Shen Qingqiu

nie mingjue makes a new friend. baby lan wangji does not like gege's new friend.

Shen Yuan shixiong AU - Part 22

Letter to Ning Yingying - Helping a borderland town [Shen Yuan’s letter]

“Dear Yingying,

Thank you for your last letter, Binghe and I really enjoy reading about everything that has happened since we left. Tell the boys to behave or shixiong will make sure they get what’s coming to them when I get back.

Joking aside, it has now been almost a year since the two of us set out to travel. We were hoping to gain more hand-on experience and familiarize ourselves with the world around us. So much time has passed already… Binghe is much taller now. He suddenly shot up like bamboo and I found myself having to look up when talking to him these days. I was afraid to not be able to adapt to the change but it feels very… natural, now that I’m experiencing it. He’s also become much more mature. He was always a sweet and smart kid, but the air around him now is calmer and more confident. It is quite hard to ignore. I know that shimei might laugh at this shixiong for writing this, but I’m certain you wouldn’t expect the change to be this big. Just wait until we are back.

We are currently staying in a town very close to the borderlands of the Demon Realm. We were on our way to visit a small sect near this same town (I heard they keep very rare books about spiritual creatures in their library), but we stumbled upon many victims of demonic attacks on our way and decided to stop and help rebuild homes, also lending our strength for anything else that they might need. I say we, but embarrassingly enough, Binghe is the one doing the most work. And the townspeople love him. Especially the kids. They always surround him, asking him to do tricks and play with them. Lu Ayi* and I always need to wrestle them away from him so we can actually get some work done. Noodle is also helping in his own way, driving off undesirables from the town and sleeping the afternoon away with the men who tend the fields. Many were scared of him at first but now they all fight so they can pet him before everyone else every morning. It’s quite adorable.

[*Auntie]

Demons still attack every few days, trying to steal what little the townspeople have left. Thankfully, they never touch the food, but anything else seems fair game to them. One of them even tried to steal Lu Ayi’s donkey. Binghe and I made sure to fend them off and the frequency of the attacks have already gone down by a lot. I’ve also mentioned this in my report but we are thinking of establishing small guard stations throughout the village to help keep them safe in the future. I’ve sent recruitment letters to the nearby sects and many of them have already replied, agreeing to lend us a hand. Hopefully, it will make the lives of the people here a little easier.

I’ve sent Binghe to meet with the sects’ representatives while I stayed here to keep an eye on the border. Before this trip, I would have been extremely worried to send him out alone like this. Though I never doubted his abilities, I still thought of him as our young and inexperienced shidi. But… I find myself relying on him more and more everyday. He continues to grow stronger and more reliable on the battlefield. He’s already a very talented cultivator. I’m very proud of him.

As I’m waiting for Binghe to return, I decided to take the opportunity to write you back and send shizun a report of everything that has happened lately, plus our plans for the next month. Binghe and I will still travel a little bit, but we are thinking of coming back before the next mid-autumn festival.

Also, you probably noticed already but I was able to find a book of the martial technique you mentioned in a previous letter. After reading it, I can tell you that it’s indeed an old and outdated style, but I agree that with a few modifications, it would perfectly match the current swordstyle you are practicing. Binghe and I compiled a few pointers after trying it out ourselves and added them at the end of the book. Do send us the results in your next letter!

Take care of yourself,

Your Shixiong, Shen Yuan

(P.S.: When we received your last correspondence, I gave the second sealed letter to Binghe like you asked. It was… very thick. This shixiong wonders what words you guys are even exchanging haha)”

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 8.5 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 -Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21

RECOMMENDED MUSIC: Boom Goes the Donnie-mite (Mikey/Donnie/Raph vs the Sweeper) - "The Red Zone" by Mitsuoto Suzuk

Finally! This big ol' update is out! Thank you everyone for your patience. Hopefully the next one will be much sooner since I already have parts of it drawn out. We're nearing the end of... uh, lets just call it the "Holiday Special."

BEGINNING || PREVIOUS || NEXT (SOON) MASTER POST

Also couldn't get this out of my head as I was drawing this update:

Mikey's Ninpo:

Donnie's Ninpo:

Anyways, have some long winded deep dive into Donnie and Mikey's powers below the cut:

Mikey and Donnie are interesting because I feel these two are the ones who truly reach the full potential of their gifts. Mikey isn't there as of yet in the story but he will be by the end of Replica. Where as Leo and Raph had a lot of other things to focus on (leading, planning, and dealing with colony drama), Donnie and Mikey took the time to really focus on themselves and their abilities, choosing to distance themselves from a lot of the drama that the leaders of the family have to deal with.

