You Can't Tell Me This Isn't Their Dynamic A Majority Of The Show- Donnie / Raph Are Also 5 Seconds Away

So it is very late and I should be asleep but I actually finished the second part of the secrets we inherit and I am so excited for how it is turning out but I gotta wait to post it, I need to at least pretend I proofread my shit before forcing it upon the world

Warnings: I will be talking a lot about how terrible Donnie's crush on April is, and since I'm not an Apriltello shipper this will make it sound like I am shitting on Apriltello 2012 as a concept, but I'm actually just shitting on "Apriltello" as it is presented in the show.

This rant is also not really well structured, read at your own risk.

Okay so ever since I got Paramount + — because I got tired of getting viruses from indian websites when trying to pirate this goddamn show— I have watched TMNT 2012 a total of 5+ times, which means not only do I have a lot to say in general about this show but there is something that bothers me deeply, ever since the first season aired.

April O'Neil.

I know a lot of people shit on April in the show for how she treated Donatello, me included— and I stand by it, Cannon April is horrible — but honestly? Had she been a tad bit better written, there was a lot of potential for her character! There were so many good ideas, and all of them were WASTED.

So this is my character analysis of April O'Neil or, as I'm like to call it;

April O'Neil — The self insert of the teenage girl the writers had a crush on back in high school.

When I was 10 years old, I absolutely despised April because, naturally, I hated the love interest of most protagonists from the shows I watched because usually I felt they were badly written and other times were because I had a fictional crush on the protagonist, so in my child logic that meant I had to hate their love interests.

April was a prime example of that.

But as I've gotten older, I've realized a couple of things about April;

Firstly. April is written by grown ass men whose interactions with teenage girls likely doesn't extend further than that one time they got rejected by their crush in high school or telling their teenage daughter to go to her room, basing it off the way ALL female characters in the show are written.

Secondly, she is written by grown men who likely grew up having a fictional crush in previous versions of April.

This is... a recipe for disaster.

Look— April O'Neil and the way she acts in the show is written exactly the way adult men who are trying to write a teenage girl write teenage girls.

These dudes? They don't actually like or understand teenage girls. They had crushes on teenage girls, they thought they were hot, they might still think of the "what could have been" aspect if they didn't get rejected on prom night, but they do not respect teenage girls, they don't respect their thoughts, their feelings or their interests, and this not only means that April is a poorly written teenage girl as a result, but it also bleeds into the writing of other characters, mainly Donatello and Casey.

If you don't respect your teenage female character as a person, you're not going to write the teenage male characters to respect them either.

The writers clearly love April O'Neil, the concept. They try to sell you the idea that April is so cool, so cute/hot, this kind and empathetic soul, even though she barely does anything extremely cool or kind in the show??

The show is always trying to tell you what to think of April O'Neil, but the writing never earns that. In fact, it often shows the opposite.

The first time she sees the turtles? She screams AND is incredibly scared of them, which, understandable, but doesn't scream open-minded, does it?

When April finds out that Karai might have a semblance of a heart inside of her when they're fighting, instead of trying to create a connection with her and see if she can possible turn Karai to their side, she throws Karai down the subway stairs.

When she meets Dr. Falco with Donnie, and they're unknowingly discussing Dr. Rockwell with him, April keeps referring to the possible mutant experiments as MONSTROSITIES.

DONNIE IS RIGHT THERE!! She literally only stops when DONNIE had to express not once, but TWICE how uncomfortable he is. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the giant mutant turtle is probably going to be uncomfortable hearing people call other mutants like him monsters.

Also— April is never really the one that tries to be kind of empathetic to mutants. She only stops the turtles from beating the shit out of Pidgeon Pete when he mentions her father. So much for someone with psychic powers. When Mutagen Man comes after her, she calls him DONNIE'S MONSTER.

Yes, I get she was pissed off with Donnie and the turtles still, but referring to a random kid who by no means deserved his fate as a monster is so fucked up, April?? How would she feel if Casey called her dad when he got mutated the first time a monster? She totally would've been angry at anybody who said that.

