#lol not me showing off that i probably should have been a psych or sociology major

[luckycharms1701]

got a response to my last post and fuck if i didn't pull my computer out at one in the morning so i could do this particular topic justice

my "time to talk about family dynamics in tmnt" button was pushed real hard, and i don't get enough opportunities to talk about this

So let's talk about Leo's position in the family in the Bayverse movies. That's right folks, we're pulling out capital letters for the leader in blue, because this is a topic I am super serious about. Full college paper levels of serious. Gonna need to know how you want your sources cited.

This is a fascinating take tbh, and I would love to hear more about how you came to this conclusion. Allow me to show you why my position is different.

First:

I think this image says a lot. Leo's a daddy's boy long before anything like parentification could possibly come into play. Also it's really cute, look at him loving his dad!!

Second, let's talk parentification. Boiled down to its basics, parentification is when a child, usually the eldest, acts like a secondary or replacement parent. This is the part that really gets me, because I just don't see any evidence of it in the movies at all.

We do get to see some scenes from when they are kids, and no where is it suggested that Leo is anything other than another one of the boys.

Sure, Mikey hides behind him when play-fighting with Raph after the buck-buck scene, but that's just younger sibling behavior. No where is it implied that this happens because anyone expects it of Leo. That, I think, might be the closest to "parentification" that occurs in the movies.

The thing is, I don't think Leo has been the leader very long at the beginning of the 2014 movie. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it's a move Splinter made just before or even as the movie starts. Leo's and Raph's argument really solidifies that for me:

Raph: And who put you in charge?

Leo: You know who did.

This smacks, on Leo's part, of someone borrowing another's authority to shore up their own. That tells me that Leo at least does not feel that he has this authority on his own merit, that he's new to leadership. Raph senses this like a shark in bloody water, and he pushes because there's vulnerability there. (more on this later *rubs hands together in glee*)

I think that there is evidence in the 2016 movie that Leo is relatively new to a position of authority as well. His struggle to maintain the delicate balance of his brother's personalities and the fact that he allows his own personality to get in the way of being a good leader are prime examples.

These are pitfalls that a parentified person would already have experienced and would be able to avoid, and so they wouldn't have happened if Leo was parentified.

Third, let's talk about Leo and Raph.

So, my position here is that Leo and Raph DO have a normal sibling relationship, at least as normal as it can get when you are turtle mutants living in the sewers with only each other for company.

Anecdotal, I know, but I have a bit of experience with a similar dynamic to the one you assigned to them. I am the oldest of three, and my sister (middle) and I did NOT get along as kids. It got to the point where I thought as teens that once I left the house we would never talk to each other ever again.

Perceived favoritism was definitely an issue in my and my sister's relationship. Is it an issue with Leo and Raph? I honestly don't think we get enough time with Splinter in the movies to determine that concretely. It's definitely possible, but I believe something different is, either concurrently with or instead of favoritism, at play here.

I know it's easy to forget because they look Like That, but the turtles are teenagers. They are immature and don't always know how to express themselves. And Raph in particular struggles because he feels so strongly. It can be hard to control it when your emotions are strong like that, don't ask me how I know.

However, he gives himself away at the end of the 2014 movie. "Every time... I pushed you beyond your limits, it was because I believe in you! I believe in each one of you!"

Remember when I said that Raph sensed Leo's vulnerability and pushed on it? We've come back baby! I am firmly in the camp of 'both Raph and Leo are good leaders in their own way', and I think this is part of what makes Raph a good leader.

Sometimes Raph is actually annoyed at Leo for whatever reason, being told what to do the most common I think. But!! Remember, Raph also believes in his brothers, Leo included. So he puts Leo on the spot in a mostly controlled environment to help him learn how to be a leader. There's a lot more I could say here, but that's a Raph post, and this is about Leo.

So is it favoritism, Raph's need for independence, or Raph pushing Leo that causes tension in their relationship? I think it's a bit of all of that and more.

There is a fourth section to this post, about Splinter, but it is now almost four in the morning, I have to get up in like two hours, and I already fell asleep once while writing this. But know that in this iteration at least, Splinter is a decent single father of four boys, he did not parentify Leo, and any favoritism is unintentional.

Anyway, in my house we spend a lot of time talking about how much Leo loves his dad.

