#or “mikey dies making the portal”

[hoodiehorizon]

I have an idea 👉👈

Next

[bluezeri]

anyway I think mikey opening the portal to save Leo should've been way more dramatic,

[untitled-tmnt-blog]

Summary of Cartoon Base's Q&A with Ron Corcillo

(Feb 10, 2024)

This is VERY long, so putting it under the cut!

Apocalyptic Future

We don't know how Donnie and Raph died specifically, but it was in combat against the Krang.

The turtles were leaders of the resistance and obviously went through some serious trauma. We don't really know how that affected them emotionally. It might be interesting to do a series that explored that timeline at some point.

Leo was the best ninja fighter. Once Raph and Donnie were gone, he was also the leader of the resistance. He also had a special affinity for Casey. He may have felt particularly responsible for Casey once his mother was gone.

Mikey probably could have communicated with Raph/Donnie/Splinter in the same way they could communicate with Karai, even though we didn't get the chance to see it.

The turtles wouldn't have had time for having their own kids or starting families. They were too busy fighting the krang, and the world was too dangerous for raising children.

They couldn't work out everyone's timelines in the bad future, but presumably, Big Mama's assistant would have joined the resistance, because what else could you do? She would have to have adopted her brothers as allies.

Mikey is definitely less cheerful and more wise, but he still ultimately has faith in the goodness of people and the world. Some things, you just can't change.

The turtles are in their early 40's, but the war has taken a toll.

Characters

Splinter spent a lot of time in the Hidden City, so he knows about more mystic things than we realize. He's developed those skills (i.e. using Leo's odachi to make a portal on the first try), but they've been dormant for a while.

Donnie can temporarily create items with his powers like the ones we see in the movie, but to make a tangible item that would last, he's have to build it physically the way he would with any of his tech.

Leo probably had the hardest time accepting Draxum, since he is the most skeptical. Mikey is the one who accepts Draxum the most easily. But they did have episodes planned where Leo and Draxum work together, so Leo would have gotten over it as well.

They had never worked out a name for the second turtle sister (the first possibly being named after Frida Kahlo), but would have chosen another female artist to name her after. Maybe Camille, after Camille Claudel.

The planned sisters would be roughly the same age as the turtles, so also teenagers. The only existing designs are what we saw on screen. They had never settled on colors for them.

CJ and present Leo is kind of a weird dynamic, when you think about it. Casey still couldn't help but see Leo as a father figure, but it must be a little different when you're roughly the same age.

Leo keeps whatever he wants in the little bags he has attached to his belt. Snacks, candy, fidget toys, body spray - this is Leo, after all.

Splinter had never celebrated the turtles birthdays in the past, because he was so depressed about his own mutation. But going forward, now that he's come to grips with who he really is, he would start to celebrate that day.

A meeting between Cassandra and Casey Junior would be incredibly heartfelt. Break out the tissues.

They thought about bringing Piebald back in Man vs. Sewer, but it didn't work out. She's definitely still out there in the sewers, so there would be plenty of opportunity for the turtles to interact with her again.

Following the movie, the most serious repercussions would be to Raph mentally. He would still be carrying some of that krang mentality. He might even occasionally pick up on thoughts of the krang. It would almost be like he had some form of ptsd.

A lot of Draxum's softening only comes from after his horrible experience of having his life force sucked away by the dark armor. He may have never seen the error of his ways without an experience like that. So, if the boys had never been taken by Splinter, he probably would have gone through with his plan to make them into weapons.

Splinter would have understood that Casey Jr became a soldier because he had to, and wouldn't have a problem with that. He would view Casey Jr as a nephew or grandson. They're all used to thinking of people as family even if they're not exactly related.

As far as mystic abilities, Mikey is definitely the most powerful. Donnie and Raph both seem to have pretty strong powers too, maybe Donnie a little more so. Leo is the one who relies the least on mystic power and the most on his physical and mental skills.

Donnie definitely seems to embrace the mystic power at the end of season 2 and in the movie. Ultimately, he would find ways to combine it with his tech for supreme power-ups.

April is 18 and the turtles are 16-18. Casey Jr is around late teens or 20.

Rise Lore

Given that the first krang that came to earth crashed into the Crying Titan, there must have been some form of historic yokai/hidden city even before the empyrean was around to introduce mystic powers. After all, someone must have built the Crying Titan. Maybe it was built by some other race that actually predates the yokai, and the yokai evolved from that race, affected by the emperyan.

There are definitely still krang out there, and most of the ones that we encounter are evil. The possibility of a good Krang could exist, though.

Before the humans, the yokai roamed freely both on the surface of the Earth and underground. They were probably a lot happier then, and somewhat more numerous. Oppression by the humans must have taken a toll on them.

There were a lot of Hamato and only so many powers you could have, so there would have been a lot of overlap in ninpo abilities across all the ancestors.

The Prison Dimension and Dimension X are two different dimensions. Dimension X is where the krang are originally from, and the Prison Dimension was just used to get rid of villains. Both exist in the Rise universe.

If there was more Rise

There weren't any specific plans for Kendra, but she certainly could have been interesting as a frenemy.

They would definitely want to get into Casey's whole history with the TMNT, his mom, etc.

They would have wanted to develop April and Sunita's friendship a lot more, and see how both of them related to Cassandra Jones.

They'd make as many seasons as they'd be allowed to! But seriously, they could easily fill at least 3 more seasons. There's a lot to unlock with the Krang, and they'd also want to expore much more with Big Mama and the Hidden City.

Cassandra might not have been part of the main group, but she would have been a regular ally.

Cassandra and the turtles would have been allies, fighting the Krang. It's clear from the end of the movie that Cassandra is now roaming around and fighting krang, so she and the turtles could connect occasionally as a running storyline.

A new season would pick up from where the movie left off, so it would be a new plan instead of what was already made.

Bishop would have to be an ally, considering that the turtles had just saved the Earth. But he might be a grudging ally, one who didn't really trust the turtles or didn't like the fact that they don't play by the rules.

It would definitely be easier to do crossovers with the other 2D animated series, like the 87 series or the 2003 series. They could have some fun playing with both the writing and animation style of those shows. Combining 2D and CG animation is more difficult.

They probably would not have mutated April, as it would be a big step. In the scrapped episode where Dale turned into a wolf mutant, it was a result of a temporary mystic curse. They could certainly do something like that with April.

The turtles would still be able to comminicate with Karai through mystic means.

They would have gotten a lot more into the history of the Council of Heads in future seasons when they explored the relationship between the Hidden City and the Krang. They are clearly among the most ancient of yokai, possibly predating the Hidden City itself.

They could have done a temporary reverse mutation via some sort of mystic spell, to give the turtles human designs. It might have been fun since it seems to be something that fans enjoy so much.

They would have had the turtles go to the krang's dimension at some point in order to defeat the krang fully. They could have encountered any of the traditional dimension x/z stuff that way.

The storyline where the boys find their sisters would probably still happen. People would want to see it, even though it's been spoiled.

They had plans to eventually visit other Hidden Cities, such as one beneath Tokyo.

Cut Episodes/Scenes

In the original ending of the movie where Casey says goodbye and leaves, he was going to find his mom.

One of the scrapped episodes had to do with Mikey taking care of the other turtles when they were transformed into toddlers. He was a natural caretaker.

They never planned on a space arc, but they probably would have done one where they travel to the Krang dimension. They also were going to travel to the prison dimension to release Karai, and they could have had other adventures there as well.

Behind the Scenes

For the episode Pizza Puffs, Ben Schwartz did his part for feverish Leo without looking at the script so he would sound confused.

It would be great if Nickelodeon released some of the finished animatics for the lost season 2 episodes that were already boarded, but unfortunately, it's all copywrited material.

All animated movies go through multiple revisions, rewrites, and changes, which is why some of the original rise movie storyboards were scrapped.

They do remote recording all the time, especially since covid.

The amount that a writer incorporates into a fight scene varies from script to script. Sometimes, there are moments in a fight scene that are key to the story. If so, they are written out. Otherwise, they would sometimes write out a fight scene but know that it would change in the board. Sometimes, they'd just shorthand it.

The writers try not to indulge in too much fanfic because there could be copyright issues if it is similar to anything they would ever do in the show.

When writing the brothers, it was important to keep them in character. You have to know exactly who your characters are, all the time, in every way. The audience will forgive you if you do things that aren't exactly logical, but they won't forgive you if you sell out your characters.

There was never an overall map done of the lairs, just individual rooms. It was always kind of tricky for them to figure out exactly how to move the characters from one room to the other.

The krang invasion was specific to the movie, so we probably wouldn't have seen it in the series at all if it had not been cut short.

Other TMNT Characters

They weren't necessarily planning to add characters from other versions yet. They still had so many areas to explore that were specific to Rise, like the Hidden City, the yokai, and the history of the krang.

There were no particular plans for Honeycutt. One character that they wanted to use but never did was Monty Moose, and they were trying very hard to figure out a way to incorporate him into a story.

They didn't have any plans for Renet, but a character like her could easily fit into the Rise universe. Obviously time travel is a big part of the movie. They could use her to explore timelines that might have happened had the events of the movie turned out differently.

They didn't get a chance to explore triceratons, so there could certainly still be some out there.

Any similarities between Big Mama's assistant and the High Mage from TMNT 2003 are coincidental. They gave her the cape and hood to disguise her identity.

They didn't have any plans for Beebop and Rocksteady, since they don't really fit in with the Rise version of Shredder and the Foot Clan.

The turtles certainly could meet Yuichi Usagi.

Usagi Yojimbo crossovers are always fun. Ron could see one where his dimension has been overrun by the krang, and he comes to our dimension to seek the turtles' help because they're the only ones who have ever defeated the krang.

Ron-Specific Questions

Ron's personal favorite episodes are "Hot Soup: The Game" and "Sparring Partner."