Also this raises so many questions. Did no one explain to April who Timothy was?? Did Donnie not tell her?!? Timothy just spent months stuck to Donnie's lab, watching everybody with his creepy ass eyes and organs and Donnie was making a voicebox for the poor guy and the information just never, reached April? That Timothy was this sorta weird sorta awkward teenage kid who got involved with things he shouldn't and got himself mutated?

I don't buy it. I get it not being mentioned in the show, but I feel like SOMEBODY would have mentioned it in passing to April at some point.

Moving on, a lot of people say the way April acts towards Donnie is annoying or shallow, which while totally 100% at certain points, I think a lot of people in the fandom, for one reason or another are incapable of fully empathizing with Cannon April, and while I genuinely think Cannon April is a BAD PERSON for several reasons, I feel that she doesn't deserve as much hate as she gets— especially not for the way she acts towards Donnie.

I mean, put yourself in her shoes for a nanosecond.

You've lost your mother in a mysterious accident or something 10 years ago. Your father likely doesn't talk a lot about it, and while that bothers you, you're just going through your normal teenage ages, worried about your grades. Worried about boys. Worried about high school popularity.

Then everything changed when the Kraang attacked. Suddenly, you find yourself being saved by four giant humanoid mutant turtles who do martial arts, and your dad is kidnapped by aliens in android bodies that wear suits, the mutants save you, but you have no idea if you'll ever see your father again. You might have just lost BOTH of your parents.

But before you are able to even start processing that you realize that one of those turtles has a massive, big, fat, and OBVIOUS crush on you. But does he confess? No, he just acts, really, really awkward and weird about it.

He lowkey treats you like his girlfriend even though he never asked you out, he calls you pet names like "my sweet chinchilla" and "my princess". He stalks you through buildings. He opens his arms expecting hugs when you're around. He pets your hair. He offers to let you feel his fucking bicep lmao.

And this isn't even half of the weird shit he does!!

Look, any teenage girl or actual woman would think this is fucking weird in real life, okay? Like, this guy is going to kill me and keep my teeth in a box levels of creepy. If we're treating April with actual respect, this would be lowkey terrifying from her POV, he saved her life and he likes her, what if she says she doesn't like him?

Donnie is taller, stronger, and much more skilled than April in every way possible— up until she gets superpowers— even though yes, he is a hero, and yes, his brothers would likely not let him do anything bad to her, how does she know?

If you're a regular teenage girl, how do you know this guy isn't going to lose his shit when you reject him? While I don’t think Cannon April is scared of Donnie hurting her for rejecting him, I still think she feels rejecting him would put her into such an awkward position that it could possible ruin the friendship they have.

Let's be honest, April is a cute/conventionally attractive girl, she definitely would have gone through the Nice Guy™ cannon event by the show's events at least once.

When you're able to look past the obvious bad writing or April hate what actually lies beneath is a girl who is in a horribly awkward situation. April's life has been turned upside down, her father keeps getting kidnapped or horribly mutated, she finds out she's not even FULLY human, aliens and ninjas are constantly trying to kidnap or murder her and on top of all of this?

One of the only people who can help her, help her father, save the entite world has a massive crush on her.

In her mind, it's much less risky to just pretend like she doesn't know he has a crush on her as long as he never confesses and she has to directly turn him down.

But then things get massively awkward when she meets this new kid and they have so much chemistry, she can actually share both aspects of her life with Casey. April gets to talk about how crazy her life is but also complain about normal stuff, and hey with this new kid coming around, this means that Donnie will naturally realize how they like each other and back off right???

Hahah...

No.

He gets JEALOUS. And is actively hostile to her friend!! And it is so blatantly obvious that it's because he is jealous of Casey, they're both generally so bad at hiding how they're both into April.

So now her predicament is that Donnie is actively hostile to Casey because he views him as a threat, and Casey who doesn't let that shit slide is responding in kin. They both act like she's their girlfriend or eventually going to end up with them, even though neither of them have asked her OUT.

