Thinking about the Don Suave scene and what it means in terms of LGBTQ+ representation because my brain does nothing if not torment me with random topics to ramble about on the regular.
Anyway, I just wanted to ramble about why I like the scene but to get it out of the way - the scene can very easily be interpreted in so many different ways, and all of them are valid. I personally see it as Leo having at least some attraction to a man. And the following is an explanation of my own interpretation and thoughts on it and what it means especially for Leo’s portrayal in the grand scheme of things.
Long-winded interpretation under the cut!
Now, to start with, it’s important to me that in the scene Leo looks at Don Suave in the very beginning and then for the entirety of the rest of the time the man is on screen, Leo’s eyes are closed. Yet, in the end, he is still visibly enamored with Don Suave, happily cuddling up to him as he’s being carried away.
You can very easily interpret this as Leo being spellbound and that’s honestly super valid and I believe he likely was at least somewhat in the beginning, but considering how fast he looked away and how he never looked again, I personally think it makes more sense to read it as Leo just finding the man attractive, at least somewhat. (For the record, I personally headcanon Rise Leo as bisexual with a heavy preference for men, but I want to be blunt when I say that any interpretation is valid. Literally any. Ace, pan, gay, bi, none of the above or a mixture of something new literally all of it is more than okay and fair. Hell you could even interpret this entire scene as more romantic attraction than physical and it would still work. Anything goes!! Don’t bother people, guys, really.)
The main reason I take this scene to be at the very least LGBTQ+ adjacent isn’t just because of how it’s portrayed, but because of who Leonardo is. Not in terms of Rise of the TMNT, but in terms of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™️ franchise.
Leo’s a character who, while changing with each iteration, has still at his core been around for decades upon decades as “the blue one”. One fourth of the team. He’s the one most are going to look at as the Leader, and oftentimes he is the one closest to having the title of Main Character. Not to say the others aren’t just as important, but Leo’s presence in the A plots of basically all TMNT media is often something very main character-esque.
And that’s very, very important to note. Here we have a Main Character of a prolific and decades long-running franchise distributed by a children’s television network. You can play around with his and his brothers’ characters all you like, but there is always going to be challenges to dodge around, especially since this was still in 2018-2019.
For example, you can play around with their designs so long as they’re color coded turtles, but their sexualities? Now that’s tricky.
“But what about Hypno and Warren?” Not main characters and also they’re Rise originals. They have a lot more room to play around with than a character like Leo does. But even talking about main characters in the franchise, you could arguably have an easier time playing around with Donnie or Mikey’s sexualities than Leo or even Raph, as (unfortunately) the former two tend to get more B plots, so they’d likely have had a little more leeway (still not a lot though.)
So, where does this leave us?
It leaves us in a place where outright stating and/or showing undeniable proof of Leo’s attraction to men is very, very difficult. So, workarounds!
Workarounds like the entire Don Suave situation.
To be honest, as left up to interpretation and lowkey and deniable as it is, this whole scene means a lot to me because of who Leo is as a character. It’s just nice when we get so see even the bare bones of representation with characters that have been such a large part of pop culture for decades, y’know? Even if more would be so much nicer, this is better than I thought we’d ever get for these boys.
And, again, literally nothing I’ve said is the only way to interpret it, I’m more than happy when people interpret media on their own honestly, it’s just something I’ve been thinking of lately and I was wondering if others felt the same way.
Whatever you think when you interpret this scene or Rise Leo as a whole, I just thought this would be interesting to think about, even if it was ramble-y, haha.
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I mentioned before my confusion on the whole “Dark Cacao Chocolate” bit on Dark Choco’s new outfit, and now I’ve just come to the conclusion that it’s his full name
I mentioned in the tags that I thought it’d be funny to have a scene where Dark Cacao calls out to Dark Choco and calls him by his full name, and Dark Choco knows he’s messed up because of it. Like, you know when you’re in trouble when your parents call you by your full name? Basically that. So I decided to draw that here because I thought it was funny
To be honest, not sure I like how Dark Cacao turned out. I kind of half assed him, and I feel like redoing him. I’ll update the drawing if I do
But yeah, take this joke, hope you enjoy
Edit: I completely redrew Dark Cacao, much more satisfied with this.
It has also come to my attention that unfortunately, this was actually just a bad translation of the new outfit, and it’s just supposed to be Dark Choco Cookie
Here’s the one I originally found
And they’ve updated the costume descriptions to be more accurate now, and here’s how Dark Choco’s now reads, with no mention of the Dark Cacao Chocolate
Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. But hey, maybe we can keep it as a headcanon
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Another Desmond reborn as X, but this one is as Uberto Alberti's kid. Who we don't know anything about but "family" is the reason he betrayed his friend supposedly so I'd be interesting if Desmond could try and avoid it this time around.
According to the transcription of Uberto’s database in ACII:
Now, I found a backdoor into the Templars' database server, I've been combing it for some kind of smoking gun. I found it. Apparently, Uberto's family was evicted by the Medici bank. Uberto's been aching for revenge ever since, and the Templars promised him support.
Ezio's father was standing in the way AND Uberto was jealous of his influence over the Florentine government. Two birds with one stone, isn't it? It looks like Uberto used his election to the Signoria as his opportunity to strike.
Apparently, he joined the Templars because the Medici evicted his family.