They were super excited when they got John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) as Meat Sweats, just because Ron and Russ are big pink rock fans.

When asked about favorite duos, Ron likes Raph & Mikey, Donnie & April, and Leo & Senor Hueso.

If he could only save one episode from Rise and the rest became lost media, Ron would save the four-part finale.

If he could save one cut episode or plotline, Ron would want to save the more complete version of the end of season 2, where we would have seen much more of the turtles training and bonding with Karai.

Ron was not part of the new Saturday Morning Adventures comic that has Rise Raph on the cover.

If he could make a spin-off, Ron would want to do a series where Cassandra roams the Earth fighting remnants of the krang, joined by her son Casey, and occasionally joined by individual turtles and others. Draxum might join forces with her as well.

Miscellaneous

The silhouette in a tank shown at the end of Bug Busters was meant to illustrate Lou Jitsu when he is first hit with the ooze and mutated along with the turtles. It's more of a memory than an exact replication.

The reason Raph was transformed via the pod instead of instantanously may have been because Raph was unwilling, and was more difficult to change than someone like the Foot Clan ninjas, who underwent their transformation willingly.

They never attempted to get a brand deal with a soup company so fans could get Rise hot soup, but it would be a good idea.

The photo from the movie was taken just before the krang arrived.

When asked which Rise character is most likely to be Spider-Man: none of them, because he's owned by Marvel and Sony.

When asked why Donnie likes cute bratty girls: Ron is not sure where that comes from.

In Dungeons and Dragons, Raph would be a fighter class, Mikey would be some sort of illusionist, Leo would be a clever assassin or theif. Donnie would insist on being a scientist because he's sure there would have been at least one sensible person back then. April would be the DM.

Ron doesn't know what the illegible skate ramp graffiti means, but can ask one of the designers about it.

In a coffee shop, Mikey would be the baker, Donnie would create the most efficient coffee brewing system ever, Raph and April would run the business side, and Leo would be the most demanding customer ever.

The Future of Rise

The demand for Rise merch is real. It would be nice if Nickelodeon would put out more official merch.

There are no current plans for a season 3, but we can keep trying!

All we can really do to try and get Rise back is continue to share the show and encourage other people to watch. As well as keep it trending whenever we can. Sooner or later, someone will realize that there's a very real demand for this show.

He has talked about the potential for continuing the show in a comic book or short format, or in some other formats as well.

When asked if there's any chance of Netflix picking up Rise, or for both Tales of the TMNT and Rise to coexist -- anything's possible!

Ron would love to see a Rise comic series, but it's not his call. As far as if it would be darker, Ron thinks it's important that for Rise, they keep things light-hearted and comedic. That was always the goal of the show.

Shows rarely get "cancelled" in kids animation. It can always be brought back, but the focus is on Tales of the TMNT for now. He's said before that Rise could be brought back down the road as a "retro" series, or in other formats like a comic book, movie, or shorts.

... plus one answer, that does not have the original question attached:

"She would be stunned, and probably disbelieving at first. But we would find a way (through mystic means) for her to see her future timeline, at which point she would be overcome with emotion."

[camilieroart]

Help i'm starting to go down a rabbit hole

I couldn't stop thinking about that one doodle (top right) and my brain started to create a whole AU and now they have designs and the AU has a name ;0;

Anyway I might (most likely) make a oneshot for this story just so it gets out of my head.

Also none of them have any swag it's painful

Summary of the idea so far under the cut :

So Mikey died before he was able to make the portal (or during), and that plan couldn't work.

When in the final battle, Leo saw the resistance lost, and they were going to die, he realized there was no way out for Casey, without the plan they had with Mikey.

And he refuses for that to happen.

He leads Casey away from the danger, where Leo heals his side while the battle ends outside of like a collapsed building or smth. Once it does Casey scouts out (despite Leo's warnings) and realizes everyone is dead and gone.

When he reports that to Leo, the turtle decides they need to leave. He quickly goes back to the hideout to get some of their things without being seen, where he finds the damaged body of Shelldon, and transfers him to an older body, and leaves New York.

They always assumed the rest of the world was krangified, and Donnie's scans confirmed it, but Leo is holding to dear life to "what if it was wrong. What if there's a safe place out there. Where Casey and Shelldon could live and grow"

They got nothing else, so they leave and start looking for a place that doesn't exist

yeah the base idea i guess is travellers Leo and the Hamato next gen who are filled with trinkets of their lost ones. Shelldon is basically Casey's older brother

[biggesttmntfanintheworld]

short and sweet rottmnt x gn! reader headcanons!

(im going crazy)

this is my first headcanon so if it sucks then idk

raph

BIGGEST SWEETHEART EVER BRO

would do anything for you

WOULD GIVE THE BEST HUGS UGH

says i love you 156 times a day

gets flustered so easily

will cook(make sandwiches) and clean for you

will visit you at school(btw you and april go to the same school lmao) in his silly football disguise

probably scared of cockroaches or any bug and makes you take them outside because he doesn't want to kill them(once again hes a sweetheart)

calls you sweetie bae baby honey and shorty(in a nice way i swear)

leo

smug asf

always gives you that silly smirk when he flusters you

tries to impress you with his skateboarding skills but he breaks his face in the process(but he says its worth it when you patch him up)

when you can't sleep he puts your head on his chest and beatboxes you to sleep(LMAO)

when your sad he does that book in the mouth thing(s1ep20ti7:15) to make you laugh(goofy ahh)

will portal sword you both to Paris to "have a romantic date on top of the Eiffel Tower"(you both almost died)

that being said he will portal sword you both ANYWHERE

calls you love mi vida(my life) mi corazón(my heart) and baby

donnie

IS A SWEETHEART IDGAF FIGHT ME

HE. IS. NOT. MEAN(sometimes)!!!!.

he likes physical affection 50/50 ok

he remembers everything you love like and hate using "Nature's Notepad"

he loves you as much as he loves his "dum dum brothers"(hes love them i swear)

make time for you and his inventions

he "maybe" loves you more than atomic lass just "maybe"(he does)

you guys have matching purple satin jackets(he got them for you both)

calls you love dove dearest my love and babe

mikey

SUPER BIGGEST SWEETHEART IN. THE. WORLDDD!!!!

would be your personal chef if you want him to

HUGS AND CUDDLES 24/7(if hes not being hero)

i can't put it in words of how much he loves you(he loves you a lot ok)

would do absolutely anything and everything for you

hugs you from behind a lot

insist on doing everything for you(he just loves you a lot)

like leo he tries to impress you with his skateboarding skills but he doesn't fail(like a boss)

calls you baby babe honey sweetie and pizza bite(in a nice way)

IM DONEE

i hope you liked it!!!!!!!!!!

btw if your going to request something its probably going to take a

bit

ANYWAYS BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[melliedoodles]

We’re back! (More info under cut)

After ignoring the existence of this au for awhile I designed to revive the story but re write it to make more sense. In the original story, Leo was just supposed to die shortly after being pulled from the prison dimension and ends up in the afterlife with Gram Gram where life is like living in a retirement community, Leo finds a way to visit his family in the living world but only Mikey could see him. This was a concept that a lot of people seemed to like which made me really happy. But overtime, I started thinking that I didn’t really have much of a story. I didn’t even know what the end goal should have been. So I kind of just forgot about the whole idea. However, every once in awhile I would see that some people would find the dead au and like it which got me thinking about it again. I decided to sort of reboot the AU and rewrite the story. I first made this AU when I first got into the tmnt fandom so seeing how my art and story telling skills evolve like this is really cool to me.

✨ROTTMNT Ghost AU✨

The Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Alternate Universe (ROTTMNT Ghost AU) Is a retelling of the aftermath of the ROTTMNT movie. Instead of being freed from the prison dimension and reuniting with his brothers, Leo dies shortly after being pulled out of the prison dimension and his family is unable to save him. Instead of ending up in the afterlife with Gram Gram and all of the other Hamato spirits, he ends up in some strange limbo.

The only thing in this vast nothingness is a tiny island with a tree and a little pond (that is there for plot purposes)

Meanwhile Leo’s family is having a hard time grieving the tragic loss of their Baby Blue. Raph won’t stop training (blaming himself for the death). Donnie, not aloud to where his battle shell as ordered by Casey, only wears the waited hoodie Leo gave him on their sixteenth birthday. He has also resigned to secluding himself in his lab.

Meanwhile Mikey is trying to find a way to at least talk to Leo no matter how much Casey and Draxum say he needs to rest after opening an interdental portal. He goes to the Mystic library for answers and ends up finding a Spell that lets him communicate with the dead, with that spell, he manages to communicate with Leo through his limbo. Now, Mikey is trying to find a way to fully resurrect his brother, so they can all be a family again.

References: (yay)

[trinoxtrinox]

Abbeyofcyn Colour in your style

Painting the lineart for this was really fun, and I really enjoyed doing it, even if I feel like I bit a bit more than I could chew at first, what with me wanting to do two different light sources XD

I also wanted to colour the lineart of this, however the results that I got aren't that good, so I'll be uploading two pieces, one without the lineart painted (the one I like more), and the one with the coloured lineart. Hope you like it everyone and @abbeyofcyn

Ok, now that the art is done, I have a lot to say about how I chose to color everything, but that could get long so I'll leave all of that under a read more, expand at your own risk XD

Allright, so first of all, a detail that I'm not sure many people will be able to catch in the first place. The flowers, I colored them in a specific way, because each of them represents a different person.

In here I added the flowers to represent each of the beings present on the art, Red for Raph, Light Blue for Leo, Purple for Donnie, Orange for Mickey, Dark blue for F!Leo, and finally Pink for the Krang; because the latest might not be present literally, but the sky and pink light clearly indicate that they're still a presence to be felt in the world.

