#visdev is my enrichment activity

[snackugaki]

... my ass actually got like 6+ images deep before realizing i hadn't posted shit-- oops

my tmnt  iteration (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt  iteration part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10

tmnt  iteration omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

lny visit 1 | 2

IDW spoilers below, teeechnically Mirage & Next Mutation spoilers too ig?

blah blah blabbering because that's one of the many things you can do on tumblr.com

bloopity bloopin, turtles all being traded on the black market as pets, medicine, or decor to be... "prepared". 'cept Jennika, keeping her IDW origin because it's badass and I like it. eco vigilantes freed them one fateful night, same night someone(s) stole some mutagen for a rival company to TGRI, boom collided in their getaway routes, away floated Venus just like in NM and some others who lalala may or may not be some mutanimals

playing mostly with coloring, Rise introducing markings is such a nice and refreshing change from the all sam green turtle, different bandana color turtles I grew up with. fanon taking that concept and applying it in conjunction with actual turtle colorings also scratches my visdev brain node just so

hm... still fiddling with their plastrons... Venus' and Jennika's are fine though

Leo

funky li'l ringed map turtle

can't see it but, he got them little ridgey-spikies on his shell

christ, I'm finding a way to attach Iris symbolism to him, either through markings or something else

Iris in hanakotoba is... basically all Leo; nobility, bravery, honor, courage, heavy samurai association

5'2"

Raph

McCord's or Amboina box turtle idk idk idk can't choose

stuck on coloring him with a scale mail feeling to match the box turtle photos I found

....I needa draw him beefier, he can stand to be beefier

5'6"

Donnie

literally just googled which turtles exhibit the highest INT, wood turle consistently listed plus some have funky geometrically patterned/shaped shells

tossing on how do the plastron coloring, really liking the dark spots on it

probably keep the lightened belly/inner limb coloring

...probably... lol idk

5'8"

Mikey

my perfect chonky boy, no notes except he (and his brothers) need plastron do-overs

and now i am stuck with the heart-on-his-sleeve marking

canon 2 my iteration it is done

he gets to be the slider this go round, if just 'cuz he's technically the first born (in terms of creating TMNT and its story and world)

let him have the fluttering, finger drumming on everything and everyone because he's bursting with "i love you" energy anyway

5'4"

Venus

"my pretty daughter" iykyk

sea turtle as per last couple iteration posts

cultivator instead of "shinobi"

"i aM ShiNObi"... guh, just, I dunno, the term "cultivator" wasn't really known back in '98 like that, but she had the medicine box, she worked to learn how to throw a fireball at Vam Mi, she was pleased at her progression when she defeated the counterspell from the staff of Bu Ki. that's cultivator shit right there.

she's still a pugilist more than a iron fan user

looks up to April like a big sister, speaks canto and hakka with her

cuz she's still a linguist scholar like in Next Mutation so duh she speak all the languages (to an extant, she has a lot of studying left to go after all)

the greenified hawksbill coloring is growing on me...

still needa futz more with the plum flower motif on her

also figure out her huadian situation or just scrap it idkidkidk

her bandana + 50% green coloring is also growing on me....

5'10"

Jennika

technically also ringed map turtle since it was Leo who gave her the blood transfusion

I like the idea of bringing her Blaschko's lines to the forefront post-mutation but just... it's a lot of stripes. and goddamnit I ain't even gonna go deep into much of anything with the comics I just... can't not world build rip me

6'0"

April

still so tickled at April being closer to the turtles' ages in these new reboots and fascinated how it's played out

...but mine is a clean 44 yo, so. (turtles in late 30s)

Laird originally conceived April as an asian woman in his notes, Eastman drew her as a biracial woman he was dating at the time (April Fisher) and... idk what to tell y'all, people are running around being mixed in this world all the time, Brooklyn got hella Jamaican/Chinese so there you go

can speak canto and hakka

April being a "weirdo" as I've seen mentioned in Rise can stay, I'm picking that, that's a great trait to her character, big fan of Poly Styrene, loved Rachel True in The Craft

where "weirdo" is just she's into alt subculture and being in New York... she got her hands everywhere in those scenes

