"The key thing was of course, the fact that Rick has PTSD and that's very much what's driving a lot of his behavior and being in a place of that level of vulnerability, back with the love of his life in that way.
It's also the thing he fears, the loss of her. It manifests itself in a way that is visceral and leads to the lovemaking not just being about love, but the revealing of pain and trauma and fear. That informs Michonne, that she can't just blast him into making sense. There's something deeper going on here that he can't verbalize. She has to help him get through in a different way. So she gets to see him, as well, as he reveals what's really in there, the wound. That's going to happen most likely in that most vulnerable space." — Danai Gurira
"Yeah, I think it is about pain. As Danai just said, it's about him wanting her and then fearing what he's about to unlock again. He gets to sort of articulate it in the scene further in the episode, when he gets to say that, 'I can't do this again. I haven't got the capacity to do this again. I've worked out how to die and live again.' So it is an absolutely necessary scene that allows Michonne to realize that there's something really broken here, more broken than she's ever anticipated. [...]
So the scene was about a real intimacy, a sort of frightening intimacy. This is a part of his personality he has shut down. It's almost like he's trying to stop himself from feeling this love again. She sees that and she just says, 'Just trust. We're back. We're the same...' I find it very moving. I think it's a very, very moving scene, because it's about them connecting in a way that he's had to deny for seven years. He's denied that connection for the sake of living on in this half life for the CRM" — Andrew Lincoln
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira Discuss Episode 4 of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
Tim: hey Bernard, I have to try to sell this apartment to rogues for a case, you wanna help
Bernard: yeah sure babe I’d love to help
—
Later-
Tim, in a suit, standing at the door greeting people: welcome to the apartment, how was your journey here to the complex?
Bernard, walking them around the apartment in a Hawaiian shirt, bootie shorts and knee high socks: I’m telling you man, you wanna spring on this offer while you can, this is the best apartment you’ve ever seen, I swear aliens had to have built this building cause no human could have ever made an apartment this complex
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.
"'why does everyone assume it's always about sex' looks at the narrator" Neil says, looking directly into the screen.
Neil really out here calling out the fuckers (cough probably twitter omg who said that-) who just think Astarion is all 'lets fuck ;}' and doesn't even try to have moments outside of that and I'm HERE for it.
Literally a lurker on your blog since ur early days but too shy to slide into ur ask box, hiii!!! I keep seeing cryo anon and teddy anon's brainrots and asks,,,, and like, regarding post impostor AU hehe
imagine after the hunt when your fave character/vessel begs you for forgiveness the most, practically turning their voice hoarse from their pleas to share just a bit of your mercy....
(you never showed your face to them, even when they were your most favored. how selfish of them, wanting more than they could ever deserve. but they can't help it. if you wanted them to die a thousand times over to repent, they would. just please, look at them again.)
post imposter au always tickles an itch in my brain I've never known existed. angry creator? boiling hot rage creator for their acolytes killing them when they've shown nothing but love and kindness for this world?? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP LORD
I wanna see guilt. And I mean GUILT. it's probably cause I'm petty asf and if I would be killed over and over and over again only for them to realize I'm not the fake I would literally lock myself up in whatever tower they built for me and never talk again. Creator's trust? Shattered, irreparable. Followers? Wallowing in the despair.
Thank u and goodbye heh. If it's not too much, can I be called Marcotte anon? Hehe fontaine reference hhhh,, anyways have a good day ily and ur fics <3
post-hunt can be incredibly good, entirely agree
the love you felt for the world is so strong already, and it only grows as you finally get to teyvat. being here, feeling the elemental energy, feeling the world greet you as you return after your rest.. what hate is more powerful than a love turned rotten?
you hid behind your veil, uncertain if you’re protecting yourself or them. it hurts to see their eyes tearing up as they plead, but what else are you to do? your hands shake when they draw close, and you can’t erase your own memory.
(you’d know. you asked nahida about it, but she’d only shaken her head. all she could do was clear the memories of teyvat, but not yours. it hurt, but was probably for the best.)
(despite it being a failure, that day was the calmest you’d felt in weeks. she was easy to talk to, and made lovely tea. perhaps you should visit again, if only to take a break from… everything.)
your solitude is comfortable, most of the time. a few of the hunters are a bit too comfortable with their sin, and are the ones tasked with bringing you food and other necessities. it’s not much better, though, since you can still see the guilt sinking in their eyes.
it’s a lose-lose all around. you want to see them, you want to see the world, but every leaf and branch is stained with the memories of the past, what used to be your favorite retreat now something else to hide from.
part of you is angry. furious at how easily they were tricked. it’s hard to stay mad at those you love, though, so you end up sitting in your window and watching the wind blow safely behind glass. your tea is from inazuma, this time, the faint edge of bitterness keeping you from sinking too far into much of anything.
leaves dance in the breeze. you won’t be seen again until they’ve long turned brown.
sits up in bed. so lana and ema definitely thought they were responsible for edgeworth "choosing death", right?