In here we have the four turtles again, with the flowers being their respective colors. However, since all but one of them are cut, I chose to color them in what I believe the order they died in the bad future is. First is Raph, I doubt he'd let anyone die before him, so the single corner of a red petal goes to him, then Donnie goes next, hence why a petal and a bit of the center is the only thing that can be seen of him; and now we come to the first scene of the movie, which makes it so that Mikey is the next flower that's cut off, and finally Leo gets the only not cutt off flower, because he's still living here.

This are the last patch of flowers, and the reason why I colored them that way is because each of them represent a different person that's important for the turtles. The Green represent April's Ninpo, I wanted to add her and ther ninpo was the only way I could think of, and on the same vein, the white and black next to her are Splinter when he's on his Ninpo state at their final fight against Shredder. Below them there's the gray and sorta orange flowers, this time they both represent Splinter in his normal form, and yes I know I put him twice in there, he's their father, he deserves it XD

Finally there's the dark brown and gray flowers, these one represent Cassandra Jones and Cassey Junior, you can't argue that they end up being pretty important to the turtles, the first one helped them in the fight against Shredder, and the second one literally kickstarted the movie XD

Next thing to discuss is why I chose to have two different lightning sources and why they are what they are.

First is the Krang sky at the front, I chose this because I got inspired by this idea for the AU behind this lineart from Abbeyofcyn and wanted to continue said AU idea. My take and continuation is that even after the Magic Tie Portal that Mickey did to send Casey Jr. to the past exploded and send the Krang at the battlefield away (and considering how big the battlefield it was, it most likely killed or pushed away every single Krang at New York) and F!Leo got the Tots!Turtles, there were still enough living Krang around the world that are still ravaging the world, this time more out of spite than anything since they know the won and simply want to kick down a dead horse. F!Leo is going in that direction because he's aware that there are Krang still left, and the sad reality is that he can't shield the Tots!Turtles forever, but at least he should be able to train them and teach them everything he can, while also giving them the chance to have a childhood as well, similar to Casey Jr. but more chill.

F!Leo and Tots!Raph are the only ones facing the Krang light, and that's on purpose, the former because obviously he'll be the main force against the remnants of the Krang that are still on Earth, and the latter because no matter the form, Raph will always want to protect his siblings, and he ain't afraid to punch a few f them in the face to do so. Tots!Mikey meanwhile is in the backpack, being shielded from the Krang light, with it barely reaching him, and again, that's on purpose, everyone will want to protect him since he's the youngest, and the fact that he also will become the strongest Mystical Warrior the world will ever see again, and so F!Leo will try to teach him whatever he knows about Ninpo and the Mystic Powers, doing his best to shield him from the horrors of the Krang so that he can focus on learning Mystical Powers.

Tots!Leo and Tots!Donnie are giving their back to the Krang light, but that's not because they'll ignore the menace they represent, but rather because they're focusing on what's more important to them at the moment, for Tots!Leo is his twin brother and the shenanigans/drama he can get with him, while for Tots!Donnie is his curiosity and need to learn about the world around him (Also he's autistic and likes rocks, fight me XD). Leo here is shielding Donnie from the Krang's light, agan made on purpose, because he loves his twin too much and wants to protect him from the horrors, while also pulling his rope to bring him back to the present; Donnie meanwhile only has a little bit of Krang light on him, which is their looming threat that they represent for a great while, however they aren't the biggest thing occuping his mind, and thanks to his twin, he's able to not focus on them for a while to concentrate on more things that'll help everyone in the future; which brings me to...

The yellow light, which comes from the sun that's behind them, and considering how it's a yellow and not an orange one, the current time is morning and it's Dawn, the rise of a new day, new begginings and start for a new hope. It might seem like they're walking away from the light and into the Krang's side, however with this idea I had it's less that they're getting further away from the light, but rather bringing the light with them, illuminating everyone's path and pushing back against the Krang.

As you can see, everyone is bathed in the sun's light glow, however Tots!Donnie, Tots!Raph and Tots!Leo are the ones that are literally bathed in it, while F!Leo has his legs covered in it and Tots!Mikey only has sunlight on his head. Once again this is all on purpose, and I'll explain everyone's light position now :3

Tots!Raph, The sunlight is mostly on his shell, tail and arms, which is because he'll be in charge of protecting everyone's uture, and that sadly also means that he'll be bearing the heaviest burden out of his brothers, but that'll also means that when the burden is eventually lifted, he'll be the one that looks forwards the most.

F!Leo's future is uncertain, the sunlight covers only his legs completly because even if he's the guiding light of everyone's future, and no matter how much light he has on his back, shell, legs and arms; he's not covered in any of it beyond his role as a guide, so still uncertainty envelops him.

Tots!Mikey is literally being carried in a bag to the future, which again is because he's the youngest and the strongest mystical warior out of them, but he's also somewhat of a backup plan, his role will be less to guide anyone to the bright future and more ensure that no one gets left behind under the looming threat of the Krang, hence why he only has the sunlight on his face and he's not covered in it like his brothers.

Tots!Leo and Tots!donnie, the disaster twins, they both are encased in light because both of them will help create the brightest future as well, however Donnie is covering a half of Leo, not letting him be truly fully under the sunlight, and again, that's because while he protects his twin from the Krang, Leo is sacrificing part of his abilities to guide everyone else but his brother. Donnie meanwhile is literally encased in light, his face fully iluminated, and that's because with his smarts and creativity, he'll be the biggest reason that a brighter future will be created for Earth, his inventions carrying everyone towards it.

Finally, why I started with dry grass on the foreground and ended with green grass at the mountains on the horizon, and that's because even with their uncertain future, even though they are the guiding light that'll bring a new brighter future to the world, that doesn't mean that the world is at such a critical state that they literally can't be saved. There are still people out there, living in hiding, no matter how it seems from the start point, there's still life out there.

And that's all I wanted to say about how I painted it and why I did so, I had so much I wanted to say and, to anyone who bothers to read all of this, thanks for doing so, I put way too much thoughts into this ambitious for me painting, and I loved writing all of this down as well. See y'all in the future n.n

[dandylovesturtles]

Does the movie still happen in SideLines AU? \

Yes! Though it would be radically different and I haven't thought much about how exactly events would play out. Leo already got his character development, though, so someone else would be the driving force of the story. Probably Raph, or maybe Mikey?

Ooooo, actually, idea for a very Raph and Mikey centric movie plot: Mikey wants to prove himself but Raph keeps trying to protect him (because he has even more ptsd about not protecting his brothers with what happened to Leo) that they are the ones fighting in the beginning, and Raph's inability to trust Mikey is what leads to the key being stolen. And the way to win is for Raph and Mikey to reconcile their differences, with Raph acknowledging that Mikey is as strong as the rest of them and he needs to trust him, and Mikey acknowledging that his brother's help isn't meant to be a sleight but is there out of love.

I'd have to think about this a lot more to give you, like, a chain of events. I actually had a completely different answer ready for this and then thought of that while I was typing lol.

As for what I was going to say, while I'm not sure exactly how the movie events go down in Sidelined AU, I do have some idea of how it changes the bad future timeline.

By the point where the timelines diverge, Leo is recovered as fully as he ever will, able to walk around the lair most days and even go out on missions, provided he's careful and knows his limits. He still uses a range of mobility aids, given how he feels on any particular day, including the wheelchair for bad days or days where he knows he would be walking more than he could otherwise handle, but he's still relatively active.

The Krang invasion reverses a lot of this. As supplies dwindle, Leo starts suffering from malnutrition and a lack of sleep, and doesn't have access to medicine to help with the pain and fatigue, which takes a big toll on his body. Also, he really overdoes it and pushes himself too hard in the early days of the invasion, which accelerates his decline. By the time Casey is old enough to remember things, Leo is entirely wheelchair bound and doesn't often leave the base, only using his portals when he needs to to evacuate members of the resistance or help civilians.

He is still very much Master Leonardo - he's highly respected in the resistance, and anyone who wants to look down on him for his disability (or for being a turtle) either learns quickly or dies. However, he's not Casey's teacher in this timeline, instead leaving that to Raph and sometimes Donnie and Mikey. So Raph is Sensei now, and Leo is Master Leonardo or just Uncle Leo.

Leo takes over most of the care of Casey after his mom dies, since he's always at base, only sometimes sending Casey to Donnie or another adult when he's particularly busy (he's still the guy in the chair here, and also handles a lot of the day to day running of the resistance). Sometime early on, Donnie builds Leo a new chair that either hovers or has some other way of mitigating rough terrain (spider arms maybe?), and he frequently lets Casey ride on it. Even as Casey gets older, hanging off Leo's chair as they move around the base is second nature to him.

Casey was so used to Leo only being in his chair he was a little shocked on coming back to the past and seeing that Leo walks fairly frequently. He also grabbed onto Leo's chair sometimes out of habit, which made younger Leo tense up initially; something they eventually work through as they get closer.

Though all four turtles make it longer in the invasion than I usually headcanon (since I usually think of Raph as dying while CJ was too young to really remember him), they do still die, and Leo is the first to go. Casey is about 11 or 12 when this happens. When the Krang finds their base while the others are gone, Leo tells Casey he loves all of them and then portals him and the other non-combatants to safety, giving his all to hold the Krang back and give them a chance to escape. After that, Raph (who was already close to Casey anyway as his teacher and another of his uncle-dads) took over as the main adult looking out for him, and started taking him out on missions.

I'm not sure what happens next but I think it's Donnie who goes next, and then Raph and Mikey's deaths playing out the same way Leo and Mikey did in the movie. Especially since that goes with what I was saying above: Raph in the future comes to see and accept Mikey as an equal rather than someone to baby, foreshadowing what their relationship will become under happier circumstances.

Thanks for the ask!

