🛑⚠️👉🏼 THIS IS IT👈🏼⚠️🛑

HOLY HONK MY MIND IS LITERALLY 🤯🤯🤯

Nothing is more fabulous than deep character analysis 😤🙌🏼💙🤌🏼

How Leo’s role as face man prevents him from confiding with his team

Watching throughout the entire series we see Leo constantly keep up with his role as the face man of the group

While on missions he can use his charisma and persuasion in order to get people to go along with his plans without letting people know what he’s really thinking

But he never seems to put it down

•Leos Emotional Guard

At first glance Leo’s entire personality revolves around being lenient laid back and chill, and to everyone else it makes him seem like a very open book, and that’s why the face man role works out for him

But it means that no one is really aware of anything beneath the surface. They never bother to ask because who would need to?

However, this also includes Leo’s family

Despite his chilled back personality Leo is one of the most emotionally guarded ones out of all of the brothers

Throughout the series we can see little moments of vulnerability from each members of the family, digging deeper into their emotions and their insecurities and then go on to discuss said feelings and gain some form of comfort or closure from their family. Most notable ones shown below

Donnie in “Donnie vs Witch Town”

Raph in “Anatawa Hitorijinai”

Mikey in “Hidden City’s Most Wanted”

April in “Always Be Brownies”

Splinter & Donnie in “Turtledega Nights”

•How Leo is Different

Similar to everyone else, Leo is shown to have these moments sprinkled in too but they never occur with his family

The two most memorable moments we have are shown in “Portaled Jacked” with Senor Hueso and during his one-on-one conversation with Casey

Why these two characters and not one of his close family members?

Because it’s easier talking about problems to strangers and people who don’t know you as they have no previous knowledge or connotations of you to fall back on and there’s no feelings of burden or guilt if you believe the topic will never be discussed with them again. There’s less feelings of consequences that comes with being vulnerable towards people who don’t know you well. Because if you open up more to the people who do, the risk that their opinion of you will change gets higher

Then we add in the fact that Leo is already extremely guarded of his emotions. He doesn’t want his brothers to think less of him because he already isn’t confident of his place in the team already and thus doesn’t confide in them

•Deflecting with Humor

And then the two moments where we do see little slips in Leo’s carefully constructed masks that occur around his family, which we can find in “Minotaur Maze” and “Many Unhappy Returns”

He ends up immediately backtracking and deflecting with humor, thus changing the subject and preventing anyone from delving into it further and reacting to the quips instead

“You know it’d really help me if you guys said that I was your champion.” “Just open it!”

“This whole situation was my plan all along. If it wasn’t, then why’d I ask your tailor to make me this outfit?” “So we could both perish looking super fly?”

What makes it worse is that Leo has such a habit of doing it that his family expects it, which  then causes them to believe there’s no underlying issues beneath the surface and thus don’t react accordingly. (with the addition that both parties had valid reasons for being upset with him at the time)

But it causes a situation of Leo internalizing his emotions, and if he doesn’t expand on the topic himself, then his family won’t see a reason to either nor think there’s an issue to begin with

•The Movie

To add onto this point, we see Raph and Leo arguing over Leo’s role as leader. As usual Leo deflects the argument with humor and avoids the situation. But we can see during the argument that how Leo privately lets down his guard and for a second the audience is able to see how he’s really reacting to Raph’s words. However, it is apparent that Raph doesn’t  see this side of him and most likely never really has

“You just don’t get it Leo”

Now as the audience it is very easy to draw to the conclusion that Leo has clear issues with his role as the leader and most likely many insecurities regarding it thus why he acts the way he does. Like any other serious situation, he copes with, he deflects with humor and tries to avoid it

This argument then implies that in the two years since Leo was made leader of the group, he never revealed his internal issues with it and never made it apparent to his brothers either because he hates being vulnerable

The face man role works for him because it requires skillful work in that you can manipulate people the way you want to without ever letting them know what your thinking. And Leo carries that role with him when it comes to his brothers and family as well. But this doesn’t work out for him anymore when he becomes the leader and communication becomes so important to the team. (I talk about this more on a different post)

Thus the events of the movie and why things played out the way they did

Naturally he learns how to trust in his team more when the situation becomes dire enough that he realizes he can no longer keep deflecting

But even after all the traumatic events that he went through. When it comes to the one time we see him really cry. He still only lets himself cry when he’s completely alone within the prison dimension

TLDR: Leo’s role as the face man is kept on both on and off duty as we find that he is really one of the most emotionally guarded out of all of his brothers as he doesn’t want to let them know what he’s really feeling out of fear that they might think less of him as he is already insecure of his placement in the group and would rather confide in people who don’t know him well over his family where he runs the risk of them treating him differently

Honestly, “Mr. Emotionally Unavailable” has some real competition ahead of him

If we were being completely blunt, all of the brothers have trouble when it comes to letting go of their real emotions, Donnie just being out of his depth with them and it being uncomfortable, Raph wanting to be strong for his brothers, and Mikey most likely wanting to focus on his brother’s emotions over his own as the Therapist of the group, but i believe the Leo definitely has the worst case out of all of them.

I’m pretty sure Donnie and I would be best friends on the fact of sticks alone, for I too cannot be trusted with a large stick 😆🙌🏼💜

I saw this thread and it resonated with me and this picture that I just had to combine them.