This is majotarily an issue because of the bad writing. But if we ignore that for a second, what this looks like is a girl that's put into a situation where no matter what she does, she loses.

Now, I see some people suggesting that Donnie's crush on April is a two-sided problem, claiming that April is either very manipulative or that she lowkey enjoys that Donnie likes her which is odd to me— Like did we watch the same show?

While you can definitely see it like that since April's character is so badly written and so bland that you can fit almost any interpretation into her actions and her being outright manipulative would have been an interestingangle to explore, I completely disagree with this reading for the cannon because outside of a few very specific episodes, April never gives Donnie any indication that she likes him, outside of those situations she never "leads him on."

Like c'mon, the only episode I can think of where she does lead him on is foot too big, which I have a lot of problems with from a writing standpoint, but the episode itself feels so out of character and conflicting.

Ignoring how that episode affects Donatello for a second, it does something really gross to April's characterization. It has her very clearly reject Donnie's advances at the start of the episode, then she's not really present for a majority of the episode until Donnie essentially does some growing and tells her how he understands how she feels and he accepts her rejection, so she kisses him????

?????

Look, this feels like that point in any amateur writer's story where they need to continue the mutual pining, but the story came to a point where it has to directly address one of the character's interest in the other, so the writer pulls something convoluted out of their ass in order to keep the mutual pining going, without realizing that the way they're writing the character makes it feel like one of them HATES THE OTHER and by making them show interest out of a sudden, it destroys the previous characterization! It's not interesting, it's not even a character flaw, it's BAD WRITING!

This episode takes the cannon, if maybe unintentional characterization of April O'Neil as a girl who knows her friend is into her, but she feels uncomfortable directly addressing, and makes it seem like she's a manipulative bitch leading him on, which not only looks very stupid but is also very ~misogynistic~

It's also such a weird episode because nothing happens after this?

It's not Donnie's fault that he's a massive creep! It's not his Father's fault for not telling him he needs to cut it out because it's weirding April out— I also have a lot of problems with the way Splinter "addresses" this issue, which is to say, outside of a single episode, he doesn't—! It's not his brother's fault for never outright saying he needs to stop because of how much of a massive creep he is! It's not Casey's fault for not addressing it either and maybe trying to have a heart to heart with Donnie about both of their feelings toward April—

No, it's the girl's fault for leading him on. Even though everything she does screams "I am not interested, dude."

Also, this isn't me saying the other characters — with the exception of Splinter — should be heavily critized for their lack of emotional intelligence when approaching this situation. But if you are going to let the other teenager's poor actions slide because they're kids, you can't expect the only teenage girl to have the emotional intelligence to deal with that situation either without making it seem sexist, y'know.

The same issue is present with the way the writers start treating Casey btw, in season 2 when April was paired with Casey, she actually felt like a fully fledged character. It actually felt like she was going to start getting some actual character development and maybe develop a relationship with Casey, which made the most sense since at this point it felt like April had no intention of addressing the "I'm half human half kraang" situation. And she had chemistry with him!

And then out of nowhere she starts acting distant and cold towards Casey? Even CASEY points it out in the show lmao.

Honestly this feels like the writers trying to very poorly balance the love triangle, they needed to give Donnie a reason to believe he still had a chance with April, while knocking Casey down enough that he thought he shouldn't directly ask her out even after all of the pseudo dates they had in season 2.

And since I'm talking about April, I feel that maybe it's because my type of woman is women like Karai, which actually felt like an interesting person, even though she was also handled poorly, but April, outside of a few very specific episodes, just feels bland.

I mean, come on, can you tell me one concrete thing about her that comes from cannon that goes deeper than surface level?

What does she like? What doesn't she like? What her thoughts on the situations she finds herself in?

