#yeah idk what else to say now I think

[apollo-just-ice]

Okay I know I said I would do eot postgame.

But I think I am maybe just putting that on hold for now and moving forwards to gti,,,

A new game for me that I have not played before, so idk what lies ahead for this!

[pineappical]

would calling this something like "the sun to his earth" be a little bit too cliche? maybe...

[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.

[moeblob]

Demyx (my beloved)

[hwei]

saw a post on my FYP asking what apheIios's personality is for writing him and honestly I don't know if I can even begin to describe him and he's one of my fav characters

[zeb-z]

to be fair, I don't think qroier not trusting qbad is particularly new haha. i think it's been going on for a while even before purgatory. the only thing purgatory did with that particularly relationship is it gave qroier an excuse to be more vocal in his annoyance

( @lucienff the themes of these are similar so I’m answering the ask and responding in one post instead of the comments, hope you don’t mind :3 )

I agree with the read that Roier didn’t particularly trust Bad before, but I think that at a baseline, Roier doesn’t have much trust with most anyone to begin with. I think everything that had happened with Spreen back in the beginning of the server is something that is a large cause in that, because its still something he is suffering from months later - it’s just in true Roier fashion, it’s something he doesn’t really talk about to others. He’s only recently shared it and talked about it with Cellbit.

But even then, he had a respect for Bad. When the eggs first went missing, and they were both visibly affected by the stress, they had moments of somewhat acknowledging the other, but sticking to the script of “oh I’m fine” yknow what I mean? And before purgatory, yeah, there was no doubt that Bad cared for the eggs, and could be trusted in that regard.

But post Purgatory, I think that baseline trust has been shaken. He doesn’t let Bad see Pepito when he visited the castle, makes excuses for him to leave, and then afterwards talks to himself about how he’s angry that everyone seems to have forgotten Purgatory (both in the context that he also doesn’t trust Pepito, and he doesn’t want Bad coming up to him as if the past two weeks didn’t happen). When Leo wakes up, and Bad is around trying to talk with them, he makes a point of pulling her away. Of putting himself between Leo and Bad. And it’s in the subtle, usual jesting way he’s done before with Bad (“you can only drink lava once yknow. sure, try it, I’m not going though!” and “stranger danger Leo, stranger danger!” etc etc. said with enough dramatics it keeps it lighthearted, because that’s what Roier does).

I don’t think Roier is actively thinking he should mistrust Bad with the eggs specifically. I don’t think that he thinks Bad doesn’t care about the eggs. I just think he hasn’t fully trusted Bad before, and now since Purgatory he doesn’t trust him at all, for good reason - Bad was very much an instigator and a cause for both his own torment and his family’s (Jaiden namely, what with the spawn killing, and Cellbit, Foolish). It’s no longer a ‘this guy is a thorn in my side and I don’t trust him’ kinda petty drama between islanders. It’s a ‘this guy went back on the deal to keep the score 50/50 and did so under the impression we as the losing team could die’ kind of situation. A ‘we spent the past few weeks in hell and this guy repeatedly not only killed, but went over the top in tormenting my family and myself, I don’t trust him’ kind of situation. It’s not an excuse to be petty or properly annoyed, it’s a result of how Bad burned all his bridges in purgatory. It’s in large part a trauma response.

It doesn’t matter that Bad has never once been a threat to Leo, that he’s taken care of her multiple times, that he has always checked in with the eggs and cared for them - it matters that Leo is his sister, that Pepito is under his care, and he Does Not Trust Bad.

[gregoftom]

pretty sure i’ve seen romance movies with scenes like this

[b4kuch1n]

I'm not gonna screenshot it bc 1/it really doesn't matter that much and 2/the person who made the comment is a kid but: a while ago I made a comic that's supposed to be a genuine study and reinterpretation of someone else's sprite comic (made in the spirit of authenticity too - to recreate the vibes of the sprite comics from that era, iirc very specifically because it's funny) and I got a comment on that comic's post that's like "glow up"

which is a compliment obvs. and the commenter probably didn't mean anything by it, it's a common expression. but I've been trying to find a way to gracefully put that comment away ever since it appeared lol

I just very much don't want my art to be taken as trying to one-up someone else's art when that's not the piece's intention. especially when the piece that inspired my art is perceived as "low effort" or "shitpost" or stuff like that. I did mention in the tags of that post that my considering it a study is entirely genuine, and I can legitimately write pages about the cool stuff I find in it other than and inherent in the haha funneys, but that's not for you guys that's for me. I just think that approaching art competition-first like that is a miserable way to do it, and (tipping into overthinking here if the whole tiny-comment-got-stuck-in-my-brain-for-almost-a-month part hasn't given that away yet lol) I really don't want that to be the takeaway from my own art. at least generally. if I actually think the source material is trash and what I'm doing is genuinely categorically better I'd just come out and say it lmao

[uselessnbee]

ok but like the fall from the quarry before El saved Mike was so high like he didn't barely jump and then was immediately saved he fell a long way

just watching it is terrifying imagine how terrified Mike must have felt imagine him regretting jumping but knowing there's no way back and he could only watch as the ground neared as he neared his death like yes he was saved but that moment could have lasted a second and still be traumatising holy shit he was 12 im gonna throw up

[todayisafridaynight]

any hopes for kiwami 3? like things u wanna see added or changed stuff like that

if they dont keep kiryu's goofy walk stance and the hoof-like walk sounds i dont wanna play it

[shima-draws]

Just got back from my friend’s wedding :’) I think it says a lot that I was the only high school friend that showed up

[solardistress]

everyone who is in the stanley parable fandom should somehow get sucked into the rabbit hole of the story and or characters and or the concept the game presents . not like ohhh i looove the narratorso much heres my design and lore for them for it kind of rabbit hole where you fixate on this character that like. you are making uo backstory for to the point it deviates from canon because youve gone too far from the game details or whatever but but really aanalyze the game the moments the dialogue for just a moment . mmfind the meaning in the words . find somethin g profound in the data the papers the desks the situation as a whole . you cant just . romanticize the characters. without. like. understanding them first . tou cwnt do anything with the characters until you inderstand them at a gut wrenching level . at least brush uo on their wiki once in a while ? play the game ? every now and then ? treat stanley right ? anyway if you like the stanley parable so much why cant you tell me about 432 and their situation . how profoundly sad their existance is and how you trea t them. how about cookie9? why do you hate themm so much. because of a review ? tou antagonize them for what ? the narrators doing ? bexause the narrator what . yeah . tou cant even explain his actions . go go play the game and hav eit rewrite your brain . go down the rabbit hole and bask in the true horror and unrealism of their situation

[iceeericeee]

I wonder how many tags i can add on to this

[hauntingblue]

Try not to make fights between two women look homoerotic challenge level impossible

[daisywords]

"you should be at the club" and why on earth would I want to???

[pepprs]

not to p*riod post but like. it came so late last month and it’s even later this month probably both due to stress (lol) and i mean i never “hope” i will get it ever but i was hoping id get it during the fall break so it wouldn’t mess up any of the things i need to do this week and i think there’s like a 90% chance im gonna get it tomorrow which is a jam packed day during which im supposed to give a campus tour to a prominent vice president an hour after getting to the office so. lol