She and Chu Hsi get to have the most shoujo fuckin' romance because it's cute

and she's still a living drawing which I'm changing around a bit being why she felt like a "weirdo" and leaned towards subcultures and the turtles, she did eventually begin to destabilize but Venus stabilized her by trapping her in a scroll so she could work on a solution. ...where she has a long, happy relationship with Chu Hsi in the painted world scroll because lol time dilation

saw somewhere on the hellsite that the tooth gap is passed around every iteration... so April gets to have it

5'7"

Irma

i'm not ashamed to say I just reupholstered Nadia from Russian Doll

87 Irma went through a lot so she can have some dry wit and humor and be fly as fuck, big hair, big glasses, and a big attitude

still besties with April

likes moths, they're just neat little guys with rabbit ears iykyk

there is a very specifc size of her hair I am battling to keep consistent the problem it never feels big enough

says "fuhgeddaboutit" and has yelled that she is, in fact, "walkin' here,"

... she might also have a little bit of Myrtle from AHS: Coven sprinkled in now that I'm thinking about it to sum her up

she knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody for any random thing you could want to try to find

all the delis and bodegas know her

discusses plot lines from soap operas with Splinter on weekends, they get heated

5'5"

... god all this and I was just gonna have them play spades and play a round of pickup street ball in silly little comics

#if you know my timezone #and you see me posting this #stop snitching #what are YOU doing at the devil's sacrament #leave me to my demon hours #i should probably try melatonin though... #cuz this shit ain't working #how am I fuckin' alive??? #spite #things tasting good #turtles #general nerd shit #and don't worry king #they still love your boys in the AU-verse #visdev is my enrichment activity #my dumb ass just happily knocking these out and not posting #cuz i was distracted by the euphoria of creation #hhh i needa push my shapes more #they can be crunchier

[snackugaki]

... just make an iteration* for fun, I said

a universe where they've made it into their late 30s-early 40s and they chill and can be serene in the company of friends and family for once. maybe a flashback or two for the action moments

"fix" your childhood turtles so they can have a reprieve and some shenanigans, i reasoned with myself--

WELP.

my tmnt au iteration (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au iteration part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9

tmnt au iteration omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

lny visit 1 | 2

is this actually new ramblings for the iteration or like one new lore bit and just a rerererererehashing of lore i sprinkled across the other posts.

first though, with my sorta-outsider-not-active-participant-in-fandom history I realized "au" isn't the proper term for what I've been doing, the more suitable term is "iteration".

and we're gonna sit with the fact that even someone at my old-ass age recognized my previous understanding of a term was, for all intents and purposes, not entirely correct and that I acknowledged it, rectified when I could, and that's it, it can be that easy.

...

okay back to the bullshit.

so my Mondo was introduced in the Archie run, a funky guy with a metal band called Merciless Slaughter, dressed like a punk Hulk, all around good peoples, hung out with the Mutanimals.

His design cobbling isn't too deep, I don't think. Just thought it'd be more rad if he looked more like a guy who fronts a band called Merciless Slaughter while remaining the same ol' Mondo inside, post mutation.

Kept some of his original color palette around in his hat, his pants, his NYHC logo (links) knockoff, and his little dyed leather cord bracelets.

the letters for the logo are for, Skate or Die (across), and Merciless Slaughter (down)

hmm still waffling on if I'm more tickled by him being taller than Mikey or the same height (5'4")

_________

and now for the rererererehash rambling because none of this design progression is coming out linear for me. so super quick, am an original 90s turtlemania survivor, Rise brought me back, gorged Rise then Bay then 2007 movie then rererererewatching of Next Mutation and the 90s trilogy for fun then hacking my way back through the Archie and Mirage runs then caught up with IDW and then just... slogging through 2003 and 2012 which honestly I feel like I got the gists of through gif sets alone.

one hand I can see why old fans (90s turtlemania) didn't seem to like the Rise designs, ours really were just the same li'l green dude but in different colors and hit sticks looks-wise. But here comes Rise with all the character design classics: different shapes! different sizes! exaggeration! and that's on top of all the nudges and twists made to the usual lore; Raphael is now the oldest, Leo and Donnie are now twins, they're different species of turtles, they're tools for war, brand new antagonists etc.

idk, to me when I was watching that shit, it was fun and refreshing so... ionno, built different cope maybe to the other oldheads pissing their pantaloons still ig whatevs

what tickles me most, personally, is the utter fuckton of Rise AUs, and a few Rise-driven iterations, and also some of the other non canon media iterations. so tickled that I got hit by the makeaniterationigitis itllbefunoccocal virus too. UnU (i'm kidding, i'm having so much fucking fun) just I'm addressing the flowers I wanna give to the kids who took Rise's take on tmnt and just RAN with the "different turtle species" from full out coloring their turtles the same as the species they picked to mimicking Rise's design language with different markings.

