I am Thinking About The Implications regarding Ted’s love interests
With Jenny, they were best friends, there was genuine affection and mutual feelings for each other but neither of them acted on it because they both assumed they didn’t have a chance, and then it was too late
With Charlotte, Ted was in love with her but she didn’t reciprocate, he was just one of the men she was having an affair with behind her husband’s back. He never lets himself be too vulnerable and open with her about his feelings, resorting to either yelling at her or just deflecting whenever she starts to talk about Sam. He’ll just take whatever he can get with her
With Lucy, he can actually express his feelings and be affectionate, but only because he’s playing the role of Konk. He has something to hide behind instead of being truly vulnerable. Even when he’s only talking to Hidgens, at least later in the episode, he stays in character, he falls into Konk’s speech patterns because he’d rather be him, in part because Lucy likes Konk. He even asks that she let him die as Konk just so he can feel loved by her
And then, before he’s approached by Sheila, we learn he does actually want to someday start a family, get married and have kids
After the misunderstanding with Jenny, Ted no longer feels he can be open and vulnerable about his feelings, puts up this front of only being interested in sex when he really does want a relationship beyond that, and only feels safe expressing himself truthfully to others when he’s someone else
Ted please for the love of god learn how to express your feelings in a healthy way I am begging you
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oh, i am so enamored with the way the lesson of the velveteen rabbit rings true in our modern life. i love that we name our spaceships and write love poems to old buildings. i love that we all cried about the mars rover, that we made her so real that she was no longer a machine but a friend, a companion, a hero.
i love that we become attached to certain mugs, spoons, mason jars. that we develop a strange protective love-hate of our tablets, that we feel weirdly reverent about our new notebook. we name our cars silly things like the crab shack and call our favorite whisk attachment the one great destroyer.
there's a dog statue at my local park that has a golden back and golden head from how often people have pet it. at my college campus, people love an ugly little pointless sculpture we call bacon pants or bacon legs. we assign personalities to fountains, parks, laptops.
i love that our basic instinct is to include others in our community, even where there isn't a real community to speak of. that we love things, even when they cannot physically love us back - for us, the exchange isn't what's important. we give our heart to things so entirely that the thing begins to, in its own way, have its own heart.
the last transmission from the mars rover was not words; it was data. nevertheless, someone translated for her. my battery is low and it's getting dark. they made her last words a poem. they looked at data and saw a soul, a divine spark.
i keep thinking about the first AI born truly free-thinking. i keep thinking about the way scientists and artists talk about their work. how their eyes light up and their hands start moving, how even when they're flat broke and confused and the coding isn't working - there's this love of the thing. i keep thinking that whatever is being born into this new world will be born here on purpose, over a long time, with great energy. that when it arrives, the first thing it will know is most likely the hands of a creator delighted, overcome.
that we made it in our image. that the image we wrote was one of human compassion within ingenuity. that we couldn't make this thing without it being a labor of real-and-true: love.
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one of the most sick things i have realized in the ppl around me who are still catholic, is how much they are plagued with catholic guilt. a girl who won't get surgery bc she believes its punishment for her sins. ppl who are nearly suicidal in their desire for heaven, and since heaven is coming, they do nothing to change their situation. they dont try to improve their lives or others or the planet bc at the end of the day this is a "fallen world" and "heaven is waiting." it is so sick to drill into a persons head since theyre a child that they were born evil, that they need god to fix them, they need god to sustain them, as if it wont affect their mental state at all as adults. my little cousins who have already shown signs of having anxiety about god, like asking if he'll be mad at them/their parents for doing normal, human things. like really being afraid of what that would mean. my opinion and love for this world and its people shifted sp drastically when i realized i could just stop. i could stop being afraid of god. i could stop thinking we all deserved to burn in a lake of eternal fire. who even makes a lake of eternal fire anyway? that very much does not sound like a me problem. when i left the church, i very much still believed in hell, and i very much believed it was a place i would go, and would deserve to go. but i chose it anyway. i chose the eternal torture, because who does a thing like eternal torture? if god would torture me forever, than that wasn't someone i wanted to associate with, consequences be damned. and slowly, i started to see the world differently. i know the world is on fire, and theres a few too many genocides occuring at the moment, and i do truly have it in me to detest forever the people who hurt innocent people. but still, desite it all, despite everything, i think we're good. yes, we do bad things, but at the end of the day, most of us just want to go home, and cuddle our pets/loved ones, and eat a good meal, and look at the stars and dream. we're not so different, and we're not so bad. idk where i was going with all this exactly, but i think the cure to catholic guilt is choosing to believe in the good. catholism says goodness can only come from god, and thats why were damned. but i think we *are* good. even despite all the reasons ppl give me on the contrary. bc i see ppl wish happy holidays to strangers, holidays they dont celebrate themselves, just to see them happy. i see strangers go out of there way to help people every single day. bc most of us understand that we all just want the same things, and are willing to help each other get them. we arent evil, and bad things arent some divine punishment, sometimes things just suck. the cure to catholic guilt, i think, is a love that can outcompete the divine.
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I was watching lilo and stitch and that “you can never belong” scene came on and I got this idea in my head for that, but with ROTTMNT. So since I don’t do edits or draw, I wrote it out instead. Don’t think too hard about the logistics. :)
It is cold, when Leo slips out of the lair. He can feel Mikey’s gaze on him as he leaves, raising goosebumps over his flesh. He can’t bear to turn back, knowing that his resolve would crumble immediately if he did. His footsteps are too loud in the loneliness of the sewers. His heartbeat pounds in his head. He keeps expecting to hear a voice calling out for him, or the soft sound of footsteps following him.
But of course it never comes. Mikey had been so hurt. So sad. Of course he wouldn’t follow him.
