#okay flag time now

[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.

[silentwalrus1]

if i have to read one more published fantasy book that uses irl memes and online vernacular in its dialogue i’m taking away the toys until y’all can learn to respect yourselves. Not only does it break immersion in your world and detract from your characters having their own voices, it also makes you, the author, seem like a dim parrot incapable of neither original thought nor basic understanding of the passage of time

1) due to the timeline of publishing, any meme included will automatically be hopelessly dated by the time the story reaches readers and

2) it’s literally the same thing Ready Player One did. Hey look i’m pointing at a thing in pop culture. Did you get my reference? Did you get it? Let me list some more colors and shapes you recognize. Did you get it? And then Gideon Nav hit the dab or whatever. Hashtag Relatable!

It’s so painfully unfunny and uncompelling every time. We can do better. Apply some creativity to your own work

[sunshades]

they don't know they're halloween coloured...

[kaiserouo]

Wow ive been drawing a lot today

Already finished the next post but im not just dumping that out like crazy. Will most likely post next morning

[keeps-ache]

happy pride !! <3

[opiumvampire]

bro this girl i hung out with twice was like mostly nice but she kept hitting me with weird ass comments that sort of felt like digs but i couldnt tell…. like i told her that my off day is Sunday and i made a joke about all of my friends scrambling to book me for sundays and she goes “wow it sounds like you have a lot of friends 😐” like girl maybe i do…. is that a bad thing…. sorry

[pandora15]

it's kinda annoying that i can't apply to manager level positions because i don't have managerial experience

and the reason i don't have managerial experience is because i've never been promoted! love that for me :)

[zukkaoru]

it's so funny to me when people are writing no-ability AUs and are like "what am i supposed to do about the flags' names?? i can't have a character who just goes by albatross!!" and it's like. a college au. i know someone whose chosen name they go by irl is arson; just make them all trans idk. "i can't have everyone call him pianoman" WHY NOT?? why can he have that nickname in canon but not in a no-abilities au?? stop being a coward

[wetbloodworm]

ez called me a coward and told me to add the poison (raphael) to the soup (TRverse) which, for starters, such a funny way to put it lmao, and i started to say i refuse unless i get to kill him off before he can really get up to anything but. the problem is that triggered an idea for a plot point that i'm now turning around and i'm. considering. i'm considering it.

[furiousgoldfish]

Damn i was not expecting the "#tw extreme abuse", thank you very much for your words though

I might be able to help the person who asked about healthy relationships though, ive made a lot of good relationships despite my family:

Communication

•above all else, communicate. Tell them about yourself. Learn about them. Get to know eachother! Likes, dislikes. Boundaries especially! Check in on them. Just a quick hi once in a while can do wonders (lots of relationships fail due to lack of communication or miscommunication)

•listen to eachother

Arguements

•if something happens you can always walk away, make sure the other person understands that they can as well. Take time to collect yourselves and explain later why your upset

•be clear and ask for clarification where you need it

•fights can be scary but dont think that someone will leave you after one

•try to steer clear of insults/threats/blackmail if your angry, thats hard to repair after

Trust

•i know its hard to trust and you can take all the time you need to learn how, but making healthy relationships is a good way to learn trust.

•Dont lie to them or you will get caught up in trying to keep it under wraps (unless its to protect your safety, in that case maybe being around this person is not a good idea), not only will they not trust you but you wont give yourself the opportunity to trust them

Kindness

•be nice. Its simple. Good people, the people that will make for great friends/support/family will be kind back! Go out and meet people! Youll make friends! Just give yourself a chance!

•treat other how you deserve to be treated, with all the love and kindess you should have gotten! They will pay it back, they will love you!

Other notes

•express interest in their interests. You dont have to be a big fan, people will want to show you what they like when they like you. They're sharing something special to them. So ask about it! You dont have to engage much with it, but show them their interests have value. It will make them really happy, and they should be open to yours as well.

•do fun shit together! Something you both enjoy! If there isnt anything that overlaps you can do your own stuff in eachothers company. Just hanging out with them is enough.

•being able to love someone else, is to love yourself. You're filled with so much compassion and care for this person, and they will feel the same. They will be their to love you when life hits the fan.

•again take your time, it can be hard to get right. If it doesn't work out thats an experience you can carry into the next relationship, something to learn from.

Caution:

-make sure they actually make you happy and treat you well, not that theyre just the first person you could latch onto

-make sure you both have personal freedoms, your loyalty to eachother should not come at that cost

-keep yourself safe, safety comes first

Finding good people is a very important one as well, if anyone needs i could try explaining that too. Hope this helps.

Hey thank you for sending this manual!

Yeah your situation is extreme, I'm thinking about you and hoping that you get to experience freedom.