She never talks about her mother beyond missing her, even in the episode where the copy of her mom is present. It just happens, and then she never talks about it again??? At least not to any noticeable extent. She never processes what it means to be a half human half kraang mutant. It takes the show like 3 seasons to even start addressing her psychic powers?!

You're telling me you gave this version of April one of the coolest powers in the history of superpowers, and YOU WAIT TILL YOUR SHOW IS ALMOST OVER TO EVEN START ADDRESSING IT?

You cannot convince me Donnie and Casey wouldn't immediately want to talk about April's powers the moment they learned about it.

Donnie would immediately start running tests, not wait until the farmhouse to do it.

Casey would think, "It's totally dope. Yo" and would want to help April train her powers.

Cue a training montage with April learning how to levitate soda cans and how to use her psychic powers with both Donnie and Casey cheering her on.

Anyways, my conclusion to this post is just how all of the characters in this show were robbed, but especially April, she's not "April O'Neil" she is "Donnie's crush", she is "Casey's love interest", she’s "the center of the conspiracy".

She's never allowed to be a character. She's never allowed to feel like a real teenage girl. She's never even allowed to reject Donnie!! She is written as if she doesn't like him but every single time where he is getting over her suddenly something happens that makes him crawl back into that stupid obssession!! Even though she is clearly not interested. April O'neil is not a character, she is a weird plot device which the writers can use to move the plot forward and push their weird fucking ships onto the audience without actually developing anything to any extent.

I rest my case.

This is hilarious and you are so right, they wasted soo much potential when it came to April's and Casey's family members in this show

There is a whole ass TMNT TV show where Casey is canonically a teenager in high school and yet he never bugs Donnie for tutoring or homework help. smh.

Nor does his parents or any family get screentime.

I’m sorry but how would it not be hilarious for him to have a parent and sibling (like Angel). Like think about their point of view. They:

Have an angsty teen.

He's been sneaking out at night.

He comes back home littered with bruises.

You start to get worried.

But somehow his grades have been massively improving.

You know he isn't beating up people to do his homework as 1)that's unlike him and 2)his test scores are improving as well.

You ask him what the hell he's been doing.

He replies: “I gotta really great tutor.”

His sister asks: “what does he beat you up everytime you get a wrong answer?”

And your son replies: “no….well…he does sometimes smack me with a stick but that's unrelated.”

How the fuck do you reply to that?

Like how do you not do this tmnt 2012. SMH. Waste of potential.

Mutant apocalypse Donnie 🧪💜sketch

One of my handcannons for the guys is that as they get older and get in contact with more humans, they actually start to wear clothes more often

We know that at least Mikey has some human clothes in his bedroom, but I always thought it was kind of weird how nobody points out they are naked all the time, lol

I feel like someone would make a comment ( probably Casey ) that sort of gets them to realize how weird it looks to humans when they are walking butt naked everywhere, and that's when they at least start wearing pants

Master splinter be looking kind of different :0 lol can't believe he used to voice 2012 splinter haha

You're gonna tell me to my face that this isn't 2012 Leo? 🤨 /hj

Please excuse the shitty art style I had back when made this video originally- Lmao

Also shout out to Sammi (I believe that's their name? 😭👍), I love their content sm-

(Old Content)

based on someone irl finding out i was a tmnt fan, asking who my fav was, and being like "oh but not 2012 donnie right 😆" like um. get my babygirls name out of your mouth

Leo's annoyed faces will never not be hilarious

He's so sassy

with what you just said omfg. please. 🙏🙏🙏

HEAD CANONS FOR THE 12 BOYS DOING THE SPIDERMAN KISS WITH THEIR GIRL?! HEHEHEHE

Spiderman Kiss (Fluff)

2012!Turtles x reader

A/N: I’ve been binging too much TwoSet, so this took me four days to make. Why? Because violins, baby!😂 And YES, I just saw the title of their latest video, and NO I don’t have guts to watch it😭

Warning: None💚

Leonardo:

The peaceful quietness of your bedroom was disturbed, when you heard light tapping against  your window, making you look up from whatever you were doing. A soft smile spread across your face, already knowing who you would find outside your window.