When Leo finds a portal into the Hidden City, he doesn’t hesitate to throw himself through it despite the danger it puts him in to be there. The sounds and the sights are familiar to him, yet nowhere calls to him as loudly as the lair had. It’s only been two weeks since he was first brought into their home. They hadn’t even wanted him there, and yet the urge to go crawling back is so strong. He had messed everything up from the moment he’d manipulated his way into their lives. Of course they wouldn’t want him.
(Why don’t they want him?)
Leo wanders the back alleys and the side streets, letting his feet guide him to nowhere in particular. The picture he had swiped on his way out of the lair is stored safely in the pouch tied around his waist, and between steps he’ll reach in to slide his fingertips over the stiff paper. Just to make sure it’s still there. It soothes him.
He doesn’t stop walking until he’s far outside the city, tucked away in the scraggly rock forests that surround the Hidden City. The aching in his chest has turned into more of a twisting knife, the small knot of sadness becoming more like a gaping chasm. An open wound. A bottomless pit of longing and loneliness that he had never felt before he forced his way into the lives of the Hamatos.
He hadn’t had anything to lose, before. He hadn’t known the kind of pain that loving something would bring. He wishes he could go back to not knowing. He wishes he could return to a life of never having to make the choice to walk away, to spare them all the pain his existence brings them.
Leo settles on the ground, curling into himself, shoulders trembling under the weight of everything. When he closes his eyes, the image of Mikey’s face as Leo made his choice haunts him. Donnie’s quiet voice rings in his ears in the silence of the forest, you ruined everything, again and again. Raph’s soft squeeze on his shoulder lingers like a phantom. Leo trembles, tucking his knees to his chest. Then, he pulls the photo out.
Raph, Donnie, and Mikey grin up at him. It’s almost mocking, how happy they look here. A reminder that they are better without him around. He hadn’t seen them smile like that since the first five minutes they’d found him, back before they learned the truth of how much of their lives he can ruin.
He runs a careful finger over those smiles, then he squeezes his eyes shut and holds the photo against his chest. His throat burns, and the ache in his chest feels like a black hole that will swallow his body whole. He does his best to breathe through the pain and when he opens his eyes again, the light speckled ceiling overhead is blurry and indistinct. It reminds him of the stars they had taken him to see, wind tickling his skin as they sat on the rooftop of the tallest building of their strange human city and stared upwards at something beautiful.
“Lost,” he whispers to the open air, and he can almost imagine that single word floating upwards, towards the city and the sewers. Finding its way into the only place he’s ever found that might have one day held happiness. But only for him. Not for them. There was only danger if he stayed.
“I’m lost,” he repeats, words like some trouble confession, and hot tears roll down his cheeks.
Some small, selfish part of him hopes they’ll hear. He wants them to come for him, and to bring him back home. It is a stupid, foolish wish. It’s better for everyone that he stays gone. He can’t hurt them this way.
He falls asleep with tears drying on his cheeks, and body curled tight around the only evidence he holds of a dream he knows can never be.
When he wakes hours later, it’s to the sound of heavy footsteps over gravel. He jolts upright, heart pounding, eyes wide, and for one foolish, terrible moment he really believes that his family has come for him.
But no. Of course not. When Draxum emerges with a weapon pointed at his head, Leo can’t find it within himself to feel surprised. He stares back blankly, shifting slowly to stand, halfway wishing that Draxum would just take the shot and get it over with. He doesn’t think he has the energy to raise a hand to defend himself.
The gravel has left his legs peppered with indents and marks from where they’d pressed into his flesh as he slept. They sound like something breaking as they shift and crunch beneath his feet. Draxum’s eyes dart between those markings and Leo’s tear streaked face, before his expression twists into something complicated. Almost pitying.
“Don’t run,” he says, voice low. If Leo hadn’t heard what true kindness sounds like these last couple weeks, he would have said that’s what he hears in Draxum’s tone. “Don’t make me hurt you. You were difficult to make. No need to ruin a perfectly acceptable specimen.”
Leo shuffles, eyes darting between Draxum and the stacked stones surrounding them. He makes a sound low in his throat, hurt and uncertain, but he does not bolt. Draxum smiles, already assured of his victory, and steps closer. Leo watches with wide eyes.
“Yes. Yes, that’s it,” Draxum murmurs, careful and soft, like he’s trying to soothe a scared animal. “Come quietly.”
“I…I’m waiting,” Leo admits, and he watches Draxum’s brow crease. His head tips, curious. He’s not used to this side of his creation — quiet, yet resisting his orders. Leo shuffles a half step back, heart pounding so hard in his chest that he feels a little dizzy.
“For what?”
“For…for my family.”
“Aahhh. There is no use in doing so. You don’t have one. I made you.”
Leo shakes his head, hands trembling, photo creased from how tightly he is clutching it in his fist. The thought of ruining the only evidence he has hurts, but the fear of Draxum getting his hands on it, of him finding out about the others, it terrifies him in a way he’s never felt before. He can’t let Draxum know about them.
“Maybe…maybe I could—“
“I don’t know what yokai fool you found, or what nonsense they’ve been filling your mind with, but banish the thought of family from your mind.” His voice has lost that careful, gentle farce. It is harsh and cutting now. A familiar sound that Leo had hoped he’d left behind forever when he ran away. “You are built to destroy. You can never belong. Now, come quietly and we can begin your reeducation once—no! No no, don’t run, don’t—!”
His voice fades as Leo darts through the towering stones, vines curling at his heels and snapping at his shell as Draxum tries to recapture him. The picture flutters from his fingertips as he trips, lost amongst the shadows of the stone forest. Leo sobs, but he does not turn back for it. It is better if it is lost; at least then, he may be able to move on.
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