God, the markings thing just really nestled into my heart, it's such a simple thing and yet it took Rise to just try it, not even a lot, just a little for flavorrrrr. It's just enjoyable as fuck to me tbh and I'm sharpening my teeth when I revisit my coloring choices for the 8th time... fuck where was I?

right, mine are mistakes. wrongright place at the wrongright time, mutagen was there and now they can swing swords around and eat pizza.

someone(s) was high tailing it outta a TGRI lab with some mutagen barrels, driving recklessly while a bunch of eco-vigilantes had broken out of a pet shop that was the face of a black market pet trade/medicine/exotic food racket of endangered species. hence where their bit of human pre-mutagenic contact comes from (the strike team of people who freed them from their cages because all of them were endangered species & destined for a tank, a cutting board or a pill box); including a sea turtle Venus, Leatherhead, Tokka, Rahzar, Man-Ray some others etc etc. Jennika keeping her origin because it was dope as fuck. splinter was just there watching this symphony of human fuckery happen and decided to adopt some kids with no one asking (it was tang shen's onryo that is rooted in Splinter's mind that was asking, shh)

and ever since it clicked when I was gathering ref shots, ✨sea turtle Venus just makes sense✨ to me, it's taken my brain stem and rung it like a bell for new year's nonstop and i am not mad

... fuck, I am but also am not looking forward to when I start delving into ninjutsu, ninpo, Venus' whole schtick and how the supernatural fits into this world that I definitely don't need to be fleshing out this much just to draw them chilling on April's couch.

i've got like over 70 refs, holy shit

#visdev is my enrichment activity #don't leave me alone with an idea a piece of paper and something to draw with and my thoughts in the same room #Venus lover since 98 #she's getting the most dev from visdev because I love her so #[ gestures to fanart portfolio which is like 45% Venus ] #55% turtle bullying #closing out the weekend #rambling about turtles again #ehehehehheehhh

[snackugaki]

ghhhkkhhh i'm alive, nyeh!

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

lny visit 1 | 2

Millicent is Sophie The GOAT Campbell's design, I am just very well and normal about her. Totally healthy and fine about Millicent the Goth Bat Mutant. Honest. UvU

#visdev #visdev is my enrichment activity #...i know i can go crunchier than this but alas #The P r o c e s s #EVA Bubblegum Crisis 2040 and Nadeisco were my mecha anime #sorry Gundam you can waltz endlessly out my door #tmnt au #my personal headcanon is M&M have a whole arsenal of boards #from penny boards to long boards #and they pick whatever the mood says before they go cruising #god this is so much work just to draw them hanging out on April's stoop at 3am for the giggles #the question is WHEN I'll get around to them hanging out on a fire escape eating beef patties #who knows not i

[snackugaki]

Not me idly rerererererererererewatching Gargoyles and realizing I didn't post the Gargoyles AU shit that took me and @amutantturtleenthusiast (18+ blog) by our throats for... what was it, almost a month????

shit was wild, i'm still unwell

so unwell we still babble over it every now and then

we definitely mangled a few concepts for maximum drama

we hit everything, forbidden love, clan politics, clan betrayal, curses that lasted a 1,000 years, reincarnated lovers, stolen family, unethical genetic research, we had Anton Sevarius and Jasper Barlow for ultra fuckery, enraged glowy eyed action, tender romance, figuring out how the new york subway system works, overseas travel shenanigans when half your party turns to stone in the day, the implications of half your crew turning to stone during the day, hilarious clan-to-clan misunderstandings, revenge quests... hoo.

we had them replace the tengu who taught humans ninjutsu

they big as fuck

sprinkled a little Abe no Seimei seasoning on my Venus

My Donnie was metaphorically born in the wrong century, he's fine now he has gears, wrenches, and WiFi

