#leonardo splinterson

[frutavel]

Oh season 4 Leo my mentally ill beloved

[hapfish]

I'M SO PROUD OF THIS!!!

now presenting my piece for the @tmntzines Leader in Blue zine! It was such a pleasure to be a part of this, thank you for having me! please go check out everyone else's work too, they all did a phenomenal job <3

[wand3ring-s0ul]

Was having a bad day today so I made some silly Usagi and Leo edits. Enjoy!!! 🐇🐢

[thevondoom62]

TURTLES FOREVER

[impossibleperfectiongalaxy]

Leonardo and Donatello from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)

[yuzurina]

I often think about Leo's relationship with violence.

Fighting is fundamental to him—it's what he knows best, and it's all he could afford when he spent all these years inside a sewer, deprived of social interaction or luxuries enjoyed by humans. Regardless if he uses his skills to protect or to offend, Leo can't separate his existence from violence.

In TMNT 2012's episode "Wanted: Bebop and Rocksteady", Leo says something very interesting—"I didn't think peace could be so dull."

I know the first conclusion someone would reach is that he's referring to meditation. However, in the next scene, he also says this: "The Foot are gone. Shredder is dead. I never thought I'd miss the Kraang."

Not long later, he intervenes in an armed robbery and expresses disappointment at how "unrewarding" it was, as he had to use minimal force. Leo doesn't find fulfilment in a life without violence, even if his goal for so many years had been peace. If he isn't fighting, he isn't living.

Violence is also a release for him. Even at his lowest, he turns to it as if it were a solace or a crutch. In 2003's Season 4, when Leo is deeply traumatised and shuts himself away, he becomes much more outwardly violent, with the brutality and aggression of it shocking even his brothers. It's no longer about wanting to be "strong enough to protect his family"; it's how he expresses his resentment, self-loathing, and pessimism. It's not meditation or family he uses as a clutch—it's his swords, his fists, and whoever he thinks deserves his ferocity. His trauma response is turning to what he knows best, and amplifying it to a concerning degree.

Finally, he enjoys it. It's a release for him, something he can use to unleash his emotions, especially for someone who has anger issues and an ego problem. In TMNT 2007's famous rooftop fight scene, pay close attention to Leo's demeanour before he finds out that the Nightwatcher is Raph. He's smiling, he's taunting, and he even remarks, "Finally, some excitement" when the Nightwatcher ditches the weapons for his fists.

He may not have been one to initiate the fight, but it's clear he's enjoying it. This isn't something he's doing with great reluctance, even with someone he presumes is a stranger. He makes no attempts to disengage; he's having fun getting to release his pent-up anger and frustration, especially after he had a blow-out fight with Raph, and Splinter had forbidden him and his brothers from engaging in any combat. Leo enjoys violence, and it comes as no surprise considering the dynamics in his household, where there is no communication and just a lot of resentment and anger from all four brothers.

[cabbt]

I think I'm getting better at drawing different iterations of the turtles. It's not perfect but I'm trying lol.

[beansketches]

I know some people (rightfully) criticize 2k3 Karai for openly recognizing the evil actions of her father and choosing to stick by his side even as an adult, but I feel like I haven't seen enough discussion surrounding why she never chooses to leave and how big of a deal that would be if she did choose to leave.

Maybe it's because I've been developing my own character's backstory and using it as a foil to Karai's (OC in question is Bishop's daughter/ward) , but I feel like her leaving the Shredder behind and moving on with her life is an absolutely enormous ask even with a well meaning outsider like Leo offering his help.

So first let's get the context down: in the 2k3 series Saki finds and adopts Karai when she's quite young and has been abandoned by her parents for some undisclosed reason. I can't recall whether she stated her age, but she looks in the show to be no older than 10.

