Okey, since I did a frame by frame breakdown of the Raph-Mikey hug, I have to do a frame by frame break down of the Raph-Leo hug now.
"I'm tired of you picking on me. Ever since we were little you've been giving me shell wedgies, wet willies, and reptile rug burgs and-"
First of, what the fuck is a shell wedgy???????? How dose one give a "shell wedgy". I'm concerned.
But long before the Leo Raph hug, imediately that not only this planet is making the crew more irritable, but also it seems to dig up some burried feelings. With Mikey, clearly he feels deeply about being picked on, and I can't blame the poor dude. I can just go on and on and on about how the show just shits on him. But I believe I've already made that post.
And after a while longer on the planet the team starts getting into fights. With Raph throwing the first punch. No suprise as Raph is known for not being emotionally vulniable with his feelings, unlike Mikey, who was the first to talk about his deepseeded feelings, while Raph just punches Mikey.
It's also worth pointing out that Leo doesn't join the first fight at any point. His involement was purely to get Raph off of Mikey, and to get socked by Mikey by accident.
"Mikey, you're in my anger zone."
The warning.
"I could've handled it!"
After Raph get's accidentally kicked in the face by Mikey.
Earlier Raph was getting into a fist fight with Mikey. Litterally tackled him to the ground, and Mikey was largely unphased or unharmed by it. And Raph most explosive anger directed at Mikey was no where near this. Here Raph just shoves Mikey. This is not the most dangerous Raph as been twords his brother.
But either way, the glass breaks.
Have I mentioned I loveeeeeeeeeeeee the angst the results from Raph's anger going too far and he ends up accidentally hurting the people he cares about the most. I'm slurping this up. Yum yum yum in my angsty filled tum tum tum. Give me Raph absolutely freaking the fuck out.
"Donnie, you telling me we could breath the entire time?"
And of course Raph's pure panic goes back to rage the moment he learns that Mikey is okey, and and they could've breathed just fine. DonDon, you gave poor Raph a heartattack.
And *now* Leo attacks Mikey.
"The rage. It's so hard to control."
I suspect here Leo understands what Raph goes through. I believe I've mentioned that anger issues are a symptom of an anxiety disorder in some other post. And That's because what happens is that the brain is producing too much of the stress hormone at inappropriate times, and the body has a few different ways of expressing that much stress, one of the ways is through anger. Put that in a teenager trained to fight insticitively, then yeah. Though I suspect all the team has an anxiety disorder (how dose one not develop one after the shit these kids go through), Raph dose mention that Leo is Splinter's favorite, and I suspect that Splinter taught Leo stress management skills at an earlier point then he did with Raph. So though Leo and Raph both suffer from anxiety, this is probably the first time Leo's getting a taste for what Raph's daily life is like.
"Bummer? Look what happened to their world! You have about as much sensitivity as a rabid dog."
"Look, just because you're leader, doesn't mean you get to get in everyone's face."
"Don't start on that leader thing again, Raph. You've always been jelous of me."
And here the insecurities and deepseeded feelings come out with these two.
"Jelous? Maybe that's because you're always Splinter's favorite!"
This is really the first time anyone has mentioned the favoritism that's been obvious since day one. And to pair that up with how he's jelous that Leo's the leader. If I ever rewatch the show, I'm going to have to keep an eye on the Raph and Splinter interactions and how Leo's favoritism has affected Raph and the others.
Of course Leo's leader responsibilites have always been a pain in his side, and I've innitially suspected he was angered by Raph once again digging into that. But another thing is that they've watched Splinter die. For Raph, twice now. Maybe the favoritism didn't largely affect Raph before, but the reason why he's bringing it up now is probably a bigger wound knowing that his father died caring more about Leo then him.
And here's another sike that they're going to fight. Noteable that here Raph has his pupils, where as the Raph-Mikey hug Raph's blind rage had him with no pupils.
It actually caught me off guard that *this* was the Raph-Leo hug episode. But yeah, makes sense. These kids went through something traumatizing, multiple times now, with the looming threath of their world being destroyed yet again and having to relive that trauma haing above their heads, Leo missing his father earlier in the episode and now here. With the planet pushing more stress hormones into their systems and Raph yelling about how Leo was the favorite child and Leo going in to comfort him. Give him that damn hug, Leo. You both need it.
"Raph. I love you, bro."
I fucking love how soft Leo talks here. Raph and Leo are usually never physically affectionate with each other. I really only seen Raph be physically affectionate with Mikey and sometimes Casey. Raph and Leo's care for each other was always shown in other ways that wasn't physical. This is really the first time physical contact meant something.
I need 50 million words of Raph-Leo hurt/comfort angst PRONTO!!
"Leo. I- I'm sorry."
*Dramatically drops space sies*
"I don't understand what's going on."
Tha't would be the anxiety ray, my dear boy.
So, Leo gets a taste of what Raph's daily stress level is at just being on this planet. But Raph is experiencing way more then his normal amount of stress. The last time he's past this stress threshold, where he just blindly attacks, was back when Shredder had killed his father. And while granted, most of this stress is due to the planet. I haven't seen these kids take a moment to actually process the fact that they had to relive that. Or take any time to process any of their trauma. Of coruse this poor boy doesn't know what's going on. None of them go to tharapy. Raph is just dealing with an abnormal amount of stress and he's just lost as to what to do.
LEO HUG YOUR BROTHER AND NEVER FUCKING LET GO OF HIM EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"The planet, it keeps messing with our heads. We have to remember that. We have to focus."
That's only one part of why everyone's so stressed right now, and they don't even know the rest of it. THE LITTLE LOOK AWAY RAPH DOSE THIS POOR BOY NEEDS SOME ANTI ANXIETY MEDICATION!!!!!
LOOK AT THAT FUCKING SMILE ON LITTLE RAPHY TAFFY HE LOVE BY HIS BROTHERS AND HE FUCKING KNOWS IT LOOK AT HIM LOOK AT MY SON PRIDE ISN'T THE WORD I'M LOOKING FOR THERE'S SO MUCH MORE INSIDE ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I'm going to go back to Raph hurt/comfort fics now.