With a happy skip in your step, you made your way to your window, opening it and letting the cold night air of New York City enter your room. And there you found him, hanging upside down from the fire escape over yours, smiling at you with that sweet boyish smile and pretty blue eyes.

“Leo”, you smiled, feeling giddy at the sight of your turtle boyfriend hanging outside your window. “What are you doing here?”, you asked, climbing out on the fire escape. “You haven’t told me you would come by”.

“I just thought I’ll come by to say hey before patrol”, he smiled, watching as you came closer to him. Even upside down, you made his heart skip a beat. “Can’t a guy just check in on his girlfriend?”

“Of course you can”, you smiled, standing right before him.

The two of you smiled at each other for a moment, before your hand came to rest on his cheek, your thumb stroking his jaw.

“Will you come over after patrol?”, you asked. “My parents won’t be home before tomorrow”.

“When you ask so nicely”, Leo chuckled. “Of course I will. Anything for my girl”.

You bite your lip, feeling butterflies fly through your stomach. Something that tended to happen when Leo decided to play up his charm. And so, you softly pressed your lips to his in a soft sweet kiss. When you pulled from the kiss, you found Leo smiling from ear to ear, looking at you with pure love in his eyes.

“I love you, Leo”, you smiled, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “See you after patrol”.

“I love you too, (Y/N)”, Leo hummed, savoring the feeling of your lips against his forehead. “See you later”.

Raphael:

You were talking down the street, returning home after a long night out. Even without your headphones, you probably wouldn’t have noticed the familiar figure coming down from above, hanging upside down in the streetlamp you were about to pass. So when you suddenly felt a tap on your shoulder, you turned with your fists up, ready to fight like your boyfriend had taught you. But when you then found your boyfriend, hanging upside down before you with a smirk plastered across his face, you let out a sigh of relief.

“God damn Raph, don’t do that”, you sighed. “You almost scared the shit out of me”.

“I was going for your pants, but I guess that was one way to do it”, Raph chuckled, his eyes lingering on your for a moment. “On your way home?”

“One were to think that you were the genius turtle with those detective skills”, you laughed, making Raph pull a playful grimes.

“Ha ha, very funny”, he said, reaching one hand out for you, perking his lips. “Now, come here. Gimme a kiss”.

“What if I don’t want to”, you asked, not putting any effort into hiding your smile, as you took a step backwards, getting just out of his reach. Raph gasped in an overly dramatic manner, making you giggle at his antics.

“It’s not nice to lie, (Y/N)”, Raph said, faking an angry expression. “Now, give me a kiss before I get mad”, he continued, pecking his lips once more.

You couldn’t help but giggle, giving in with a bright smile. Holding Raph’s head in your hands, you pressed your lips to his in a small peck that made him hum playfully when you pulled back.

“You look pleased”, you smiled, still holding his head in your hands.

“I am”, Raph smiled. “But I would be more pleased if you gave me another kiss”.

You let out a happy laugh, throwing your head back. Your, oh so charming teaseful boyfriend, always managed to sneak in comments like that.

“Okay, you whining baby”, you smiled, before pressing your lips to his again, feeling him pull you closer with his free hand. This kiss was longer and deeper than the first, yet still short and sweet, making both you and Raph feel tingles in your stomachs.

Raph pulled from the kiss with a very satisfied look on his face, giving you that smug smile once again. “See, that wasn’t so bad”.

“Dork”, you smiled, nudging him slightly on his shoulder.

“All me dork all you want, babe. But even I know you like it”, Raph smirked, before getting ready to climb back up the lamp pole. “And when I get back from patrol, you’ll get more”.

Donatello:

“Donnie?”, you called out, looking around Donnie’s garage lab. But with him being nowhere to see, you did a turn on the spot, taking in your surroundings once more. Where could he be? You had texted him several times, but he still hasn't answered you. And that was an hour ago! “Babe?”

“Up here!”