[honeydisiacc]

how i imagine the rise turtles play minecraft:

mikey is the builder for surreeeee

raph plays minecraft with auto jump (it makes donnie mad)

leo leaves creeper holes like this:

mikey builds the most gorgeous starter base. with stone tools

mikey doesnt even live in it :/

he lives in a CAVE.

raph lives in it instead

donnie likes speedrunning. offered to make a nether portal the fast way but leo goes "mining go brrr"

leo then proceeds to fuck up the portal

their portal stays looking like this the entire time

leo, despite being a silly boy in minecraft, can and will raid the ancient city

he once dragged raph with him into the ancient city. they accidentally spawned 4 wardens

someone spelled "PENIS" with pink petals in spawn. no one knows who put it there

it was raph. raph put it there

donnie leaves crafting tables EVERYWHERE. it drives mikey INSANE.

"don't mine at night 🎶 i know you're looking at that cave— oh hi creeper!—" (distant explosion sound)

"huh. i wonder why leo died. in minecraft"

i like minecraft and turtles. add more if you'd like

[natka-here-for-comics]

Chapter 1 of Hollow out passing enternety (H.O.P.E.)"Leo's nightmare dream"

Master post ✨

2. Chapter

(quick note: all of the events are happening after the movie)

- After the fight with the krang aliens the turtles help Casey move in with April.

- Everyone that got hurt got treatment,but something felt awfully wrong...

- It felt too quiet, too tense ,too blank ,too empty...

- Everyone needed a break from everything so the turtles all went to their rooms.

xxx

- After a few days things started to get better not actually but noone said anything even Mikey was suspiciously quiet

- So one day Mikey decided to make lunch hopping to get someone to open up,but it was too quiet,too awfully quiet again.

- Until Mikey asked "Is anyone enjoying the food,I made?",Leo looks at him with tired eyes says trying to ack calm "Sure."mumbling to himself "So, you're just going to pretended like nothing happened?"and looks down.

...

- It didn't change anything the awkward silence wasn't gone

- Mikey looked down trying to hide in his shell,it was too awkward...too awfully awkward....

- Raph looked at Mikey like he wanted to say something,but ultimately saying nothing.

- It was too awkward, someone needed to say something again.

- Donnie trying to for the first time in a long while lighten up the mood he took a deep breath, trying to break the awkward silence and saying

"I'm going to my room.", slowly standing up, turning around and going to his room.

- Everyone was looking worriedly at Donnie except Leo that was too tired to even look up , right after Donnie leaves the room Leo uncomfortably calmly says "Im also going to my room."

- Now it was just Mikey and Raph in the kitchen it wasn't too awkwardly anymore, well that was at least a start.

- Raph a few minutes after Leo leaves the room says to Mikey"It's getting late, you should go to sleep.",Mikey pops out his head out of his shell and saying"Sure,but only if you go to bed too!",

Dr. Delicate touch is still doing their job hah.

- Raph agree's and goes to bed, Mikey doesn't keeps his word and goes to his room to draw until he's too tired sleep.

xxx

- After Leo went to his room he fell on his head and immediately fallen asleep.

- As Leo closed his eyes the room around him started to disappear.

- He was in the prison dimension re - liveing the same day of the invasion.

- The krang alien was beating Leo saying "I'll get that grin of your face!","YOU'RE the reason why my plan failed!".....

- Leo was calm like he was used to it already, mumbling annoyed "Not this again."

- The portal opened but on the other side were his brothers, laughing, joking, having fun, without HIM.....

- Leo was just standing there looking at his brother's having fun without him, without his annoying presence

- It was wrong, but he felt like he deserved it.

- The room replayed the day when he lost the key

- How fullish he was,how irresponsible he was.

- Leo starts to regret it

- Everything turns black and an intimidating voice says to Leo

"YOU ruined everything!"

"YOU almost killed them by being your irresponsible self!"

"YOU don't deserve to be happy!"

"YOU don't deserve to be safe with your brothers when you almost killed them!"

"YOU deserve to be stuck in the prison dimension for the rest of your life!"

"YOU should've died!"

- Leo starts to sob falling to the ground saying

"I deserved it."

"They would be much happier without me!"

"Why!?"

"Why did Mikey have to save me instead of leaving me in the prison dimension,like I deserved!?!?"

- Leo stops talking now fully crying curled up on the ground,as he slowly wakes up to reality sleeping on his bed safe,with his brothers he didn't deserve it.

[opossumloverr]

✞°•I DON'T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS•°✞

(Based on this song, I know you know this song. don't lie to me)

Summary:

Turtle bros with a ghost reader!

Warning(s):

Some cursing!

A/N:

I MUST BE DREAMING CAUSE I DON'T BELIEVE IN GHOST YEAH, sorry, anyways, idk I just felt a little silly today, and I really do love this song. also I'm trying a different style DONT BULLY ME IT TOOK ME LIKE AN HOUR TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO GRADIENT

It was a chilly October night, the leaves rustled as the four brothers made their way towards an abandoned graveyard. The atmosphere was dark and gloomy, but they were determined to explore the area, for reasons unknown to anyone but themselves.

"I don't like this, guys. Let's turn back," the youngest brother, Mikey, shivered.

"What? No way! You said you were bored, Mikey. This is exactly what we need to get our blood pumping!" another brother exclaimed.

"He was bored, Leo, not us. You didn't have to drag us all here," one of the brothers groaned in annoyance.

"Sorry that Mr. Bootyshaker9000 wanted to stay indoors and rot. I'm preventing the inevitable!" Leo clapped back.

"I'm trying to prevent hitting you with my Tech Bo," Donnie gripped his weapon tighter.

"Try it, you won't," Leo egged Donnie on.

"You little…" Donnie scowled, lifting his weapon before getting interrupted.

"Enough! Fighting is not the memo right now! Now you two cut it out or else I'll…wait, what was that?" the oldest brother paused on his scolding to scope out the area. A pungent smell of perfume floated in the air, and chills went down their spines.

"I'm getting really bad vibes here! I told you we should've gone back to the lair!" Mikey exclaimed.

"Don't be such a party pooper, Mike! It's probably all in our heads," Leo tried to come up with a reasonable explanation, but a gust of wind shut off all of his thoughts.

"What was that?!" Raph exclaimed.

"It's a ghost!" Mikey chattered.

"That is preposterous, Michael. There is no such thing as a ghost-"

"No, he's right."

They all screamed in unison, clinging onto Raph. "AH!"

《RAPH》

After the shock and some failed punching attempts, he finally decided to talk instead of fight, and it was a delightful conversation

yall sat down and talked for hours, He asked a few questions, and you answered them

he made sure not to ask personal questions, like how you died and stuff (unlike Donnie, that insensitive prick)

was kinda sad when he had to go, but gotta make sure pops doesn't worry,

he promises he'll see you again

a few weeks later you show up in his room, sitting down calmly on his bed, or, erm, floating.

he threw multiple items at you before calming down and realizing that it was you, what were you doing here? how did you know where he lives?

all of those questions were brushed off when he heard that you just wanted to see him, and only him.

his heart pounded in his plastron, you wanted to see him? big ol' him? cue huge tail thumping into the ground

yall talked for HOURS, him talking about Lou Jitsu- wait, you've never watched Lou Jitsu? he's inviting you to family movie night. there's no getting out of this.

over the months, the both of you got close, he no longer throws objects or tries to throw hands when he sees you!

enjoys the company when he lifts weights

"Wow, those seem heavy," you said, impressed by his muscles as he lifted the weights. 

"They are heavy, but don't worry, Raph's got gains!" he replied, flexing his muscles with a curl-up. 

"Can I try?" you asked, reaching out your hands. 

"Sure, but be careful. I'll be here to spot ya!" he said, passing the weights to you. 

However, you forgot that you were transparent and accidentally dropped the weights on his tail, causing him to scream in pain. 

"Oops! I forget I'm transparent sometimes... You just make me feel so alive..." you said sheepishly. 

"I-I make you feel alive?" he questioned, seemingly forgetting the intense pain in his tail.

HES SOSOSO SILLY GUYS I CAN'T

《LEO》

He had never sliced a portal open this fast

before he could dive head-first into his portal you floated in front of it

you just wanted to talk... okay... but he's keeping a close eye on you

a few minutes later he's blabbing about Jupiter Jim to you, you've never watched it? what? do you live under a rock? or... a grave...

and you seem so interested! he could talk about it for hours! you know he could.

he literally clung onto the ground when it was time to leave, complaining as Raph dragged him away

he shouted a quick "See you soon"

he saw you soon alright, in his room, looking at his pile of Jupiter Jim comics curiously

He literally screamed like a girl

Oh! it's just you... where did you come from? oh, you just wanted to see him, not his brothers? him?

boosts up his ego by 100x

"I knew you couldn't get enough of me" type of energy

proceeds to yap about Jupiter Jim some more, what? it's YOUR fault for indulging in his hyperfixations

yall are the talker and listener duo

"And so Jupiter Jim was all like- pew pew pew! and the aliens were all like- Ohno! and then- hey, hey [NAME], are ya listening?" He questioned,

"Mhm, go on, I'm all ears"

Leo's eyes widened, and small churrs could be heard "OKOK! And then Jupiter Jim was all like, no way jose!"