...we gave them hair

Barlow and Sevarius got to a couple people... unfortunately

fkkn love that funky li'l gecko i reused it for my Mondo

the Manhattan clan is ...just somewhere in the background, away

#visdev is my enrichment activity #and i am the tiger swiping at my steak frozen in an ice sphere #i'd apologize for not posting but #idk i'm old there's no UBI and no fabulously wealthy person has offered to be my patron so that I may draw whatever the fuck #while they check on me my drawings and go 'Very good carry on' #need to find me a Medici at this rate #... man at this point I kinda don't care if dots are connected #i just enjoy compartmentalizing #what does THAT mean idk dont worry about it #and I personally like playing with the things from my childhood #but fucking fuck I wanna watch something read something NEW #i don't need my childhood pandered to or rebooted for the nth time #but accessing it without a subscription would be fucking great for starters #stream of consciousness tags #tmnt rebooting don't count i'll watch those little green dudes forever idcidcidc

[snackugaki]

now with more Keno and Irma

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

lny visit 1 | 2

87 cartoon spoilers...maybe Secret of the Ooze spoilers, I don’t know which iterations the kids know about or caught up with honestly

my dumbass just now realizing I should’ve put Keno in a wolf cut as a shout out to Kuya Ernie’s righteous early 90s mullet

rewatching as an adult, they did Irma dirty in the 87 cartoon so I’m making her cool as fuck

which means I’m taking heeeavy inspo from Russian Doll’s Nadia as a base because Natasha Lyonne cool as fuck

she deserves

if you went through what 87 Irma did, becoming like Nadia seems like a natural character development tbh, another unflappable new yorker with the stuff to back it up

Keno primarily specializes in arnis, muay thai in that order

spars with Leo since they’re both, technically, dual wielders

also Donnie since they’re both stick wielders

jokes with Mikey she doesn’t need a chain because she doesn’t lose her weapons

still paying for stepping on Raph’s foot That One TIme (nod to SotO)

Irma likes moths, it’s Her Thing, her motif; a nod to the time she was mutated into a moth monster in 87

Keno dressed up as the third Bash Brother for a couple halloweens with Casey and Raph

Irma goes to April’s uncle’s restaurant for Christmas, Venus tags along if she’s in town 

#tmnt au #visdev is my enrichment activity #this is so much extra shit #when I was just gonna draw gag comics of them hanging out at stoops #visiting bodegas #chilling on the roofs #arguing where the better pizza shop is

[snackugaki]

.... i have been so normal about wanting to draw tactical!Venus and tactical!Jennika.

hey. HEY. y’all need to go check out @donathan ‘s artwork, and if you are the proper age, go throw some money into their patreon for some... some real, real good art. 👀👀👀 ...but do not if you are a minor, that shit ain’t for you.

some IDW TMNT comic spoilers... and.... I guess... Next Mutation ssspoilers? I know some of you kids haven’t turtled up and watched my beloved childhood iteration yet.

alright, so, y’know, completely normal expenditure of my energy and skillset, amirite? big big thanks to @/donathan for allowing me to play around in their AU’s aesthetic because I have severe, terminal VenusAndJennikaDeserveEverythingoccocal SoIWillManifestItMyselfitis.

and tbh, all y’all’s fics have been, mwah, chef’s kiss. but SOME of you put LORE. delicious, tasty, appetite-inducing lore.

and i am nothing but the littlest hoebag for lore.

okay so, quick rundown for those who both A) are immune to spoilers B) also do not know Venus or Jennika’s origins-- bulletpoint time~!

So Venus de Milo, the “girl turtle”, the “fifth turtle” (not counting April’s extremely brief stint as a white-bandana’d turtle in the Archie comics run) was introduced in 1997′s Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation

An episode of “The Toys That Made Us” touched upon Venus’ creation so idk it’ll cover what I won’t deign to acknowledge.

her backtory is interesting (just her show was a trashfire /affectionate)

Master Splinter’s frolicking around in the dreamscape where all the cool enlightened old people hang out away from teenagers, right?

but oh no! dragon lord, a bad dude with a widow’s peak to rival Vegeta Dragonball’s widow’s peak; is there too! stomping around, ruining shit!

