best friends and eventually Sunita's family adopted him. He had an average yokai childhood in the Hidden City, went to school, learned about Googlyschmootz culture, got a part-time job at a small grocer to save up for his own cloaking brooch. Sunita is his best friend and biggest supporter, and when she goes up to the surface and befriends April he has to admit he's a little jealous.

Meanwhile, Donnie is raised by Capitan Piel, and that's where the cousins part comes in. He is distantly aware that he has an uncle and that uncle has children, but knows that this uncle and his dad are estranged. Capitan Piel has told Donnie a lot of stories of their younger days and that he wants to make up with his brother one of these days. Donnie doesn't understand why. His role on the ship is mostly to help keep things running, he's good with his hands and he doesn't get to do any actual pirating stuff until he's older. He ends up being one of the few on the crew with a covert enough reputation that he can wander the Hidden City unnoticed by the police, so he's one of the ones that runs errands and gets supplies, along with some trinkets and parts he doesn't exactly pay for.

Mikey & Leo & Raph all met when they were younger, the first time Raph visited Exploding Frankie at work with Sunita. Donnie & Raph would meet after Raph gets his job at the grocer, when Donnie's out on errands and dips into the store to slip past a street patrol. Donnie & Leo & Mikey would probably meet after Donnie seeks out Run of the Mill for something unrelated to them and get sidetracked with the discovery of even more turtles.

[kurithedweeb]

Rise Roulette: Reaquire

This AU signals the start of a naming theme with Repo Mantis-involved separated AUs. The turtle paired with Repo Mantis for this one is Donnie. He treats the scrapyard as his own personal supply stash. Repo Mantis sets the good-looking stuff aside just for him. The cat likes to drape herself around Donnie's neck while he works. He has his own garage at the back of the lot where he restores and upgrades whatever catches his eye in the scrapheaps. He builds the cat a nice little cave deep in the lot when she gets mutated and takes over fixing all the things that need fine-tuning when Repo Mantis gets mutated.

Raph is with Baron Draxum. I'm thinking Raph was actually also lost in the lab explosion, living on the streets of the Hidden City until Draxum found him again and took him home. Nursing Raph back to health after his time away from the lab gives Draxum a different perspective on his creations; this is a child, not a soldier, and Draxum adjusts his whole plan to account for that. Raph grows up more or less the same as any other yokai child would, if a bit isolated from others his age, and by the time canon rolls around he's an accomplished fighter with a head for split-second decisions though his long-term planning leaves something to be desired. Very much a daddy's boy until the other turtles shake up his worldview and he has to confront Draxum about their, or rather, his family.

Leo is with Scor-Pion. I'm not 100% sure how exactly the childhood with this pair looks, but by the time Leo is in his teens they're distant and Leo feels their relationship is strained. Leo spends most of his time away from home, jumping around the city practicing his parkour. He knows by now how to navigate the city unseen or at least unnoticed, and has found his way into a few underground circles where his turtle-ness isn't so shocking. He's slowly started uncovering the mystic side of the city and how it all leaks out onto the surface.

Finally, Mikey grew up with the Purple Dragons. He's really into their heists, he gets the dangerous parts with the lasers like in the movies and he feels like an unbeatable superspy. A master of disguise and acrobatics! He grew up hiding, but it didn't bother him any. He doesn't think the purple suits him, but he's got this hi-vis jacket he loves. Hi-vis jacket, hoodie underneath, baseball cap and maybe a mask and just like that he's the same as any other construction guy on his way home.

Mikey & Leo probably would have met out on the rooftops, each practicing parkour. Donnie & Leo would have met first I think, one of the first times Leo ran out he stumbled into Donnie's corner of the yard and he comes around to visit every once in a while. Raph & Leo meet when Leo follows some of his underground friends down to the Mystic City.

[kurithedweeb]

Practice with Cope Casey

[kurithedweeb]

Rise Roulette: Mystic’s Assistant

In this AU, we’ve got two duos!

Leo and Mikey are raised by Hypno-potamus. Leo adored magic ever since he was a turtle tot and dedicated himself to learning all the secrets of his dad’s trade. Mikey wasn’t nearly as interested, but he loved to play assistant. Before his mutation, they both had a part in Hypno’s show as his masked assistants. Leo took part in the actual magic and Mikey worked the crowd, handling volunteers. When Hypno got into actual mystics, Leo studied every book they found and showed Mikey and while Leo couldn’t figure it out at first, Mikey caught on right away. By the time Hypno’s mutation happens, Mikey’s gotten pretty good with mystics and is figuring out how to tie spells into street art. Leo meanwhile is finally getting the hang of the whole mystics thing, and keeps pretending to forget he knows who dad’s new boyfriend, Warren Stone, is.