He just like me fr

《DONNIE》

There is no logical way this could be happening! ghosts? really?

immediately started asking questions, why do you exist? how do you exist? would you perhaps be interested in some experiments, y'know, for scientific purposes (definitely not for his own personal questions)

his questions just kept on coming and coming, some of them being more insensitive than the last, he would've said more if Raph didn't smack him on top of the head...

but you were happy to answer them non the less

when they had to skedaddle he was pissed, how dare they interrupt! can't you see there was science in the making?

he says he'll come to you, for more questions of course, nothing more... (cap)

he didn't expect you to come to him.

he jumped a little but then started going into his "I ask you, answer" mode

Experiments on you (with consent ofc)

discovers you have telekinesis

you two grew close, his experiments died down the more he learned about you

now, he just really enjoys the company

just knowing that you're there watching him while he tackles a project gets him so motivated

you're like his little assistant

"[NAME], be a dear and pass me that wrench over there," he asks, hand out, palm open,

"You got it boss" you floated the wrench toward him, and he grabbed it

"Thank you, you really are a great help, [NAME]"

"Just glad to be here Don-tron!" you smiled, not noticing the slight wag to his tail.

He really appreciates you

《MIKEY》

He just kept screaming and screaming until you snapped him out of it

what? why aren't you trying to take his body? and why aren't you freakishly creepy, you just looked like a normal person, minus the floating and transparency

Oh, you just wanted to talk? well, as long as you don't possess his body he's all for it!

The conversation was amazing! he got so much more information about ghosts, he's even more fixated on them now!

you got this turtle laying on the ground, twirling his mask tails in his fingers, kicking his feet, saying "Ooh! Tell me more!"

was whining like a puppy dog when he had to get up on out of there, puppy dog eyes did not work in his favor tonight..

he swears up and down that he will visit you, just wait!

I guess you've waited long enough, because the following week you were caught snooping around his room

he screamed, yes, he won't lie.

but it's not his fault that you popped up out of nowhere!

then starts talking to you like he didn't scream like 100 decibels

Just yip yap yapping away, but you don't mind, you enjoy socializing with him

kinda sad that he can't touch you though, sometimes he wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around you

you're his muse! asks you to pose for him, and you happily oblige

"Okay just keep that position, right there, perfect! such an amazing muse for me!" He smiles,

"Well, it's easy to pose when I have such a wonderful artist painting me" You replied,

"Awe shucks, don't compliment me like that! you're going to give me an ego" he chirps happily

lala and okok duo. that's all I have to say.

BOO! HAPPY NEW YEARS GUYS OMGOMG 2024 IS HOPEFULLY GONNA BE A GREAT YEAR, HERES A LIL DITTY I WROTE, I HOPE YA LIKE IT, IM GETTING ON MY GRIND RIGHT NOW, I love ya! Merry 24, also I was watching Coryxkenshin while writing, shout out to the shogun. There also MIGHT be some grammar mistakes, kinda rushed to get this out

[nom-noms-things]

Okay so fic recommendations from me! Also absolutely no t*cst some of you are ew

Crossovers and 2012 fics

When the world crumbles - by Starryeyedace3/@tmnt-obsessed-ace (if you are uncomfortable with getting tagged then please tell me)

Quick explanation: 2012 and rise crossover which the 2012 kraang do another Invasion and the boys go through the portal to get to dimension x but they get to the rise dimension and leonardo is going through it

Sunshine of the woods - again by Starryeyedace3 or their tumblr name

Quick explanation: rise!mikey gets sent into the 2012 dimension in early season 3 and the boys will help him get back home when they get back to New York

Lost but never found - again by Starryeyedace3 or the same tumblr name

Quick explanation: 2012!Leonardo gets sent into the rise dimension and gets amnesia and rise leo quickly becomes his new friend and basically wants to protect him

They also have another au called same story different font in their blog check it out!

The algae is always greener on the other side - by ObsidianCreates on ao3/@obsidiancreates (if you are uncomfortable with getting tagged then please tell me)

Quick explanation: crossover between rise and 2012 and they watch their own shows that's basically it

The last ronin becomes a discord admin - by MelonPalooza/@melonpalooza (if you feel uncomfortable with getting tagged please tell me)

Quick explanation: ronin becomes a discord admin and 2012, 2003 and rise are there too its just a silly discord fic

Wedding bells and magic portals - again by MelonPalooza

Quick explanation: capriltello wedding and rapmona have babies that are gonna hatch, then a portal thing happens and they are in the rise dimension

We are infinite - by celestron_oOo on ao3!

Quick explanation: 2012!leo gets sent to the rise dimension and meets his counterpart but it's good! Also gram-gram training!

The question is violence and the answer is pizza - by anonymous on ao3!

Quick explanation: 2012!donnie makes a group chat with rise because he lost a bet and then he quickly realizes that making the group chat was a good thing, also 2012 crew are like parental figures for rise

Sunset linings - by @iamheretemporarly (if you are uncomfortable with being tagged please tell me)

Quick explanation: 2012 boys have to defuse the mutagen bomb but get sent into ronin's dimension

Shredder's Vendetta - by Cass_Phoenix on ao3!

Quick explanation: super shredder tries to posses leon and the 2012 boys help him and his brothers to get rid of super shredder

Two souls - by virgilisspidey on ao3! Also in tumblr

Quick explanation: 2012! Leo fucking dies in his own dimension and is now a parental/brother/mother figure and only rise!leo can see him, he renamed himself aoi, also they sometimes rewrite some of the rise episodes with aoi in them!

Now to the non crossover fics! 2012 time!

Fusions - by AmevelloBlue on ao3!

Quick explanation: after the episode of plan 10 a weird device appears and I just love this idea

What is wrong with me - by averie_sol on ao3!

Quick explanation: 2012!Leonardo has autism (just like me frrr) and is transfem, also aprilnardo!!!

Deadweight - by MorikoTheHalfAngel on ao3!

Quick explanation: 2012 season 3 fix it fic where Leo's healing is more realistic its good!

Breaks And Cracks In The Surface - by Deiohx on ao3!

Quick explanation: another season 3 fix-it-fic!

Fuse box - by alltheyears on ao3!

Quick explanation: leonardo centric but his brothers are worried about him

Terminator - by KawaiiNinja on ao3!

Quick explanation: mikey's T-phone gets accidentally mutated and sends the boys to the among us game, also this is after season 4 (also it has a lot of violence)

The shock of victory - by sailor_the_robot on ao3!

Quick explanation: they get back to the lair after beating super shredder, raph helps leo get the blood off

Ashes - by sklyully on ao3!

Quick explanation: timeline takes place at "follow the leader" but it's with leonardo almost dying, read it! It's good!

All that bends also breaks - by runen on ao3!

Quick explanation: leonardo with ptsd and trauma almost dies in the lair if he didn't call mikey, so basically leonardo tries to heal himself

Never love an anchor - by ILOVEDYOULIKETHESUN

Quick explanation: 2012 season 1 finale which leonardo almost drowns if the brothers didn't save her, also uses she/he Pronouns!

Blah Blah Blah - by WhaleSharkPrince on ao3!

Quick explanation: I know the name of the fic is missliding but the fic is very angsty and uh I cried yes, also leo uses she/her Pronouns! Uh hahah yeah..where's the tissues

Fearless leader - by Evesbese on ao3!

Quick explanation: after splinter passed away leo just suggest they go to the farmhouse and uh the others and him are not taking it very well

Where it all began - by @probably-not-a-rutabaga on tumblr and their ao3 is TinyPotato02

Quick explanation: I don't wanna explain the whole fic so I'll just say that splinter raised leo as a soldier instead of a son and told him to ignore his brothers

Late night conversations (In a Bathroom from the 1980s) - by hopefullysimple on ao3!

Quick explanation: the brothers are just chatting in the bathroom and share childhood memories

Drifting away - by fireworksinthenight on ao3!

Quick explanation: follow the leader episode fic!! A lot of self doubt, depression and wating to not lead anymore, leonardo just goes through a hard time

So yeah I'm a dad now - by RavagedRed on ao3!

Quick explanation: 2012!raph becomes a dad to a 4 year old girl who got mutated into a turtle tot and her name is Lita

New Stars (happy hearts) by Tirayed on ao3!

Quick explanation: transfem leo fic! She tells raph first and gets so scared to tell the others but they're just happy they have a sister, also!! Leo's knee injury!

Whoa this took so long and I just love those fics!

Now I'm gonna go and take a snack goodbye! <33

[callmehere-iwillappear]

rec list (last updated: 10/22/23)

aka 'if you liked [cmh] you might also like [insert other really good fic here]' bc there are So Many amazing fics out there good lird

few things. first off if you see a disaster twins bias no you don't. second i tried to find all the authors' tumblrs but there were some i couldn't - if you know any of the ones i missed let me know!

aaand third, there are just. SO many good fics i ended up splitting things up. this is the rec post for multi chapter fics, here's the one shot rec post

Multichapter Fics

Complete

A Twin Thing (@minumi-chan)

Four times Donatello rejects Leo's notion of them being twins, and the once (and future) time he embraces it.

