Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
RAAAAAAAAAHHHH OMG OMF OMG OMG
Nineteenth Century ROTTMNT AU
tagging @spoopyblues214 here because they love the meme with the four character archetypes (but instead of the victorian englishman it's a spanish revolutionary in this) potentially crossing paths due to them being from the same time period and i want to dedicate this post to him <3 i'd even credit them for the idea if i didn't write it down first (silly)
side note: this derives from canon SO MUCH but this is the best way i could make it work in my head to make everything fit into place
~
the year is 1827. seventeen-year-old raphael is on the run, wanted by the spanish monarchy for inciting rebellion in the spanish colonies. he ended up in texas where he found michelangelo, a fifteen-year-old ex-mercenary cowboy planning to return east. the two meet at a saloon, drinking sassafras together.
"i seen your poster 'round down south of the border they're buildin'. spanish king'd pay a pretty penny to have you behind bars."
"you haven't seen any thing like that."
"relax, i ain't doin' none of that no more, jus' wanna go east. i am beat from all the heat 'round here."
the two agree to travel together, since bandits in that area are dangerous to deal with alone. raph realises mikey is hella fantastic with a whip while mikey acknowledges raph is a hella good shot. raph prefers his knives though, it's easy to put the blade between his fingers, even if he runs the risk of cutting himself. the two travel from corpus christi to new orleans, resting in town for a little while.
after some time the two come across a former samurai, homeless and starving in the streets. they take him in, feed him and mend his garb. he carries a splintered bo staff and what little he has in a rucksack with a persistent frown on his face. sixteen-year-old donatello expresses his gratitude by giving raph his unused sai and mikey an unused kusari-fundo because of his whipping skills. the three of them live in louisiana for a couple months, enjoying the bayou until raphael felt like he was being watched. there is still a price upon his head, the lingering worry deepening the stress lines on his forehead. the three manage to board on a boat headed to new york. mikey and raph leave their horses with a free woman, april and her friend casey, who plan to travel on land masquerading as a slave owner with his slave. those two plan on meeting with casey's cousin, cassandra, moving in the lower east side to keep her company.
the three turtles board a ship with an annoying stock boy and a crew of rogues who call themselves the purple dragons. as much as the three avoid these bothersome pains in their necks, they always meet with the stock boy when they need food. they always cross paths with the purple dragons when they need to get to starboard for fresh air. a few months of enduring these bullies and their luck got worse once the ship was rounding the coast of the tip of florida. a crew of pirates came across their ship and donatello was sick of it, fighting the pirates off after they threw stock boy and the dragons overboard.
sixteen-year-old co-captain leonardo and donatello hamato were at a stalemate at port, raphael was held back by capitán piel and michelangelo pinned señor hueso down at starboard.
"aye, swift with your staff, hm ?"
"your blades are faulty, marauder !"
leo quirks an eyebrow and drops his swords, raising his arms in surrender with a smug look.
"let's strike a deal, fox-eye."
the co-captain gives piel a look and he lets go of raph, then mikey gets off of hueso, who stands and glares at him. donnie quirks an eyebrow and stands with his staff on the plank his feet are planted upon, waiting for leo to continue.
"my blades are faulty to you ? what do you know about blades ?"
"usually concerns for pirateers like you are gold and jewels."
"answer me or you'll have the shogun to answer to."
donatello stills and drops his staff, lifting his hands up.
"if you would allow me to reach for my family blades ?"
leonardo watches carefully as donatello unsheathes his twin odachi, carefully resting them upon his hands and holding them up with a bowed head. the pirate drops his swords, reaching for the presented blades.
"i have given you the last of my metallic weapons. now please leave my brothers and i alone."
mikey and raph were surprised to hear donatello refer to them as his brothers, but they connected the dots quickly and kept their smiles to themselves. leo observed the odachi in his hands and gave them a test swing, grinning to himself from how easy his technique came to him. he looked up at donatello, the samurai's head still low.
