[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]
I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.
Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo’s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.
Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.
I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.
On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.
These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.
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Just saw a post of someone saying that Daniel (from Interview with the Vampire) is so far into the closet that at the time of the Dubai interview he doesn't even realize he's queer.
And I really don't think that's true for his character.
He wrote articles about AIDS in the 1980s (later published in a book). He frequented gay bars in the 1970s (and possibly later). He's had sex with men. He's not repressed. (ETA: not repressed about the gender of people he's attracted to, anyway)
Now there's a lot we don't know about Daniel's life, so it is open to interpretation, I'll admit. But it really feels more to me that he's written to be someone who's, like, a 1 on the Kinsey scale. Like, his longest romantic relationships were with women. His primary motivation for being at gay bars in the 1970s really was to score drugs. (Tho that wasn't his only motivation). When he tells Armand "I can be on my knees in a minute" it really is just him "bargaining with desire" not expressing his own desire. He was definitely attracted to and intrigued by Louis (and flirting with Louis) in San Francisco, but the promise of sex alone probably wouldn't have convinced him to go to Louis' apartment. And for sure there is so much tension between Armand and Daniel in that Dubai apartment, you could cut it with a knife...it's just, y'know, both sexual and angry.
Daniel's a character with a lot of nuance in his sexuality. His sexuality is fluid. He's a character for whom his motivations for having sex are not always purely about desire (though desire is wrapped in it). And I love that! Finally a character whose sexuality is muddled...who doesn't fit into any boxes (not even those created by other queer people)...and yet who doesn't seem to be at all confused by himself. By the time we get to Dubai, he knows who he is, in terms of his sexuality.
And that doesn't make him less queer. His muddled queerness isn't a problem to be fixed. Hell, that's true even though Daniel might not even call himself queer or bisexual. This show has earned having a character do that. Like, the beauty of there being so many queer characters on this show is that no single character has to carry the weight of representation. So their sexual identities can be muddled and stay muddled.
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yay! I drew these quite literally three years ago. dragonheart!milo and raihan! a knight on a doomed dragon hunt being lifted out of his station by a small village medicine man. together they become magic lawyers and overthrow the government
the main details in these do survive into the iterations I’ve drawn (instead of these actual designs I spent time to make el oh el): the “leaf” diamond quilt/gambeson and the plaited coattail for milo, the “atypical” weapons, long coat, and large number of scattered fake gold trims and accessories for raihan. I think I lost raihan the hat and added a cape for milo further down the line because like this their general silhouettes are too similar for my liking lol
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you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.
There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.
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worst tropes
men dating women in the same career/field as them an get silent/bitter because she's having a big moment/is more accomplished than him
men dating women in time-demanding careers and then are upset that their careers demand their time
men with podcasts
men dating independent/emotionally unavailable women and then are upset that they are independent/emotionally unavailable
men who can't drive
best tropes
friends to lovers
men who can drive
love on purpose, love that's intentional, love that's not rotten work because it's you
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my favorite genre of saiki k fics is when theres like semi-slow burn of all his friends discovering more of his true self and theres a power reveal eventually, so now they know that their preconceived image of him was wrong and in actuality hes literally the strongest guy they know (or the strongest guy ever)
so they start having a NEW image of him in their head, and... sure its much more true than before, but now there are NEW misconceptions..
so of course, right when they start thinking of him as this heroic and powerful guy who takes all his problems in stride, then something happens or EVERYTHING happens and his persona comes crashing down and they see an even NEWER part of him.. one that they never imagined he couldve had with either the old OR the new images they had of him in their heads..
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i think if you say let people enjoy things you should also be saying Let people not enjoy things. let people enjoy things is of course a slogan used primarily to try and urge people to not harass or bully others for their harmless interests. but sometimes i see someone hate on something trivial and someone responds by saying let people enjoy things And generally speaking i think if someone else disliking someone is enough to make you feel like youre being bullied personally maybe youre not enjoying it all that much. i guess all in all youre allowed to like harmless things but people are also allowed to hate harmless things for no reason. sometimes you just dont like something and i dont think you should let that stop you from doing things you like
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