GOD THE TWINS EVER.... funny in parts but also hurts in the best possible way and thankfully has a happy ending to soothe the pain. i literally love them so much

Because We Could Not Stop For Death (@turtleinsoup)

After Leo dies, Donnie builds an android of his twin. After Leo dies, he comes back. He does. And Donnie will not ever let him go again.

very very very very VERY heavy please mind the warnings but god. god. another take on the 'leo dies in the prison dimension' concept that btw WILL make you cry. like a lot. absolutely incredible study of grief. i am never going to be the same person after reading this

coming right on back for you (@taizi)

Rise!Mikey’s portal in the prison dimension takes Leo a little bit farther than he meant for it to. 12!Mikey finds a familiar-looking stranger.

soooo full disclosure i haven't actually watched 2012 tmnt. that said even without that, this fic rules. incredibly soft and heartwarming. i love them

Corrupted Upgrade (@dandylovesturtles)

His brothers think they don't need him anymore? Well, fine. He doesn't need them either. The old Donatello is gone. He'll build a new one. One that will make them regret they ever threw him aside. Building things is what he's good at, after all.

i can't say too much without spoiling the twist, but oh MAN guys it's real good. come get your donnie hurt/comfort juice rn. also for a hurt/comfort fic it has NO RIGHT being so funny so often

Dimensions Apart & Home Again

"Who said I'm hiding?" Leo scoffs. Normally he wouldn't take such a sharp tone, but he's tired and not in the mood for what he feels to be an interrogation in his own bedroom. "You all know where I am. I live here, remember?" “Yeah, very funny. And you know where we live. But nobody's seen you for two weeks.”

ooohhh post movie hurt/comfort my beloved... leo is isolating and donnie kicks his ass. metaphorically. mostly. meanwhile raph and mikey are also having a certified Bad Time but it's okay they all get comfort by the end

Havoc, Thy Name is Donnie

Donnie accidentally turns himself into a child while experimenting with mystic power. It's cute until Donnie gets his hands on his older self's tech and then it's really uncute and Leo and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. are having a heart attack.

child donnie is an absolute MENACE and it's INCREDIBLE. terrorizes leo. terrorizes shelldon. terrorizes some random criminals. terrorizes april. terrorizes draxum. all in the course of a single day. 12/10

how to get very good at juggling (@radishhqueen)

The Krang invasion put a couple of things in perspective for April. One of them was how much she wanted her parents to meet the Hamatos. The only difficult part is…getting her parents to meet the Hamatos.

the turtles meet april's parents! it goes... about as well as can be expected. REALLY good april centric post movie fic

little kid with a big death wish (@remedyturtles)

Leo's mind rebelled against the sensation. The heaviness burst into awareness, body, limbs, lungs, blinking. The middle distance he'd apparently been staring in focused. Leo was awake. Leo was aware. Leo was alive. Being alive wasn't something he thought he'd be.

genuinely don't think i could ever recommend this fic enough. mind the warnings as it does get very heavy but. god. idk how to express how much this fic means to me in just a few sentences but like. you'll understand if you read it (also for. an actual summary: post movie recovery fic with a side of extra leo)

Nothing Haunts Us (like the things we don't say)

The boys learn the hard way that truths can hurt. Well, some of them.

truth spellllll you love to see it! lotta post movie angst + some good comfort at the end + bonus the boys actually being emotionally vulnerable and talking about their issues (even if it's not 100% by choice)

Trial and Error (@apatheticrobots)

Leo ends up in the past. This changes some things.

YES the healing (well. eventually).... big fan of the leos' dynamic in this one. also that One Scene (the one with the animatic. if you know you know) gives me goosebumps EVERY time good god

Unfinished business

When one dies leaving something undone, there's a belief, that they do not go gentle into that good night. They linger on until they've finished what they couldn't while alive. And for four turtles, that business is using the Poltergeist movie as inspiration.

bad future ending but make it HILARIOUS. tldr the future turtles haunt the SHIT out of the krang. that's all i'm giving you because that's all you should need. they fucking rick roll them. please

Use Only For Intended Purpose (me!)

That's probably not how mind melds are supposed to work.

sorry for reccing my own fic do you still love me /j BUT FR if you like post movie disaster twins hurt/comfort with a side of dream sharing. i got u

Where in the World is Neon Leon?

Leo practices portalling on his own. This is not a good idea for many, many reasons.

set over the course of the show + the movie! aka leo trying so so hard to be seen as reliable and getting incredibly fucked up over it. also making new friends

write this down on my headstone (it wasn't what i hoped for) (@bottledovercast)

it’s as he drifts listlessly through the cold-as-shit hellscape that leo’s willing to admit, maybe this wasn’t what raph meant. aka: i do not believe for one second that there were No Problems in between getting leo out of the prison dimension and the final scene of the movie.

i genuinely do not know how to do this one justice with words. it's written impeccably and the hurt/comfort is just. chefs kiss. please read it (+ has a sequel now that's also absolutely incredible!)

In progress

At My Worst (@teainthesnow)

Future Leo ends up back in time, stuck in the body of his younger self, who is still conscious but trapped within his mind.

genuinely LOVE this concept like there's a lot of (really good) future leo goes back in time fics but i'm pretty sure this is the only one i've read with them sharing a body? god the dynamic is. SO good. one of my fave future leo + present leo dynamics ever tbh. just. chefs kiss

I May Be Invisible, But I Still Look Good (@dandylovesturtles)

Leo is cursed by a mystic whatever thingy. But don't worry guys, he's totally got this! Getting back into his body? Easy peasy. (He hopes it will be easy peasy.)

will smith poses fellow ghost(ish) leo fic my beloved! ngl this one kinda has a special place in my heart so i May be biased BUT even aside from that it's just. so good. the premise is so interesting and it's written super well and in character and also i would like to give leo a hug PLEASE GOOD GOD

I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? (@tangledinink)

When Hamato Yoshi is presented with the chance to return to the surface with his sons and give them a 'normal' life as humans, he takes it. He didn't think that they would forget about that whole turtle thing. But it seems kind of too late to tell them now. Surely they won't find out any other way, right?

human au! ... kind of. actually brooches au but they THINK they're human which is fine until, y'know, it's not. currently in the 'not' part of the fic and it's just going really great for everyone! you love to see it

In Which Donnie and Leo Make Themselves Everyone Else's Problem in an NYC That Isn't Even Their Own

It was a huge mistake on the Kraang's part to kidnap the wrong half of the wrong set of brothers and leave behind two very worried twins. And not just any twins. The disaster twins.

another crossover with 12tmnt which. again i have not seen, but like. this fic is just. REALLY good. it's set pre movie so there's not that trauma, it's literally just the twins fucking the 12 kraang up and living up to their nickname while the 12 turtles (and rise mikey and raph) look on in horror

i think i would prefer the prison dimension (@purplecatghostposts)

Leo gets sent to the Kraang Apocalypse Future that he really didn’t want to think about. Future Leo, Mikey, and Donnie are absolutely baffled by him. Nobody is happy.

you've heard of future leo in the present, now get ready for: present leo in the future! he gets dragged into the apocalypse instead of getting pulled out of the prison dimension back to his brothers and boy he is, understandably, Not Thrilled!

Last Grain of Sand in the Hourglass (@last-hourglass)

The one where the Hamato family is freaking the fuck out, Leo is lost in the Prison Dimension, and a very-time-displaced Leonardo refuses to leave his younger self behind. (Oh, and there may be some mystic hauntings afoot. You know, the usual result of messing with the space-time continuum.)

future leo gets saved while present leo stays in the prison dimension! there's A Lot going on in this one and half of it is BIG spoilers but just. oh my god. this shit is SO well written i am eating it

Mikey's Jam-Packed, Guaranteed to Get Donnie's Memory Back, Friendship Tour!

Donnie wakes up without his memory one day and everyone panics. They're just going to have to jog his memory the old-fashioned way! Through the power of friendship! [And a small (I was wrong. A very large) degree of violence and shenanigans]

donnie gets amnesia and SO SO MANY shenanigans ensue. also a tiny bit of angst but it's fine

Minor Interference (@bambiraptorx)

The turtles accept Draxum's offer to train them. Little does he know that they're only going to use it mess with him.

haha draxum accidental dad moments... well okay not entirely just yet but he's getting there! the turtles are PEAK teenager literally just causing problems on purpose and it's incredible

Mutant Ninja Midlife Crisis (@mutantninjamidlifecrisis)

In the midst of attempting to make peace with his death at the hands of the Krang, Master Leonardo is suddenly yeeted over two decades into the past, courtesy of his little brother.

YEAAHHH another future leo fic! mans gets dropped into the past and IMMEDIATELY kidnapped and brainwashed so things are going great (it's fine he gets better. you know how it is)

odd man out (@threestripeslider)

The one where Future!Leo somehow managed to luck out on a one in a million mere millisecond chance of a freak glitch in the space-time continuum that sends him back into the present, where the Invasion has been successfully driven back. And it looks like it was a one-way ticket travel.

DAD FUTURE LEO MY BELOVED.... he really took one look at these kids and said is anyone else gonna give them a third (3) dad and did not wait for an answer. also big fan of casey's high school adventures LMAO

Power Up

Leo also gets healing hands like his 2k12 counterpart. Sadly, they end up backfiring on him. Who needs to know though?

leo taking 'it's not about me' to the extreme. good god please get this kid some therapy and self worth. the AGONIES

The Lemonade Leak (@turtleinsoup)

The one in which Leo can’t sleep without his swords, because there is a monster in his room, pretending to be Donnie.

oh man. oh MAN. legit one of my fave fics out there. i'm not usually a big thriller person but this one GETS ME + the way the author writes the different perspectives is just. chefs kiss. genuinely has me on the edge of my seat every single update

The Neon Void

Five years. It's been five years. Hamato Leonardo was back. But he was no longer who he once was.

krangified leo! ... sort of. absolutely delicious angst and also i want to rattle leo's brothers. TALK TO EACH OTHER

Three-Sided Coin (@leglessstreetlights)

Highly self-indulgent fic where I put Leo, Future!Leo, and TurtleTot!Leo in the same room until they hug

what the description says! room is a bit of a stretch and present leo is fresh out of the prison dimension So There's That. some really sweet moments in this one though. tiny leo my beloved

this year we lost our dear brother leonardo

The aftermath of the Krang, and of pulling Leo out of the portal. 90% comfort and silly banter.

this is a series not a single wip but i'm saying it counts because i love it a lot. hope this helps <3 yeah what it says on the tin. immediately post movie family hours you love to see it

Times Five

Leo gets struck by a mystic beam that splits him into five parts of himself; literally.

god the TWIST. still losing my mind over it. the whole thing honestly. lotta dealing with leo's complicated emotions about the invasion and himself, really really good tbh

Write Me Well, My Love, Write Me Weird

When stories start popping up on various media outlets of the Turtleman, New York Cities own personal cryptid, most of the world shrugged. To the citizens of New York? fear, excitement, adoration for this odd and lovable creature. Everyone is quick to share stories and memories of their encounters, much to lament of Turtleman's older brother.

leo and donnie get spotted by humans (more than once) and said humans post about it on social media, as humans tend to do. raph is Not Thrilled. angst (and eventual comfort) ensues

[obsidiancreates]

OKAY THE PROMISED REINCARNATION AU

As I said, I read a fic with 2012 boys having died and reincarnated into the Rise universe and adopted by the Rise boys and it gave me IDEAS so anyway

So I want Max Angst when the 2012 boys remember their past lives. I don't know exactly when they died, but I'm having Monster Arc and Heart of Evil and stuff be canon, but not Mutant Apocalypse. Again, not sure how/when they died to make this possible. But it WAS before they turned 20.