"aye, look at me."
donnie listened, a glint shining in his eyes as he blinked up at leo.
"you best be ready for another lad to join your family, because i am right here."
raph, mikey, and donnie join the crew of leo's ship. while capitán piel is the true captain of the ship, he lets leo lead pillages for fun. definitely not for the fact that the kid has a natural talent for leadership, he just had to learn the hard way how to watch for his crew. unfortunately, leo couldn't acknowledge the fact that a pirate crew is not expendable. señor hueso thinks the only reason why he and his brother are the last ones alive from the original crew is because they're the ones still truly in charge. the turn of events for leo to adopt three strangers from different corners of the world as family all of a sudden had them questioning his motives.
the ship manages to arrive in virginia for a break, which is where the four crew turtles decided to watch big mama's travelling circus. piel and hueso got to stocking up for food and supplies in the market. so the brothers saw the leading act in said circus was a lean middle aged man, going by the stage name lou jitsu. donnie recognised he was a martial artist by the way he moved, fighting all the big burly men ringleader mama pitted against him, but mikey could tell by the strained look on his face that he was tired.
lou jitsu was exhausted, he had been fighting for big mama's circus for over a decade. he was once part of a prominent family in japan until he ran away against his grandfather's wishes, travelling the new world as an actor until he ran out of money. he managed to stay with a witch doctor in louisiana, baron draxum. the yokai bewitched lou jitsu body and soul, granting him more money and fame... but at a price. lou jitsu started acting and travelling again, even going back to japan. unfortunately, four of his lovers bore children draxum cursed to be half-turtle half-man. lou had some idea, because he occasionally received letters from them believing them to be fans who wanted to bear his children.
raphael's mother in south america raised him despite ridicule from the townsfolk. leonardo's mother abandoned him and sr. hueso was the one who took him in and he and capitán piel raised leo as their own little brother. donatello's mother tried hard to keep him hidden until samurai raided her home and took him away to be raised by a high status family instead. they thought of him as their good fortune. michelangelo's mother had to sell him to some farmhands, so he grew up tending to livestock and keeping them together in one spot.
once lou jitsu spots the four turtles in the audience he experienced a transformation like no other, the dormant part of the curse draxum put on him taking place. he quit on big mama, leaving the circus to join the turtles.
"surely... you can give me a chance to be in your lives... ?"
the turtles hesitantly agreed and the group went back to the boat to escape big mama, leaving the harbour to get to new york. the crew arrives and they meet casey and april in the harbour, mikey and raph glad to see their horses again.
the ragtag group of raph the spanish revolutionary, leo the pirate, donnie the former samurai, mikey the cowboy, and lou jitsu the ex circus performer settle in the greatest city in the world– shenanigans ensue !
Get that traction gummy!
Villain Rise Mikey Thoughts: Part One
i have already written so much for this one, this is part one of my storyline for a villain mikey au !! i genuinely just spewed thoughts out here, i will continue with a part two eventually <3
i'm making up my own villain mikey as i go because i am craving.
the abandoned at birth trope is a little overdone imo, i love it when i read it for the other turtles but mikey deserves something unique
he felt a little different compared to his brothers, not because he was the youngest... he just felt different.
three year old mikey genuinely didn't want to hurt his brothers, not after he practically launched raph at high speeds toward a wall trying to get a jupiter jim toy out of his hand.
he ran away after that, guilt eating at him for some time until he forgot, then he found the hidden city.
he finds baron draxum and realises he's his other dad, which made the screws already loose in his head rattle a little bit.
draxum trains mikey in the mystic arts safely so that he doesn't hurt himself, which was very loving and tender on his part.
mikey deserved an attentive father, that was something draxum realised when mikey told him what he could remember about splinter.
even though mikey was raised in a decent environment, draxum still wanted to destroy the human race and that warped mikey's thoughts and actions a little bit.
this especially affected his views on getting what he wanted whenever he did, he definitely is a youngest child at heart.
he would start being a delinquent in the hidden city, running away from the police if they caught him loitering or tagging places.