Splinter’s dreamscape buddy Chung I warns Splinter to stay out of the dreamscape ‘cuz Dragon Lord’s around

And like in true old people fashion, just ignores his friend’s admonition and tries to investigate himself

bad choice, womp womp

Splinter gets trussed up and rendered “stuck” in the dreamscape

cue the catalyst for Venus to make the 10+ flight from China to the U.S

don’t worry about what the boys were doing, just literal surfing in sewer grey water, breaking their little turtle skulls on cinderblocks, and picking fights in warehouses with Foot clan goons

tl;dr Venus still has Sixth Ranger mode on, so naturally she whoops all of their asses in the dark, ties them up (like how some of y’all enjoy writing Leo does huhu nudgenudge winkwink)

venusistheoriginalshibarienthusiastandteadrinkerfightme

and then, y’know, it’s still the 90s and children’s television so blah blah the usual “oH My gOd a GiRL tURTle???/?? AWoooOOogaaa ga ga ga” 

it’s.... I mean, i’m 38 so it no longer strikes me as bad as just really fucking embarrassing... for them. to be written saying. fuck, at least they didn’t make her bandana color pink.

so fast forward to Venus teaching them to dreamwalk so they can go rescue Splinter from Dragon Lord’s clutches in the dreamscape.

unfortunately, Dragon Lord offscreen murders Chung I so Venus is narratively anchorless post-rescue, so she’s invited to stay with them. thus ensues wacky hijinks with their new pal, Venus Boom Boom de Milo.

I glossed over the urge to write a cumulative review of Next Mutation. Just, take my word as the target demographic of the show during the last gasps of 90s Turtlemania that TNM was a trashfire overall but... y’know... if you ever needed a palette cleanser after some grimdark or angsty TMNT content, give TNM a whirl. The slapstick was intentional and The Point in the show. Venus’ circumstances for coming was as serious as it would get.

... Also, yes, they made them not related in TNM, preteen snackugaki didn’t clock why because I watched a lot of wuxia as a kid so brotherhood is a term beyond blood ties to me (and if I’m being honest, martial brotherhood is fkkn metal) and later I heard tell that it was to lure more girls into the franchise with both a girl turtle and romance options. which idk whatevs man. 

I also have to clear that, actually no, Donatello and Venus did not fight EVERY episode. Donatello, despite sprinkling a little too much barely disguised snobbery, did defer to Venus’ expertise in “the supernatural” when the situation called for it, and Venus would commend Donnie on his scientific ingenuity. They even teamed up skillsets to create surveillance drones! She essentially casted Calm Emotions on him while he tried to hack the controls of the Astro Megaship back for the In Space Rangers. They breached the divide between STEM and Humanities! They only had one “real fight" near the end of the season-- because Donnie was playing his containment breach elevator mid trash copyright strike immune proto-EDM too loud while she was trying to meditate. and that’s just being bad roommates tbh.

...christ I know it’s gonna come up too, but also NO, there was not constant advances made toward Venus during the show. At most was Mikey pulling his ol’ “I work out every day~!” schtick for like 2 episodes of the 5 spent to introduce Venus. And then after? A shipper’s desert, you’d have to dig and peer behind like 8 curtains for any viable fodder. 

...OKAY NOW FOR JENNIKA’S ORIGINS: Jennika is an IDW character specifically so, naturally why she isn’t in (or would’ve been, AHEM) a lot of iterations yet (or at all, COUGH) (but to continue in honesty there’s a lot of legal tape to cut through since Jennika is IDW’s while TMNT overall is Nick’s) Introduced as a Foot Assassin, her place in the Foot Clan shifts when Splinter takes over from Shredder (Saki), eventually she forms actual bonds with both the turtles and Splinter to where it’s implied she also saw him as an important figure to her if not an outright surrogate father figure. And because TMNT is mess and drama the other 50% of the time, Karai takes over the Foot from Splinter and shenanigans compounded by Karai’s then-current machinations for the Foot-- results in Jennika getting shanked in the stomach by Karai during a clandestine meeting to resolve clan rivalry. She’s losing blood fast, Donnie works to save her and it’s Leo who volunteers for blood transfusion to keep her stable mid-transit. 

SURPRISE!