Saki takes her in, trains her as his one and only pupil. She basically becomes his adopted daughter. Skip forward a couple decades and she's now in her 20s fully running the Japanese chapter of the Foot Clan on her own while he resides mainly within NYC. She is also the only person he trusts to know his Utrom secret. He speaks more openly with her when in private and entrusts very secretive knowledge to her and her alone. She is his right hand, essentially his second in command.

The amount of respect and trust that Karai has in her adoptive father is clear to see and clashes with her acknowledgement of his objectively horrific actions but this is a level of cognitive dissonance that seems very indicative of an abuse victim. While we never see more than a couple flashbacks of Karai's childhood, I have no doubt that life under someone like the Shredder was emotionally neglectful and abusive in countless ways. Even if he never struck her out of anger (which seems unlikely), he is certainly not the type to practice unconditional love. Therefore, Karai likely grew up believing that any sort of care or validation was something she had to earn. She had to earn everything he gave her, including his affection and trust.

And earn his trust, she absolutely did. Saki would not trust just anyone who has shown him unconditional loyalty. Take Hun for example: Hun has spent years under the Shredder serving him without question and is shown throughout the first few seasons to be almost desperate in his attempts to prove his loyalty and earn Karai's place as Shredder's second. But Shredder knows better than to entrust Hun with his most valuable secret. Why? Because he did not raise Hun from childhood and have decades to indoctrinate him with certain beliefs like he did Karai.

The level of implicit trust Shredder has in his adopted daughter should show more than anything else the level of indoctrination Karai must have gone through at his hand when she was growing up.

If you need a more explicit example of that when she's an adult, take the scene in 'Exodus' when she momentarily stops Leo and pleads with him to let her father leave the planet. When Leo refuses and says that he knows her father is only leaving to go and kill the other Utroms, Karai responds with a level of disturbing flippancy at the fact that Leo just accused her father of wanting to commit a geocide, citing that the other Utroms are "heartless monsters" who have been "hunting her father all his life." This might seem a shocking contrast to her previous interactions with Leo where she appears to possess a level of moral integrity that her father distinctly lacks. But I would argue that while it is contradictory, it is a sign of that earlier stated cognitive dissonance which is indicative of her being quite isolated from others and having a close relationship with only her father for most of her life.

It's also worth noting that while Saki is clearly a billionaire and likely affords Karai a good amount of luxuries like private transport, good clothes and food, beautiful residencies, etc., it is highly unlikely that Karai has her own funds that only she can individually access. Meaning that if Karai were to take Leo's advice and leave her father, she would also be leaving behind everything else in her life. Her job, her home, her finances, her ability to survive all depend upon staying in the good graces of her adoptive father.

I remind you: when Saki found her as a kid, she was inside a fairly rundown house, presumably her childhood home, which indicates to me that her parents were likely poor (and maybe could not afford to feed and care for her). Until Saki came into her life like a guardian angel, she only knew a life of poverty and abandonment. So having a life now where she does not have to worry over her survival is something that would likely be terrifying to let go of.

She very likely has no other job experience outside of her father's company. Meaning she would have an extremely difficult time finding a way to support herself after she left. (And she certainly can't use her father as a reference to get a decent job). Not to mention the fact that Shredder would likely try to hunt her down and drag her back if she ever did decide to run. Somehow, I feel like Saki would feel extremely shortchanged if his biggest time investment decided to up and abandon him.

With all these combined factors, it's really no wonder that she chooses to stay put where she is rather than throw away her life, livelihood, and relationship with the one person in her life she feels has shown her love.

I love Leo for seeing the best in her and wanting to help, but I truly don't believe he understands the gravity of what he's asking of her. He's asking her to give up not just her relationship with the one person who took her in, raised her and gave her a home when she needed it most, but also to leave behind every sense of stability she's ever known.

Leo and his brothers face an incredible amount of obstacles and hardships, but a heartless father is not one of them. Which is why he can't understand her position.

This does not mean she's immune from criticism of course, but I wanted to explore this concept a bit in depth because her character is so interesting to me.