I know I mentioned this a little bit last night with the screenshots. But it really is fascinating seeing Seiroku’s inherent contradictory-seeming nature to certain aspects.

He mocks and says friends and comrades are useless trash to not be worth saving or fighting for. Based on the limited discussion that Seiroku mentions towards Naoe, his band prior to the Obsidian Eight was NOT a good experience for him. 

But as long as they are in a band, those with special powers always get the short end of the stick. Bands are organizations where the weak masses cling to the few strong ones. None of them hesitate to push the hardest jobs onto others while they kick back and offer hollow encouragement. They only force you to carry their hopes and dreams They expect more and more. I’m sure your friends are the same worthless trash not even worth saving.

And....he isn’t entirely wrong, not completely. People DO project their hopes and dreams onto others, we even see it in the series, the same way we see the masses or certain cast members rely on only a handful to be the real fire power. It’s not a particularly STRONG point to the Uesugi because their strength COMES from that connection with one another (although it really is still applicable as the majority looked to Naoe and/or Kuroko to help them/tell them what to do). But we see it with others. Even if it is more positive since its main characters, but it’s still there under the surface. So one can imagine how much Seiroku was put under pressure. It’s like trying to swim while being dragged down. The backlash if something goes wrong, things just become ‘expected’ and no longer praise worthy or the effort acknowledged. The higher and stronger they’re viewed, the deeper the fall. Seiroku clearly had and has no interest in being any sort of motivating figure for others. He just wanted to do his part. Not to mention the hollow words of encouragement and pushing the hardest jobs onto others means he himself likely both observed and experienced that. It leaves a bitter taste when someone offers you fake happiness when they want to see you fail, or make you do everything while they get benefits from it. Aka like every school group project.

But at the same time, Seiroku DOES try to connect with the other members of the Obsidian Eight. It’s not a BAND. It’s a GROUP. And for the most part, they’re all strong. Different levels obviously, but it’s not like in a band with hundreds or thousands of significantly weaker members clinging helplessly to you and projecting onto you. For the hate and disgust and disdain he has for the bushi bands, its not a reflection of Seiroku’s interest in connections. He clearly puts in the effort, especially with Shiro that we’ve seen so far (which is rather hilarious considering Shiro is.....well......Shiro), to be able to have the connection and chat with others. He isn’t a lone wolf type, but he does see a clear divide between the weak and the strong and only wants to be around those who he sees as equals or at least in the strong category.

Now this is less headcanon-y and more just discussion. And all of it is very subjective because summaries only offer so much and I’d rather read the actual translations whenever they eventually come out, especially for what Seiroku himself says. But in regards to chapter 139. It’s mentioned the doors for the eight basically create whatever the members imagine or what they might wish for. An eternal dream so to speak. Although it’s mentioned Seiroku’s is probably his previous life. But I doubt that. More likely, its what Seiroku would have wished for. Or maybe it’s the beginning of it when things were nice before Seiroku became bitter and hateful towards bushi bands. Again, translations will play a lot into this. But it is interesting it is in fighting oni within a band, but a band he’s welcomed in and treated equally. More like how he is in the Obsidian Eight than what he likely was treated like in reality (or in reality once his strength showed itself fully - again dependent). Which really does just show he does WANT connections and a close circle to him, especially if it is Seiroku’s ideal dream. And also his want to play doctor more since he doesn’t get to do that as often anymore.

Hey everyone look at my fuckign isopod

Thank you have a good day

how about that uhhhhh Fantasy Julie. she gets her sword <3 no one can take it from her <3

rambles:

SIKE you get an extra, lower quality doodle

SIKE AGAIN here's the rambles

yeah... i caved and gave her a tail... I'm Not Sorry! it's cute! i wanted to stick with her sorta flower motif - it's stronger in her princess look, since I imagine that when she was part of the royals she was very blatantly flower power based. it was her Thing!

