#technicallysublimechild

[angstsplatter]

"Please don't go."

With Mikey

From this list! I hope you like~

.

Mikey hadn't even been paying attention. He had no idea how it had started. These days, the only way Raph and Leo actually talked to each other was to yell, fight, snipe, and blame. It was nothing new. No reason Mikey thought he needed to pay attention to this particular fight. They'd insult each other, storm off to cool down, and then go back to their hostile silence, only talking to him to act like he was their passive-aggressive messenger turtle.

They'd existed this way for years. It'd started slowly when they began giving up hope of finding their missing genius, then escalated suddenly when Master Splinter was killed. It wasn't a good life, but it was their life. Mikey had grown accustomed to it. It was their way of life. It was the way things were, and he just had to live with that. It was better than the alternative, he supposed.

So what had he missed? What made this fight different? If he'd realized this was going to be the last fight, could he have changed anything if he'd intervened?

"It should have been you!" thrown in Leo's face was when Mikey tuned in, past the time the rumblings had started, just in time to witness the avalanche. No chance of holding it back now that its awesome might was rumbling down the mountain.

It wasn't a particularly new sentiment. They'd both said horrible, awful, untrue things about each other regarding Splinter's sacrifice and the aftermath. They each blamed themselves and took it out on each other. But this wasn't about Master Splinter.

"No one woulda cared if you'd disappeared! Gone and done us all a favor," Raph spat.

Holy shit. It was about Don. They never talked about Don. None of them. Not since all hope for him died with Sensei. They'd raked every detail of Sensei's death over the coals, blaming each other for the shifting of the wind, but they never brought up Donatello. Mikey froze.

Leo hadn't even told them he was losing his sight. He just struggled in silence until it was gone, and there was nothing else to do but for Mikey and Raph to realize that they should have taken his squinting and practicing in the dark more seriously. At this moment, Leo's face twisted and warped in a hideous grimace, eyes so alive and so focused on Raphael that, with his mask off, Mike forgot for a moment that he couldn't see.

For once, Leo didn't place blame back. He simply snarled, "I wish," turned tail, and stalked out. Mike and Raph watched him go in silence. Mike had never wanted to lose any of his brothers, and he certainly couldn't have chosen between them. Why didn't he say anything before Leo was gone?

He turned to say something to Raph instead (the only one there to say anything to) but Raph was staring hard after Leo. Mike sucked in a harsh breath, and Raph stalked away, radiating too many emotions to process.

"Please don't go," Mike called. Too soft. Too late. Far, far too late.

Mike never had managed to matter more than their rivalry.

Mike stood there unmoving, waiting, until April found him three days later. She hugged him like she always did and asked him a question he couldn't make out. He couldn't do this. He couldn't be here when no one else was, for it was clear that no one was coming back. Not Leo, not Raph, and certainly not Don. He gave April a pitying look - more than his brothers had spared for him - kissed the top of her head, and he, too, walked away.

[emeraldhonour]

Sibling prompts - 21. Secret Language

Mikey or Raph please. 🧡❤️

Thank you for the prompt <3.

I got a bit carried away with this one ^^;

 _____

  It all started with a movie.

   “Man,” Mikey sighed wistfully, right as the Tyrannosaur burst in at the end of Jurassic Park, “I wish I had a pet T Rex.”

   He didn’t have to look to see the incredulous expression on his brother’s face.

   “Are you out of your shell?” Raph barked, lifting a hand up at the TV, “Are we even watching the same movie?!”

   The on-screen dinosaur hurled a velociraptor – a deinonychus, actually, as Don had so insistently pointed out the first time they watched this movie, and every subsequent time since – into the fossilised display in the entrance hall. She lifted her massive head to emit her iconic roar right as the soundtrack reached its sweeping crescendo.

   “Ugh, yeah dude!” Mikey shot back, also gesturing at the screen, “Rexy is awesome! Just imagine what we could do if we had a dino pal to swoop in and save the day.”

   “First off, we don’t have to imagine. We spent three months in the Cretaceous, remember?” Raph emphasised with a flick to the back of Mikey’s head, “And I seem to recall everything there was far more interested in eating us!”

   He gave a snort at Mikey’s peeved look, but didn’t give him a chance to jump in.

   “And secondly, you wouldn’t be saying that if you’d read the book.”

   Michelangelo rolled his eyes.

