AskMMRaphael

this scene kinda make it clear to me that raph respects the hell out of mike. in this entire episode raph only ever gets anywhere by talking. the one time he tries to fight back he just makes everything worse. it's only now that he purposefully listens to him

i'm about to do a big ol reach, but i think the first three episodes do an absolutely great job explaining why raph and mike are best friends just through subtext.

so for one thing, i'm gonna ignore how don ties into this because he's his whole other can of worms. he's THE middle child. he's kinda purposefully separate from his brothers.

ok back to it. leo's episode kind of perfectly sets up mike's. his entire episode relies really heavily on their relationship i think. hell, the episode's cold open is quite literally introduced by leo. mike mentions him a lot, about how he doesn't know what to do, that he's not good at planning, when we see multiple times throughout the episode that mike CAN plan. the entire zoo plot was clearly his idea. him 'improvising' IS planning, even if it's just in the moment.

in contrast, leo's episode kinda... disregards his bros entirely. his account is the meanest out of all of them, especially how he portrays mike. as for mike, based on his account he's under the impression that he just flat out can't do anything unless leo says it first, and that leo blames him for everything going wrong. like i've talked about it before but like- it genuinely really upsets me lol. anyway their relationship is very obviously strained. hell, they don't even hug when they reunite in 'the pearl,' and it's immediately contrasted with mike running to hug raph once he spots him. it just really says a lot i think.

but whatever this ain't about them! so far, raph is the only one of mike's brothers whose taken him seriously. even in mutant mayhem, the way leo talks to mike is demeaning at BEST, and just plain mean at worst. even when raph is teasing mike, he's listening to him. like i genuinely think that flashback is so important because it doesn't cut out anything mike said. even if raph teased him about it, raph still listened. he remembers what mike said, and it's literally the only reason he was able to survive.

i feel like mike realizes this, and that's why he's so damn attached to raph. like i just noticed this super recently, but mike is noticeably unemotive when you compare him to his older brothers, and pretty much the only times his voice breaks, or his face becomes more expressive is when raph teases him, or when he's actually being hurt. like if i remember correctly, he barely reacted to leo saying he's not funny. but raph telling mike that he screwed up (and that it was fine), made him visibly pout.

and imo, it's totally because raph treats him with some sense of autonomy. raph's not constantly ignoring him, he's not constantly telling mike what to do.