Opinions on Apriltello
 

Since there’s been a bunch of videos on YouTube popping up with YouTubers complaining about April X Donnie in the 2012 series, I’m curious to know the forum’s current opinion is on it ?

Conceptually it could be interesting, but it is too easy to make it icky or stupid.

One word:

Ew.

I never liked it. It never went anywhere and remained in the same awkward state it started in. Also, attempting to pair up any of the mutant characters with a human, even if it's just for a gag, will always seem a bit creepy to me.

April ought to be paired with a Turtle someday, but never Donny

Not a fan, because they overdid it and drove it into the ground. If it had been only a vague thing that came up very, very rarely and maybe ended after the 1st season, then fine, I wouldn't care.

Overall, 2012 was a great show, but they really missed the mark on that part and I feel pushed some bad massages. The whole "Turtle crushing on a human" part doesn't even bother me at this point, it's how they went about it. Not only does some of Donnie's behavior make me uncomfortable, but I feel like April as a female character was very badly portrayed over this and they could have benefited from more (any?) women involved in that writing to be able to say "Yeah, this part? NO."

Most of the time they have her act as if she's completely oblivious. I haven't known any girls/women in my life that wouldn't have become uncomfortable with someone being that persistent when the feelings are clearly not mutual and then would have started to avoid going to their house/lair/whatever and avoided hanging with them to avoid that situation. Yet April just acts like nothing bothers her at all. Which, worse, means it pushes a stereotypical message of girls just having to smile and put up with things in order to not cause conflict or avoid hurting feelings, else she becomes the bad guy.

Then there's the message on the other side of "keep pursuing until she gives in."

THEN that very toxic BS of them deciding to make her a "tease" (WTF was that) at the end of the Bigfoot ep, pushing that "pursue until she gives in" message, another of putting on a pity act, AND a message that "girls are just mean teases and don't know what they want."

A couple times they did attempt to have Donnie learn, but they generally came far later than they should have and they never actually stuck.


As I said, at this point a human/Turtle thing doesn't really bother me, to be honest, if it's light and mostly just off screen. Like, say, if they ever brought Lotus back and she and Leo have a little bit of a light flirt happening that they never really otherwise make any moves on. Fine, whatever. But 2012 full on committed to it far too much and in ways that weren't great.

Plus, I don't care for putting a Turtle with April. Just leave her alone and let her be the big sister type, please. If they want to give Donnie someone to flirt with, I vote for bringing Jhanna back and doing more with her (but for more than just that).

Imagine an adult Turtle and April pairing, and then they eventually break up. If there's any logic in the writing at all, then sure, like that won't make the situation and friendship awkward... >.>

Yeah it’s a no go for me. I really dont like any of the turtles shipped with April.

I’m fine with it, although I would agree that that went overboard with it, especially in the first season. The way I saw it, they tried to play it up for comedy but Donnie’s one side fixation came across as creepy in some viewers eyes. If if they had built up to it where Donnie realized that he had feelings for April and struggled with the fact that he was a mutant turtle who couldn’t give her the life that he thought she deserved, it would have made a much more interesting story.

And hell, Captain Kirk was slaying poon and altering the genetic makeup of half the Alpha Quadrant with women who weren’t even part of the same terrestrial animal kingdom back in the 60’s. Donnie and April getting together seems downright wholesome compared to a lot of the crap that they try to shove down our throats these days.

I think the people that are OK with it or advocate for it don't understand the TMNT or don't want to.

I always find it weird everyone immediately started thinking about sex, when it's a kid's cartoon and they weren't obviously gonna bang even if they got together. By that logic, we can say Raph was plowing Venus since those two were obviously hot for each other.

Like if this happened in comics, which can usually deal with such issues where a Saturday Morning Cartoon obviously will not, then sure. We can have that discussion and voice our concerns there. But on a cartoon on Nickelodeon??? Might as well get into how sex between Spongebob and that squirrel would work.

Thanks, now I realize SpongeBob would basically just be a talking body pillow for her and that's how I start a Tuesday.


Edit: That 2012 ep of that Dimension X sea monster and by the looks on their faces..? They knew what was up and was far from the only cartoon to ever have jokes made to purposly go over the heads of the kiddies. Lol I remember finally getting jokes like those years later in other stuff of our own childhood. Too funny really. lol

Though I'd have to disagree with an assumption that "everyone immediately started thinking about sex." It might be nature's intent of attraction, but young first crushes aren't typically going there that soon. We can let young characters have innocent crushes without twisting it into something more adult than it is.

No, I mean the overall reaction to Donnie crushing on April was already going into 'ewww a turtle banging a human' territory. I was referring to the fanbase reaction.

That's why the crush never bothered me at the start, because it was characters having innocent crushes. But everyont went straight to Turtle/Human sex, even though Casey also had a crush on April and no one was quick to jump to that conclusion.

Ohhh, yes, gottcha. The questionable fan art probably didn't take long at all.

Back before I was acquainted with DeviantArt and wasn't yet scarred for life from that particular angle.

