#and we won’t talk often

[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.

[itsalwaysforyou]

i think one of my fave jay/mal leadership moments is in d1 when jays like ‘hey it’s not so bad here actually maybe we could stay’ and mal’s like ‘ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE.’ bc. obviously mal has the pressure from maleficent to steal the wand etc etc so her judgement is going to be clouded by that but jays been like ‘auradon has nice weather, nice food, it’s safe, our parents aren’t here, and the others seem happy :)’ and has reached the conclusion that they should stay. and obviously he’s right at the end but i really love that moment as the two of them regrouping and consulting each other and discussing their next move & how it showcases their position/dynamic within the gang

[tired-eel]

Chat

I finally have a sonic persona again

(CLICK FOR BETTER QUALITY DEAR GOD)

Ok ok but I did a doodle before this, just ignore the the inconsistencies- I was still trying to figure out his design-

ANYWAY

I’ve had sonic Ocs since I was in elementary school but here’s two old designs interacting alongside the current one (and yes I tired to use their old color pallets too…. Just don’t judge me too much for them? I was a child lol)

[kimetsu-chan]

I went on a walk with my dad

[seventh-district]

sighs and collapses and disintegrates into the wind

[edge-oftheworld]

one thing I love about following celebrities/artists who are honest and proactive about their mental health struggles etc is I can’t count the number of times someone I know is going through something and I’m like ‘I’ve got a song for u’ and how much of my life involves telling myself ‘if [redacted] can do something/get better/etc then so can i’ (and having actual real evidence of it in front of me) and I can’t understate how much I appreciate these things.

but at the same time it involves a whole lot of watching people I care about suffer and you learn to read the signs and infer between the lines in songs and interviews, and yes we can never fully know what they don’t share with us, but when they do share things it’s not a big stretch to be like ‘this seems like it’s what life is like for you and I have taken encouragement from it but you deserve so much better’. and it’s easy to find ways to get angry at a predatory industry and realise things that could be hurtful if you’re already fragile.

and we can advocate for some things and help ourselves and the people around us feel better but it’s hard to meaningfully reach your faves as an individual. and there are things we can’t say on the internet in too much detail, speculation becomes the harmful kind of gossip, and so sometimes it’s a whole lot of internally saying ‘you’re doing incredibly well to have gotten to where you are but I wish for your sake things would get better faster’

[pheadrus]

like ok I’m in a group of 4 at my uni but we’re all in different cities now the degree is over, we have an online reading group with vague plans to meet up irl down the line. Problem is I’m dating one of them and I’m gonna break up with him, so that’ll mean cutting ties - we will lose the possibility of doing the reading group/ anything as a 4. my ideal situation (although it’s selfish) is to avoid becoming like separate friends where we all talk but only individually so what I really want is a new 3 w/o my bf - my bf has said to me a few times that the other 2 prefer me to him, I think it’s true and I think I’m closer with/ to them as people (my bf often complains about us as a three/ our communication style (plus- he has other friends he’s close to whereas I don’t)) but my problems are

a) that’s selfish b) how could I go about doing something that selfish (it’s at least so awkward, I’ve put a whole possible strategy in the tags though so not impossible) c) one of my 2 friends will probably want things to not be so harsh on one of us/ idk how to talk to him about something like that

my main question I guess is should I try it or is it too selfish? the only other options really are him getting our friends as a three and me staying in contact individually, or all of us staying in contact individually (which I guess wouldn’t be awful and we’d probably still meet up as a 3 sometimes? but I’d lose the reading group and easy regular contact), or the whole thing fizzing out

[gregmarriage]

oh, random thursday in october, i wish you’d go fuck yourself <3

[d0d0-b0i]

it’s weird how much lighter my life feels now. not that i don’t have any issues (because there are many in my life, as i am sure there are in yours), but they’re just so much more manageable than they were a year ago.

​what’s more; i love myself now. i may not be perfect. but i am trying my best, and i can tell that i am! i see myself in the mirror, and sometimes i just examine myself, and my features, and i smile. i feel so much more authentic when talking to people, not worrying about how they view me, because i don’t have to anymore. i wish i could’ve told 15-year old me just how good it’s gotten so far, i know that he would’ve loved hearing about the shitty sideburns we’re growing out right now :’)

[worstloki]

and the way Thor is so casual about looking like somebody else, it's clear that loki has turned him into others or other girls often

Thor: not this again. Loki with his strange habit of turning me into women and then checking me out -_-

[drivemysoul]

sorry just. jesus christ.

[cultivating-wildflowers]

🎧

[ko-eko-ev-go-ms]

It continues to trip me up how much human brains are just weird organic computers

[sailforvalinor]

.

[yoohyeon]

I thought I would have a nice day today, but it turn into a big fight how great

[fappellmoan]

the fact that they still care about shane and carmen and sarah wanted to come back and didn’t get to before the damn reboot show was over. in MY heart and i think kate and sarah’s it would’ve ended with them. one way or another. in my heart. forever