living in Boston while being a fan of Greater Boston is so funny sometimes. this weekend i was on a food tour in the North End for a friend's birthday, and in between restaurants, our guide was pointing out filming locations used in various Ben Affleck movies and also described Matt Damon as Affleck's "very good friend — no, his best friend" and i had to take a reality check for a moment.
i, a trans man, was dressed up in full drag today (for work) with a giant blonde wig and a sequinned gown and a glitzy bra underneath. and at one point, a drunk customer pulled down the front of my dress and pointed to my (post-op) chest and went "see! i told you so! my friend here thought you were a real girl." and he laughed and i laughed and i moved on with my day.
but buddy, my guy. i'm trans. i'm on levels of gender performance you can't even dream of.
I'm reading a book on emotions, and the writer was talking about how she was on a date with someone she didn't know that well, and cause she was like, blushing and had like a fluttery gut feeling she thought "huh guess I'm attracted to this guy" and the she went home and found out she had the flu
The dynamic in Rise between the rest of the team and Leo is. so fucking funny. Because like you've got these three extremely talented individuals who all seem like perfectly reasonable people at first glance, right, but then if you squint hard enough you realize they're actually all batshit insane (affectionate) and the clown boy standing behind them is secretly their common sense.
Clown boy will occasionally put himself and the others in danger to Prove Himself or Prove Someone Wrong (see Minotaur Maze and the movie) but like otherwise... i think people forget Leo's overwhelmingly the voice of reason in most situations?
Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all incredibly powerful boys with very specific skill sets. They are also, as a direct result of this, the WORST decision-makers on god's green earth lmao. When presented with a problem, Raph will smash, Donnie will blow shit up, and Mikey will razzmatazz. They will all run straight toward death with the same oblivious enthusiasm of a dog about to run straight into a screen door. None of them realize this and all of them think they are Extremely Good At Problem-Solving.
And the guy cursed with the common sense to realize this is literally the LAST person anyone would expect.
When you look closely, the entirety of Rise is actually a chronicle of Leo trying to find new and creative ways to keep this team of superpowered fools alive while simultaneously white-knuckling his Cool Fun Guy persona so the others don't realize he's secretly the Boring Responsible One. Haha, you know what would be Cool and Fun, guys? Not going after the Spine Breaking Bandit lol. Getting home before the sun goes up lol. Evacuating that civilian lol. Not telling the guy dangling me off a roof "you won't, no balls" lol.
The sacred struggle of every iteration of Leonardo is thanklessly wrangling the most trigger-happy siblings in the world, and Rise Leo has not escaped it. He just does an occasional shenanigan to avoid detection and his brothers fall for it every time.