No I mean, on this very forum. Back when the show was new. Everyone's first reaction was a variation of 'ewww turtle and human' and 'ewww turtle banging human'. As if a kid's show is gonna show Donnie and April waking up in the morning in the same bed. Gimme a break.

Some people were surprised that fanbase immediately moved on to sex between characters? Guess, some people never were around Internet.

If characters look at each other funny, someone somewhere will make a porn about it. Basically Rule 34 as it is. And in this case romance was specifically written by writers, so it gave fans even more ammunition.

Not to mention, you are dealing with a Turtles fanbase, which has furries, who are noticeable degenerates and freaks. Naturally these "people" will jump on opportunity to pair a human with an animal. Turtles fanbase also has quite a lot of fangirls, who are mostly into Gay-incest sex, but some might be interested in exploring bestiality, as well.

All in all, this romance dropped on a very fertile grounds, sadly.

But in itself, idea has some potential, but I don't think kids cartoon is a good place to study it.

Yeah there’s a huge difference between us regular female fans and fangirls. :lol:

As for the opposite sex, the equivalent would probably be single dudes who are just in it for the erotic pictures of April, mostly those of the Fred Wolf version. I’m on DeviantArt and I see those nasty pictures every time I search for TMNT fan art

Questionable their motives are, but it is still more normal than bestiality or "Turtlecest".

Ah, okay. I missed that then, and prob for the best.


Every. Damn. Day. :roll: I do wish people would just use freaking tags properly so we can simply skip what we don't on our screen. The imbalance of there rarely being sexy stuff of male characters (adult or depicted as adults) gets tiring. I'm disappointed that so many good female artists do lean largely into that incest crap (which I do avoid however much as possible). Why... There's a few whose art style I did love a lot, but had wished they'd have done more single character or non-tcesty pieces as well.



Yeah yeah... men are so fast to wave around "bestiality" flags there and suddenly drop them when it's female characters in various franchises. (I mean it was quite the upset that Lola didn't have big boobs in that last Space Jam movie, am I right?) Lets not be hypocrites. :tlol: If a guy isn't accepting humanoid female characters either, then fair enough in his case, but lets be real... when we put attractive human traits on humanoid characters, humans can't help but notice what we're wired to notice, no matter if it's a rabbit girl or alien cheetah lady with big boobs or a Turtle man with good looking muscle... girls/boys will be girls/boys. Unless someone is entirely devoid of those feelings, you're going to notice those traits, even if it's brushed off fast.

One need to consider that female humanoid characters usually designed to be cuter / more human-like, then their male counterparts. Look at Callie Briggs from SWAT Kats or Gadget from Chip & Dale RR, for example.

So, certain level of hypocrisy is warranted.

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Fur and tails and sir...that is literally a small mouse.

By season 5 it felt like they have bonded a lot more over time, but we don't see too much of it. In that last cross-over I would have liked to have seen a moment between 1987 Donatello and 2012 Donatello discussing the matter.

But that's just a logical consequence, doesn't matter whether it's shown or not: "Getting together" leads to "banging". And in the case of the Turtles with April, that's some pretty icky stuff.

I admit this relationship had it's problems.

On one-hand Donnie grew up in an all male society so the only place where he would have seen guy and girl interactions were on TV. Plus since he is the resident genius of the group, his brain is hardwired for complex forms of thinking to the point where simple answers do fly over his head until someone suggests them.

As such he would be prone to overthinking things when it comes to April and doesn't really take her side of things into account.

Then of course we have that infamous episode "A Foot too Big" where Donnie gets a treatment that isn't exact but isn't disimilar to what he is doing to April. So he realizes what he's doing to get her attention only pushes her away.

After that episode, there are still moments where Donnie does flirt with April but it isn't as blatent as before.


On the other hand, the whole triangle between Donnie/April/Casey was being set up to be similar to the relationship between Hamato Yoshi/Tang Shen/Oroku Saki. It would have been better to emphasize that concept rather then treating the whole Donnie like's April thing as a joke.

For example, in the episodes where Splinter explains how his wife and his "Child" supposedly died. He said that the Shredder hadn't liked the fact that Tang Shen had chosen Yoshi. The Shredder attacked them in a fit of anger and jealousy and that resulted in her death.

Where as when we see the actual story, it's implied that Shen and Saki did have a relationship before. But something happened that drove them apart because he says "Shen, take me back I'm not the man I was." even though Tang Shen was married and already had a child with Spinter at that point.

So if they had made that similarity more of a concept, then that could have made the whole triangle with April more plausable. After all, since Donnie is Hamato Yoshi's adopted son, you would think that is the role he was taking. But everytime we see him get angry at seeing Casey or anyone male flirting with or interacting with April kinda hinted he was dangerously leaning close to the Shredder's path.

It woulda been cool if Donnie did see April and Casey on a date of sorts and was thinking of ways to sabotage it.... when he remembers Splinter telling him about Tang Shen and Saki. Then Donnie can see he's the 'Saki' and not the 'Yoshi' of the story and realize he can't force April to like him and she has to do things on her own and lets her go.

