#anyway idk if anyone else feels this. but yeah

[turtleblogatlast]

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.

[a-whole-lot-of-things]

i love dead boy detectives to death, and hope with all my being that we can Somehow pull off getting it back (through netflix or otherwise)

but honestly if we cant? if we get stuck at where we are now forever? i honestly think ill miss the potential s2 soundtrack the most

[nostalgia-tblr]

"are people not into that?" i ask, after posting my weird niche shit to the internet, despite knowing it to be weird niche shit.

[bunnihearted]

being too weird and unlikable and off putting and always being shunned and turned into an outcast everywhere i go and not having felt the connection and healing friendship has on you for so many years has really done a number on me

[cuubism]

hello friends. despite my 9 million existing dreamling wips i'm feeling the need to branch out a bit for the sake of my mental variety. what pairing other than dreamling should i write a little something for? could be romantic or platonic

other way of phrasing i guess: any pairings you really want to see more fics for in the fandom?

[feline-evil]

Dethvanity is really funny to me conceptually as an episode because you can see how little they had to make the characters insecure about for the bit. They swing for obvious lowblow choices with Pickle' baldness and Nathan's weight and even those require some suspension of disbelief because ok. Sure. Nathan '(said extremely proudly) never skipped a meal in my life!' Explosion is insecure about being a big man now. Nathan *guy who everyone thinks is smoking hot 99% of the time* Explosion is a tiny bit larger than usual and is insecure about it now. Lol. Lmao even.

But anyway then we hit Skwisgaar and Toki and there's like NOTHING to swing for, you can see them going uhhh ok Skwis doesn't sleep he probably drinks a lot of coffee, and Toki? Shit, what does Toki have to be insecure about with his looks. He's perfect, he's adorable, he's ripped. Um. FUCK IT, HE'S DOING NOTHING BUT EATING LEMONS. WE GOT NOTHING, WE GOT NOTHING, JUST GIVE THE BOY CITRUS FRUITS.

WOE 🍋 BE UPON YE

I'm sure i could make some smarter points about the attempts at applying vanity in this ep and how outside of this and a few other moments i do actually like that the show rarely takes pot shots at things like Nathan's weight, but you see Nathan has shirtless scenes in this one and so my intelligence is impeded when all the blood rushes out of my head and into my-

[sc3n3kitt3h]

IM LIKE IF A BOY WAS A MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL WAS A SCENE FAG

[zeb-z]

ok listen. you're badboyhalo and having the worst week of your life. you're willing and wanting to give anything, anything, to get your kids back. forever, your crush/enemy/friend/date partner?/ president sits you down and asks you to marry him. he's on a drug that makes him manically happy and has an extreme level of brainwashing for federation purposes.

you consider for the briefest moment saying yes, because you're drowning in your grief and hard in bargaining, but it won't do anything to help bring the eggs back, forever doesn't know anything. forever wants the eggs back as much as you do, the real one at least, you know this.

you're surrounded by roses. you ask him what you can do to help him, what he needs, asking the forever that you know is in there somewhere. any other personal feelings aside, he's your friend and he clearly needs help. he asks you to marry him again. he tells you to stop making some noise that he's clearly hearing through auditory hallucination. you just want your kids back, you keep telling him this, until he snaps and starts shooting mines under both of you.

forever is still out of his mind. your kids are still missing. the roses are burning.

bad said no to the proposal, of course he did. that's not forever, the kids are gone, this is no time or place for such a thing even if forever was himself. but I don't think forever asked because he feels "opposite than what he usually feels" under the pills. he's manic and under the influence and half brainwashed - he wants every day to be the best day.

and how heartbreaking is that? that bad is only being proposed to while forever is out of his mind. that forever wants bad to say yes because that would make the day the best day ever for him. that under any other circumstances, on that bench with the roses all around them, it might have been something good?

[jinstronaut]

this is also why i stopped using my tracked tag for a while tbh

[dreamedfyre-a]

i personally prefer the book version of ae.gon's coronation, but the show version has some little details that i really enjoy (mostly tied to the performances) aeg is great and the subtle changes he goes through are fantastic but i love teeny details about hel.aena. she looks directly at him all the time until the crown is placed on his head (you can see her and ae.mond in the bg, and it's literally as cris.ton places the crown on aeg's head).

when ae.gon looks at each of his family members, cris.ton immediately bows, ali.cent immediately curtsies but imo you can see the reluctance when it comes to his siblings. hel.aena meets his gaze and only then (reluctantly) curtsies. ae.mond honestly barely bows his head. and then she goes back to looking away.

as ae.gon turns to the commonfolk you can see hel.aena stands very close to ae.mond, and when me.leys attacks she reaches for his arm. after ali.cent lets go of cri.ston's arm and he also stands in front of hel, she holds on to his arm too.

and regardless of what the show decided to do with any of them later, i just think! it's such a clear way to show her discontentment with the coronation (because everyone knew it'd lead to conflict and tragedy? because she didn't think aeg.on was fit to be king? because she knew he didn't want to be king? i personally think a mix of all three in different amounts)

and perhaps more significantly because i love overanalyzing characters with 5 seconds of screen time and relationships (of every sort) are my favorite thing to explore with the characters i write but!! when there is a threat, ae.mond is the first person she reaches for. every other person she's close to was right there, her mother was right by her side, but it's ae.mond she reaches for (something to be said about how my man was ready to fight a whole ass dragon and how he does position himself in front of her as if they wouldn't both be burnt to a crisp if rhae.nys shouted a dra.carys but anyway). the show specifically portrays hel.aena as being very particular about touch and not accepting it readily even when ali.cent is trying to comfort her, but she reaches for ae.mond. it implies closeness and trust, but also the way he's clearly seen as a protector, the first person she looked to for safety.

but! she also grabs her dad's ser criston's arm when ali.cent shoves him away with the indirect order to protect the kids instead of her and he goes to hel.aena. and i think that would, again, be a very significant sign that she both feels protected by him and comfortable enough that she touches him. and i think if he was just her mother's sworn shield, that wouldn't be the way of things. but then again i'm a firm believer ser cris.ton adopted all of them so i just think this is further proof that he is seen as dad.

[born-to-lose]

I love being the always single person in my family, mad respect to my sister for constantly dating guys for the last 8 years, I would have shot myself

[toastsnaffler]

weekend melancholy is starting to kick in >~<

[bunnihearted]

i cant fully control my emotions during a breakdown and then i come out of it and im like oh fuck........ ._.

[fandxmslxt69]

i never see anyone talking about razor burns in fics and I feel like that needs to be fixed

[zeeposting]

ive had four dreams about school while sick so far, what

[silverandebony]

oh hey trauma surrounding watching other people eat while you, if you're very lucky, get something approximately equivalent, but more realistically either get something significantly worse or have to provide your own unappetizing food. what's up, i didn't miss you