Mikey's Ninpo

I always found it interesting how Mikey's weapon (the kusari-fundō) seemed to be the only one that had an actual entity within it. While they never address it, it's obviously some sort of flame demon/spirt. It could also help explain Mikey's dramatic increase in strength knowing that the spirit of his weapon is literally able to help him lift boats and buildings. I like to think that Michelangelo formed a connection with the spirit, especially since he looked so crushed when the Shredder destroyed his weapon in a way that none of the other brothers had.

Shortly after the victory against the Shredder I imagine he comes across his destroyed weapon in their old lair (probably while they're gathering thing to move to their new home) and he can still feel the sad little remnants of the spirit clinging to life in the broken object. I feel this would be the turning point that would lead to Mikey's first dip into the mystic arts. He would bring the weapon back to Barry for guidance and Barry would explain that the spirit has been bound to the object for so long that it can no longer survive on its own. Normally it could be bound to a new object but in it's dying state it would not be able to attach properly.

It is Mikey who suggests that maybe if it was bound to a person rather than a inanimate object then maybe the person could help the spirit survive. Barry admits the reasoning is sound and after much coercing finally helps guide Mikey through the steps, allowing the fire spirt to bind itself to Mikey's being (think something similar to Howl and Calcifer in Howl's Moving Castle, sans the heart losing). At first, not much seems to comes of the union. The spirit is still too weak to be able to do much of anything, but over time it regains its strength in tandem with Mikey and is able to gift him with similar abilities, becoming an integral part of Mikey's arsenal as well as a new spiritual connection to the Hamato family line. That is what we get a peek of here in this chapter.

Donnie's Ninpo

Just as Mikey canonically will go through a sort of mystic and spiritual enlightenment, Donnie too will have a similar scientific revelation. It always bothered me in the movie that his "firepower" (guns, missiles, etc) never seemed to be very effective, or at least not as effective as his ninpo designed physical constructs (such as the jet packs and the giant drill he uses on both the Krang and the Shredder). I believe this is because with physical constructs like a drill he has a sense of the weight and velocity needed to understand how hard it should hit. This properly visualized weight and damage is then made into reality.

But it's different with firearms and bombs. Up until the movie he really doesn't have a lot of real world experience around artillery and projectiles outside of what he sees on the internet and film. He does not know how a megaton bomb should feel or even the damage a bullet can create. And don't get me started on the the imaginary ray guns he uses on the Krang that don't seem to even leave a scratch. Without proper knowledge it's all just a light show. Very flashy, but not very effective.

When he realizes this it comes as a heavy hit to Donnie early on in the war. ...However, if there's one thing he is going to be exposed to in this bad timeline it's weapons of all kinds, even mass destruction. He will know exactly how it feels to get hit with a bullet, the blast of a projectile, and even an atomic bomb. He will then take this real world knowledge and recreate it in the same realistic way he can recreate his battle shell or drill staff. It takes a lot of work, sweat, and literal blood but this exposure to the worst of mankind's creations will help make him a walking encyclopedia of destruction. Over time, he will no longer need to make actual constructs of "bombs" or "bullets." He'll be able to simply create the pure raw power desired, no radiation or nuclear fusion needed. That's exactly what we see here.

We also see his use of shields, which is just as important as his ninpo arsenal. Specifically his ability to create shields to contain his own blasts, dramatically reducing the collateral damage from his own weapons of mass destruction. This makes him highly effective at taking down large enemies, but the shields sap his strength even more than the weapons (for it is easy to destroy, but hard to protect and preserve). This makes him often times a liability. He's often a sitting duck after pushing himself too hard and it can take him a decent amount of time to build these heavy hitting bombs. It's a double edged sword to be sure.

NOTE: these are stories I do plan to address further in my Patreon, with proper illustrations, but I wanted to give a little taste of what to expect! Haha. Very soon....

Still thinking about brand new mutated Dad Splinter figuring out the dynamics between his children. It wasn't until I was lining some of this that I realized the unintentional angst in this cute comic, because Splinter seeing how distraught Leo and Donnie are at being separated would hit a little too close to home for him.

The Orange Blossom Special

*points at username* of course i named it after a fiddle tune

It was originally a dip pen test, with a bit of gouache for the orange. I love how wobbly the lines are and how imperfect it turned out (●'◡'●) inking traditionally is so much more enjoyable than digitally.

shen yuan is a teal guy to me

Continuation of this thread with our Sha's interaction kukukuk

Fine I will budge, now you get to see him ;>

TW: BLOOD, DEATH

hhhHHHHHH HI HAVE SOME VERY LOW QUALITY DOODLES OF @an-artistic-failure'S VILLAIN MIKEY AU

and of course an obligatory pbj duo doodle

YES I am watching TMNT 2012 in the year of our lord 2021 what about it

People (looking at star specifically) talked about baby krang infected donnie being raised by future leo and then it turned to all 4 and a whole story and aaaaah

Had to doodle