Raph and Donnie are raised by Big Mama. You might think Raph is her Battle Nexus Champion, but you’d be wrong, it’s Donnie! Donnie can be ruthless in the ring where Raph would hesitate, and while Raph does enjoy a good fight he’s not completely down for the kind of no holds barred bloody violence that goes down in the arena. He trains with some of the fighters but he never does blood matches. Instead, Raph manages the hotel staff and acts as a kind of manager some of the Nexus fighters under contract to Big Mama. He’s not so good with the paperwork of it all, but Big Mama handles most of that, and Raph is rewarded when he brings in new fighters. Donnie is the Battle Nexus champion with a no-loss record second only to Lou Jitsu’s. He’s a force to be reckoned with, and most of his job is kicking ass and taking names. When he’s not in the arena, he’s working on improving his gear or doing fan meets. He has a schedule and a system and he likes it that way. They’re both Big Mama’s apprentices, with Raph having more of a focus on combat mystics and Donnie more of a focus on artifacts like the portal coins or cloaking brooches.

I don’t know when the duos would meet, but I think Donnie and Mikey would meet first. Mikey’s part of a street art festival in the hidden city, all masked up and using his mystics to help hold him in place while he hangs off the time of a building, and Donnie’s strolling through in disguise after a fan meet. They talk for a bit and it’s nice for Donnie to have a friend that doesn’t know who he is, and Mikey having a good grasp on the kinds of mystics he doesn’t is a plus. Donnie would probably come back before the festival ends and they’d end up talking more and becoming friends and Raph would catch wind of Donnie’s change in schedule and tail him. One thing leads to another from there.

[kurithedweeb]

Rise Roulette: The Art of Performance

This AU is called what it is because I ended up spinning a ton of parents that would lead to the turtles being performers of some kind.

Donnie, raised by the Sando Brothers, is an acrobat just like them! He gets his own act when he's a teenager, but after the Sando Brothers are mutated the three get stranded for a time in New York and the Sando Brothers turn to mercenary work. At this point Donnie stops practicing acrobatics and gymnastics and turns his focus to his other talents, throwing himself into mechanics and engineering. He does still practice, but it's not the same.

Raph got picked up by the Mud Dogs when he was a kid. He was a great distraction when he was cute and tiny, and grew into a very convincing conman. Think Neal Caffrey and Sophie Devareaux but green and spikey. He's still used as the main distraction for a lot of jobs, but has his own little network and often works alone between heists with the Mud Dogs. He's rarely caught off guard, but unlocking his origin story throws him for a loop.

Mikey's dad is Ghostbear. He grows up in the wrestling world, just out of view of the spotlight until he's old enough to debut in youth categories, and Ghostbear's coworkers adore the kid. He's a ball of sunshine and cheer and he's so cute cheering his dad on. He gets his own costume when he gets into his teens, calls himself Turtle Titan, and quickly works his way up to a widely broadcasted championship match. He's well on his way to becoming the wrestling world's darling and he has a whole sweetheart routine practiced for interviews.

Leo is once again with Big Mama. He's a regular competitor in the Battle Nexus and its youngest champion, so he does a lot of interviews based on his Nexus career. He's also involved in a lot of the events Big Mama hosts, and he’s never caught without his stunning smile or silver tongue. Anytime he’s in the public eye, he’s in this persona as the Nexus heir, and the mask basically only ever comes down when he’s alone or with his assistant.

Donnie & Mikey would probably meet at Draxum’s big villain meeting, tagging along with their family and exchanging numbers. Raph & Leo would have met when they were younger when Raph came along with the Mud Dogs when they went to pay their dues to Big Mama, and Raph would pay Leo a visit every now and then outside payments as they got older. Leo & Mikey maybe meet when Big Mama finds that Mikey has potential to become a popular competitor at the Battle Nexus. Raph & Mikey meet when Raph attends one of Ghostbear’s matches.

[ao3-anonymous]

I just saw an anon come into a gif-maker’s ask box and start with the phrase: “I’m trying not to spam your inbox with reblogs, but” and then go on to say how much they love the gifs.

But I’m still stuck on that opening phrase because…what? I am so confused by how people view interactions on tumblr & AO3 these days. Let me make it very clear for anyone who is unsure:

CREATORS WANT YOU TO INTERACT WITH THEIR WORK.

The limit does not exist on how many of their works you can interact with in a certain period.

If you like every fic they’ve ever written? Then feel free to give them all kudos and even leave a comment on every single one if you feel inclined! If you’re going through someone’s blog and you vibe with every post, like/reblog to your heart’s content!

As long as you’re not expecting something back from them or adding a ton of irrelevant comments, it’s not spam! It’s what this is all about!! I’m not even much of a creator and I still feel a huge sense of pride when I see a ton of notifications in a row from a person, as it clearly shows they thought my blog was worth spending time on.

And if for some reason a creator is annoyed by this (unlikely), they can manage their own experience (turn off notifs, not look at their notes, delete the fic, etc) -- so don’t deprive the majority of creators because of some imagined annoyed person. Fandom is a collaborative effort and we all must participate!

[kurithedweeb]

A quick ref for Mikey from A Bed For Flowers!

[kurithedweeb]

Rise Roulette: Unnamed Number 5

For this one, we'll start with Foot Clan Donnie. The only tech he makes in the beginning is to benefit the clan, armour and weapons and training tools and trackers and surveillance devices. He’s made a full fledged member of the clan at a young age because he’s relentlessly loyal, and the leaders of the clan trust him implicitly. He and Casey have a more-or-less friendly rivalry. They're saltmates.