Leo’s blood mutates Jennika into a mutant turtle. And then Casey ghosts/dumps her. My poor daughter. She has a real rough time of it before fully integrating with the boys. Raph falls in with Old Hob, gets hoodwinked, and now they live in Mutant Town. Jennika slowly finds herself again, as a mutant turtle, a Splinter clan ninja, a girlfriend, a guitarist in a band she started, a sister in a found family, and a constable to a very little town.

okay! we’re all marginally informed about my two wonderfull daughters, Venus and Jennika~!

so if I can indulge further, I’m going to use my cognizance and make it everyone’s problem because I have beem quietly foaming with ideas for bg lore for tactical!J&V, more bullet points!

ok so, donathan mentioned a bit about their tac! Leo and Donnie being the snipers, Mikey and Raph spotting for them while also being demolitions and heavy ordinance specialists respectively

I would think, then for Vee and Jen, they’d be classified as close quarters combat specialists, complicated extraction? compromised area? call them to clean up and clear out~

give or take “magic” being a thing used in donathan’s AU, or anyone’s AU of this AU, Vee would probably be a close combat specialist along with Jen.

Vee, I feel, would, barring a ...”tactical fan”, (even though in TNM it was just her fists and her little wizard components but her toy came with a fan so.) probably use batons, Jen in lieu of her tekagi-shuko would... most likely use tactical karambit. not that large of a leap really.

for my personal lulz, Vee and Jen are... accurate, height-wise. Raph gets to be the biggest brother since alligator snapping turtles are, in fact, the largest motherfucking freshwater turtles on the north american continent. no getting around it.

my Vee in all Rise AUs is a softshell since the messy hanzi used to write her first given name, Mei Pieh Chi (美鱉气) has the hanzi that’s most commonly translated as softshell turtle (鱉). eh ‘di wow talaga

snacku what do you mean ‘accurate’???? tl;dr female turtles are usually the larger ones in most species.

and listen, I love and I mean LOVE, how some of y’all have written the tac!boys, mwah; but god I’m a professional turtle bully. I need to see them get dunked on. for nutritional value. and if it comes to it, I will provide that food for myself. brb laughing at eventually drawing Venus just offhandedly tossing Donnie into the air to skeet shoot his ass for fun brings me the greatest joy.

they absolutely dote on Mikey, as is the natural order of things. 

and even tho I stated TNM Donnie and Venus got along in the show, and depending on the existence of magic in this AU; I just really love dichotomous rivalries (in as much “science” and “magic” exist as a dichotomy, much less as “diametrically oppose” fields-- just, opposites man. i’m a simple girl with simple trope needs)

Vee’s arms (and legs) are absolutely covered in burns, scars, and missing flesh divots, just as close to swiss cheese limbs as you can be

Jen and Donnie debate tracks that go into their joint “On Our Way To Commit Murder” playlist

if Vee’s tactical look seem very familiar, and you’re wondering if-- yes, you’re correct. and you can “call her ms. de milo if ya nasty”

Vee was actually pretty calm and rational in TNM... but for this AU, she can be a little unhinged, as a well-deserved treat. (and ‘cuz that specific anime unhinged facial expression is fun as fuck to draw, which is my treat)

#giving me cognizance was a mistake #letting me learn to draw was another #I love Venus and Jennika #a HEALTHY amount I'd say #totally healthy & normal #:) #fuckin' turtles man #3 months into this new year #and it's turtles all the way back #this is why I trained for visdev #just chewing on things absently #and wondering how things would work In This World #figuring out how to fit something into an environment #a context #a situation #is my enrichment activity #not unlike #giving tigers huge slabs of meat in 3 feet of ice on a hot day #just sitting there gnawing away #until I get to the meat of it #both literally and figuratively #it's like a puzzle #that you can design the pieces themselves #but have I updated my visdev portfolio? #HAHAHA NO #TOO BUSY DRAWING FKKN TURTLES MAN #h elp #i listened to so many baddie playlists drawing this #i needa start a fight #get this extra energy out of my system

[snackugaki]

...visdev really is my enrichment activity for i am just a bored tiger in my enclosure, looking to figure out how to get this steak out of this metal ball.