[ellecdc]

Hi elle i was the anon whose results were supposed to come out today. well, my average fell by two grades. i'm not happy, my parents are not happy. I passed barely with decent scores. I'm going to a mediocre business school this fall (if they even want me) yay i guess. that's it for the update im going to go jump off a cliff now

should i just stop my education? anyways my stupidity and mental health doesn't allow it guess the futures not very bright after all

I'm sorry that it's taken me a few days to respond to this; I will admit I've been having a difficult time myself and didn't feel I had it in me to give this ask the response it deserves.

instead of babbling off motivational quotes about how "it'll all be alright in the end; if it's not alright then it is not yet the end" etc etc, I will tell you a story.

my best friend growing up [and one of my dearest friends still to this day] failed her written drivers test seven times [I don't think either of us really remember the actual number because every time we tell the story, the number grows more and more lol, but it was certainly at least 4-5 times]. Today? She's driving around and we laugh and laugh whenever we tell the story.

my first degree was in psychology. when I was 17-21, my mental health was at an all time low, particularly in my first and second year, and by the third [and then my fourth] I was so unbelievably tired of school... I failed. I failed a lot of classes. I failed a sociology class, I failed my first year intro to psychology! [basically psych 101 - as a psych major], and a few statistics/math courses!

in fact, in my second year I decided to take one class online while my other four were all in person. I submitted the first quiz in that online class and then nothing else for the rest of the semester. I never logged on again, never dropped the course, and by the time I realized what I'd done [or bothered to consider the consequences of putting this class 'out of sight, out of mind'] it was during exam season, and I knew I hadn't learned a single thing in that course and was going to fail, so I never even showed up to the final exam.

you know what I finished that class with? 8%.

on my university transcript, I have an 8%. I didn't just fail, I FAILED.

and you know what else? I got my degree anyway

I have a degree hanging in my office; a degree that saw a lot of tears, a lot of pain, a lot of failures, and a lot of doubts. sometimes I still wonder if I even deserved the degree, seeing as how I was anything but studious or invested in my academics. I graduated, and it was not with honours nor anywhere near top of my class, but I graduated

I even worked for two years in the field immediately post graduation. not only did I get the degree, I also got the job

and then....I took my transcript from my first university - that same transcript that has an 8% on it - and applied to another university....and got accepted

and remember that friend I mentioned? the same one who failed her drivers test an 'obscene' amount of times? she went to nursing school, and did really well. she's a devoted care taker and if anything ever happened to me [or any of my loved ones], I would absolutely want her in charge of my care.

well, she failed her nursing exam. she was devastated; this was all she'd ever wanted to do, the only career she ever saw herself in, and she'd devoted so many years trying to get here

so I reminded her about the drivers test. and I said "sweets, what are we doing right now?" and she was like "...talking?" and I was like "no shut up; right now we are sitting in your car in a McDonald's parking lot that you drove us to...with your license that you got. So yeah, maybe you failed your nurses exam, but you also failed your drivers test, yet here you are almost seven years later having driven an incalculable number of kilometres. you failed your test and it probably sucked at the time, but today we laugh about it and it's nothing but a moment in time. you will nurse one day, and this will be merely a moment in time that you may not even fully remember."

so.......all this to say; tests are sometimes meant to be failed. that's not a comforting thought, and I'm sorry, but you either pass or you fail [or you pass but aren't please with your marks]. and right now this feels big, and right now it feels heavy, but one day this moment and these feelings will only be a memory or a moment in time. I've never been anything but a mediocre student until I went back to college in 2020 [I was twenty four at the time!], and yet I still graduated high school, got accepted to university, failed classes, graduated university, and got accepted to university again.

my friend failed her drivers test numerous times yet owns her own car and drives everyday. she failed her nursing exam yet still tends to patients in hospitals and nursing homes today.

don't stop your education, don't jump off a cliff, and don't be too hard on yourself - it's a moment in time, you're building your lore, and you will be okay.

xx

[tiliamericana]

Muay Thai: 1.04

Read From Start | Read Ahead | Home Site

It was amazing just how quickly Nairi got used to waking up and finding texts from Cherry waiting for her.

Cherry seemed to be up and on at all hours of the day; she was awake in the morning well before Nairi’s eleven o’clock alarm, but also worked well into the small hours of the night and put in long hours at the day job. Nairi had managed to ascertain that it had something to do with art—Cherry had strong opinions on grades of paper (something about absorbency), colour theory (people were stupid), watercolours (they were bad), and on the one occasion she’d come upstairs had informed Nairi that her walls were driving her mad and that she’d be painting something to stop the encroaching insanity.

When she wasn’t inserting herself into Nairi’s life she was sending Nairi pictures and selfies with her other friends; grad students with brightly coloured hair, a grinning bartender showing off his flair, baking with a short woman in glasses. And now this:

C: youre closed on tues y/y?? C: which means yourf free tonight right?

Nairi sent her back a quick “yes” and set her phone down before pulling herself out of bed to face the day. Not opening the dojo meant she was able to take a little longer with her morning, but she still preferred to do her prayers before she had to think about anything else, and Cherry was prone to showing up if Nairi indicated she had free time. Which she apparently had a lot more of than she realised.