   “There you go again,” he affected a mock imitation of Raph’s gruff accent, “’Oh, the book is better than the movie’. Yeah, right! Does the book have an epic score by John Williams? Does the book have live action dino models brought to life on the big screen? Does the book have real life dinosaur roars?”

   “It’s not ‘real life’, you numbskull,” Raph threw his hands up in frustration, “They made those noises based on whatever they thought sounded cool!”

   “Whatever,” Mikey huffed, “The film is still iconic.”

   “…Never said it wasn’t,” his brother grumbled as the end credits rolled.

_____

   Everything had gone wrong in a blink.

   Somehow, Raph and Mikey had ended up separated from Donnie and Leo at the worst possible time. Raph had no idea where they were. He could only hope they were ok. He still couldn’t figure out how the Purple Dragons had managed to get the drop on them. But that was something for Fearless to worry about later.

   Right now, Mikey needed help!

   Raphael heard his brother long before he saw him. Mikey had always had a quick wit, and an even quicker tongue. Even backed into a corner, with his shell against the wall and four punks with guns aimed at him, the turtle still couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

   “Aww, c’mon guys! Is this really fair?” Mikey patted his empty belt in show, “You’ve all got weapons. At least let me retrieve my ‘chucks.”

   “Hands where we can see ‘em!” One of the Dragons snapped. Another one scoffed.

   “Do you think we’re stupid, or something?”

   Don’t answer that, Raph silently pleaded. He shifted ever so slightly in the rafters above, trying to find an opening. This would all be over already if only those goons didn’t have guns pointed at Mikey’s head. Raph may be fast, but even the greatest ninja in the world couldn’t outrun a bullet.

   The only indicator that Mikey knew he was there was the way his brother’s eyes looked anywhere but up into the rafters where Raph was sneaking up. But Raph had no idea what to do next. Even if he took a few of the Dragons by surprise, he couldn’t take them all out before they gunned his brother down!

   “Y’know, that’s a nice tattoo,” Mikey suddenly shifted gears. One of the gang members had a prominent purple dragon inked on his exposed bicep, “Kinda reminds me of a velociraptor.”

   …What? Why was Mikey talking about freaking velociraptors all of a sudden?

   “Jurassic Park really made velociraptors famous,” Mikey continued, seemingly at ease, “Man, I love that movie. The raptors in it are so smart. They could open doors and everything!”

   What was that idiot doing? Had he totally lost the plot??

   “They’re almost as smart as my cat,” Mikey boasted, “She’s such a clever girl. I tried to distract her with a hat, but she saw right through me!”

   Ok. Mikey had officially gone crazy. Maybe he’d been hit upside the head one too many times. Babbling about a movie was one thing, but getting his beloved pet’s sex wrong was just unheard of! He knew Klunk was male. It’s not like it wasn’t obvious, or anything.

   And what was with the weird inflection he’d put on ‘clever girl’?

   …

   …

   … Oh.

   Ok, maybe Mikey hadn’t lost it after all.

   “Do you want to see some photos of my cat?” Mikey asked, reaching slowly towards his belt, “I’ve got some great ones on my shell cell.”

   The Purple Dragons weren’t buying it for a moment, but with their full attention on Michelangelo, Raphael was able to quietly slip into position. His brother continued to stare dead ahead at the gang members, but Raph knew Mikey had seen him.

   “I said hands where I can see ‘em!” the first Dragon snapped, lifting his gun to shoot.

   “I’ll show you hands!” Raph snarled into the man’s ear. His fist shot out of the shadows and clocked the man right in the jaw.

   Chaos erupted. The remaining three Dragons swung towards Raph’s hiding spot, leaving Mikey wide open to jump in with his own knuckles. He took another one down with a whoop. The other two began firing, but their bullets went wide. The turtles were already on the move.

   Now that the odds were much more even, Raph and Mikey were able to make short work of their attackers. They didn’t wait around to see if the Dragons were out for the count or not. Better to get as much distance between them as they could. Hopefully, Leo and Donnie would have heard the gunshots, and they would be on their way to investigate. With any luck, Raph and Mikey could intercept them on the way.

   “What was that about the book being better than the movie?” Mikey shot his brother a grin as they took off running.

   “Shell-for-brains,” Raph rolled his eyes, but couldn’t keep the smirk off his own face.

[plothooksinc]

I'm sorry to hear about your broken arm! Hope your healing is going well! ❤️

For the writing questions: 3, 7 and 55 please!!

