#askrui

I’ve seen this guy get a lot of hate from the tmnt fandom, so i went into the movie expecting the worst. Instead, i came out of the movie feeling sorry for the guy. 

Dude doesn’t even want to come home from the jungle because he doesn’t want to come back a failure after splinter sent him away to become a better leader. Which is crazy by the way. Imagine sending your teenage son to be a better leader by sending him AWAY from the team he’s supposed to lead. Who is he supposed to lead out here, the plant life? Leo’s probably seen stuff out here that no teenager should ever have to see, but that doesn’t matter to people, i guess. Anyway, it’s clear that he holds splinter and his brother’s opinion in high regard. Maybe too high, honestly.

He stops writing his brothers after a year and not a single person goes to check up on him. No one but APRIL of all people. Not his brothers, not splinter, but APRIL. Wow. and april didn’t even start out with the intention of seeking him out. She was there on business, but when the local legend started sounding familiar, then she decided to snoop. I have to ask, how did his family even know leo was alive? Did they know? His family clearly didn’t even try to contact him at all; they just wallowed in their misery and waited for leo to come home to fix things. But leo was so sure that his family had things under control; he refutes the idea that his family needs him when april brings it up, because i dont think leo believes it himself. Leo is so sure that his brothers don’t need him and says directly that “[the people of the village] need me more than my brothers do.” I think leo truly believes his family will be fine without him. It’s part of the reason why he stayed in the jungle for so long; he wanted to be in a place where he felt needed and, by proxy, wanted. And that’s just sad, because it implies that he was not feeling this way in his own home.

So leo comes home and the reunion is great between him and donnie and mikey, who both at least appear to be happy to see him. Raph and leo’s initial reunion is just awkward, because raph can’t ever just say he’s happy to see his brother. There always has to be something going on with him, which in turn affects leo. The tension quickly mounts between the two as raph continues being unreasonable and belligerent. 

When the turtles fight against that monster thing both raph and mikey just charge in without heeding leo’s instructions (in which he was just trying to follow splinter’s orders of not engaging), and then somehow, splinter blames leo?? ”there are no excuses when you are the leader” Huh?? Leo literally tried to stop them, splinter, but you didn’t want to hear him out and just blamed everything on him! If splinter is so concerned by the turbulence in the family, why doesn’t he do something about it then? No, instead he just keeps watching gilmore girls and counts on leo to handle everything for some reason. Splinter, and the rest of the turtles by proxy, put the burden of bringing the family together solely on leo. Leo trusted donnie to manage the team, and donnie just…gives up and starts a call center. Both mikey and donnie, instead of holding down the fort while leo is away, continuing patrol and ninjutsu like they’ve been trained to do, give up and get normal jobs. What? Splinter apparently said nothing, by the way, i guess he was perfectly cool with donnie and mikey giving up their life’s work and trusted that leo would fix things when he returned. Raph straight up ditched the team. Everyone fell apart without leo there to wrangle them. This dependency on one sole family member, one who’s presumably the same age as the other turtles and is by no means their parent, just does not sit right with me and makes me feel even worse for the guy. So leo has to just keep going, while getting no familial or any sort of support from anyone. No, leo just has to do better i guess. Meanwhile, raph’s got a great friend in casey, who takes the time to listen to poor raph’s woes. And what does raph do in turn when casey needs someone to lend him an ear? Falls asleep and ignores all of what casey says. Awesome. 

After their failure of a fight, raph makes it clear the next morning that the person he blames is leo and leo alone. It could never be his own fault for charging in recklessly without a plan and ignoring splinter’s orders, oh no, let’s blame leo, our convenient scapegoat. Apparently in the prequel comics leo and raph have always had somewhat of a turbulent relationship, so that’s rough. 

Really minor, but I also felt bad for leo when raph, semi-conscious from the dart, told leo to go back the jungle. I’m used to these sorts of drugs lowering inhibition in their targets in fiction, making them reveal things they’d normally never say, but are their true feelings. Apparently raph’s true feeling . . . is that he wants leo to leave. ouch.

It was so sad seeing leo go from fighting the nightwatcher to fighting raph. When he was fighting the nightwatcher, he was taking him down so easily. But when he’s fighting raph, it’s clear that he can’t bring himself to go all out, even when raph isn’t pulling his punches. Leo says he was training to be a better leader, and that he was training to be better for raph, and point blank asks why raph hates him for that, confirming my suspicion that yes, leo does think raph hates him. Raph, meanwhile, is trying to convince himself, the audience, and leo that he never needed leo because he’s still jealous or whatever. He fixates on the idea that he doesnt want to be led, and that THAT is his main issue. Okay buddy. I see right through him, but i don’t know if leo does. I don’t blame leo for thinking that raph hates him, because i myself have a hard time believing that raph cares about leo.