And then April realizes Casey is an annoying idiot, comes back to Donnie and they bust out a bunch of turtle/human hybrids for the next generation of Ninja Turtles.

...... what? Don't look at me that way. This is literally what everyone seems to have been expecting every time this crush is brought up.

Or maybe April saying "You know, lets just be friends for now." With both of them. After all, April has expressed discomfort with both boys even after the the whole "Foot Too Big" episode. Such as when the whole Ho Chan episode where Donnie and Casey work together to free Leo, Mikey, and Raph from Ho Chan's mind control and rescued April and Irma as well. But then when asked who saved the day, Donnie and Casey give April all the credit before awkwardly "Peace Hugging" her. And then later during the space episodes, Donnie and Casey run up and hug her to which April says "Hey, what did I said about group hugs?" In a way that suggests its an irritation.

With the Ho Chan episode, Donnie and Casey could have looked at one another briefly and then said "The three of us". As a means of showing April, Donnie, and Casey could be an effective team if they put their petty squabbles over April aside.

Part of the space trip, could also have focused on April...not just that crystal. Donnie was shown to have some affinity with the Utrom because of his intelect. And Casey has been known to be useful with getting information or fixing things. So maybe the two of them could have had part of that journey with her, which is something Donnie could document since he was researching April's psychic power so she can control it. But maybe talking with Bishop and the Utrom about what happened to her mother and why she is a Human/Utrom hybrid or something. After all they pretty much dropped the April is a mutation after the second season. Yeah, we still have April is a psychic, but not so much April is a part utrom which is the whole point of her being a psychic.


Even if they could only afford the space plot I.E. have David Tennant as the Fugitoid for X-number of episodes. The whole mutant April could be something that is explored inbetween the episodes where April is going crazy because the Aion Crystal is becoming corrupt.

Also with the Aion Crystal, while April was the only one being affected by it, the artifact it was from did universily affect the world around it. After all the reason the Aions turned into monsters was because they were given a piece of technology they didn't understand and they became consumed with trying to understand it, and that in turn corrupted them. And the turtles were collectively affected by the negativity of the place.

After restoring the Aion's planet, April is given the crystal as a blessing. However, in the worlds that the Turtles and everyone were going to it was slowly corrupting Za-Noran. While Mikey and even Casey do touch the crystal once or twice. Mickey is the first person who senses something is off with it and points out it isn't something they could trust. But Donnie is the only one aside from April who is in close proximity with it on a regular basis. So that could have been a catalyst in the Donnie is becoming the Shredder thing since that could promote hostility towards Casey.

I know they were wanting to get that plot line done so Splinter can be murdered for good and all. Still the whole Dark April was rather rushed, particularly since they had the Super Shredder and Splinter's demise coming up. If it could have been stretched out, maybe have that episode before the whole April becoming fully possessed. After all the midseason episode where they thought they lost Splinter in the Under City, Donnie was heavily affected to the point where he has tears in his eyes when he and Mikey do find Splinter alive. So a precurser to April becoming corrupt could be Donnie obsessively working in his lab to prevent Splinter's death from occuring. The others tell him to chill out that the thing has already happened and Splinter was fine. But Donnie reminds them that they have had moments where they have lost Splinter before, the whole thing in space was a conveniant repreeve for them to go back and change events in time. Where as this most recent time, Splinter's survival was nothing short of a miracle. The next time may be the time they lose Splinter for good.

The show had balls to show Shredder kill Splinter, have everyone think 'oh it's a cartoon and they'll just go back in time and save him' and then kill him again but permanently. And then have Leo behead Shredder and kill him for real without any 'picks up his head' nonsense.

I only watched the first few episodes of the Nick toon, so I have no idea how the whole thing progressed over time and how it ended.

But I never liked the idea of one of the Turtles falling in love with April due to the fact... I think it's obvious.

Which also is another reason why I heavily disliked them making April a teenage girl of the same age as the Turtles.

Its a rare gem seeing you post in the Nick section lol.

I do sometimes wonder what your thoughts on the series would be if you ever ended up watching the whole thing.

I don't feel compelled to do it, to be honest.

Why would 87 Donny have a say? A lot of episodes suggested he and Irma would have been an item

I disliked it - disrespects Donatello and turns him into a drooling clown. However, I can see why he would desperately feel that way - they have never seen a human girl before, and as animals they cannot be with a human female. However, it doesn't make sense that Donatello is the only one this affects hugely. Later in the series the other three guys get semi love interests of their own, but it never seems quite as obsessive as Donnie's.

Part of me feels that Donatello, of the four, should be the most sexless and above carnal desire, in a way. Throwing himself into his work and being cynical of humanity, as he is in 1987 and parts of 2003.

Overall, I feel it was handled poorly and definitely to appeal to the crowd on social media who (even in 2012) are into shipping. I really enjoy the show, but this is the one thing I didn't like.