They're reincarnated as lil' babies, just tiny lil' guys. They're born to a normal turtle but uh, they aren't normal turtles, so the owner of their turtle freaks out and puts them in a box in a random alleyway. And then, as luck would have it, Señor Hueso opens Run of the Mill one day to find a box of small mutant baby turtles. With a deep sigh, he takes the box inside, feeds them some veggies, and calls up Leo.

"Ah, Pepino, none of you or your brothers have had any... flings lately, have you? No? Well, I ask because a box of baby turtles were in front of the door today-"

He's not even finished with the sentence before a portal opens up and all four Rise boys (probably early to mid twenties in ages) and Splints tumble out. Splints grabs the box, looks inside, and says "We'll take them!"

"That was easier than I thought."

They order some pizzas while there, of course, and get to know these tiny babies while they wait. They all seem to be the same species of turtle, and all the same age.

Now in the fic I read each Rise Boy raised their counterpart, which is great, but it could also be cool for them to be raised by their non-counterparts too? Like I could see 2012 Raph having been raised by Rise Mikey and 2012 Leo being raised by Rise Donnie? I think for this we'll have their own counterparts raise them but food for thought, let me know what other Father-Son pairings you'd do personally.

Anyway for the rest of this I'll be referring to Rise as Raphie, Leon, Angelo, and Donald, and 2012 as their usual nicknames.

Raphie holds the second smallest baby and coos at him, wiggling a finger over his face and watching the way the baby tracks it with beady little eyes. None of them seem to have irises or sclera at first, but Donald says it could just look like that because they're so young, the same thing happens with kittens who've just opened their eyes. As Raphie coos over the baby and waves his finger around, the baby scrunches up his face and starts to cry! Raphie panics for a second, but Splints shows him how to properly cradle the baby and soon lil' Raph is asleep.

Yes, they name their sons after themselves, Because They Would Do That, but also because Splints kept accidentally calling the babies those names anyway and they didn't want to confuse the little guys too much.

Donald holds baby Donnie up like he's examining a peculiar invention for a bit, and baby Donnie just smiles at him and makes baby sounds. After a bit of examining Donald cradles Donnie in one of the battle shell's robot arms and begins softly singing a little Dewey Decimal System rap he made up and baby Donnie slowly falls asleep as well.

Angelo is just gushing over this cute little baby and making all the silly faces, and baby Mikey is giggling and babbling non-stop, reaching up and lightly slapping Angelo's face with his lil' baby hands and it is The Cutest Ever! Angelo's heart is stolen and it sets the path for Mikey to be So Spoiled in the future.

Leon holds the last baby, a quiet and calm little guy who's just staring at him. He's a little creeped out, to be honest, and nothing he's doing to make the baby laugh is working. Then Hueso brings over the pizzas, and Leon grins and says "We'll need 'em, raising these guys is going to leave us, uh bone tired." And maybe it's the voice he uses or the cocky grin but that finally makes baby Leo laugh! And Leon's heart melts because the baby likes puns this is perfect.

So they take them home and bam! Four sons now! April is hanging out with Casey and Casey Jr when she gets the text "YOU'RE AN AUNT NOW!" and of course this makes her very concerned so all three of them head right for the lair and they enter to find Draxum on the couch with a book on child development, Splints playing peek-a-boo with a single bassinet full of four baby turtles, and the four brothers all eating as Draxum tosses out little snippets of advice from book and they all nod.

"Where'd you get those?" April says, pointing at the bassinet.

"Someone left them outside of Run of the Mill? Can you believe it? Four perfect little angels and someone didn't want them!" Angelo coos. At that moment baby Raph starts crying again, frustrated by the peek-a-boo game (and a little scared that Splints keeps disappearing).

Anyway, the four are raised as brothers and not cousins because non-nuclear family structures for the win, and it's great! They're all a little more well-adjusted than their past selves were. Raph's anger issues are taken more seriously and Angelo and Raphie talk with him a lot about it and help him find ways to manage it. Donnie feels way less insecure/resentful of being a mutant because he grows up around humans and mutants alike this time and goes out to the surface way sooner, and as we all know it's a lot easier to pass as humans with very little effort in the Rise world. Mikey's ADHD is like, taken seriously and everyone knows he's not dumb, just impulsive and has trouble paying attention (sometimes though he just chooses to be a little shit and they still get mad at him for those times).

I actually think Leo will end up the most The Same, just because his drive to be perfect/severity/endless pressure on himself doesn't really start until after he's made Leader in 2012, before that he seems mostly normal (for a teenage mutant ninja turtle anyway).

Wow this was meant to be an angst AU but Baby Cuteness got to me. Well I'll put the angst under a Read More I guess so y'all who don't want it can just have this happiness.

So when they're about 15, they start feeling more restless. They have a lot of fun with their family, but they haven't done much of the hero stuff. Their dads have tried to keep it to a minimum (it can never be Zero for them, but they have a strict "Let us get our kids home or at least ignore them while they hide" policy with the villains and most of them, like Warren and Hypno, don't mind and totally oblige and yes this is partly because The Rise Boys are intimidating parents and partly because why would they beat up an eight-year-old?)

So they've been minorly involved in some fights, but gosh, they're just kids. Their dads remember how fun it was to fight bad guys at their age, but also how damaging it was in the long run. And for the most part, their sons have been fine with it. They've gone a few minor fights here and there, even have a nemesis of their own (Hypno and Warren adopted a yokai girl, some kind of bird I think, and she's the most pompous person alive, their fights are never intense though because her dads are also protective) and it's been fine.

But it's like a switch flips, and suddenly they're constantly itching to go out. Suddenly Raph's having trouble remembering his anger management methods. Suddenly Mikey's acting up more than usual. Suddenly Donnie's patience is paper-thin. Suddenly Leo's being bossy and demanding of his brothers.

Well, "suddenly" isn't quite right. It's slow, but it definitely starts on their 15th birthday. And it just keeps getting worse.

And they're having nightmares. Lots of them. Donald rushes into Donnie's room one night after hearing screaming to find Donnie clutching his arm to his chest and sobbing incoherently about needing to find Mikey and Raph because he's after them, but come morning when Donald asks all Donnie can remember is "Something big hit me, and I knew they weren't safe either."

One night Leon hears a crash and runs into Leo's room to find his son crying, having fallen out of bed and landed on his knee funny and he's holding his throat begging to see his brothers. Again, come morning all he remembers is that he'd been in a bad fight and They Weren't Safe.

Angelo wakes up to Mikey crawling into his bed, shaking and quietly crying, and mumbling about squirrels and evil moms and all kinds of terrible things, and Angelo hugs him and calms him down. In the morning Mikey just says he might need to stop reading horror comics.

Raphie can't even comfort his son because Raph screams when he sees him through sheep-glazed eyes and backs away and begs and begs to leave him and his brothers alone, and he calls out for Leo over and over until his brother and uncle in blue both come in and Leo hugs Raph and the two fall asleep in each other's arms. In the morning Raph just says he thinks Donnie's nightmare from before got to him, and that something else got Leo and got him bad.

And they become so tired. They can barely sleep anymore. Leo's leg should be fine by now, it was just bruised, but he keeps limping. Donnie keeps staring at nothing, lost in thought, and all he can say when someone asks what's wrong is he feels like they're missing something, someone, and he's taking minor failures so hard now. Raph keeps looking around the lair like he's expecting something to jump out at them, keeps gripping his sai like he'll need to use them at a moment's notice. Mikey keeps acting desperate to be heard whenever he suggests something, and he keeps checking the freezer and tearing up when whatever he's looking for that he doesn't even know isn't there.

There's some nights where they don't scream or go to their dads. There's some nights, that only them and their grandpa know about, where they sneak into Splints's room and ask if they can just stay there for a little while. Sometimes all of them end up in there at once, and Splints wakes up to them gathered around his bed, leaning up against it as they sleep with weapons in hand. He never tells anyone, just shakes Raph and Leo awake so they can carry their brothers back to bed, and he goes with to tuck them all in. And sometimes on those nights, when the boys are half-asleep and mumbling, he thinks he hears them call him 'Sensei'.

And then there's the way they fight.

Their dads are all deeply concerned the first time they do some sparring after their 15th birthday. Because they seem to forget to pull back.

Leo flips Mikey with full strength and Mikey swings his nunchucks without bothering to aim away from Leo's limbs. Raph slams his shoulder into Donnie's chest hard enough to completely knock the breath out of him and then Donnie jabs the end of his bo into Raph's chest right back so hard that it cracks the wood. Draxum and Splints break them up, always on the sidelines watching with pride in their grandsons, and The Rise Dads scold them all for being so brutal to their own brothers.

It's during a fight with Meatsweats and some new cooking assistant of his that they learn Donnie and Mikey added some blades to their own weapons. And all four go for a kill blow when they get the chance. Meatsweats is out of there faster than you can say "Cowabunga", bruised and bloodied, and the dads have another talk with their sons. Something along the lines of "You can't be 15 year old murderers!"