but a Julie free of her noble shackles... she deserves her big sword. like yeah, she has flower magic, but who needs it when she has a Giant Blade??? on the royalty vein, and if we're classifying "rainbow monster" as a species, i feel like horn size/curve would be a status symbol of some kind. maybe Julie would have kept her horns filed short. but if she ran away from that life... longer horns! i like to imagine that they'll keep growing until she has a pair of Extra Weapons attached to her head! curved forward like mammoth tusks maybe!

i imagine that like Frank, she goes with minimal armor - range of movement over protection, yk? some scale mail over her front, a thick leather flower over her chest w/ scalloped leather pauldrons, wrist armor and metal knuckles! i'd think that the faux-suspenders include a back sheath for her sword... i wish i'd thought of that Before i finished the little ref! i don't feel like going back and editing!

i imagine that she was forced to cut her hair when it got caught in something (a gelatinous cube, mayhaps). it didn't look good! don't let anime and Mulan fool you! cutting your own hair with a blade will not look nice! but someone - Eddie, probably, he's good with scissors i'd assume - cleaned it up for her. and hey, it didn't look bad! plus, Julie probably liked being able to just tuck up her long strands into her hat when she's feeling a bit more like a Julius than a Julie!

it's been a fun challenge transforming their canon outfits into a similar variation with fantasy flavoring and twists! i want them to suit the setting but still maintain Themselves! Julie's was tough i gotta admit. i was messing around with the princess look and the fighter look side-by-side. it worked better when i sat back and thought "fighter Julie is Julie unrestrained. that version would be more aligned with her canon look"

i wanted her princess form to look Restrained! she has to be a ~delicate flower~, a noble woman, pristine and poised and very much a princess. soft colors, poofy clothing, bright white gloves that are not to be sullied. carefully bundled up hair! jewelry! that dress must be Heavy and hard to move in! her tail must be so cramped under there!

but Julie Unleashed? violent pinks! rose gold accents! short skirt so that she can sprint and Kick! fun boots that she can be active in and delight in watching them get dirty! her hair is free to whip in the wind and get caught in things! fun straps and Deadly Accessories! a sword that she stole from the royal armory on her way out the window! she has forearm wraps both to match Frank and to support her wrists!

goddd i just know that tim never takes off that fucking necklace. and you know bear doesn't have that much money so tge necklace was kinda cheap and it wasn't anything the bear meant for tim to wear regularly it was just like a keepsake y'know? wear it on a date or a nice outing. maybe when they're both home together. but tim is practically feral over it. like straight up refuses to take it off. it's turning his neck green at this point and everybody is soo done.

"Eliot? You better hurry up."

Leverage Redemption S01E03 The Rolling on the River Job.

little double translation special today! i guess "leaflings" is the theme here

Watari Rei draws the most ideal Musashi’s-

....I just wanted to draw gators :T at this point these 2 are more 'a representation of my last 2 brain cells' then they are actual characters 😅

listen. Do you think Lan Wangji thinks that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng had something going on in their youth

carlos is everything dean deserved to be. long hair jewelry quirky car bomb ass outfits open bisexuality. jackles i am no longer asking. let me study your brain.

are people allergic to making cute journals with ruled pages because I swear I've been looking for a new journal and all the cute ones have dot grid paper and I don't WANT THAT but all the ones I can find that have ruled lines are boring as hell!!!! I just want a case bound journal with lined paper and a cute cover truly that should not be that much to ask for and yet

leo and sunny are the best omg

the silent stare downs... walking away from each other in synch... immediately copying each other... leo asking her dad for diamonds bc sunny has them and sunny wanting a spy glas bc leo has one... the panicked dads trying to make them get along... they are amazing

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.

i've convinced myself that Sunny is a serial gossiper, except the only other dragon that knows is Clay bc they're best buddies <3

Re-reading jttw after so many years is wild because my reading comprehension has improved so much. I didn't realize how many gods just straight up lied to the jade emperor and others about swk like bro those peach maiden gals fr said he beat the crap outta them when the mans never laid a hand on them-

uh oh! bad decision, serizawa!