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.
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I think part of the reason why I’m enjoying Psych so much is that it reminds me of those “Top Secret Adventures” that were put out by Highlights magazine.
They were like, this two year or almost two year subscription service in the 90s/early 2000s for kids, where you’d get a new “case file” every month, set in a different country. And the purpose was to teach you about geography and a bit about the culture and history of these countries, because to solve the puzzles in the workbook, you’d have to read the little informational book on the country (or at least flip through it for answers.)
And you’d have to pay attention to your “suspects” too, of course, which came like little paper trading cards with their (usually pun-ny) names and some information on them. Then you’d combine that with the hints in your workbook at the “crime scenes”
It was all very goofy and fun, and while the majority of it had to deal with thievery and not like, murder, I’m pretty sure, but similar vibes, since Psych itself is mostly a very lighthearted, goofy show?
(Also I really liked playing Clue as a kid, which probably fits into it somewhere.)
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I don't think that grounding somebody for 2/3 of a year is a good thing. Like, for so long?? What happend? (if you don't mind me asking) Also, didn't they forget that they grounded you? Or is this just my parents crapy memory, that they forget that they grounded me like, 2 days after lol
ummm. personal stuff under the cut ig? don’t want to overshare too much
baaasically, I was using discord when they weren’t really okay with it? and they’d occasionally ask me why I was typing so much, and I’d reflexively lie, and I was a really bad liar back then so it didn’t work and I’d get grounded for like a week or two. so that happened a few too many times and it was all just building up I guess, and eventually I lied one too many times, they searched my iPad (didn’t have a phone at the time), found some more stuff they didn’t like (like the fact I changed my password after a similar but unrelated incident), and it all combined into one really fuckign big punishment.
the timing lined up so that I spent the entire summer of 2020, in the height of quarantine, with absolutely no electronic access. like. none. I couldn’t even listen to the alarm clock radio I had in my room. and my room’s door had to be open 24/7. lasted from the start to the end of summer, and even when summer ended I wasn’t let off. rather, the grounding tapered off slowly until it stopped being a thing anymore. It wasn’t that they forgot I was grounded. it was intentional. I don’t remember that summer very well. I think I coped by reading like. all of mom’s dnd 5e handbooks cover to cover multiple times and making dozens of characters I would never use, because it was a time-consuming and engaging activity.
since then there haven’t really been any more groundings or whatever. I’ve gotten better at lying, and they’ve started caring less about what I’m doing, so yeah it doesn’t happen anymore. used to be like. at least every two-five months that I’d get grounded from electronic access for 2 weeks at a time though. since we lived in the middle of nowhere, “grounding” as in “sequester to the house” was redundant lmao
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I’m thinking about Natlan and I just need one thing off my chest
If the theories are right and the Pyro Archon is currently dead and will be resurrection like the title of the chapter suggests, I want her to be a strong and respected woman.
Like, I know we’re already getting Murata and she’s gonna be a Murata Himeko expy (which I kinda don’t like but sure whatever Hoyo) from Honkai Impact 3rd, but idk I just feel like we need a single female archon that doesn’t have a bad relationship with her people AND is powerful.
Right now I think it’s safe to say that the power scaling of the archons is Zhongli, Ei, Venti, Nahida, and then Furina (I know she’s not an archon anymore I’m just including her bc I like her and I’m bias). Also, as an aside, this got to long so I’m putting it down here. I ranked Venti over Nahida not because her powers are weaker than Venti’s but because Venti has more experience. He can fight and knows the full extent of her powers and survived the Archon War; while Nahida would outsmart him no problem, Venti would overpower her physically I just wanted to clarify
Zhongli and Venti are from the OG Seven and have positive relationships with their respective countries. They’re both powerful and well respected.
Ei is hella powerful, but she did steal everyone’s visions so I don’t think she’s respected exactly. She’s more feared in my eyes. Like, absolutely, they respect her because she’s their archon and is powerful and is trying to change, but the people of Inazuma are very aware that Ei is capable of hurting her people if it means achieving her goal. OBVIOUSLY Ei herself doesn’t want to hurt her people and that was the puppet being tricked by the Fatui that did all that, but the people themselves don’t necessarily know that, so they just think Ei had a change of heart.
Nahida’s whole storyline in the Sumeru Archon Quests was reinstating her as the highest and most respected authority. Everyone loves her and for good reason! She’s great, and she’s doing her job as an archon really well. However, she is possibly one of the weakest archons due to age and experience. I can see her being a MIGHTY archon when she’s older, but how long is that gonna take? We’ll probably never see Nahida at her peak.
Then there’s Furina. Her storyline was AMAZING, I think we can all agree the Fontaine Archon Quests were great. However, Furina was seen as a joke or mascot by her people rather than an actual mighty archon. They just followed her because her voice was loud and she played the role well. Furina was never strong or respected, not until AFTER she lost her divinity for good.
Ei is strong but not respected, Nahida is respected but not strong, and Furina is not strong nor respected.
And this isn’t me trying to say Zhongli and Venti are bad or anything. There’s absolutely a discussion for misogyny in Genshin, but I’m not really opening that can of worms right now.
I’m just looking at the dynamics we have for the Archons and am hoping that we get a strong and respected female archon at some point.
It could be the Tsaritsa for all we know! The Tsaritsa is incredibly badass and there’s some indications that the intentions behind the Fatui aren’t that bad but their actions are, so it could be that the Tsaritsa is our strong AND respected Archon.
Yet, Childe’s line about her makes me think that people have their doubts, so is she really that respected as we think?
That just leaves Murata, and I am hoping that if the resurrection thing is about her, then I hope Murata is very strong and highly respected.
But if the resurrection is about someone else, say,the Pyro Sovereign, then I am BEGGING Hoyo to make the Pyro Sovereign a woman. We lost a female archon to a male sovereign I don’t want it to happen again.
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ouaw spoilers up to like episode 19 ? Maybe farther than that but not in depth, up to ep ~30 in tags (vaguely)
But I was rewatching episode 9 for normal reasons and Mr Light going “I can’t promise [Kettlesteam] won’t be injured when captured but I can promise you won’t be the one doing the injuring” HE FUCKING KNEW. THAT RAT BASTARD. did they send the missing kids away knowing that too.
Plus the ransom note Witch gave the party about Torbek. Like they sent him away to the Faewild KNOWING what would happen to him just because ?? He got a bit drunk and caused some havoc?? Bro?? Morals???
Also Light just straight up lying about not knowing Zybilna??? What r ur plans bud. (This one might be true idk I’m just losing my mind)
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