Archive of Our Own ^beta

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You know how Donnie makes things for April because he has a crush on her? Well, imagine that, but during the farmhouse arc, he starts developing a crush on Casey after spending a bunch of time with him, but doesn't realize and starts to subconsciously make stuff for Casey.

The others quickly realize what's going on and start freaking out because "Oh my God, Donnie is in love with Casey!" and start to make bets on who's gonna confess first.

Nobody bets on Donnie 'cause it's clear that he doesn't even realize that he likes Casey, and Casey has been shamelessly flirting with the mutant since they got there. EXCEPT for Mikey because Mikey is like "I think Donnie is gonna be dumb for once in his life and explode when he realizes, and Casey will get caught in the crossfire.", and (because he's more psychic than April at this point) ends up being right. 

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I see things in fics and fanart about Leo doing the "jazz hands" to flirt with Usagi because that's how red-eared sliders flirt, and I think that's cool, but I never see anything about the other boys doing it.
Like, imagine Raph meeting Mona Lisa or hanging out with Casey (Cassandra, not CJ), and he just starts like wiggling his head back and forth! That's adorable! They just think he's stimming or something, but his Itty bitty turtle brain is like, "You are awesome, and I love you, love me too!!" and he's all embarrassed because he knows what it means!!!
Mikey hanging out with Miles (yes, Miles Morales don't judge me), and he headbutts Miles' arm! They're doing some platonic (it's not, but neither of them has confessed) cuddling, and Mikey chews on his shirt or arm. Miles thinks it's funny and cute, but mikeys freaking out because, to him, he's flirting!!
Donnie swimming with someone (I'm not a big fan of Donna and Kendra, but if you like it, then go ahead and imagine it) and headbutting them while swimming! Playing with them in the water and they're having so much fun but donnie will be flustered cause he is flirting with them!!!

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I JUST HAD A REALLY MESSED UP THOUGHT- Remember how after the whole shredder thing they buried splinter at the farmhouse? And how the farm house isn't in New York and they have to drive a long way, but most of the turtles have to sit in the back of the party wagon (and in the shell raiser there is no back to be in(its been forever since I've seen that season I don't remember which one they were driving during splinters death-)) because there isn't enough room up front and so they don't get seen? Did they have to sit in the back of the party wagon with splinters corpse???

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Shredder or one of his minions putting the turtles and splinter in one of those "pick one or they all die" traps where splinter has to shoot one of his sons with some kind of laser. Plot twist, it's a fake weapon, but they don't know that until after splinter tries to shoot Leo. They manage to get out of it and when they question splinter his only explanation is "a leader needs to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their followers, so I picked the most expendable."

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april and casey realizing just how strong the turtles are after a while of hanging out with them. Imagine april watching them spar and Raph accidentally throws mikey into a wall or something. Casey goofing off and messing with stuff in the lab and donnie gets annoyed and just picks him up and carries him out of the lab. Leo dropping something, and instead of gettingon the ground to grab it he just picks the table up.

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An AU where shredder isn't actually that bad??

Tang shen actually sucked and was cheating on splinter with shredder, and they both got super angry when they found out, and their relationship was damaged by it. Then, on top of that, shredder finds out that his whole family was murdered by the very clan that his adoptive father brought him into, so he's understandably upset. After that, there are a million misunderstandings that make them both think the other is the bad guy when they're both actually just traumatized old men who had daddy issues and bad coping mechanisms.

Maybe shredder didn't plan the attack, and there were just surviving members that wanted revenge, and everyone assumed that he did it? In the middle of the fight, splinter tries to confront shredder about it because he ALSO think he did it, and then the fire starts while they're arguing. Then, after the fight, he finds karai he takes her in as his daughter cause he thinks splinter abandoned her after the fire? Even telling her that splinter is her real father, but she refuses to acknowledge that because she sees shredder as her dad.

He's actually a pretty decent guy that's just taking down corrupt businesses and stuff using morally grey tactics, and the turtles just assume he's trying to take over New York or something?? Idk im tired. He takes in people who have been mutated, or his followers just happened to end up getting mutated, and the turtles think that he's the one doing it.

It would probably end with a "redemption" where he actually has a talk with splinter and becomes the turtles uncle.