Mikey grows up with Baxter Stockboy. I figure the Stockboy parents found him and took him in when he was very young and very lost and when his little brother Baxter started getting into making videos, Mikey was the one behind the camera. He's always been Baxter's cheerleader, and when Baxter starts going after the other turtles he feels betrayed by some of the things Baxter says and leaves home in search of the other turtles.

Leo is Big Mama's right hand, the heir to her business and one of her best fighters. He's very cool and confident in public and takes his lessons on running the Hotel and Battle Nexus very seriously. There's been an effort to teach him mystics, but he can't manage anything impressive. He makes up for it with his incredible people skills and tactical mind. He would do just about anything to stay in Big Mama's good graces, he doesn't think he can handle being pushed out of the family. He wants to talk to Raph more but Raph is just about the only person he doesn't know how to talk to.

Raph is technically also Big Mama's son, but he ends up mostly being raised by staff and Big Mama uses him as an example for Leo, in a "See, he disappointed me but I still care for him, I will always take care of my babies even if they hurt me," kind of a way. He's the face of customer service on the yokai side of the Nexus Hotel and spent a lot of time under the care of the bellhops. He works on the human side of the hotel with a cloaking brooch every so often and gets pretty close to Bullhop, and when Bullhop is mutated he reveals that he's not human and takes him to Big Mama to see about getting him working on the yokai side of things.

Leo & Raph interact sparingly outside of work, they do a lot of PR events and the occasional Battle Nexus duo event together but are otherwise fairly happy keeping to themselves. Leo & Donnie would probably meet at the Battle Nexus, and Raph & Donnie would meet while Raph was out running errands on the surface. Donnie & Mikey would meet when Donnie crashes through the window of the Stockboy's store. Leo might be with Donnie when that happens, but Mikey definitely only meets Raph when he winds up stumbling into the Hidden City.

[kurithedweeb]

Rise Roulette: Repossess

This one is number 1 on the list, the very first separated AU roulette AU that I spun. The AU that started it all. I'm emotionally attached.

So for the roulette AUs I put basically every named adult character into the wheel as a potential parent, so we got some really random spins and this AU includes one of them.

Remember Scor-Pion, the one-off scorpion mutant who used to be a zookeeper from the Jupiter Jim team up episode? That guy raised Donnie. In this world I'd like to think Scor-Pion was just kind of a dad. A normal, average dad to his secretly turtle son. He brought Donnie to the zoo after hours when he was on night shift and Donnie would run around and study all the info placards with such excitement. When Scor-Pion was mutated, it was a rough adjustment period, but when he got into the supervillain part of things Donnie was all in on being his sidekick.

Raph grew up alongside the Purple Dragons. This isn't a pairing I had considered before, but I can easily see Raph as the group's muscle, he carries the gear and the take on heists and handles what guards and physical obstacles the others can't take out with their tech on heists. I think I'd put him as maybe Jeremy's childhood best friend that used to live in his backyard. His secret bestie so that his parents didn't freak out.

Mikey is with Baron Draxum! I've seen a lot of flavours to turtles raised by Draxum, and I think I want to go from an angle that touches on their relationship in canon where Mikey truly believes in Draxum's goodness. Mikey would be raised as Draxum's protoge and eventual general, he's extremely well trained in martial and mystic arts and maybe a little too confident in his abilities. He often plays messenger and delivery boy between Draxum and his contacts and excels at alchemy.

And last but not least, we got Leo raised by Repo Mantis. He'd probably be very cocky and blunt and have a number of scars from throwing himself around the scrapyard as a kid, maybe a gnarly one near his face from the cat. He doesn't remember the names of any of the parts but he can tear apart and rebuild just about any kind of engine from memory and the camper he fixed up at the back of the yard as his new room is jammed full of all the little things he's collected from the compartments of repossessed vehicles. Repo Mantis more or less lets him have the run of the place once he's sure Leo's not gonna get himself crushed by anything while he goes out and does repo jobs, which Leo eventually joins him on around the time of his mutation.

I think Leo & Donnie would end up meeting when they were relatively young, maybe in their tweens, when Leo or Repo Mantis find Donnie in the stacks looking for parts for some mechanical toy he's making. Mikey & Raph would meet during a Purple Dragon heist when Mikey's on a mission in that same area and then Mikey keeps 'accidentally' ruining their plans so he can talk to Raph. Raph & Leo would probably meet when Repo Mantis repossesses something the Purple Dragons were gonna steal, and Raph eventually comes back when he needs a place to hide sometimes. Not sure about the others yet

[samephotoofskswlink]

Follow to see the same photo of Skyward Sword Link every day.

[kurithedweeb]

Teenage Magdalene!!

[kurithedweeb]

The very first Cope April

[kurithedweeb]

He's so dumb sometimes @wowee-art

[kurithedweeb]

This Mikey is raised by Repo Mantis, and this Leo by Big Mama.