And then there's the anger. All four of them are suddenly so very, very angry. And not in the short-tempered way Raph's been his whole life, or the easily irritable way Donnie's always been. They're all deeply, painfully, angry. And none of them can really explain why. Just that it feels like they lost something.

And then, one day, Donald is wearing his mystic-seeing goggles when Donnie enters the lab. And what he sees chills him to the core.

He sees this overlay. It's Donnie, but not. The overlay is a little taller, a little older, and horrifically scarred on every inch of his body. His shell and plastron are littered with scratches and chips. He's got small scars and nicks all over his body. He's got a big one on the arm Donald remembers him clutching after his first nightmare. He's got horrific burn scars on his head and face, like someone electrocuted him over and over and over without mercy, and there's burn scars everywhere else too but those look circumstantial and the ones on his face looks purposeful. There's so much visible pain, all over this overlay of his son, his son. And it doesn't even look much older, maybe four years older at most, and-

And it's so angry.

It's a transparent purple, a sort of lavender color the same as Donnie's mask, but it's eyes are a solid and stark white. They're narrowed, and his mouth is set in a deep scowl. Tears drip down his face non-stop, but it's like the overlay isn't even aware he's crying from the way he just radiates anger.

And Donald grab Donnie's arm, panicking, and lifts his goggles.

His son is looking at him in confusion and concern, and he's fine. He's got one scar, and it's just from a skateboarding accident he had when they were around 10 and his elbow pad slipped up when he skid across the ramp. He's not scowling, he's not crying, and he's trying to get his dad's attention.

"Could you get your brothers and uncle?" Donald asks, and Donnie nods and runs off.

When they get back Donald has set up a large x-ray like machine. He asks the boys to stand behind it, and explains to his own brothers that he put his mystic crystal into this machine to check something. He explains, quietly, that he saw something that half-explains what's been going on with their sons.

And he turns it on.

And oh, god.

Raph's overlay has a large chip taken out of the right corner of his plastron, and just like his brothers, is littered in scars on every inch of him. His overlay is scowling and crying and white-eyed, and it's body language is so much more tense. Raph himself is just sitting there, arms crossed, a little annoyed but not too upset, until he looks up and sees his dad and uncles crying.

Mikey such a strange one to see, scowling like that, just so full of anger and pain. Like Raph he doesn't seem to have any huge scars, until he bends over for a second because he dropped something and all over the back of his shell there are these discolored spots, like something broke it open from the inside and it had to heal back over. The thought makes Angelo's heart and stomach drop and makes him need to lean again Raphie.

And Leo. None of the overlays are free of scars, hundreds of scars, but Leo... he has the most small ones small but deep, like shards of glass stuck into his skin and had to be pulled out. He's got a jagged, messy scar on his throat that wraps almost all the way around to the back, and they can see another all-encompassing scar around his newly-bum knee. There's so many scars that follow such a specific pattern, two blades spaced apart in such a precise manner slashed across him without mercy and-

Draxum and Splints had followed, and they're both silent, horrified, and Draxum quietly says, "I think... those overlays are their souls."

And suddenly the whole family has a new mission: find out why their boys have such wounded souls. Find out who did this to them. Find out how to fix it.

They don't tell the boys what they saw, and it's for the best, because the nightmares keep getting worse and now they have scars they can place some of the half-remembered stories to. And they start to piece together that the boys are remembering some other life, some other world, and is this some kind of curse or something else? Is it another world bleeding through and affecting their boys, or is it possible they came from that world?

And then, as they're struggling to figure this out and to help their boys through sudden new PTSD episodes and triggers that their boys don't understand the cause of, then...

A portal opens somewhere in New York.

A pink, triangular portal.

And they find somewhere to point all the anger they have for their boys.

(I also have another version of this where they don't discover what's happening until The Rise Dads are captured by the 2012 Kraang and the 2012 boys, who fully remember their past lives, charge in to save them, and their Ninpo manifests as they can reach into the other world and pull things through like The Shellraizer and such, but it comes with the cost of their new bodies becoming more and more like their old ones, so their dads watch them fight incredibly viciously and pull all this stuff out of some other dimension and have to just watch as all these scars appear on them and they get older but suddenly they stop getting older very soon and that hurts just as much as seeing the scars and they're both horrified and in awe of how their sons are fighting.)

[kiaxet]

Once again, the latest update from @somerandomdudelmao has left me fully in my feelings, and so I come to you with ~900 words of emotion.

(This one is a rough one: content warnings for death, sibling death, self-sacrifice, and just general despair. Y'all have read the update. You know what we're doing here.)

~~~~~~~

It's supposed to be over.

Master Michelangelo-

(No, no, he's never thought of himself that way. No matter how many times he's been called Master Michelangelo, in his own head he's still just Mikey.)

-Mikey has given everything. He'd opened the portal, watched his own mystic energy - grown larger and stronger with each battle even as it consumed his youth and his very life as its fuel - tear through his arms, cracks traveling up his body until the force of it shattered his form, consuming everything that kept him bound to the physical plane in order to form one last-ditch attempt at setting things right.

He'd managed a wink and a smile, and then he'd died.

And yet he's still here. Why-

The promise. The caveat to the plan. Leo.

Leo had refused to leave him alone at the end, and Mikey will be damned before he refuses to return the favor.

Not that there'll be anything left to damn. The family's Ninpo is what connected them to the Hamato afterlife, and Mikey's is shattered, expended to give Casey a better chance at life. At this point, he's held together with the metaphysical equivalent of duct tape and spite - Donnie's favorite building materials when supplies ran short.

(Donnie's gone. Mikey failed him - failed to catch the infection, failed to cure it, failed to find his spirit amongst the Hamato ancestors. The Krang had obliterated him, and Mikey had failed to help until it was too late.)

(He can't find Raph among the ancestors, either. One more big brother failed.)

(He knows there won't be much left of Leo - not after Leo spent so long being Mikey's living shield, letting the Krang tear into his Ninpo time and time again in order to keep Mikey's intact - but he won't fail Leo. He can't. He can't.)

He's still here, for now, and that has to be good enough. He levitates, surveying a battlefield gone cold in the wake of an overwhelming Krang victory, and goes in search of his last remaining brother.

Leo's corpse isn't far - Mikey spots it near where the portal had been, face down in rock that had been blasted smooth and clean. Krang laser. There's no surviving those.

His gaze flickers upwards across the horizon, and he sees something glow near the corpse, a white outline coming into being before the color follows after, taking a familiar shape. It's-

It's Casey-

It's Casey, but he looks different. Better. His clothes are intact and clean - brand new, from the looks of it. His hair is washed and fluffy. His face and arms have filled out and his shoulders broadened, like he'd been getting good food and enough of it. He doesn't look like the Casey Mikey had made a portal for minutes ago; he looks like how they'd all wanted Casey to look, like he's finally getting what they would have killed to have been able to provide for him. He looks like a dream.

And that's how Mikey knows it's a lie.

It's the Krang. The Krang have done something, made one final twist of the knife that's been stuck in Leo's heart since the night they lost the Key - for all Mikey knows, they're going to use it to desecrate his brother's body, and he is not letting that happen. He zooms closer to Leo's corpse-

"We did it, Mikey, we got him out-"

-and feels the world tilt.

That's not Leo's corpse, because Leo's not dead. He's clinging to life, muttering nonstop in a voice barely above a whisper - he's not long for this world, but he's still here-

The lie cries out in Casey's voice and makes for his brother-

And Mikey lashes out, magic coming to his hands as easily as it ever did. It's not enough to incinerate the lie - the thing is too smart, too quick, and pulls back with only an injury to its arm. That's enough of an opening for Mikey to land in front of Leo, snarling at the lie wearing his nephew's face. "Don't. Touch. Him!" That's his brother. That's his brother. That's the only brother he has left, and he won't have him for long, but that doesn't mean the Krang can take him! "Whatever Krang trick you are-"

Spite, while fun, is no substitute for engineering. Donnie had told him that once.

The spite - and whatever else is holding him together at this point - gives out, the collapse manifesting as pain, and Mikey folds in on himself with a groan. He can fight - he will fight - but if the lie forces combat, then fighting will be the last thing he'll ever do, and Leo will die alone.

He can't. He just…he can't.

He drops to his knees, laying a spectral hand on Leo's head. Leo doesn't react - his Ninpo is shattered to begin with, and Mikey wouldn't be surprised if death's door has robbed Leo of his senses as it is - and just keeps talking.

"We got Casey through the portal, he'll be okay, he'll get to grow up without all of this, we did it, we- we- we did it, Mikey-"

Mikey kneels there, one hand on his inert brother's head as Leo's life slowly sputters out. Eventually he'll die, and what fragments are left of his spirit will disintegrate, too shattered by years of warfare to persist after death, and Mikey will let himself fade along with them. Together until the rapidly approaching end, like they'd promised.

He kneels, and waits for oblivion to come.

[wat-you-get-is-wat-you-see]

Been thinking about that scene in the rise movie where Leo sends Raph after Donnie and Mikey and he is left alone on the technodrome alone with Krang.

He's watching them hurtle to earth

and then Krangs arrival distracts him

and takes his attention. (note the change in the background how the portal is no longer to his side because he is facing it and Krang)

Leo dosen't know if his brother's have survived (or are dead or horribly injured somewhere far below) until he hears Raph's voice over their comms. And if Raph survived and sounds ok then Donnie and Mikey are too.

(And that laugh of relief before he replies, he's able to do this, this is not a timeline where his actions have killed everybody, and he can now make sure of that too.)

And then...

What if, Raph's com device was damaged so he could hear what was happening but not respond? And then Leo went into the prison dimension assuming the worst, that his brother's hadn't survived the fall and he had sent Raph to his death as well. (They die! Everybody dies fighting the Krang!) And then, when Mikey opens the portal to rescue him, Leo thinks he's died and his brothers are waiting there to greet him?