Like fellow purple genius would *dramatic hair flip*

So enjoy my fellow humans! Laugh with me Bwahahahahahaha *relishing evil chuckle*

Random Turtle Thoughts

Just a conversation I had with my mother that I thought was amusing.

As y'all can tell I'm a very “casual” TMNT fan.

Because Him’s Alive

Watch the video!! It’s really good stuff! Promise!

Also lil somethin I finally connected this week

Easter comes from the word East, which is the direction that the sun rises from each and every day. Sun rises are often symbols of literal new days. New hopes. Fresh Beginnings. I think it’s a beautiful metaphor that of all the titles we could call this holiday, we ch pose the simple reminder that because the Son did rise, we can all rise again as well. 🌅🌱 Happy Easter Y’all🌱🌅

Please please please remember that God loves you in ways you can’t even imagine and because of Him, you can always change, you can always grow, and are never alone in doing so 🫂🧡🌱

HoLy FliPpEn ChIcKeN iS tHaT sUpPoSeD tO bE a BlAcK hOlE oN cRiTs JaCkEt sLeEvE?! (Impeccable design may I just say like chef kiss) *excited astronomic nerd noises activate*

AND YOU SAID HE HAS A PASSION FOR ASTRONOMY!?! Holy cheese and crackers ! I need him to meet my OC Vincent so they can be star buddies and explore the wonders of the galaxy together! (If you can’t tell I don’t have many astronomical friends, so I am ESTATIC that somebody else has a passion for it! 😁🙌🏼✨🧡)

...I was asked concerning Crit's colors, SO--

Dont mind me sufferingbover here because gosh DAYUM THIS….THIS my friends is art and I am in awe.

Like somebody made this. Somebody's beautiful brain lovingly put a hand to paper and made this, ripped my heart out and made me weep in wanting artist fangirl and now I'm just genuinely shooketh.

@chessman-protocol

fanart booom ~~

ψ(｀∇´)ψ

It's not just feeling that D looks more luxurious...

+???

W / Loud BGM

I will fight you both

You give off thunder vibes

*Liam Nelson Voice* I know who you are. I will find you, and I will fight you.

*hands on hips* There’s nothing subtle or epic about me, Broski. I’m literally the definition of loud and proud. That makes me lightning and aggressive sunshine. We’ve talked about this.

I’m not usually on the Apriltello bandwagon but this was just too precious not to reblog

Married GtAD (G/t Apritello) comics :) The second one was based off of some media I saw of I think a frog sitting at a tiny kissing booth (it's been a while so I can't remember the context exactly).

Sick

Favorite line of today:

Me: Be honest. How bad are my eye bags

Roommate: 😦☝🏼😐✊🏼😬😅

Me: *blinks and walks into bathroom to see my reflection before hooting* DANG! My eye bags are so heavy they look like they’re carrying last generations trauma!

calling out the bestie @anobodyinabog

My literal reaction to @mrabubu answering my question. Big fan hon, its a legit honor to be able to see a snippet of your fantastic mind 🧡✨👀

Mind if I add some of my thunks to it?

I really think the idea of Leo and Y/N having an “Only I Can Do That “ is so unfairly wholesome and totally would fit. Especially considering Leo is a middle child and a bit petty, so I think that having a relationship he doesn't have to share would be something really important to him. Seeing Leo get pouty because someone made his Y/N laugh is a troupe I'm also a sucker for.

I also really love the idea of Leo being absolutely blindsided by a funny Y/N who was funny in the same way as he (can you tell I'm projecting here? Cuz man I just really wanna roast this kid *affectionately* I have so many lines its not even funny) It would take some getting used for sure, but Leo being Leo of course would get back into the game so fast and boy would he come back swinging.

Whats a little rivalry amongst friends right? Just to prove the best of course. Just to make sure to hold his rank. Not to see you smile like that again. The way your eyes crinkle in the corners. Not to feel your hand on his shoulder cuz your gasping for air you're laughing so hard. Noooooooooooo. Not at all.

I love the idea of Leo finding someone who makes him feel heard and seen because for once someone genuinely laughs with him. Not at Him. 🤌🏼✨💙

HmHmHmHmHm...

I have some thoughts on that too, yeah.

So, I think it's all still depends on Y/N's personality overall. Because you can be a one-liner like Leo, but still have a different or opposite personality to his. This one is more like about taste in humor, I guess?

But yeah, I think his brain would short circuit the moment Y/N would use his own weapon against him or overall, and especially he would explode if their jokes are better than his. That would be the beginning of a war between them, to obliterate one another with their pickup lines and prove who's better. But in the end I imagine them becoming BFF's who are sometimes joke at one another just for laughs. I also have this idea when you call your friend and idiot, and you just laugh, but if SOMEONE ELSE calls your friend an idiot, you go into demon's mode "ONLY I CAN CALL THEM THAT". Something like that.

In terms of romance I'm going to return to my statement about how it depends on your personality overall.

If there's something I'm certain in, is that the romance between Leo and someone who has basically the same personality and mindset would either died down pretty quickly, or wouldn't work in the first place. "Opposite attract" phrase didn't come out of a thin air, because they feed each other. Opposite or just different people help discover some new traits in one another, keep each other in balance, help dealing with challenges they wouldn't be able to deal with by themselves and all that jazz.

Plus it's just overall much more interesting to watch this kind of a dynamic rather than watch two clones trying to be a couple and failing miserably.

@theanonymousninja247