It's just a bitty fracture and will be okay! Thank you ♥♥

right, now I actually have the questions again--

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Honestly, chapters don't come about with a bunch of creative planning, just scheduling. For the writing itself, it's just kind of... sit down and write what feels right? Occasionally write half a page and go "hmm no", change POV and go again. The timing of writing is always the same - if I don't work that day, I'll play video games over breakfast, do 5 mins exercise, and then sit down to write one (1) page. Making myself do this is the only way it gets written when I'm not hyperfixated** (which I am currently not, alas.) Send it to my beta. Every time I open the chapter I review the last page, make some corrections, make beta corrections, fiddle with wording, then write another page. For the writing itself, mostly we're just vibin', which is great because none of my characters ever shut up so mostly they drive the plot on their own and we eventually get places. Sometimes if there's gonna be a long and complex conversation, I'll script it first - the Leo and Mikey oneshot re: don't kill yourself for a corpse was scripted first to make it sound natural. So was Leo and Casey's talk. So is the secret side project I'm working on now (which is indulgent and may never see the light of day, but--). Once I'm happy I'll go back to flesh it out with conversation tags etc.

Re: fic creative process, one-shots are just kind of written and not planned out ahead of time. If I come up with a long and convoluted plot, I'll probably outline at least enough for me to be confident of where I'm going with it. Other than that, it's always games-exercise-sit down and write (occasionally with a cider to loosen up) with some minor distractions thrown in as I try to research something and end up down a rabbit hole somewhere, you know how it is.

** if I'm hyperfixated I will write you a 130k fic updating weekly-ish, apparently. I miss the obsessive drive, lmao.

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

My writing style of choice is (usually) limited third person. Thus I'll usually end up choosing the character who would have the most interesting take on the events going on or the one who doesn't know what the reader knows/suspects and thus can drive readers nuts with their cluelessness, it's kinda fun. If there are multiple choices for that, I'll pick someone who hasn't had a POV in a while. And sometimes when I write, I'm like "...this is missing something," delete what I've got and go again with someone else to see if I'm happier that way. (Ch. 5 of NRTFW was originally written from Raph's POV. And then I was like "nahhh Raph is too stressed and dragging down the pacing" and switched to his jerk dad instead.) It's amazing how much a POV switch can fix a derailed chapter, tbh. Also, if you get stuck mid-scene? Flipping to someone else in the room also works as a kind of restart/reset/refresh to keep things going and your pacing solid. And again, past all that, sometimes it's just vibes.

55. Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

It's Leo. It's always Leo. BUT Donnie snuck up on him like a dark horse theatre kid to steal the spotlight somewhere along the way in NRFTW and I ended up giving him such a huge part as a result, b/c lemme tell you the outline was uh... it had no spaghetti in it, let's just leave it at that. 8D; Part of this is that, once I got the hang of his speech and his scientific drama-queening, he was just so much fun to have talk at people. But one of my RP friends also loves him to pieces and was very encouraging when I made noises about trying to write again, and I also wanted to give him more screentime to kind of go "look, it's your boy!" (Casey also got this treatment to some extent, rofl. TBH if I get vocal readers/supporters I'm always paying attention to what they say.)

Thanks for the questions! <3

Writing meme here.

[side-shuffling-hyperfixations]

For the questions you posted: 4, 13 and 16 please!

Thanks!! ❤️

:D

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Inspiration is everywhere! Incidents in my own life, dialogue prompt lists, monthly writing challenges, unresolved plot points in movies or episodes, even fics for other fandoms where I'm like "What if something vaguely like this but to the left and with turtles? Lol" And especially in my bed when it's after four AM and I should be sleeping and instead lines of dialogue are playing out in my head and I just have to write them down or be doomed to forget ^^"

13. What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

The one that always stuck with me the clearest from my writing class was the acronym FANBOYS for words that don't typically need a comma in front of them in a sentence: for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so. I followed it very strictly for a long time. I've loosened up to put a comma in front of an occasional "and" if the sentence needed a comma for an emotional beat to make it sound better in my head but yeah.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

I've got two or three in the pipeline right now, the biggest/most complicated one being a Raph-centric alternate universe. It's honestly intimidating to dig into right now because I'm not actually sure how to solve Raph's dilemma...The most I can say is the guy has the Absolute Worst day of his life, bar none, and Mikey's wholeheartedly pure, empathetic and loving last ditch efforts to be there for him end up making it so much worse than they could have imagined :'D

[emeraldhazeart]

That is a hot strawberry take.

How do you feel about raspberries?

Raspberries are good. I like raspberries.

