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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Shark Genitals & World Building
So, I've seen this Q&A a few times now and it really got me thinking about Fish-man biology.
Now, to be clear, I think it's pretty clear Oda isn't being entirely serious. When you look at how he designs his characters he goes for whatever is fun. He's not doing extensive research on whatever aquatic species he slaps on his fish-men or Merfolk characters. This is why for a lot of them, if you look up what they are mixed with they rarely share much if anything with the animal he's picked.
Saying a character has two dicks is funny, so Hody has two dicks--that's all.
But taking the answer more seriously the idea that at least some (because they do vary so widely from fish-person to fish-person) have changed genitals because of their added fish anatomy is interesting from a world-building perspective.
As someone who has a special interest in animal biology and has watched a lot of documentaries I can say that fish have really diverse breeding strategies. So, I guess, if Hody can have two dicks because he's a shark, I wonder if this could be true for any other fish-people and merfolk.
We see that at least some fish-people do have children the same way regular humans do, but to my knowledge we don't see any pregnant mermaids. Given how much larger Neptune is then his wife, and how massive Shirahoshi is, I think it makes sense that perhaps like many fish, Otohime laid eggs that were fertilized separately (this is actually how goldfish mate).
It could be possible that the way mermaids or even fish-women have children depends on the father. If they are not compatible in size they can reproduce Ovuliparity (the way I imagine Otohime did), or if they are of similar size they either go the more human route or, after copulation they lay fertilized eggs (like the skate cases often called mermaid purses you find washed up on the beach).
There's also something to be said for the variations fish have with gender. Some fish are capable of changing gender. It's more common that female fish become male (protandry), usually the largest of a group replacing the dominate male in the group. This happens mostly with coral reef fish like wrasses, groupers and parrot-fish.
Meanwhile, anemone fish, like clown fish change from male to female. When the one female dies the remaining male will become female, while an outside male will become that new female's mate.
Then there are Black Helmet fish which are both simultaneously and take turns releasing eggs and sperm when they spawn.
So, if fish-people and merfolk had similarly diverse genders and ways of reproducing I think that'd just be really neat. It could also lead to some fun misunderstandings between fish-people, merfolk and humans.
Of course, I don't think Oda ever put that much thought into it. He just does whatever he finds fun character design wise. I mean, it's not like Arlong has barrels like Sawsharks do, and Jinbe looks nothing like a whale shark. On top of that the story isn't really focused on that type of world building. Nor do I think he could really showcase something that deals so much with sex--even if it is fish sex.
Still, makes for some really great head-canons.
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so i was thinking about how when everyone lost their minds last night about taylor dropping 31 total songs, my gut reaction was to be like “i mean, albums used to regularly have 20-23 songs that’s like a deluxe edition” and it just hit me that the same thing is happening to music that is happening to television.
tv series used to have 21-22 episodes a season. they played weekly and usually only took breaks for the summer and the holidays. you had time to live with it, share it, bond over it. now we get 8 episode seasons with 3-4 years in between.
albums used to have 20-22 songs on them. now it’s 12-13. and honestly, most people just release singles on their own and sometimes once they’re mostly all out, put it together in an album.
why? because these days, everything has to be A Hit. you can’t make art for the sake of making art. tv can’t just be fun anymore. music has to go viral. everything has to have an impact. everything has to make money. nothing can breathe and live and grow. it costs less to make less, but you have to be making MORE money in the process. it’s about numbers and how many streams and sales and views and subs you can get. it’s all about profit.
when did art stop being art?
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I'm actually so sick and fucking tired of people who think covid is comparable to the flu. Just bc you or a family member got it and didn't die doesn't mean it's not super fucking serious and life threatening, ESPECIALLY for disabled people/people with health issues/autoimmune disorders. Every time my father sees me wearing a mask he rants about how covid is just like the flu and that everyone is over reacting and [insert shitty conspiracy theory here] and it makes me so upset every goddamn time. I got covid half a year ago, despite doing everything right, thanks to my parents' stupidity. I was sick for 13 days, entirely bedridden and feverish for 9 of those days. I physically couldn't get out of bed, not even to piss, the entire first day my mother had to half carry me everywhere. Same thing the second day, when she dragged me to the doctor where I tested positive. The first five days, I couldn't even look at an electronic device and had to keep the lights off all the time bc I'd actually vomit. I had a migraine that didn't go away no matter what medicine I took, for the entire the first week. My nose was constantly stuffy and my sinuses were so backed up I couldn't breathe through my nose, which made breathing in general so difficult and painful bc my asthma was also exacerbated. So my chest hurt too. All my normal chronic pain was magnified tenfold. I had a 103 fever for three days in a row, then it fluctuated between 98-100 the rest of the time. Thinking about it right now I still remember the pain and how it felt. I've had strep throat, a lot as a kid. I've had chicken pox, and the flu several times, because my parents never fucking vaccinated us. I have never been more sick in my goddamn life than I was with covid. And this is just me. Yes I'm disabled and yes I'm still being tested for possible autoimmune disorders (my mom and her whole side of the family have them) but even still I'm not nearly as at risk as a lot of people, and I was still more affected than anyone in my entire family, who have all also gotten covid because of their own stupidity. My taste and smell were never affected, but I'm still losing hair from it, which is apparently also a symptom I never knew about.
Wear. Your fucking. Masks. Covid is still around, it's still super fucking serious, it is NOT just like the flu, and you had fucking better take it seriously. Even if you don't care about getting it yourself, at least show some goddamn consideration for others whose health and lives are at risk.
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