#mental health once again

[icantdothistodaybruh]

Happy New Year⭐

[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.

[foxcort]

sometimes i think about how the acotar books could've been a great way to show that "love doesn't heal trauma" rather than whatever points sjm was trying to make about abusive relationships and sa. instead of tamlin being abusive, she could've written that feylin's individual traumas kept them from reaching out to each other. or that feyre felt suffocated by the perfect, idyllic and alive spring court when she felt the opposite on the inside. or that tamlin felt overwhelmed by the sudden influx of responsibilities as he's trying to rid himself of the nightmares from utm. they try to make it work. they try to replicate some of the dates and dances from book #1 but there's an almost tangible shadow over their relationship now. and maybe one day feyre sees a memorial for andras or a likeness to one of the high fae living in the spring court to one of the high fae she killed utm, and has a panic attack. and this serves as the catalyst that severs feylin's relationship and reveals that yes, their love broke a curse, their love saved prythian but it couldn't (and shouldn't) heal them.

[gideonisms]

I will admit I hate the trend towards measuring how Healthy fictional relationships are. they're not breakfast cereals! we don't need to measure the amount of fiber! even if it did matter how much fiber a fictional relationship has "healthy" is also a very general, vibes-based word for concepts that I think we probably should get more specific about

[annatorv]

🥺<3

[hemaris]

guy who lives in my basil plant

[laughable-umbrella]

i love how season two jon will play recordings of his very concerned and or very angry coworkers saying things like “i wish this poor little man would go to therapy im so incredibly concerned about his mental and physical well being” and “HES LITERALLY STALKING ME. I LIVE IN FEAR. HES IN MY WALLS.” and respond to it like “hmmmm i gotta be sneakier. the twink is out to kill me i know it. im gonna go break into a dead woman’s apartment.”

[grumpytrans]

[storeboughtbrand]

Mav doesn’t understand Memes. The daggers tried (they tried so hard) but they’ve created a monster. All he sends is raccoon memes - please send help.

[dragon-queen21]

Regressor Tanjiro & caregiver Tengen vent hc’s

Tw: vent post, injuries, just overall angst

~~~

~The first time Tanjiro vent regressed he showed up and Tengen’s door covered in blood and dirt after a mission and Tengen was ready to go out and throw hands at whoever hurt the boy. It was only after his wives pointed out to him that going out and looking for a fight would in fact not calm the baby down and would probably do more harm than good.

~Little Tanjiro who can’t tolerate any pain, what so ever. Tiny paper cut? He’s going to start bawling. Stubbed toe? It’s the end of the world actually. The only thing that will calm him down is multiple very colorful bandages and a plethora of kisses peppered onto his skin.

~Worried that none of his friends actually like him. Scared that he’s being a nuisance and despite him coming over to Tengen’s more times than not after a mission and the man explaining that he loves to watch over him he still thinks he isn’t worth it.

~It breaks his caregiver’s heart to hear his sweet boy crying and talking so horribly about himself but telling him to stop is somehow worse because if Tanjiro doesn’t vent now he won’t say anything to anyone and keep everything bottled up.

~Tengen’s found out through trial and error that the best and simplest thing to calm Tanjiro down it to walk around with the boy in his arms. Just softly bouncing him and rambling about everything and nothing till the teen can focus again on his words

~Tanjiro doesn’t sleep well without others in the room. He grew up snuggling with his siblings and now travels with three others who have no concept of personal space. This only gets worse when he’s small feeling too lonely to fall asleep.

~Tengen who refuses to let Tanjiro sleep in his and his wives room. Nope. Doesn’t matter how small Tanjiro is regressed- it’s not happening. They have a guest room for a reason. Or at least that’s what Tengen tried to enforce. It only took about two nights of no sleep due to Tanjiro waking up screaming and crying from nightmares subsequently waking up the whole household and leading no one to get any sleep, plus his wives to express their utmost disappointment for the man to bring the little one’s futon into their room.

[demeterdefence]

i understand the intent was that hades being “such a good dad!” /s is what helps him get away from Kronos’ abuse but it really just comes off as once again a female character getting the burden of being hades’ mental healer. three thousand years hades has been dealing with this but his five year old daughter from the future is what gets him to figure it out? come on

[cathalbravecog]

i like it when ppl draw this freak with pants like that. woe. ms paint gwam be upon ye. mole if u see this, this is dedicated to u

[lets-throw-bacchanal]

Well, well, well, if this isn’t the consequences of my own actions (I decided to reread A little life and had two breakdowns within the first 30 pages)

[queenofbaws]

i will not stand here and say the quarry's writing is perfect by any means, but man. that moment. in the beginning. when chris absolutely loses his shit and you see every last one of the hacketteers freeze..............shocked, wide-eyed, so taken aback they don't move even to look at each other.............

and then, realizing what just happened, chris scrambles frantically to grab hold of the situation again. he tries to grin at ryan ("tries" being the keyword), he tosses him the keys like nothing's wrong. he tries to go back to being mr. h - he does, he tries so hard - and finally when ryan talks to him, there's what waver in his voice. that absolute lack of understanding in his eyes. ryan's not just surprised, he's not just shocked......for a second there, he is scared, and chris sees that, realizes it, and peels out of there before anyone can say anything else. just.....

JUST............

i think that moment is 100% the moment i realized UH OH I THINK I LOVE CHRIS HACKETT because that's when we see the counselors have been around this guy for two whole months (some of them even longer, possibly), and not once. not once!!!!!!!!!!! had they realized who he really was.

ugh. UGH. i LOVE IT.

[swiftcast-selene]

30: Dawn

he'd stayed up all night for this. seeing the sun - the proper sun - crest the horizon again... it had all been worth it.

[gashu-satou-daily]

DAY 71:

been thinking about satou family resemblance a lot lately. all of the words transcribed + also some extra thoughts below the cut

regarding: gashu

i keep saying that more people would like him if he had longer hair. i stand by this statement.

if i drew him realistically, gashu's hair would be akin to a very dark brown. i will never draw him realistically though so this means nothing.

gashu wouldn't grow thick body hair. the crabstache is a culmination of years of hard work.

regarding: kai

kai has thicker lips and thicker eyebrows. has absolutely no intentions of growing facial hair of any kind. eyes are softer. has a wider face

has some wrinkles and grey hair. he's what, 30? i think he deserves it.

is fully aware how much he looks and stands and walks like his father. tries very hard to disconnect himself from this.

regarding: both:

both have rather long, slim faces + pronounced cheekbones.

hair type is very similar, i think that they both have wavy hair but gashu greases his down enough so that nothing shows.

have similar noses; gashu's is more bony from age. on a similar note, gashu is more bony overall, looks somewhat... shrunken. Empty?

eyes are very similar.

have the same front hair part. forgot the word.

have very similar body frames

extra thoughts: i think both of them are approximately the same height. both have an inclination towards eyebags. gashu's are far more pronounced. i might talk about them more and possibly even sei whenever i next get the energy to draw anything. they both have strangely thick hair. gashu's has thinned over time. he might have a bald spot on the back of his head but i'm not sure. i'll need to replay yttd to say this but their speaking mannerisms are VERY similar. they have an interesting cadence and order of words. autism, perhaps? they both also hold their hands in front of or behind them... very similar!