Blueberries are nice too, though I'm always a little wary about getting a surprise sour one.

My favourites are blackberries and cranberries, though. Big fan of both.

Tbh, I enjoy most berries. It's just strawberries I have an irrational distaste for 😅

[emeraldhonour]

Fic Reader Meme

Thank you so much for the tag, @technicallysublimechild 💚

Fave tag (s): Hurt/Comfort, [X Character] needs a Hug, Angst with a Happy Ending/Eventual Happy Ending, Whump

Ships tag(s): Mutual Pining, Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers

Three go to fandoms: I also tend to lock in on one fandom at a time. At the moment I am very much in a TMNT stretch, but before that it was Undertale and Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons.

How do you normally comment: I have a bad habit of setting high expectations for myself when it comes to comments (perfectionism, I know ye well). So I sometimes won't read a fic if I don't have the spoons to leave a long, detailed comment (which is ridiculous, because I love the emoji and keysmash comments I recieve on my own works!).

That said, I really enjoy picking a specific part of the chapter/oneshot and focusing my comment around that. If there's a paragraph or a scene or even just one line that especially captured my attention, I love analysing it and telling the writer how good that particular bit was in the comments. My favourite type of comments to leave are when I get to do that with multiple sections of the work

Light or dark mode: Dark mode, please :)

Mobile or desktop: Mobile. If fic writers didn't mean us to read their masterpieces late into the night instead of going to sleep, then they wouldn't write them so compelling /silly 😉

WIP or completed: Both. A completed work is a treat, because I know there will be a conclusion going in (unless it's part 1 of an ongoing series). But I love coming into a WIP and getting to share the author's excitement as they go. And getting an email that a new chapter just dropped is so much fun! Plus, I'll often go back and reread from the start once the work is completed, so I get to experience it all through again, but this time pick up on all the foreshadowing :)

Multi-chapter or oneshot: Again, both. I love getting sucked into a compelling multichapter fic and letting it consume my every waking thought. But I also love a oneshot that can floor me with just a single chapter. Plus, I don't always have the energy/time/spoons for a large fic, so oneshots are nice and bitesized.

No pressure tags: @side-shuffling-hyperfixations @catbowserauthor @shadows-shells and anyone else who'd like to have a go :)

[angstsplatter]

WHOO-HOO!!! Second ever finished multichap fic!!! It's about Rise!Leo becoming a vampire. Check it out. ;)

My goal was to write every day with a secondary goal of just hitting 400 words a day. I wrote for 31 days straight, completed a fic from start to finish, and averaged over 900 words a day, ending at 28,306 words total (just under twice as long as my second longest fic).

Thank you to @deadlyflan for the inspiration and the TONS of GORGEOUS badges!!! The goal badge is my absolute favorite and definitely played a part in me seeing this fic through to the end.

[emeraldhonour]

Oops, I'm so sorry @technicallysublimechild! I accidentally hit 'post' on this too early!

Thank you for the asks!

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

I used to just write as I went, but now I'm a bit more of a planner.

I definitely don't totally outline each chapter before I write. That would feel too much like writing it all out twice, to me. And I like flexibility in my plot. If the characters what to take the story in a different direction to the one I intended, I've found that following them is often more interesting and rewarding than sticking to my original idea.

But I do benefit from a basic outline. I generally have a vague idea for what I want a chapter to be and where I want it to go as I start writing it. Though I've often found that, when I do outline, what I'd planned to be 2 chapters ends up being more like 4 or 5 😅.

25. What fic do you wish you got more of a response on?

I was a little surprised that Reflections & Renewal didn't get more interaction, but I suppose the fact that it was primarily a Tang Shen and Splinter oneshot probably meant people weren't as interested in it.

And I'd love for Will You Still Love Me? to get more interaction, too. It's genuinely one of my favourite 03 headcanons, but the fact that I wrote it months after I wrote the meta post might have meant that everyone who read the post just thought the fic was rereading old ground, maybe?

57. Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it's finished?

Again, it's a bit of both.

I know they say you shouldn't edit as you go. And it definitely breaks up the flow when I'm just putting words down on the first draft. I like to write on paper first for this very reason, but even then I'm rereading what I've just written and striking out parts I don't like.

But when I'm writing my first draft and I end up chopping bits and rewriting whole paragraphs, I then have to type it all up on a Word Doc and edit it into something I'm satisfied with. Otherwise I can't get my thoughts straight and figure out what to do with the rest of the oneshot/chapter.