2012!TMNT (and my gripes with it)
My first ever long brainrot blog post and it's about the things i dont like in my childhood show
Also, disclaimer : I'm sorry for my bad english, it's not my first language, my vocab isn't as wide as most people and this is also just my ramblings so it might stop making sense at some point
APRIL/DONNIE/CASEY LOVE TRIANGLE (and the romance in general)
Everybody said this already but I haven't shared my thoughts so you get to listen
The romance in the show is not gross and disgusting at worst and not plot relevant at best. Personally, I have no problem with any pairings between any of the turtles and the humans characters, I don't care if the show wants to push a romance between any mutant with any humans at all. Anyone calling this beastiality or zoophilia is incorrect to me, as most of the mutant characters (aside from Karai when she first mutated) have their own mind and can choose for themselves. They are not irrational or mindless beings and 90% of the time is even smarter and more intelligent emotionally than the few human characters that we have.
The only problem with the romance in this show would be the context, and the circumstances of the characters involved in said romance.
For example, let's look at the case of Donnie/April, which is the first time the concept of romance is introduced in the show.
In the first 10 minutes of the first episode, we see the turtles comes up to the surface, and literally right after we see them marvel at the wonderful place that is the the NYC, April comes out and Donnie is immediately in love, exclaiming she is the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. (for the show's credit it was a kids show made in 2012, love at first sight was a very common trope)
Seconds after that, April and her dad get attacked by the Kraang, and Donnie jumps in to save her, the show is setting it up for this to be a thing in the future, making it clear it's not just a one-off thing or a throwaway line for jokes.
In season 2, Casey comes in, and cause he and April is the staple couple of the franchise since 2003, they have to have their moment too. In 2012, Casey is the
And we go through the rest of the show of Donnie, Casey and April in this will they, won't they scenarios also consisting of Donnie and Casey fighting over her at every second they are in the same frame.
What is the problem here?
Well, as other people have said it, this love triangle plotline ruins the characters of everyone involved.
Donnie's crush on April was cute at some point, but it stopped after he started going all stalker-ish, following April and knowing her schedule, going out of his way to plan things to get her to go out with him, getting possessive over her despite her showing she's not comfortable with his advances.
Casey is portrayed as a perverted asshole, whose whole thing is just makes fanservice jokes about April's body or just be horny for her. And when he's not, he's just the tough bad boy who contrasts Donnie, the awkward nerd.
April's character suffers the most from this situation, as from the very first second she is introduced in the show, she is introduced as Donnie's love interest. Her whole character was fixed from that moment forward as just the love interest, and nothing else. And her being thrown around between Donnie and Casey didn't make it better. What was her personality? Her hobbies? Likes and dislikes? All seems invisible as most of her scenes compromises of her being with Donnie, or her being with Casey or both.
Most of the fandom even sees her as a bitch for 'leading on the two guys that liked her', as if she asked for that situation to happen in the first place.
The romance itself isn't good, it just makes everyone look bad. Which is sad, cause outside of the love triangle, these three are great characters on their own (not the best, Donnie is definitely the weakest of the turtles in terms of characterization)
Their implied relationships off-screen sounds so much better, Donnie and April were theorized to be best friends as she seems the most comfortable with him, Casey occasionally helps Donnie with mechanic stuff (shown in one scene in season 3).
The way this plotline is handled isn't good either, it pretty much just dissolves away without any conclusion. No talks between the characters about the situation, no April standing up for herself and telling the two of them she doesn't want to hurt their friendship and she cares for them just the same as she cares from everyone in their group.
What we get was just one episode where Donnie realizes he may have made April uncomfortable all this time, (only took him 2 seasons and a half, look at that, character growth everybody). He apologizes to April and get ready to move on from her and I thought this show is actually gonna be good about it.
And April kissed him, of course.
Fuck you, Nicklodean. Of course, why would I thought a kids show is gonna handle a topic like this maturely, why would I expect such caliber writing from a show that have proved before this that they could write emotionally intelligence moments??
For the other romance subplot, they're whatever.
Leo and Karai was controversial because of the whole, they're siblings so it's incest thing, but they dropped it almost immediately after Leo finds out Karai is Splinter's bio daughter. Their 'romance' started as attraction of something new, and ended like that too.
Mikey and Renet was pretty boring, it was just, well Mikey hasn't had a crush yet and we have another single female character, so why not? They're not bad, but doesn't really add anything to Mikey or anyone since Renet is not from their timeline.
There's also Mikey and Shinigami, but I don't remember that going anywhere. It was just another comic moments instead of adding anything to Mikey's or Shini's character.
Splinter/Tang Shen/Shredder whole fiasco serves only as context as to why everything is the way it is, but nothing really deep as the show didn't really go down that path, we get some few flashbacks scenes, and we get to see what truly happened when the turtles went back in time, but nothing truly game-changing other than the revelation that it was the turtles who saved Splinter back then.
This show has only one good romance and it is...
They are perfect, probably the healthiest one in the show, and the cutest one consisting of the two (imo) most mature characters in the show.
This is supposed to be a list but this is way too long already, I'll have to talk about the rest in another post.
tangentwithtanner
andulkaphoto
areudirty
stormborns
romaincrisis
izzy806
origamiaround
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
discoholicmusic