(the rest of this post was supposed to go in the tags, because it's not very well organised or written, but it got too long so. here are the slightly edited tags for your reading pleasure (or otherwise)):
i was going to make this solely about ema because she's the obvious one with her open adoration of edgeworth, but the thing about rfta is that it goes to great lengths to emphasise the connection between lana and edgeworth as well.
the sl-9 incident showed that lana grows attached to people deeply, hence angel starr's comment on how, when neil marshall died, 'she (lana) felt like her own brother had died.' with edgeworth, i think it was similar but worse. because he's not just a coworker or subordinate who's dear to her. he saved her life. and it cost him his own.
at the beginning of the case, edgeworth says he was mistaken for thinking that lana was always looking out for him post sl-9 (a statement interesting on its own because that's when everyone else says she grew distant), and, later on, he brings ema fingerprinting powder because lana asked him to. then, of course, there's the 'lady luck' comment he makes.
similarly, on lana's side, you obviously have the end of the trial when she says he did well, but there's also that additional moment post-trial where she's the only one to notice — in a group comprising her, ema, phoenix and gumshoe — that he's 'hiding', listening to their conversation. point is, there's enough to suggest that she might have been the nearest thing edgeworth had to a mia; his 'chief prosecutor' to phoenix's plain 'chief'. they're as close as two people can be in a relationship where one of them is constantly lying and the other is von karma's star pupil.
rfta is pretty straightforwardly depicted as the case which solidified edgeworth's resolve to do what he did; i don't think i have to prove that. rumours about him have reached new heights, his car and knife were involved in goodman's murder, he makes an unprecedented mistake in court by failing to connect the evidence room and carpark incidents, thus forcing the chief of police to enter the trial to do so himself, and he's publicly revealed to have relied on falsified evidence to secure a conviction in the sl-9 case, all of which only happened because of lana. jake marshall even claims that from the beginning — that if you trace edgeworth's rumours back to their source, you end up meeting one person: lana skye.
and it gets worse because at the end of rfta, she thinks he's fine!! she literally says, 'i was afraid the pressure would break you, but you rose above it,' and reminds him he's nothing like gant because he's not alone. she leaves the case thinking he will be okay. and then, what, like a week passes, and she finds out that he wasn't, and that he's gone, and it's her fault. even after she was freed from gant's control, even after she had finally stopped lying, she couldn't prevent herself from claiming another life. so much for 'lady luck', i suppose.
and the game reiterates this multiple times. gumshoe states at the start that edgeworth's ties to those higher up in the department have made him the subject of constant rumours, and phoenix says (in front of ema) that he shouldn't be held responsible for the forged evidence because that was all lana's doing, which then leads to edgeworth commenting (again in front of ema) that he feels as though 'something inside him has died.' it all goes back to lana. we can argue and say that it was technically gant's doing that caused all of this, but lana still took actions that led to it. even her complicated friendship with edgeworth isn't spared; it's that closeness between them that exacerbated those rumours. how could she not feel responsible in some way?
and with ema, it's rather obvious, isn't it? if she hadn't gone poking her nose into things, none of this would have happened or come to light. and, of course, she'd never choose anyone over her sister, not for anything in the world — it's simply not a question, but that's the problem, isn't it? it's not a question. it's not some hypothetical moral dilemma. it just is. she may not have killed neil marshall, but she still has one king of prosecutor's blood on her hands. and now she has to live with that. she just. has. to live with it. no matter if he chose otherwise.
moving on from that a little, i think it's actually wild how much of ema's journey to becoming a forensics investigator is paved with bad memories. neil marshall's death and her subsequent inability to testify are what drives her to begin pursuing it, her first proper investigation results in her idol's "death" and when she finally graduates, the person who saved her sister has been disbarred, and she can't even help because she isn't allowed to. all that pain and constant pursuit of her goals, and she's still the same ema skye, still that girl shrouded in darkness, always one step behind the truth, one step a little too late. no wonder she was angry in aa:aj. i would be furious.
"He's spent the entire time being picked upon and bullied by the family. I think personally from where Juan stands he sees the hypocrisy in the family, how they can do one thing and say another. As far as Juan is concerned he's always had the best interests of the family at heart, however misguided that might be and doesn't quite comprehend why nobody understands that. Nobody seems to understand that what he does, he does for the betterment of the Borgia clan and never waivers from that. He does that in ways that perhaps aren't sanctioned by the church or sanctioned by family law."
Probably one of my fave things about CPC is the fact that Gwen genuinely isn’t conventionally attractive, she’s not just some girl who *gasp* wears glasses and has her hair in a ponytail or something X_X The amount of ”””ugly””” characters I’ve that seen that fall into that trope bruhhh. But as the comic goes on, like Frederick, you get used to her appearance and come to appreciate her as truly beautiful bc of who she is <3