Leonardo "Da Vinci" Hamato
Gender: Trans FTM, AFAB(He/him)
Sexuality: Gay, Allosexual
Age: 15 (pre-Ep. 1)-16 (Ep. 1)
Species: Red-Eared Slider, Trachemys scripta elegans
Role: Team Leader, Primary Medic, Strategist
Relationships status as of Pre-Ep. 1:
Donnie: Close
Mikey: Strained
Raph: Distant
Splinter: Strained + Distant
April O'Neil: Strangers/Haven't Met.( Ep. 1) Allies(Ep. 2)
Leo is the twin brother of Donnie, and the eldest sibling of the turtles as far as their aware of. He feels very weighed down by having to take care of them, and basically raising them from a VERY young age. This causes him to act more distant and arrogant, and for him to be more reckless during training. He had prior to the first episode of this series, had a screaming match with Raph , that ended with them saying some really nasty things to each other. It caused Raph to refuse to leave his room, or interact with any of his brothers, and Mikey blames Leo for the fight, and the youngests distance, while Donnie believes that Raph was in the wrong, and should apologise to Leo. Leo himself believes that Raph is being irrational and selfish, and Raph should think about what he is going through, instead of acting childish. Splinter is avoiding the conflict, and thus ends up pairing up Raph and Leo to fight each other on the Twins birthday. Leo wins, and it makes Raph angry and feel frustrated, causing him to run away to the surface.
History: Leo enjoys learning about the past, due to feeling like it allows him to better understand the world, and learn from others' mistakes, so he can be better. He prefers any kind of Japanese history, but has recently become really interested in the Spanish Colonisation of Southern America.
Biology and Medicine: Leo had always been curious of any innerworkings of any and all creatures. It started when he was 4, and tripped and caused a wound on one of his legs, that allowed him to see his bones. Once he saw the bones, he became so interested in how it looked, that he stopped crying and even hissed at Donnie when he tried to bandage it up. Due to not really being able to open up his or his brother's bodies, and having no references to consult for years, only recently obtaining a working X-ray machine, he has a bunch of sketches that are a mix of human and turtle anatomy, based on his own guesses and explorations of himself. He is surprisingly not upset at the fact that his family being different species of turtles means he needs different sketches and information, even though it makes possible medical treatment ten times harder.
Review reading/watching: Leo has always loved reading, but wanted to be able to talk about the things in the books he enjoyed. When the turtles finally got their first projector for watching movies, he encountered a similar problem, except this time, it was that his brothers either didn't care about having slightly deeper conversations about them, or didn't pick up on the deeper meanings. When they got their first phones(8,7, and 6, respectively) , and thus acess to the internet, he discovered Reddit communities that reviewed books, and IMDB. He was basically addicted and didn't do anything but read reviews and comment on them for until his phones battery ran out. It snowballed into making his own review posts and discovering Reaction Youtube, and even making his own reaction channel for books and movies and everything in between. He has like, five subscribers, but he keeps making them for himself mainly. He gets very popular somewhere in season 1, and then has like, 15 Million subscribers by the end. The people at YouTube are very annoyed that they have no way of sending him his buttons, lol.
His stripes: Little-known fact, Red-eared slider females are actually the ones who are more likely to have their stripes stay vibrant and visible as they age, unlike the males! Unfortunately, this means poor Leo has a lot of gender dysphoria around having these vibrant stripes. Leo had always known he was a boy, and because Splinter isn't exactly an expert on turtles, he had always assumed Leo was a boy, so Leo never had a deadname. Leo obviously turned to the internet to figure out how to make himself feel more masc, like voice training and how to make his chest more pronounced(bc males have more curved plastron for mating) , but it always comes back to his stripes. He's tried using make-up, to cover it up or make them less visible, but it doesn't work for 3 reasons, first being him wearing his mask all the time, meaning that the make-up falls onto it when applying, smudges it during the day, and being a lot harder to remove.The second is that, because of make-up being seen as more of a girly thing until more recently(and even now it's still seen mainly as a girls thing) and being more human-looking/passing, and the gender dysphoria coming from his human side, it makes him feel girly and causes him a lot of distress. Finally, because he is green and not a human coloured, it makes it harder to 1.Even find make-up that is green and close to his natural green, and 2.It usually isn't high quality or tailored for reptile skin, so it's itchy and it burns. He considered a mask that covered it more, but felt too restricted and ugly in it. He feels hopeless about it. Due to the obviousness (to him atleast) of being born a girl, he hates it when his brothers tease him with anything even marginally gendered. A big reason why he's so angry with Raph in Ep.1 is because he called Leo a "mother hen" during their argument, which is a low blow. :(
Being out of control in any way: Leo always felt like he was forcibly turned into an adult because of Splinter's depressive episodes, leaving the young turtles to fend for themselves most of the time, and him feeling responsible for them and caring for them. Of course, Donnie helped, but due to him being very sensitive as a kid, and also an accident that left his shell a lot more vulnerable, Leo became their main caretaker, during that period of their lives. A combination of being a kid himself, the accident , and a too-close-for-comfort call with animal control at the time, left him deeply afraid of not having control over his surroundings, his own emotions, and any situation he finds himself in. This means that anytime the lair starts getting dirty or cluttered, he freaks out. Once, Mikey made a big mess in the kitchen, and they had to order take-aways for a few days,which they didn't throw away(they were in the preteen phase) and Leo was demanding asking for Mikey to clean it up(bc it was technically him who caused the mess of take-away) and he said it "wasn't a big deal, dude" which caused Leo to actually have a panic attack. It wasn't pretty. Bonus: (Bc i want to address it but don't wanna give it its own bit here in the dislikes) He has severe Musophobia(Fear of Rats and Mice). Splinter is fine, because even if he is a rat, he has looked closer to human for most of the turtle's toddler lives(Slower mutation because of [REDACTED]) when the event occurred. Leo had been exploring the sewers, and found a grate near a restaurant with big dumpsters. He immediately went looking for fresh food in them because it was a golden opportunity. He saw a rat scurry from it and go instead for the cheese on a nearby mouse-trap. It was not a very humane one, and a lot worse than the average mouse-trap. It ended up gorely chopping the poor thing's head off it's body, and it was so forceful, that the blood flew onto Leo's cheek. Now whenever he sees them, he freaks the fuck out. I think I'll add a poll to the bottom of this post, if you wanna see some art for it, maybe lol.
Meditation: Bc boring. Ive used up all my spoons and focus for the day so for now your not getting the deeper reason why he dont like it. Hopefully, ill remeber to edit this later, but who knows.
And that's my Leo, folks. god im tired, ive spent like, 4-5 hours working on writing this post and finsishing the refrence. i started a t like 5 AM. It now 09:51 when writing this , still am. Pls leave votes on poll below.
Do you want Leo rat trauma comic?
Yes pls.
No, why do i want to see that crazy shit?!?!?
Voting ended onMar 29