then he moved on to stealing.
coins, unicorns, jewellery, mystic trinkets, you name it.
he used his mystic portals to steal and hoard like a dragon.
while draxum was proud, he created mikey for something bigger than petty thievery, mikey was destined for something greater.
draxum told eleven year old mikey about going back topside, and he did just that, enduring homelessness for a brief period of time before getting a small apartment from all the money he pickpocketed in the financial district of manhattan.
he hated being among humans, seeing their lives as minuscule and pointless– but he never let it show, he always had the mask of a sweetheart.
he witnessed his first murder and for the first time in a while, he wasn't bored.
mikey wondered about upping the ante to his criminal lifestyle, he was growing bored of stealing and he completed his father's training, what kind of human could defend against him ?
he only started with nobodies, people who would be forgotten within a week.
it got his blood pumping, adrenaline coursing through his veins. he liked it.
but killing "undesirables" meant little to no money, and mikey has to pay rent. he lives in the bronx after all.
villain mikey likes the thrill of the hunt, he started hunting down drunk people after they leave the bar, sometimes even sober ones just getting off a late shift at work.
it was when he crossed paths with yokai capturing humans that he found interest in keeping one as a pet.
he moves to brooklyn at thirteen to go back to tagging graffiti, sometimes in the oddest of places.
that was around the time his brothers interrupted draxum's experiment and released the oozequitos to new york.
he captured a large sum of oozequitos to give back to his dad, but there were still others that decided to breed and persist.
mikey has no real motive for what he's doing, he's doing what his father asked of him and he wants to appease him, but he regularly has his doubts.
then when draxum teams up with the foot clan, that's when he really questions his dad, if the dark armour is worth all the risks he's taking.
mikey meets big mama and realises she's behind the human trafficking, then asks her if he could have a pet human of his own.
she scoffs and tells him to capture one himself, no kin of draxum should get meddled with her business (after all that happened with the other turtles, if mikey's the one with draxum she's not taking any chances for a temper tantrum)
even though villain mikey's a spoiled brat, he also recognises that if he wants a job done right, he has to do it himself.
mikey moves back to the hidden city to nurse draxum back to health after the dark armour drained his life force.
he finally comes across his brothers again and thinks they're amateur idiots.
he's a bit of a bastard, ignoring his brothers and continuing to do what he does for fun (graffiti, stealing, offing innocents).
a couple years pass and the krang invasion happens.
he put aside his differences with his brothers just for this, he still cares because these are the turtles he was created with, even though their dad is kind of whack compared to draxum (mikey really does love his dad).
mikey suddenly unlocks his ninpo and he's the greatest mystic warrior of his timeline, junior finds it weird he's not with his brothers.
leo explains to junior mikey's not one of them despite his assistance, he's not family.
even though mikey physically turned out fine post-krang, it sickened him seeing his brothers losing to some pesky alien creatures.
the way the krang biomatter clung onto raph, leo, and donnie pissed him off.
it unlocked something wrathful and hideous within him, wiping out the krang and sending their tech back to the prison dimension.
it was a miracle when his three brothers snapped out of their krang possession and they snapped him out of the mystic altered state he was in, golden-eyed and chains lifting the technodrome back into the prison dimension.
even though villain mikey is a lot more skilled in his mystic abilities from years of training under draxum, it took a lot out of him to make a portal that big.
he passed out and his brothers, casey, april, and splinter were beside him when he woke up, but he was so annoyed.
he didn't want to wake up to these assholes.
mikey could barely walk, but floating out meant overexerting himself, so pushing everyone out of the way to get back to draxum it is.
post-krang, he suffers a lot of paranoia and anxiety, almost too much to the point where he chains up draxum when accidentally going into the mystic state.
draxum tells him to go to the market, get some herbs to calm down.
he accidentally comes across a dispensary in the market, getting a few strains and asking if he could have it in the form of tea, since he sees a few yokai smoking the herbs.
he's told he could bake them, that's when he gets interested in baking.