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Donnie getting annoyed by his brothers barging into his lab and messing with his stuff so he decides to test the pavlovian response theory. They barge in? He yells at them and presses a clicker. They knock? He offers them their favorite snack and rings a bell. It gets to the point that he accidentally does it to himself, so now he gets angry when he hears a click and really calm when he hears a bell.

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The shredder seeing how much the turtles argue with each other during battle and how angry and violent raph always seems and deciding to use that to his advantage. He makes stockman create an "emotion enhancer" that basically just makes any feeling multiply by like 50. Feeling angry? Bloodlust. Feeling happy? Passing out from adrenaline. Feeling sad? Throwing up from dehydration because you cried a literal puddle.

Shredder has stockman turn it into a gas or something and has someone and stockman ambush the turtles and release the gas in hopes that raph just tears his brothers apart or something. Instead, raph breaks down sobbing and starts rambling about how worried he is for them all the time and how he feels bad about blowing up on them.

Leo straight-up passes out because his blood pressure skyrocketed from the anxiety and fear of leading enhancing. Donnie and Mikey immediately attacking whoever ambushed them at full force because they're pissed about constantly having to fight for their lives when they just wanna be teenagers.

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An AU where the turtles are aliens that got sent to earth by splinter to learn how to be better warriors, but end up crash landing in the backyard of the farmhouse where april and Kirby are staying during summer break.

When April and her dad go to check what happened, they both end up being affected by the crash.Kirby gets some of the ships fuel on him, the fuel being a form of mutagen, and since the last thing he touched was a bat that he found in the basement, he mutates into a giant bat. April was outside during the crash and ended up getting a kind of "radiation poisoning" that gave her psychic powers.

The turtles end up being followed by a bunch of aliens that they had crossed paths with during their trip, as well as their fathers brother, shredder, who was banished from the planet and wants to kill them for some reason. Maybe it's a matriarchal society, and he wants to kill them and splinter so he can take over the throne? They spend their time on earth trying to fix their ship and invent the "retro-mutagen," which ends up being even harder because they pretty much have to make a reverse fuel.

Summer ends and april has to go back to New York, telling her aunt that her dad got in an accident and is in a coma or something, and the turtles stay in April's house before discovering what sewers are and deciding to stay there because the climate is closer to their planets. The guys get to New York and discover that the kranng are looking for them after mistakenly thinking that they landed there, hunting them down because the fuel the ship was using was actually the perfected mutagen.

Everything else happens pretty much the same way, except the turtles are trying to get used to living on a totally different planet with different technology and food and weather. 

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"The good, the bad and Casey Jones," except it's Donnie instead of Raph?

Donnie goes out to comfort Raph after everything, but Raph is still angry and ends up blowing up at him, maybe even saying that donnie “doesn't know anything”, which only makes Donnie angry too. Raph heads back to the lair, but Donnie stays up top to try and cool off after their argument, stopping around the rooftops and muttering to himself about how much he does for everybody.

He stumbles on the purple dragons robbing someone (or whatever they were doing that episode) and fights them, but all Casey sees is a bunch of humans being attacked by a giant mutant turtle with a big stick.

They both fight, throwing insults at each other that ends up just being slightly annoyed banter, and Casey realizes that Donnie is actually pretty cool. Donnie, however, is still angry from the fight and attacks Casey a lot harder than he normally would, ending up with Casey on the ground and the extendable blade in donnies staff digging into his throat.

Donnie is above casey, glaring down at him once his second eyelid is pulled back, red-brown eyes filled with rage and staring into Casey's soul. Despite the turtles' fury, all Casey can think about is how gorgeous those eyes look as the street lamps reflect against his irises, making them sparkle like rubies. The vigilante was never good at thinking things through, so before he even knows what he's doing, he looks into donnies piercing eyes and speaks.

"You're beautiful."

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What if nobody knows that the turtles are teenagers?

The shredder thinks that they were humans that got mutated, and splinter just claimed them as his sons. All the villains see these incredibly skilled fighters that beat their asses on a weekly basis and assume that they're fully grown men with decades of experience.

The only reason they find out is because the Kranng are telling the shredder all the information they know about the turtles and end up showing him and a few of the henchman guys a scan they got of Leo, and they all freak out when they see that he's only 15. Now, instead of fighting them, they just act in defense when the turtles attack.

Sometimes shredder will come out when he knows it'll only be the turtles and tries to capture them so ge can convince them to be his sons, still wanting to get back at splinter but also not wanting to kill teenagers.

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Karai telling the turtles what shredder did and how he treated her.