________

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

lny visit 1 | 2

also uhhh... i guess still idw, next mutation, and like 1 mirage spoiler? mostly for the kids who haven’t but were planning to read/watch

you’re about to perceive so much

p r e p a r e

so close to getting this AU looking as crunchy as i want it, almosttttt tttthhhhhere...!

just somewhere tasty between Mignola’s use of deep black shadow, what MTV Liquid Television woulda greenlit re: The Maxx, a dash of 2007, 1 part Next Mutation, 2 parts funny proportions

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh str ugglingggg

Leo’s shortest because haha (family baby gang, get rekt)

this is so much thought for something I’m just doing to give these turtle ninjas some softness and the genx/millenial pop culture references gag comics

Splinter is full of ghosts

(specifically the onryo borne from the murdered Yoshi Hamato and Tang Shen [because oroku saki a bitch])

[ redacted ] and Tang Shen’s ghost gained control and guided Splinter to raise the boys in love and not [ redacted ] to [ redacted ] in [ redacted ]

Splinter was just a regular little rat... who on his 1000th birthday witnessed the death of his friend/unwitting master and his wife, and thus transformed into a wrathful kyūso (minus the kitten eating) and chased Shredder until losing his trail in New York

Shredder’s fuck around and Splinter’s rampaging as the find out caused the tengu to repo some of the mysticism from ninjutsu

now all the (remaining) ninja clans debuffed and mad about it

The tengu bestowed the ninja the ability to summon shit (kuchiyose), enact mystical effects upon people and objects (kuji kiri), going invisible, minor flight (actually just qinggong/light body technique), and manipulation of the 5 elements, and creating doubles (bunshin)

but again, Shredder fucked up so now ninja can like barely control anything bigger than a lit torch or a 16 oz bottle of liquid and that’s if you got in enough hours to do even that

I mentioned elsewhere but for me in any AU I make, Venus is a cultivator and the more I think about it the more I will die on this hill, not only does it fit better than her being a “shaman” or “shinobi” it’s sick as fuck

Jennika’s origin was pretty fkkn metal, she still falls in with the Foot, gets shanked, Leo gives blood-- bam, turtle time

Jennika goes to hang with Venus in China and get a better understanding of her new turtle body

Keno’s here, still tried to infiltrate the Foot (with Jennika) but bugged out when she couldn’t stay without being made (Jennika refused to leave womp)

teaches Leo some arnis techniques for Leo’s dual wielding; Donnie also just in case his bo is shattered... again. :)

Irma has made all the boys blush at least twice

Irma is also soap opera buddies with Splinter

they meet up at least twice a month to gab, gush, and groan over what’s currently going on in their stories, when Venus visits she also joins in, Irma also has a conversational grasp on Japanese and Venus’ regional dialect because of these visits

April has a full out shoujo manga romance with Chu Hsi

and he’s a hot dragon prince uhuhuhuhuhu

Irma is privy to all the steamy details

keeping Leo and Karai as character foils

both received scars from one another

both released each other from sealing wards from [ redacted ]

now they just meet every so often to eat the greasiest fast food and unclench of an hour

Raph still gets his ass worked by Ninjara, folded like an omelette sat on a lawn chair

Vam Mi is also here, she’s fought first (because honestly she should’ve been either brought in earlier in the season or had a few more episodes because that shit coulda resolved better)

Venus is brought to NYC for this antagonist instead of Dragonlord escaping (and murdering her father figure forcing her to seek out his friend Splinter for aid)

Donnie doesn’t take the news of real vampires or real magic well

Donnie and Venus have a knock down drag out fight over it (because they’re 17 at this point and being li’l shits to each other about their respective fields of expertise)

“The nerds are fightingggggg!” cries Mikey, Leo and Raph don’t believe it so imagine their surprise when they get a demo in real time on how scary competent staff fighters are

Leo gets Splinter when one of Donnie’s missed strikes cracks the concrete

Splinter breaks them up like talking a walk in the park and it’d be comical if they both weren’t bleeding from the mouth and peppered with swelling contusions

Venus begins accepting Donnie when his tech prevents her from becoming a thrall of Vam-Mi

Donnie begins accepting Venus when she uses a massive amount of chi to manipulate gravity just before he becomes street pizza when Vam-Mi throws him off a bridge

they also combine skill sets to save Mikey so there’s that

Venus goes from calling Donnie, “Horatio (derogatory)” to “Horatio (affectionate)”

they now have a dumbass long-as-fuck handshake that’s unforgivably nerdy 

April is still a magic drawing-brought-to-life baby, Venus puts her in a painted scroll when she starts phasing in and out of existence (she and Chu Hsi have a great time in the scroll... while everyone is shitting bricks until Venus and her sect stabilize her and get her made real, Pinocchio style)