If he is part of the real House Alberti, there is no mentions of any evictions in wiki nor any mention of an Uberto. The Albertis were allies of the Medici as far as I read.
Returned to Florence, in the 15th century they were first allied to the Medici against the Albizzi. Main members of the period include writer Antonio Alberti, cardinal Alberto di Giovanni Alberti and architect and Renaissance theorist Leon Battista Alberti.
But wiki did say that they “divided into different lines, who owned several houses and towers near the modern Ponte alle Grazie” and “Some of them were admitted in the Venetian nobility late in the century” so maybe Uberto’s family wasn’t one of those few fortunate Albertis to gain nobility.
So, really…
Giovanni died and dragged his two sons with him because of his ties to the Medicis.
And Desmond would point that out.
In this setup, Desmond would probably think of Uberto as a good father as he did stress he did it for his family (although another setup is that Uberto is using the whole “I’m doing it for my family” to hide his greed and thirst for power but that would be a bit boring so we’ll go down the ‘a good man wishing to avenge his family’s misfortunes’ route instead).
So Desmond would want to protect his new family (especially if he has younger siblings). When they get evicted, Desmond understood why Uberto did what he did. Maybe add in the drama of the eviction being all of a sudden or not given any warning before they were evicted during a time when Firenze was having ‘money problems’.
Desmond knew that the Templars would contact Uberto then and tried to stop Uberto from saying yes to the Templars but he’d say that this was their only choice if they wish to protect their family.
(If you really wanna drive in a conundrum, one of Desmond’s siblings or his mother falls ill during this time and the financial support the Templars gave them is what kept them from dying or maybe said mother/sibling was already ill and almost died had it not been for the Templars’ money)
In the end, Desmond tries to leave the Auditores alone but, instead, Ezio found him and started to talk to him. Desmond couldn’t help but form a bond with Ezio anyway, maybe become a close friend who doesn’t really like to be seen with others.
Ezio knows Desmond spend most of his time caring for his ailing sibling/mother, and he remembers Petruccio so he has a soft spot for Desmond.
Anyway…
Uberto still becomes a Templar and Desmond tries to undermine him, first by trying to save the decoded message that Giovanni needed but that failed because Uberto knew that Desmond was trying to stop him so he’s become more ‘suspicious’. He never scolds Desmond though and he understands what his son is doing so he tells Desmond to continue to try and stop him…
“This way… no matter which sides wins, our family will be safe.”
And Desmond realized then and there that Uberto was ready to die if it meant their family would be safe and financially secured.
In the end…
Desmond helped Giovanni, Federico and Petruccio escape by unlocking their cage and telling them that Uberto’s a Templar. Desmond begs Giovanni to not kill Uberto, that he’ll be able to make Uberto understand that they have failed and they’ll leave Firenze, hell, they’ll leave all of Italia, just…
“Please… don’t kill padre.”
Giovanni promises not to kill Uberto if they leave Firenze as soon as possible.
And Desmond is able to persuade Uberto to do just that, telling him that revenge means nothing if it would lead to his death.
.
Now.
The happy ending would be that Desmond and Ezio would see each other and there will be this strain in their friendship because of Uberto’s betrayal that they will slowly get past.
But…
The more angst-filled route would be…
Lorenzo wants all the conspirators of the Pazzi conspiracy to be killed and Uberto was one of them. He orders Giovanni to kill Uberto and Giovanni tried to say no, at first, only to acquiesce once Lorenzo reminded him who he was ‘allies’ with.
Desmond finds an Assassin standing in front of his father’s bleeding corpse and the darkness and his shock made it hard for him to see the Assassin clearly.
All he knows…
… was that the Assassin was wearing Ezio’s robes…
.
.
In this setup, Desmond would be torn between wanting to take vengeance or being the person to cut the noose of revenge that keeps looping and looping around all of them.
His trust in the Auditores would be destroyed and Desmond would want to believe that it wasn’t Ezio, that maybe it was Giovanni or even Federico but a part of him would whisper that it could have been Ezio. Ezio wasn’t there when Desmond begged for his father’s life.
Last time he saw Ezio, he was wearing those robes…
And Desmond can’t…
… will not kill Ezio even if a part of him wished to avenge Uberto’s death.
They had no reason to kill him.
His family had exiled themselves away from Firenze, living as normal farmers of all things.
He…
He needed to know the truth.
And, once he knows it…
That’s when he’ll decide how to end this chain of vengeance.
With blood spilled… or not.
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So one of the things that made me cry (and laugh) the most, when reading the whole series was in Debriefing when Ice has surgery and Mav kisses him on the forehead, then Ice types out “I am cured” with like no punctuation. (Because of course Ice is the punctuation man 99% of the time.)
One, Ice is actually so fucking funny with the “I am cured.” Like no one would believe how funny he actually is. (And I headcanon that Mav knows this, of course, but almost no one else believes him. Which drives him up the wall.) Two, that exchange was so simple but so loving??? Foaming at the mouth here. Especially after those crazy 30 years. So my question is, what are Ice and Mav’s kisses of choice? Forehead, cheek, regular ol’ lips, the world is their secretly sappy oyster.
I haven’t read that chapter of debriefing since fucking last October! Whoa! not sure how i feel about it .
regular ol’ on the lips :) it means something more than all the rest, it’s romantic in a way none of the others are (which is why it’s so dangerous)
okay yes re: ice being funny yes. wait wait wait let me find it in my doc hold on
here!
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