Explaining how he would isolate her from everybody when she reated in a way he didnt want, criticizing her for nearly everything she did that didn't match his expectations, punishing her for feeling any emotions. She'd tell them how his punishments would be both mental and physical, telling her that her emotions are wrong and ugly, forcing her to fight multiple foot ninjas as they insulted her and made fun of her until she was to weak to do anything but cry.

Raph listening to this and having the disturbing realization that he was treated similarly by splinter.

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This is gonna be a really short thing that I'm only making because I haven't posted in a while, but I like the idea that after they shed, they get a lot more animalistic to the point that a major fight will break out if anyone goes into someone else's room. I suck at writing, but this will hopefully be the first full fic I make :]

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Foot!Mikey AU where he was dropped when Splinter was running from the krang and got found by The Shredder, who was visiting his base in New York (still unaware that Splinter is alive)

He sees this weird little green creature and takes him in, patching up his wounds with the intent of raising him as a super soldier. But Mikey, being Mikey, ends up helping him be less evil, being extremely affectionate and persistent as a child to the point that the Shredder literally has no choice but to treat him more like his own child.

I'm also thinking that it could be a caseyangelo situation 👀

Maybe Casey had just started his vigilante thing and was shot by a purple dragon and Mikey found him half unconscious in an alleyway, who took him back to the shredders lair and helped him recover. They talk every day as Casey heals and end up getting along really well, having a lot of things in common, Casey eventually convinced to join the clan at Mikey's side, practically worshipping the mutant.

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Expanding on the last thing, I like the idea of Mikey being a spoiled brat because he was raised by the Shredder who, as far as I can tell, is super rich. The Shredder is definitely the type of guy to let butlers and housekeepers raise his kids. He may not be as bad, but that guy is 100% a semi-absent father. He trains them, sometimes with them, and they have a few short conversations at dinner, but he mostly interacts with them when Mikey breaks into his room to hang out and drags Karai with him.

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Look, I love fluffy coming out fics where everyone accepts them just as much as the next person but imagine if Leo came out as transfemme and Raph just... didn't know what was happening. Like. At ALL.
He isn't trying to be mean, but with no knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community, and hearing the person he's known as his brother for his life saying that they're a girl, Raph ends up being pretty confused.
I like to think that Raph doesn't go online a lot so he pretty much doesn't know anything that he hasn't read or been told, and I doubt that there were a lot of books about the LGBTQ+ community just dropping into the sewers. Mikey sits him down and explains it, and Raph does his best to support his big sister :] 

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I'm gonna be so honest, Spike's mutation makes me SO mad. Not because he got mutated, but because he remembered everything from before he was mutated and STILL decided to attack Raph, the guy who took care of him for what seems to be MOST of his life. Raph talked to him, and doted on him, and fed him, AND PROBABLY BATHED HIM AND CLEANED UP HIS SHITS. THAT MAN WAS HIS FATHER, AND HE ALMOST KILLED RAPH BECAUSE HE WENT BACK ON HIS SHIT TALK??? I will not stand for it.
My list for the things I would rewrite in the 2012 show goes in this order:

1: LEO'S CRUSH ON KARAI. IT MAKES EVERYONE UNCOMFORTABLE.
2: Leo getting over his chronic pain because it was "all in his head"
3: THE SPIKE/SLASH MUTATION THING.
4: Timothy's whole thing. Not Timothy himself, just what happened to him.
5: Donnie's crush on April.

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Its a little bit late for this one, but.. Donnie getting a new keyboard and not really caring much, until he realizes that it's custom-built for his hand size and lack of most fingers. He doesn't leave his computer for 3 days, and everyone immediately regrets putting in money to get it for him.

Yes this is brought to you by me projecting my obsession with my new laptop onto Donnie.

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Donnie with a MASSIVE sweet tooth. If anybody wants him to make/fix something, they just give him a chocolate bar or box of candies. Plus there's the Jonatello route where Casey finds out about it and brings Donnie candy randomly, making Donnie super confused about why the human is "bribing" him without asking for anything in return. Like i said in the first chapter, Donnie's love language is 100% gift giving, so he would probably start randomly fixing and making things for Casey, thinking of it as Casey trying to "one-up" him or something without realizing that he's starting to look forward to the gifts, spending more time making stuff for Casey then he does working on his personal projects.

