The 2012 Storyboards Are Criminally Underappreciated.

The 2012 storyboards are criminally underappreciated.

(CW: Ranting/Venting; the fic I am talking about will not be named, nor will I give the author’s name away. Please send me a message if you want to know)

Did we even watch the same show? He’s not a caring, big brother? He’s a stick in the mud?

The only thing I’ll give you is that he’s full of himself… because he’s an idiot teenager with badass fighting skills and weapons. Of course he’s gonna be a cocky little shit. Most people with Leo’s skill would be.

I’m going to assume that you mean part of the time he’s full of himself. But if you mean all the time, then I’ll correct you there. More often than not, he is actually very insecure— a very common trait among the Leonardo’s.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be leading the team?”

“It’s all my fault. I let the guys down!”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again”

“I’d just hold you back. You guys train, I’ll watch. It’s all I’m good for anyway…”

“I’m a liability to the whole team”

“I won’t be much help out there anyway”

Leo is a perfectionist and this shows in the way he leads— coming across as bossy or arrogant— and how he treats himself. The guy just got out of a three-month coma after he had the shit kicked out of him and what does he say when he’s by himself after everyone else went to look for Raph in the woods?

He holds himself to impossibly high standards— both placed by himself and some of the misguided lessons he was taught.

Alright, now for the stick in the mud part. Leo is a fucking dork (I mean this in the most affectionate sense). He loves Space Heroes to the point where he quotes it during missions. He likes puns, is fascinated by Japan culture, martial arts, meditation, etc. He trains very hard to excel at ninjutsu/martial arts— both so he can help his brothers in combat and because it’s a passion of his. That doesn’t make him boring in the slightest. He has some of the most ridiculous dialogue throughout the series:

“Alright guys. Let’s put Old Mother Hubbard back in her cupboard!”

“Hello!? Space Heroes!? Captain Ryan! Didn’t you see the episode where they fought the Cortexecons?!”

“Awesome! Oh, this is so rad! I feel like Van Helsing, but way cooler than him, actually. Way more rad than Van Helsing”

“Alright guys, prepare to dish out the mighty wrath of justice!”

“We don’t know he’s gonna do anything bad. He could be on his way… to… church!”

“I… don’t really have a pinky?”

He can’t lie for shit which leads to him saying silly things:

“Be cool. Be cool.” *answers phone* “uh.. hey man! What’s… what’s going down? *Raph says they better have not watched the Crognard finale without him and Leo laughs nervously* W-who, us?! Of course not! But I bet if we did watch it, we would have found it anti-climate… climactic!”

*gets asked by Chloe if there’s other turtles like him* “Nope! Uh-uh! Just me! Mr. Imaginary Talking Turtle!”

“He’s just kidding, Mrs. O’Neil. Kirby’s…uh.. on a.. safari! In Puerto Rico! And he won’t be back for a while.”

And he’s not the goody-two shoes and suck up people think of him as. He has gone behind Splinter’s back on several occasions, snuck out both willingly and unwillingly. The guy dressed in black and caused petty crime with his sister and her girlfriend Shinigami because he was pissed off at Shredder.

As for not being a caring brother. You mean this guy?! This Leo?! ⬇️

Couldn’t be this Leo, right? There’s no way he’s a mother hen— being both doting and getting after his brothers.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

“Mikey, you never cease to amaze me”

“Leo never left your side” — April when Raph was reduced to a mere plant by The Creep

“I’m sorry about Spike, Raphael.”

“Donnie, don’t lose sight of who you are!”

“Nice job, D”

“Donnie, the go karts worked great. Nice job!”

“Mikey, come on! It’s not that bad! And Raph promises not to make fun of you anymore.”

Not the Leo that uses all his strength and stays behind in the Technodrome holding Kraang Prime so his brothers and April can escape. Not that Leo who while just barely awake after a coma goes after a mutated monster in the woods to get his family back. Not that Leo who forced himself to stay calm so the others can be calm while they go through the most insane shit, or cannot grieve in the moment because he has to ensure the rest of their safety, so his focus during missions and battle is scattered in different places. Because he couldn’t possibly help bandage their wounds, worry when they’re hurt and not give up on a family member. Not Leo preventing Donnie from straight up unaliving Don Vizioso because Leo doesn’t want his younger brother to do what he did and change him like it changed him. He doesn’t sacrifice himself over and over because he loves his brothers, right? Right??

Leo can never catch a break yall

How did he get 4 unconscious bodies from Belobog to Boulder Town? Granted, two of them have convenient handles but still

“Our family has suffered enough. Let our legacy of sacrifice come to an end.”

…

“Promise me that none of you will ever sacrifice yourselves by using a mystical sword to trap yourselves in an inescapable prison realm in order to seal away a great evil like I did.”

……

“Boys? What is it? Boys?”

——

AKA a very specific family tradition featuring Leo’s boba tea, a ghost, and these facial expressions:

- Lee discovering that dark humor is really popular and so he and Leon keep making jokes out of their various traumas. Rise Raph gets after Leon for that one and there is a lot of talk about self esteem

Credit goes to my amazing friend @sapphiretanto who is helping me so much with this au and these hilarious hc’s. plz go follow them

Lee: *motivating the team* There is always more than one way around a seemingly objective solution.

Leon: An elevator?

Lee: Break the cable and fall down the shaft.

Leon: Can’t get into a second story window?

Lee: have someone throw you through it! 😌

Leo: some people say I have daddy issues… jokes on you, I don’t even have a dad!

Leon: ba dum tsss

*gets asked if they can do a backflip*

Lee: that’s setting the bar even lower than my self esteem

Leon: and my self preservation.

Leo and Leon: high three!

HOMIES IN A HALF-SHELL AU