Maybe she should look for a new style to start training in. This was the first time she hadn’t been focused on a new one since she… Well, for a while.

When she came back upstairs her phone was lit up again. Maybe Cherry had ideas about lunch? It would mean she’d have a reason to go out and eat something.

C: great!! C: dn you wanna come out tonight?? dinner C: on me if i need to sweeten it ;) edies just moved back fr work and if its just me her and nick im go6na die from them being old folks who disapprove all night C: also i keep talking about you at nick and he wants to meet you lol

Nairi had initially assumed ‘Nick’ was Cherry’s father, just based on the way she talked about him. But then Cherry had mentioned her father later, just calling him ‘Dad’, so maybe he wasn’t? Either that, or she was very discreet about their being gay. Or she just went back and forth between ‘Dad’ and ‘Nick’ arbitrarily. ‘Edie’ on the other hand was a name Cherry had mentioned in passing once and then never again, so Nairi had concluded she was one of the colourful grad students. Apparently not.

She sent back a “sure”, and then after a moment, asked for a place and time.

C: yay!! thank you!! C: its this fckn italian place edie loves but theres a ok bar so not all bad C: edies fatal allergic to being on time but nickll be 7 minutes early

The next message was a sticker, a little pair of eyes rolling across her phone screen when she opened it.

C: meet at 7? C: i checked the menu has good veg C: pasta heavy but good :p

Nairi smiled a little at that and sent her another “yes”. After a moment she added a “thank you”. Cherry sent her back three hearts, and Nairi put her phone down to go and get some lunch.

She didn’t think anything of it until she showed up at the restaurant. Cherry had driven and was already parked, leaning against the side of her obnoxious little two door to wait. It was bright red and nearly vintage, and she’d obviously put a lot of care into it. Nairi had half expected vanity plates, but they were a normal registration.

Nairi waved as she approached and Cherry visibly perked up with a wide, glossy smile, waving back. Cherry had dressed up a little nicer—dark skinny jeans and a pretty sleeveless shirt with a modest v-neck. The heavy Docs were gone, traded for heeled ankle boots, and she had delicate pearl bob earrings to match her golden cross. Not a paint spatter in sight.

“Hi,” she said as Nairi drew to a halt just out of arm’s reach. “Didn’t we pick an interesting night to go out?”

“We sure did,” said Nairi, her brow furrowing as she looked past Cherry to the road between them and the restaurant. “What the hell is going on?”

The stretch of asphalt was filled with a flock of young adults, all of them shirtless, yelling along together in an incomprehensible chant as they ran up and down between two unmarked points on the road. They were arguably being directed; a young woman with a reflective coat and a manic grin, holding a megaphone in one hand and an airhorn in the other, was standing on a shopping cart in the middle. Standing next to her on the ground, was another woman in reflective orange with a clipboard.

Judging by the amount of honking and the lack of anything resembling city signage, this wasn’t an official event.

Cherry glanced down at her phone as one of the women held up the airhorn to the megaphone. Charitably she waited for Nairi’s ears to stop ringing before she spoke. “Flo did a round on the facebook pages—apparently it’s some dorm flash mob from a hall at her college.”

“Which one’s Flo? Did she have the blue hair?” asked Nairi as she lowered her hands from her head and gladly pulled her attention away from a panting eighteen-year-old who had something pink painted on his heaving chest.

“Nah that’s Mason, he’s finishing up his sociology honours. Flo has the green hair, she’s doing her psych PhD,” said Cherry, craning her neck to look around Nairi. “Nick’s here! Right on time, like I said.”

She started waving, and Nairi turned to see the tallest man she’d ever seen waving back across at them. She raised an eyebrow, the muscles in her forearms tensing, and she tried not to feel too uneasy about it.

Cherry hummed happily, picking herself up from where she was leaning on the car door and reaching in through the open window to grab a thin cardigan from the seat. “Oh, and just a heads up,” she said casually, “Nick like, really hates it when people call me Cherry, it’ll probably be better if you just use my real name in front of him.”

Nairi opened her mouth to remind her that she’d never actually gotten around to saying what the was exactly, but Cherry was already halfway across the lot towards the man. “Nick!” she called out as she approached, closing the distance and leaning up on tiptoe to wrap her arms around his shoulders.

He said something to her, pausing to hug her back before continuing over to Nairi. He drew to a halt next to her while Cherry returned to perching against her car. “You must be Nairi,” he said, voice alarmingly deep, hand outstretched. “Linden’s told me so much about you.”