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I feel like we all forget how powerful the rise turtles are..
Every mutant we see is incredibly strong, able to turn entire walls to dust and rip metal to shreds, and they were made by accident. The turtles were specifically chosen with DESTROYING HUMANS in mind. Draxum picked turtles as their animal base, an extremely resilient species with incredible defense and a powerful bite. For their human DNA, Draxum stumbled on Lou Jitsu, the strongest fighter that the battle nexus had ever seen. The same battle nexus that is a fighting ring where the most powerful yokai in the hidden city (and beyond) fight to the death.

Not to mention, those weapons that they just happened to find in Draxums basement? The FOUR mystic weapons on display? Those were definitely for the turtles, if not any future mutants that Draxum was going to make with the oozesquitoes. These fucking LIVING WEAPONS were meant to wield swords that can make portals, Kusari-fundo that seem to be possessed by a demon, giving it the power to catch on fire, and a pair of tonfa that cover you in a solid hologram that's capable of growing to impossible sizes. AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE BO STAFF DID!!!

I haven't even BEGUN to talk about their individual roles that they would've had based on their species of turtle. Raph was clearly meant to be a "shield" of some kind, able to take the brunt of most attacks, with Mikey possibly being a "decoy" of some kind, small but strong and able to survive extreme conditions. Leo feels the most human to me, likely making him the leader or planner, or maybe he was just the only turtle Draxum could find?? red-eared sliders are an invasive species, so it's fully possible that he just couldn't get anything else. Donnie is the most confusing to me.. soft shells are incredibly fast and their shells can blend in with many environments, so maybe stealth? idk I'm tired lol.

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I don't like that Casey is scared of rats :/ I think it's funny and I like the jokes that come from it, but Casey is also the perfect person to have a pet rat. Imagine him walking around with a little guy on his shoulder! He could dress them up in little sweaters, give them a custom harness with little spikes on the straps, MAYBE HE EVEN KEEPS RAT FOOD IN HIS POCKETS?? He would make a little basket for his bike that they could sit in, with a clear top so they're able to see that would come down and lock so they're safe..

Not to mention name ideas! I have a headcanon that he likes cute things so I like to think their name would be something like "honey" "Daisy" "tiny" or even something silly! AND they could be a girl rat. There isn't any reason I just think it'd be funny if he had a rat that's constantly dressed in dark colors and spikes and then gets offended if someone asks "what's his name" :>

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DONNIE WITH PERIOD CRAMPS RAPH WITH PERIOD CRAMPS MIKEY WITH PERIOD CRAMPS LEO WITH PERIOD CRAMSP SPLINTER WITH PERIOD CRAMPS APRIL WITH PERIOD CRAMPS CASEY WITH PERIOD CRAMPS SHREDDER WITH PERIOD CRAMPS

EVERYBODY WITH FUCKING PERIOD CRAMPS

Anyway

Turtles who are very cuddly with each other because of low body heat and don't understand why they shouldn't be the same way with April and Casey because they were isolated from human society. All they know is that they have access to living heating pads and they will take advantage of that fact.

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AO3 Author Leo with the most INSANE authors notes.

"Sorry for the late update! It was my 15th birthday last week and i got to go outside for the first time, but got grounded after stopping a kidnapping :/"

"Another late update :( My dads adoptive brother/nemesis beat me up (again)"

"I just found out that my dads nemesis' daughter who I've been hanging out with is actually my sister, so I'm going to be taking a break.. See you next week :D"

"Hey guys, this is going on a small hiatus.. I just woke up from a coma and the place that I'm currently living while I recover doesn't have internet. I'm updating from a gas station 1 hour away"

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I feel like we don't talk about the angst potential of Aprils powers-

She can hear, or at least feel, peoples thoughts. She knows what people are thinking about her, how they feel about her. Plus, with someone else's thoughts rushing through your mind, how can you be sure what thoughts are yours in the first place?? One bad day and suddenly, everybody is thinking about your insecurities.

ALSO!!! The crystal was only meant to increase the powers she already has. In the future, when she gets stronger, she will gain things like the ability to fly, to manipulate matter, to tear things apart on a molecular level.

How awful will that be? She gets stronger and stronger, finally feeling like she can be useful, and she accidently turns the training dummy/her sparring partners weapon into nothing. She's forced to remember the last time she used that power, forced to remember when she had control over her body and mind ripped away from her, forced to remember when she watched her body kill one of her best friends.