Your manual sounds really nice and is filled with common sense, and I've been following these types of guidelines for most of my life, but still had absolutely no luck. The thing is, this would work if you're surrounded with kind, understanding, non-abusive, friendly people who also just wanted to be friends with you and reciprocate and earn your trust and keep you in your life.

However a lot of people will see your friendly, kind, compassionate and communicative nature and decide to make use of it. It's been the hardest thing for me to realize when the other person is just pretending to be friendly back, in order to exploit me. It's really difficult to take distance from someone when they make you feel guilty for it and attack you for it, and it's hard to not feel guilty and betrayed when it happens. Manipulative people make great use of trust and communication you give them! Treating them with love and kindness will often get you in a situation where love and kindness will be expected, or demanded out of you, while you find yourself unable to ask even for some patience and space for yourself. And I'm worried that this is the situation for most abused people, we're often trying so hard to be kind, communicative, trusting, interested, loyal, patient, giving, caring, compassionate, and they zero in on that and eat it up, taking some time to make us let our guard down, before they start banking on us being in their service.

I have been trying to find good people all of my life, and fell unsuccessful, and I've tried hundreds of people, created a system of red flags that make me drop them, and had to drop pretty much everyone. And it's not as if this manual is generally bad, or I've just sucked so much at communicating and building boundaries, it's just, really difficult after abuse to feel okay around people, and to not be bothered by some of their manipulative nature - it hurts us more than it hurts others.

So even as I'm really bad with people, I can't recommend being very kind, trusting or communicative, of course it's nice if you can be that and not get hurt for it, but I absolutely cannot. It never happened once in my life, that someone returned the same kindness, love and care I gave them, and it often broke my heart. I would have to be very naive to still believe that I just haven't done it for the right person - hundreds of people reacted similarly, took what they could, then either turned on me, hurt me and pretended it was okay and I should stop being sensitive, or abandoned me altogether if I ever stood up to them.

This all is not your fault, and I can completely understand how you sent in these instructions with best of intentions, sincerely believing that this is the key to healthy relationships. It seemed like that to me too, when I was younger! I fully believed this would work, kind people would see me and return the kindness, it would be okay. The only thing I can recommend is the stuff you have under caution - if someone fails to reciprocate, or reciprocates at first and then stops reciprocating, get distance. If your freedom around this person is limited, get away, get distance. If they start treating you worse at any point, get distance. It's not worth ending up in another abusive, neglected or scary situation just for the hope of human connection. And it's also really difficult for an abused person tell when they're being neglected, treated badly or their kindness is not reciprocated, just because we've already been used to so much worse, so anyone not outright threatening to kill us seems like a nice enough person who deserves our whole heart. They often do not.

[peachyfnaf]

so uhh uhhhh that most recent tlaes episode huh

spoilers in the tags, beware

[coconut530]

👁️Movie Night👁️

[semiotomatics]

what are the consequences of lying to a psychiatrist asking for a friend

[gu6chan]

People will be like "idc who you are, seriously block me if you do/support x" and then i block them and they react like this everytime

[hikennosabo]

fellow bookclubbers, i appreciate you all and i'm not mad about this whatsoever, but none of you have been even remotely subtle about what happens in volume 10

[xcryinginguccix]

This will be a bit of a rant so buckle up kids.

Also English is not my first language so keep that in mind.

(Also slight spoilers from good omens, our flag means death and what we do in the shadows)

I think I realized why those 3 shows had such an impact on me. Those shows don't make fun of their own characters for being queer. Their queerness is not the butt of the joke.

The way the main characters interact with each other feels just so natural. It can be sweet, it can be tender, it can be heartbreaking sometimes. They face real relationship problems, and as a queer person myself, it feels so good to see that on screen.

I love those small yet so meaningful things Crowley and Aziraphale do for each other in good omens. Those small touches, being near each other, those looks they give each other, yet they are still afraid.

I love the whole of season 2 of Our flag means death. How Stede and Ed are trying to figure out their relationship. I adore the scene when they kissed in the moonlight, how they then held each others hands. I cried out of happiness when Izzy started to sing "La via en rose".

Hells, even in what we do in the shadows there is so much good stuff. It's the most unserious, but it's so good when it comes to queer representation. Guillermo's family being supportive of him being gay. Guillermo at the pride parade. Nadja saying "everyone's gay". Nandor going to outer space JUST to impress Guillermo. The last 3 episodes of season 5, they hold me in a chokehold.

I love all of those things in those shows, and also so much more. As a queer person, I've been wanting to see those "natural" things in queer relationships on the big screen. Characters expressing their love for each other, and also struggling with some things in their relationship in a very real way. I needed this as a kid. Not just some weird queerbating stuff, but characters being authentically queer. I'm so full of so many emotions. It makes me happy that we are finally getting what we always wanted for so long.

I love how those unserious shows are so serious at the same time.