You looked up to the rafters of the garage, finding your turtle boyfriend on the beams above, fiddling with wirings and all sorts of strange things, that you still had no idea what their names were.

“What are you doing up there?”, you asked, crossing your arms as you smiled up at your boyfriend.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”, Donnie smiled. “I’m fixing the lights. And the electric wires… and the heat… pretty much everything”.

“Okay, but why?”

“Well…”, Donnie sighed, sitting back up on the beam, looking up as he thought. “First Leo came and asked me to fix the lights, because it wasn’t strong enough to let him read. Then Mikey came and told me he had problems with his outlets. And then Raph started yelling up about the heating in his room. And since the wires and all access points are up here, I just decided to get them all done”.

“I guess that makes sense”, you said, taking a seat in Donnie’s chair, watching as he continued to work. “Do you need any help up there?”

“No, no, I got it”, Donnie said, not taking his eyes from what he was working with.

“Okaaayyy….”, you said, not feeling fully sure about his answer. “But please be careful, babe”.

“I’m always careful, (Y/N)”, Donnie said with a smile and his eyes closed, making you uneasy straight away. “I know what I’m doing, so there’s no need to worRY!-”

And just like you had feared it would happen, Donnie fell off the beam and tumbled towards the ground beneath. But before you could even let out a sound, and before Donnie could reach the ground, he found himself tangled up the wires he had just been fiddling with, leaving him hanging upside down just before you, with a sheepish smile. "Whoops".

You stood from the chair, crossing your arms with a smug smile, as you walked towards your tangled up boyfriend. “Seems like you do”.

“This wasn’t part of the plan”, Donnie said, looking up as his lower half tangled up.

“It wasn’t?”, you asked in a teasing manner. “Well, at least I know where I can find you now”. And then, before Donnie could ask what you meant, you took his face in your hands, before pressing a kiss to his lips, making him hum in pleasant surprise. “Now, let’s get you out of all that”.

Michelangelo:

With a sigh you laid back on the bed, turning your head to watch your boyfriend on the floor, as he tinkered around with his latest action figures. That was what happened when he got his hands on a new collectible. That was just how it was. You knew better than to get in the way of Mikey’s hobbies, but damn, sometimes you would get bored just watching him, when you had hoped that day would have been all about a couple time.

“Mikey”, you said with another sigh, trying to catch the attention of your turtle boyfriend.

“Yes, babe?”, Mikey asked, still not taking his eyes off the figure in his hand as he moved its arms around.

“When will you come and cuddle?”

“Just a moment babe, I just got to look through the rest first”.

You let out another loud exacerbated sigh, spreading your arms out on Mikey’s bed like seastar. Mikey still had several boxes on all new figures to go through, and you were getting impatient. ADHD can’t spread to other people by touch, but by this point you fully believed that you had gotten it from Mikey. Ever since you had gotten together with the orange clad turtle, you had started taking on many of his mannerisms. Such as his tendency to sigh in annoyance when getting impatient. And funnily enough, Mikey never seemed to notice when you did so. Just like right now. No reaction. Not what you wanted. So you had to do something about it. And you knew just how.

You scooted yourself around the bed, until you laid with your head resting down the side of the bed, allowing you to look at Mikey with your head upside down. You pucked your lips, making loud and obscene kissing noises. But… still nothing.

Right! That’s it! And with that you grabbed a hold of Mikey’s head, pulling him towards you as he made a surprised sound. You pressed his lips to yours, kissing him while you were still laying upside down on his bed.

“What was that for?”, Mikey asked with a smile.

“Because I’m getting impatient!”, you whined, trying to hide your smile. “And you’re just sitting there looking like a snack! What do you expect me to do?”

“You know what?”, Mikey said, laying his figure down on the floor before coming to a stand, smiling at you. “You’re right. Cuddle time!”

You did not have time to move before Mikey decided to jump on to the bed, throwing himself on you, letting you scream out in laughter, when he started attacking your face with kisses. You regretted NOTHING.