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Nonbinary FTM Donnie who feels incredibly alone...

His brothers don't understand, and his father chooses to ignore the subject entirely. Only Casey and April call him by his actual name and refer to him as his real gender, but even they slip up sometimes... He understands though! His voice is high-pitched, and he does like feminine things, and his brothers have always known him as "she"...

But that doesn't make it hurt any less. That doesn't mean he doesn't get sick to his stomach whenever he's told to act more like a girl, or given things specifically labeled for women, or whenever that certain day every month approaches and he has to wear a pair of pants decorated with embroidery of butterflies and flowers that just makes it even more obvious that he was born wrong.

He could probably make his own testosterone, but how would his father react? He knows that Splinter loves him and that nothing would ever change that, but he also knows that Splinter is avoiding the subject because he doesn't fully understand or support it.

Donnie could take the steps necessary to finally feel as comfortable as possible in the body he was given, but could he handle the potential backlash from Splinter? The concerned and skeptical face of his brothers? STILL being called a girl, even as his voice deepens and his very bone structure changes?

Could he handle never truly being himself? Dying as someone else? 

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I wish people would talk more about the animalistic side of mutation. I get that most fics say something about the turtles growling or chirping, but what about all the other stuff they can do? What about the stuff that OTHER mutants do??

Imagine Splinter bruxing and boggling when he sees his kids come home safe after going on patrol or Leatherhead not being allowed in pictures because his eyes look too creepy. Kirby that likes to eat bugs and sleeps better during the day, even after being turned back into a human.

I feel like it's also important to talk about the difference in the mutagen and its effects as the Krang's knowledge of the mutagen progressed.

When Splinter and the turtles were mutated, the mutagen definitely leaned towards giving them a more "human" like biology versus the more recent mutants (Spider byte and Snakeweed are visibly less human than other mutants, but there is also Kirby and Super Shredder as an example of the psychological affects the mutagen has)

Also, this doesn't have anything to do with the effects of the mutagen, but I REALLY wish April had more Krang-like aspects to her character design or even her character itself. The Krang are an incredibly intelligent alien race with psychic abilities, including being able to create a HIVEMIND. Her powers, while a diluted version of the Krangs, are still incredibly strong.

Also also, I like to think that Krang Primes DNA was the final piece able to create April, because of how powerful it is, giving her the power to control parts of the hivemind once she's advanced more.

I feel like her hands could act as the Krang's tentacles, letting her connect to the same things the Krang can by sticking her fingers into the holes they would stick their tentacles in. Maybe she gets overstimulated easily by sounds? We've seen how much sounds and pitches matter in Dimension X, so it would make sense that she's much more sensitive to things like that.

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Casey with purple hearts drawn on his hockey stick. Casey with rips in his pants that have been patched with purple string. Casey with a purple D embroidered on his bandana. Casey, whose hockey jersey goes "missing" whenever he has practice. Casey, who brings homecooked meals and desserts to the lair, and it just so happens to be Donnie's favorite foods. Casey, who keeps getting mysterious upgrades on his gear that he has no way of doing.

Donnie, who can only be convinced to come out of his lab by Casey. Donnie, who keeps making random trinkets that disappear when the humans leave the lair. Donnie, who uses a hockey jersey that he "randomly found" as a pillow case. Donnie that acts like he hates going on patrol with Casey, but always ends up with a bright smile on his face when he comes back.

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Turtles that speak fluent Japanese because Splinter didn't realize that they would talk when they grew up and talked to himself in Japanese while around them, not realizing that they were listening.

I like the idea that they learned English through different media's, Raph learning from video games, Mikey from comics, Donnie from dictionaries and translation books, and Leo from Space hero's. April and Casey quickly realize that Donnie is the only one of them (including Splinter) that is actually fluent in English.

He tried to teach them, understanding that it's necessary for if they were ever able to join human society, which, while wishful thinking on his part, ended up actually kinda true.Mikey would be able to speak it near fluently but issues with reading and writing it, and Leo would be the exact opposite, with Raph being a weird in-between. They get more fluent when they start hanging out with April and Casey but still prefer to speak their first (native?) language.

Also, I think it'd be funny if they were mid-fight with someone who's Japanese (probably Tigerclaw cause Shredder isnt much for conversation) and started having mid-fight banter entirely in Japanese while April and Casey are frantically trying to figure out what's going on.