April’s grandmothers gifted Venus 2 pieces of jade jewelry, and her family’s recipe for sweet potato pudding respectively for saving April

the boss fight against Dragonlord is dope as fuckkkkk, Chu Hsi is being cool as fuck, fiddled with some concepts* that has Leo and Karai being a champion of Genbu, Raph for Byakko, Mikey for Suzaku, Chu Hsi’s retainer (a good dragon, wink wonk) steps in for Seiryu because Donnie and Venus are siphoning and redirecting an enormous amount and variety of mystical power

*i’m just pulling from fushigi yugi honestly

splinter, the boys, and venus (and others) mutating from mutagen laced toxic waste was a pure accident

Splinter was investigating a lead on Shredder’s movements concerning the Foot the same night an animal liberation sleeper cell ‘freed’ some animals from the back of a pet store (that was a front for black market domestic and exotic animal trafficking) that is also the same night a stolen truck driven by some corporate spies filled with a competitor’s chemical waste, which then collides with said liberation sleeper cell’s truck and... ooze happens

Leatherhead, the Mutanimals, Mondo, Mona Lisa, Slash also get mutated from the events of that night, either leading up to or following the aftermath

plus some others etc etc

Venus still washes down the gutter, gets rube goldberg pinballed onto a crate of plums where Chung I finds her and still gets named Mei and taken to live in China and eventually learns to cultivate

Tokka and Rahzar get made, and unmade ala TMNT II; the mutagen made them a little silly tho, April adopts Rahzar and passes him off as a low content wolfdog, Leatherhead takes in Tokka

April went through a couple of major changes so now she’s a journalist with a computer programming background who now does a podcast as an informal neighborhood news reporter with a segment for chatting with people from around the street

Mikey’s the most frequent guest and co-hosts sometimes; Donnie troubleshoots free of charge

Venus brings her province’s regional delicacies when she comes to visit, Splinter and Leo both get pu er tea cakes (she managed to get one the same age as him; Splinter is too old so she got the oldest she could find, Leo has so many tea pets and a nice yixing collection); Raph, Keno, and Casey fight over the pickles, meat jerkies, and chili oil; Mikey has an artillery of cool shirts and a lifetime supply of haw flakes, Donnie has a mountain of doodads with increasingly specific uses, April gets neat accessories and the occasional care package sent with Venus from her grandparents, uncles, and aunties; Irma gets neat frames and coats that never fail to get a “Where did you get that??”

Raph rides a Kawasaki Ninja because it’s funny

A lot of bodegas give Mikey free snacks because the bodega cats love him, and he’s also saved some from being run over or ripped apart by stray dogs or the few large angry raccoons

Donnie’s the only one of his brothers to wear both a top and bottom with shoes because once he figured out how to integrate a motherboard and miscellany wiring onto clothing... he’s been a walking computing menace ever since

Splinter does his best to enjoy his time with his sons (because as a kyūso, he knows the chances of outliving his precious sons is very high (ᴗ‿ᴗ✿)  ...give or take one of the many opponents and obstacles his sons take on takes him out first ( ◕ᴗ◕✿ ) )

god whathefuck, I was just going to make silly comics for them. how did it come to this.

#i'm so curious #some of you kids tag this shit as 2003 #and i'm ??? #i'm not subtle about being an elder millenial #or about who my childhood turtles were #i love trash #i love the next mutation #like is it to keep your tag active? #i feel like it's probably the thing #where someone assumes they're interacting with someone of their same xyz #which honestly? fair #a lot of the TMNT fans I see are 03 or 12 fans #there's a few other Turtlemania survivors around that I see #but not a lot of us #:( #...i'm still laughing at that poll #with the arbitrary age cut off being 37+ #sorry poll op #it's just... it was literally oddly specific #ba dum tss #if you know why I used apples as a measurement... #...hahaha you also like Sanrio #if you know who I based Irma off of... #can you blame me #Nadia is who Irma would be #if she kept the cheek but mellowed out a li'l #so much weird shit happened to her #so of course she'd simultaneously be #blase cheeky and wry #visdev is my enrichment activity