#my mental health has not been great

[mueritos]

harvey from sdv with his boyfriend, oscar (my farmer) ^-^

patreon

[chickenoptyrx]

....I just wanted to draw gators :T at this point these 2 are more 'a representation of my last 2 brain cells' then they are actual characters 😅

[horse-head-farms]

they think they’re so funny

[arctic-bookclub]

in my opinion, qphil isolating and exiling himself is only going to make things worse or delay the inevitable: as shown yesterday the enderking wants qphil to isolate, to not tell anyone, and luckily for our evil demigod that is exactly how qphil operates. he holds secrets in hopes of not hurting others, not getting them involved. and we just saw what happens when he has a support network helping him, he broke free from enderking’s grasp even for a moment. but that bit is not the only reason why his isolation is playing straight into enderking’s hands: it’s his insecurities as well. ”i’m a shit dad” ”i need to prove myself worthy of protecting” ”i need to provide better for the family” ”i need to be stronger” - all insecurities that are qphil’s downfall. enderking has already played into his need to provide for the kids as well as the want to be stronger (the buffs in the dungeon), what’s stopping him from digging his claws further to qphil’s core, his insecurities and weaknesses now that he has no one to break him out of his self-deprecating loop? when all he has are his thoughts, the caws of a crow and the voice of him? if no one finds him in exile, i think he will lose himself again, betrayed by his own mind

[astridianmayfly]

If you're having a bad day, I'm begging y'all to try my new vocal stim where I walk around repeating "EliAs, plEAse..." in the voice of Jurgen Leitner pre-piping

[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.

[suburbanbonfire]

i'm so tired, poster sneak peek

[lexosaurus]

Hello! Very random and no worries if that's not your intention for the blog, but I love reading about your teacher experience and insights! Take this ask more so as encouragement to write more about it if you feel like it, because I'm going to start teaching soon (and yes, many people I've met have warned me about both its miracles and horrors lol) and it's really helpful to hear others' experiences :)

Thanks for the ask! Honestly I'm just a first year, so I don't have a tonnnn of advice to give. But here's a few general first year tips from one to a future another:

1 — No matter what, having a good department team is ESSENTIAL. You're going to be relying on them a lot your first year for help, advice, curriculum stuff, behavioral management stuff, etc. Talk to them, get to know them, have lunch with them, share issues/seek advice from them. You're going to encounter situations that your degree did not prepare you for (likely, in the first week lol. For me, it was Day 1) and having people around to help you judgement free is going to be crucial. I was super lucky that my department team and all the teachers from other departments that I work closely with are really amazing, easy to work with, etc.

2 — You're also going to want a good relationship with the "other" departments. The library staff, tech staff, sped department, guidance, janitors, etc. They're all lovely people, so don't be afraid to pop in to introduce yourself on the first week!

3 — Crazy things are going to happen. Like....all the time. Don't bring them home with you. As soon as you exit the doors, shake it off. All your students made it on the bus to their parents alive, so it's fine. Your job is done for the day. I've been going to the gym a lot right from school, and it's been really helpful to prevent myself from taking anything home with me so to speak.

4 — Document, document, document. Did something happen? Document it, email a copy to whoever's applicable: admin, guidance, sped, BCBA, etc. "Hello, just emailing a summary of what happened today" is not an uncommon email for me to send out. If an IEP isn't working, well at the next IEP meeting it shows they have 10 emails in the last month from you about little Timmy's hourly verbal threats and attempted physical violence to his classmates, so maybe the BCBA needs to do some data collection to adjust his BIP, or they need to give him a 1-1, or give him more resource intervention, etc.

5 — This isn't so much of advice, more like reassurance. The small moments when it clicks for a student and they get something, and then the confidence and excitement shows, it's really the best. That's probably why I've fallen so in love with working where I did. The other day, after weeks of struggling to help this student with Downs with his math, I tried a totally different approach based off a few example problems I saw in a math intervention workbook and hOLY HELL IT WORKED. It totally clicked for him, and the kid was so excited to do a problem out on the board for the class. It was amazing. Another student with an LD who I've been helping heavily school aced a quiz in one of her classes and legit ran into the room to show me. Cue me literally jumping out of my chair to high-five her, and her calling her parents to deliver the good news. Like, little things like that are really really special, and they're going to mean so much to you. And I hope you get to experience LOTS of them too!

[kaaaaaaarf]

I am feeling really shit about my writing lately. I'm trying my best to get out the next chapters of Museum and Murder Husbands but I feel like my brain is broken. I promise you all I'm trying, but I might need to take a break from writing for a few days. I'm just getting so frustrated with my inability to produce anything worthwhile.

[multicolour-ink]

So I started writing a full run down of what happened to me this year, but it got so heavy thinking back on all of it, as this year was pretty up and down for me.

I came into 2023 in a state of grief due to a loss of someone very close to the family. Then I had multiple health scares and visits to doctors. And on top of it all my mental health (anxiety and depression) has been up and down so much throughout this year that I don't even know how I got to this point.

I thank each and every one of you for the support 🫂💗💗💗 Thank you for hearing me out whenever I got low.

Truly though, as of my mindset right now, I'm nervous about 2024. I'm turning 30 and according to some people that means I am "passed my prime" and I need to have low expectations for everything and I want to make some changes. The only thing is that time goes by so fast, and is unpredictable. And that scares me. It's difficult to have a positive mind set when I've been going through so much mentally this year.

The main positives I have come to learn is that I do know what I want, and I am truly at a place where I feel I actually know what the f**k I am doing. Which is far different than to my mid-late 20s where I had no clue at all 🤭

All I can really say is that I have love and support around me so there is that 🫂💗

I truly hope that everyone has a Happy New Year, and wherever you are in life - you have support!

[oc3anic-ang3l]

Nico, woken up and half asleep and mildly delirious: lmfao I think my boyfriend might be gay

[mpekamitzii]

i actually put together a furry commission sheet with art because i need to get antibiotics of an unknown cost next week (the ones i got earlier didn't work!hooray!) plus because of that kind ask i got a while ago ngl.

[frostios]

Yea ok the next oc poll wont be for like. A while if at all sorry ✌️ the current bracket will finish out and then the blog will go dormant again

[yellowplumfruit]

sorry for the radio silence recently!! i just got discharged from physical therapy (yippee) and while i’m still unable to draw, my arms have gotten a lot stronger :) i just need to keep up with my exercises at home and hopefully i’ll be all good

[arrowpunk]

Well I got a job

[thebirdandhersong]

I remember talking to a friend last week and saying that if I'm reading obsessively it either means I'm extremely happy or extremely in need of help. alas goodreads my good pal you have GOT to be kidding me