Nairi took his hand and shook it once before dropping it, resisting the urge to take a step back once she’d done so. “Likewise. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Nicholas was close to seven feet tall and probably in his late fifties or very early sixties if she was any judge. His hair had landed firmly in the ‘grey’ zone just past salt-and-pepper, though he’d managed to keep rather a lot of it, close cropped in a very standard short back and sides. He had broad shoulders and a carefully ironed shirt that looked worn but cared for. He had a firm grip, muscle swelling ever so slightly in the lines of his shirt, and there was a furrow in his brow that made him look deeply concerned about something.

Though, from what she’d learned being friends with Cherry—Linden—if she were an older adult in her life she’d probably be deeply concerned as well. Or maybe it was the students.

“Do either of you know what’s going on here?” he asked after a moment, nodding at the crowd.

“Youthful hijinks keeping us from our dinner,” said Linden, grinning easily. She’d released some of the tension in her shoulders since Nicholas’s arrival, but at the same time seemed a little more on edge, like she was anticipating something. She took a deep, exaggerated breath, and pushed her hands into her jean pockets. “Do you know what that smell is?”

Nairi exchanged a faintly puzzled look with Nicholas, though his looked a little more exasperated. “Cheap beer?” she tried.

Linden sniggered. “Yeah, we called it ‘Eau de Freshie’ when I was in school,” she said, tossing her head to give the students behind them a speculative, almost mean look. They were still yelling enthusiastically, and she gestured at them. “It’s no longer funny, anyway. How many of these assholes do you reckon I have to beat up to let us get through?”

“I’m sure it doesn’t need to come to that,” said Nairi, her mouth twitching a little at the side.

Nicholas shot her a grateful look. “From the looks of things someone has already called the police, I’m sure they’ll be dispersed presently,” he said with a nod towards a pissed off looking woman standing by the crosswalk, phone jammed up against her ear.

“The cops always take fucking forever,” complained Linden, running a hand through her hair, foot tapping impatiently. “Come on Nick, you actually like, made a reservation and now we’re gonna miss it.”

“Linden I’m reasonably certain the staff can see what’s happening from where they’re standing,” said Nicholas, irritation creeping into his tone. “A little patience will not kill you, please do not start a fistfight with a teenager.”

Linden grinned at him, stretching her arms out in front of her chest. “I’m like, pretty certain the one with the airhorn is at least twenty.”

“Linden.”

“Well, I mean,” said Nairi speculatively, eyeing the students. “All you really have to do is be flashier than them.”

One of the running students fell out of pitch with their friends, and someone complained in her peripheral. A car door slammed and there was the crunch of footsteps on gravel followed by a huff as someone else joined the spectators. Linden turned her grin back to Nairi. “Yeah? You got an idea?”

“Yeah,” said Nairi, stepping up to Linden and reaching past her into the car window.

The other items she wanted were on the front seat, and Linden’s grin only widened as Nairi pulled them out. The baseball bat was wooden and well used, with a long crack threatening to split it clean open and letter stickers in the world’s ugliest font spelling ‘LINDE’ down the length. There was a clean spot amongst the built-up grime under the ‘E’. The bottle of lighter fluid was about half full, and Nairi held the bat out in front of her to squirt the contents over it liberally, splattering the asphalt in front of them as she did so.

She reached around Linden, extending the same familiarity she’d been receiving from her for the last two weeks, and pulled the lighter out of her back pocket.

The bat lit up easily and Nairi twisted it around to hold it upright, offering it to Linden. Linden looked at her, wide eyed, and took the bat. She placed her other hand on Nairi’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “You get me,” she said with warmth, before throwing her head back and cackling loudly, sprinting towards the crowd of students with the bat raised over her head.

Nicholas, next to her, made a faint, strangled noise. Behind her was a scoff and a loud voice. “Well. I’m guessing you must be Nairi.”

She turned and came face to face with an older woman in a rumpled men’s dress shirt and glasses who was glaring at her. She had red hair, natural as opposed to Linden’s box dye, and it was plaited out of the way to keep her tired face clear. Grey blue eyes stared down Nairi under her stern brow, and she uncrossed her arms to step forward into Nairi’s personal space. She was stocky and only a little shorter, barely having to raise her chin. “Just for reference,” she said, tone acerbic, “If I hear a single piece of news about young adult burn victims in the local urgent care facilities tomorrow? I will track you down and hold you personally responsible.”

She stepped away without waiting for an answer, glare sliding over to Nicholas. “You’re so right, Nicholas, I can see how much of a model presence she is,” she said in a way that even Nairi could read the sarcasm. “You remain a uniquely terrible judge of character.”

She strode across the street in the wake of Linden’s chaos. The students had mostly scattered with cheers and yells, and the girl with the megaphone was doubled over laughing in her shopping cart.

Nicholas was very slowly turning red, staring at Nairi with an unreadable expression. She coughed slightly and spun on one foot to follow the others across the street, trying to swallow her irritation at their judgement.