Maybe leo gets a lot of flack for saying that he’s better than raph, but honestly, i was cheering for him. Go off king. I don’t know why people act as if raph had any semblance of a point at any time during this movie. I don’t know why people act as though LEO was the one in the wrong here. Leo said nothing but the truth.

Leo: You aren't ready. You're impatient and hot-tempered. And more importantly, I'm better than you.

And he’s right. Throughout the whole movie, raph has been nothing BUT impatient and hot tempered. Raph has been unreliable as ever this whole movie, being reckless and endangering both himself and his family as the nightwatcher. Bro is making headlines. Did raph ever stop to think of what would happen if something happened out there and he had no backup? Did he stop to think what would happen if he was ever followed home? Or exposed? If raph’s identity is exposed, they’re all exposed because they’re all mutant turtles, and their names and mask colors aren’t going to make much difference to the public.

How exactly is leo wrong here? Or should i be scolding him for being so mean to poor raphie? Why, especially when raph has done nothing but be hostile to this dude for no reason the whole movie.

raph breaks leo’s swords and nearly impales leo?? What?? Leo nearly gets KILLED by his own brother. What a welcoming reunion. Seriously, with family like this, who needs enemies?  I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to be put in that position by your own sibling, but Leo doesn’t even look scared as he’s staring up at raph. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t yelling. He was just resigned. Did he truly believe raph would have killed him in that moment? I don’t know, but leo’s mindset cannot be healthy. If this was mikey that raph had pinned to the ground, the tmnt fandom would have been up in arms. But because it’s leo, it’s fine because “he can handle it,” i guess. 

And raph’s stupidity gets leo captured. Instead of owning up to his actions, that yes, you very nearly DID just kill your own brother, he abandons leo and leaves him defenseless on the rooftop, where of course, he gets captured. He lets out a loud yell as he’s getting captured, probably to let raph know he needs help because bro is the only one around. Either way, that’s another sort of terrifying, to have to rely on the person who nearly killed you, but leo doesn’t have a choice. Not that raph even succeeds in getting leo back in that moment. Leo’s knocked out for most of the next part, raph supposedly gets character development and resolves his conflict with leo by . . . not talking to him and saving him from captivity. Hooray, raph cares for his brother’s life? But this doesn’t solve anything, because for all leo knows, raph still despises him as a person. They didn’t talk through ANYTHING, so how is leo supposed to know what raph is thinking? 

I kind of wish leo could just go back to the jungle and continue being the ghost of the jungle. I know he’d be without his family (and honestly i’d say good riddance), but at least there, he was actually respected. Leo didn’t want to get too involved with the residents there, and they respected his wishes and didn’t bother him, but were clearly respectful and appreciative of what he’d done for them. Unfortunately, i can’t say the same for his family. 

i think 03 raph is one of the most solid depictions ive seen of raph so far. granted, i still havent gone through the entirety of 03 (still on season 1) so hopefully i wont be eating my words. i enjoy him because he at least knows he has issues and is trying to work on them. plus, you can tell he really cares for his family. in battle, every time one of his brothers is about to get attacked, a lot of the time it's raph who directly steps in to defend them. this raph totally lives up to the "protector" moniker a lot of people tend to give him. i also like this raph because he tends to wear his emotions on his sleeve. in tales of leo, when leo wasn't waking up, the words he was saying may have been harsh, but then they cut to him crying, so you know that this is anger born of fear/grief. it seems like he feels emotions really powerfully. there's a lot of little moments with him where he shines best.

i did really like 12 raph in season 1. granted, tmnt 2012 was my first exposure to tmnt, so maybe im biased, but still. he was the guy that called other people out when they were being stupid. when he said something harsh, most of the time, what he was saying made sense. personally his character went downhill for me past season 1, but i will forever remember his golden characterization in S1. he had a lot of potential that unfortunately i just dont think the character lived up to (to be fair, you could say this about a lot of things in 2012)

the raph from the 90s trilogies was pretty good. he had his outbursts, yes, but the movies either handled them appropriately or never lingered on them too long, which unfortunately, a lot of tmnt movies post this era seem to like doing. his friendship with yoshi in the third movie was so sweet.

i actually found them on tumblr!

eh i dont think hate is accurate. i do dislike certain versions of his character, but that's not exclusive to raph. with all of the turtles, there are certain versions that i prefer over others.

oh! i’ll be going to pick up my badge on thursday and i was actually planning to meet with someone to take pictures. Unfortunately our dates don’t match up so i don’t think i’ll be wearing my stuff that day :c Are you going to otakon as well?

(ah but you can check out my updates on police stuff on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/ruicosplay) just got to meetup with that friend over the week to finish the whole thing

I based it off a generic one I saw a while back, but I ended making it up as I went along c: