How will the love triangle be resolved?

[CyberCubed]

Nick's Don/Casey dynamic has now tainted my view of Don/Casey in other series.

I can't watch that scene in the first movie with Don/Casey working on that car and exchanging insults without thinking they're fighting over April now. Same for when Don flips Casey off the log in Volume 1 before City at War, or in the 4kids cartoon in the second Nano episode when Casey says, "That little green dude stole my date."

Crap, I'm seeing the Don/April/Casey triangle in all other series now.

[Leo656]

That's in your own head then, pal.

Just a question for those genuinely in favor of April and Donatello being a couple (I don't play that "name mash-up" garbage): Why? Simply curious.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Nick's Don/Casey dynamic has now tainted my view of Don/Casey in other series.

I can't watch that scene in the first movie with Don/Casey working on that car and exchanging insults without thinking they're fighting over April now. Same for when Don flips Casey off the log in Volume 1 before City at War, or in the 4kids cartoon in the second Nano episode when Casey says, "That little green dude stole my date."

Crap, I'm seeing the Don/April/Casey triangle in all other series now.

Uh-huh, why not just remind yourself that this pathetic love triangle is an invention of the Nickelodeon cartoon. It never existed before, was not considered before and because it does not work at all, will most likely not be reused after the show ends.

Maybe in some future version of TMNT we'll get Donnie with some tiny (non-obsessive) crush on April that he can easily let go of, or even more likely, it'll be a throwaway gag reference to it.

The "love triangle" does not work because what at first might have been a cute little idea of one of the Turtles having a crush on April, quickly turned into creeper/stalker type stuff. And when they decided to turn it into a love triangle it just got worse...

[Leo656]

Honestly? It almost comes off to me as a way to deflect the juvenile "Ha ha, of COURSE the Turtle wearing Purple is GAY!" jokes people sometimes make, albeit in the most ham-fisted and non-believable way possible. You can almost visualize some Nickelodeon writer/producer going "No he isn't, no he isn't, SEE? SEE?! Donatello is ALL about p***y!"

It's so damn forced and contrived that I don't doubt for a second that it was at least brought up in conversation as a factor beforehand. "So... Donatello wears purple. Some people associate that color with being gay. I'm not comfortable with that. Can he wear a different color, perhaps yellow? No? How about pink? That's WORSE? Okay then... I got it, let's have him develop a crush on April the very first second he sees her, and then cram it down everybody's throats and never let him shut up about it for even five minutes, just in case people forget how badly he wants to tap that sweet jailbait ass of hers? PERFECT. Everybody to the board room for hookers 'n blow, we're f***in' brilliant."

[Tarris Vaal]

Just a question for those genuinely in favor of April and Donatello being a couple (I don't play that "name mash-up" garbage): Why? Simply curious.

Honestly - for me its less that they might be a couple so much as the potential dynamics that it brings to the storytelling.

Potentially this could have been a really interesting angle to take; It gave a new (ish) and very different perspective on Donatello's character (who - in many instances - does get sidelined as the go to tech guy). It opened up a lot of potential story arcs to follow - Don's awkwardness with romance (which we certainly have covered), the whole situation of whether April or others can accept such a relationship socially, the other turtles feelings on this; potential for heartbreak and how to do deal with it; the struggle for Don to balance his feelings for April and the responsibilities he has as part of the team; how they actually keep a relationship going in the middle of a Kraang warzone if they ever did get together... so on and so on.

Even the love triangle with Casey has got a good amount of potential to it. I do think its been a bit badly handled (it just feels to me like the writers cant make their minds up and a lot of it is purely to screw with the fans. I'd rather they had a clear idea first and just kept it consistent).

Lets be honest, the triangle was inevitable the moment this whole thing started - They cant not use Casey at some point in a Turtles iteration and he has always been April's love interest in every iteration to date. The triangle was always going to happen.

There was - and I think still is - a lot of potentially interesting ground to cover that was brought up from this. The Retromutagen plot hook in particular now has more resonance because there is more of an emotional weight to it (because of Kirby for instance).

In terms of the whole should / shouldn't they thing - I personally dont care. Its not ever going to be a real issue within the show anyway and quite honestly the turtles are so close to aliens now its no worse than looking at interspecies relationships in Star trek/Mass effect/Star Wars/etc/etc. No one bats an eyelid for Kirk running rampant, I dont see the point of getting worked up over this either.


So - to answer your point and to stop rambling on - Yeah, I like the idea of an April / Donatello relationship. I dont particularly mind whichever way they decide to end it (though I would be annoyed if it was just dropped entirely and buried under the rug). I like it because it is prime fertile ground for good stories. The problem is, a lot of the time, its wasted potential.

[Commenter 42]

I sort of hope it actually goes somewhere. Maybe they're setting up a bitter, rejected Donatello?

Taken to it's conclusion, April should reject Don, leaving him a broken hearted angry mutant, which could have very interesting ramifications for the series.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Honestly? It almost comes off to me as a way to deflect the juvenile "Ha ha, of COURSE the Turtle wearing Purple is GAY!" jokes people sometimes make, albeit in the most ham-fisted and non-believable way possible. You can almost visualize some Nickelodeon writer/producer going "No he isn't, no he isn't, SEE? SEE?! Donatello is ALL about p***y!"

It's so damn forced and contrived that I don't doubt for a second that it was at least brought up in conversation as a factor beforehand. "So... Donatello wears purple. Some people associate that color with being gay. I'm not comfortable with that. Can he wear a different color, perhaps yellow? No? How about pink? That's WORSE? Okay then... I got it, let's have him develop a crush on April the very first second he sees her, and then cram it down everybody's throats and never let him shut up about it for even five minutes, just in case people forget how badly he wants to tap that sweet jailbait ass of hers? PERFECT. Everybody to the board room for hookers 'n blow, we're f***in' brilliant."

I don't think that I've ever heard gay jokes about Donatello. Even there are gay jokes it was obviously not a big deal for 25 years.

As for changing his mask color, pretty sure white or grey could work. Although I think they could go back to the all red masks from the Mirage era, the designs are individual enough for this show.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by neatoman

As for changing his mask color, pretty sure white or grey could work. Although I think they could go back to the all red masks from the Mirage era, the designs are individual enough for this show.

They'll never do either of those things for any mainstream version of the Turtles. The standard colors are too firmly established. They could possibly go all-red if they ever do a straight-to-DVD animated film based on Mirage #1, but otherwise, no. And I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that one, either.

Originally Posted by Tarris Vaal

Lets be honest, the triangle was inevitable the moment this whole thing started - They cant not use Casey at some point in a Turtles iteration and he has always been April's love interest in every iteration to date.

Actually, not in the Fred Wolf cartoon at all, never even teased, and literally only "officially" for about 30 seconds at the end of the first movie, never brought up again in that series at all. Casey's totally absent from the second film and he never interacts with April at all in the third one (in fact, the Turtles act like they haven't seen Casey in a while despite clearly seeing April all the time, so he must have been somewhere else completely during all that time). So if you go strictly by what's presented onscreen and not what people read into it based on one kiss, no, they almost definitely didn't end up together in the film series, more like they shared a kiss to mutually blow off steam after going through a highly stressful and potentially traumatic situation. It's possible that they had a relationship beyond that one kiss, but again, strictly in what we see in the rest of the films, there's nothing to enforce that.

I totally get what you meant, though. Yes, Casey/April is the traditional pairing and I'm in favor of that.

As far as the rest... I definitely think some of you were expecting WAY too much from a Nickelodeon cartoon aimed mostly at young boys. There was ZERO chance any of that was ever going to happen as you've put forth, it was only ever going to be played for laughs, as it's been done so far... badly.

Fair game though, interesting perspective. Anyone else?

[UnwiseOne]

Originally Posted by BabyTurtles

......technically April would be Mako since she's the one leading the guys on XD

and Casey and Donnie would be Asami and Korra.....

still I think Asami and Mako would have worked best if Mako didn't cheat on her........twice. They seemed to actually like each other in book 1 before the whole love fiasco.

I know right. Though the reason I was saying that Donnie is Mako was because in the series finale I interpreted that Mako still had unresolved feelings for Korra but just wants his beloved to be happy. Which is a inevitable conclusion for this Donnie/April/Casey love triangle in my opinion. And I would love see a heartbroken Donnie, because he will be more susceptible to becoming a villain or a well-intentioned extremist depending on how you view it.

[UnwiseOne]

Originally Posted by Leo656

That's in your own head then, pal.

Just a question for those genuinely in favor of April and Donatello being a couple (I don't play that "name mash-up" garbage): Why? Simply curious.

Honesty. I'm not really in favor of it, but it gave me a new side to Donnie. Him being a as normal you can get dorky teenager who has teenager problems.

[victory_angel]

Originally Posted by Leo656

That's in your own head then, pal.

Just a question for those genuinely in favor of April and Donatello being a couple (I don't play that "name mash-up" garbage): Why? Simply curious.

I like this pairing because it's different. Typically April has always been depicted as an older woman (roughly between her 20s and 30's) so she has always served as a big sister figure and mother figure to the Turtles. And as Casey is the only male human who also is friends with the turtles on a regular basis it's a given that they would fall in love or have an attraction to one another.

However this is the first incarnation in which April is roughly the same age of the Turtles. The writers have had some hints that the love triangle between Donnie/April/Casey is ment to reflect/mirror/juxtipose the love triangle between Splinter/Tang Shen/Shredder. And it gave the love relationship a reason to exist.

For example in the first episode there is a moment where Donnie speaks out of turn to Splinter about wanting to go out and rescue those too humans. At first Splinter isn't happy about being rebuked by his most inteligent son, but then when Donnie pleads his case Splinter seems to sense something before turning and looking at the image of his wife and daughter.

If it had just been a simple crush or an infatuation then Splinter would have just said that the girl he wanted to save was someone he barely knew. So that was something the authorities up on the surface would deal with and he refused to hear anything more about it.

So Splinter would have had to realize that this wasn't just a simple crush. In asian culture there is a folk lore concept called the "Red String of Fate". It's an invisible thread (it's only red because in the east red is symbolic of the divine) that connects to the pinky finger of a person they are destined to meet. This thread is unbreakable, it can be twisted or tangled, but it can never be broken. Its sort of akin to how western culture has the concept of soul mates.



As I have pointed out before Donnie and the other turtles have been living underground their whole lives. And as such have never had an actual understanding about human society out side of what they learned on TV or from Splinter.

Donnie initially does come across as creepy because he has never experienced such intense attraction or feelings for someone before. So he doesn't know how to express them or deal with them. And on top of that because of what he is, he is afraid of revealing his feelings to April because he doesn't want to be rejected just because he's a mutant.

So can you expect him express feelings the way a normal person would not really.

I saw a person early on in this post saying they wanted the ending to be like Disney's Hunchback of Notre-dam. However the actual book the movie was based on was not as happy.

In the actual book Esmarelda is framed for the murder of Phoebus by Frolo and sentanced to hang. Quasimodo rescues her from being hung, but ends up unknowingly handing her over to her executors. And she is hung before her innocence was proven (Phoebus even watches her hang with no remorse). When she dies Quasimodo sends Frolo falling to his death before going to before going to the mass grave where Esmarelda's body was dumped and remains with her until he dies of starvation.

I don't deny the way that plot story is convayed is problimatic, but remember as Raphael said in one of the Archie comics "There is nothing to lighten up about. There are only four mutant turtles in existance and they are all male, that means no children...it ends with us." But perhaps in a future incarnation if they decide to have a Turtle/Human love interest story, they can build on it first instead of having this love at first sight/star crosssed lovers plot mess.

[Tarris Vaal]

I do think it can be concluded well though. I think no matter how uncomfortable it may have been prior, its kept a true enough course that it still could end with a satisfying conclusion.

I dont want to start diverting this thread onto speculation of how it could do that (there are other threads for that), but I sometimes feel a lot of people have completely given up on the depiction of the relationship and even despise it - and there really isnt a need to. Its got every chance of really coming around, regardless of how the writers choose to end it.

Honestly I'm more annoyed with the way the show tends to fall back on mutant of the week episodes (Fungus, Squirrelanoids, Pizza face). Just feels like wasted space for me


I suppose another question here would be - for those who really dont like the relationship between Donatello and April in the show, is there a particular reason for this? I often get the impression its more the way it is handled, than the idea of a relationship between them itself.

[aliena]

Originally Posted by Tarris Vaal

Honestly - for me its less that they might be a couple so much as the potential dynamics that it brings to the storytelling.

Potentially this could have been a really interesting angle to take; It gave a new (ish) and very different perspective on Donatello's character (who - in many instances - does get sidelined as the go to tech guy). It opened up a lot of potential story arcs to follow - Don's awkwardness with romance (which we certainly have covered), the whole situation of whether April or others can accept such a relationship socially, the other turtles feelings on this; potential for heartbreak and how to do deal with it; the struggle for Don to balance his feelings for April and the responsibilities he has as part of the team; how they actually keep a relationship going in the middle of a Kraang warzone if they ever did get together... so on and so on.

Even the love triangle with Casey has got a good amount of potential to it. I do think its been a bit badly handled (it just feels to me like the writers cant make their minds up and a lot of it is purely to screw with the fans. I'd rather they had a clear idea first and just kept it consistent).

Lets be honest, the triangle was inevitable the moment this whole thing started - They cant not use Casey at some point in a Turtles iteration and he has always been April's love interest in every iteration to date. The triangle was always going to happen.

There was - and I think still is - a lot of potentially interesting ground to cover that was brought up from this. The Retromutagen plot hook in particular now has more resonance because there is more of an emotional weight to it (because of Kirby for instance).

In terms of the whole should / shouldn't they thing - I personally dont care. Its not ever going to be a real issue within the show anyway and quite honestly the turtles are so close to aliens now its no worse than looking at interspecies relationships in Star trek/Mass effect/Star Wars/etc/etc. No one bats an eyelid for Kirk running rampant, I dont see the point of getting worked up over this either.


So - to answer your point and to stop rambling on - Yeah, I like the idea of an April / Donatello relationship. I dont particularly mind whichever way they decide to end it (though I would be annoyed if it was just dropped entirely and buried under the rug). I like it because it is prime fertile ground for good stories. The problem is, a lot of the time, its wasted potential.

What you said. This is my take on the relationship deal too. When I was a kid, in the 70's, whenever any two whomevers liked each other, I never cared a hang if they were two different species or what. If they liked each other, then they would work things out, was my way of thinking. I've never strayed from the philosophy as an adult either.

When Megamind discovered he was falling in love with Roxanne, I didn't think, ew he's an alien. I went with it and wanted them to get together, which they did in the end. As someone on here mentioned a long while back, we don't need to see the sex taking place nor do we need to see the entire relationship. Just the idea that they have decided to give it a go is enough for me.

As for the turtles though, I'd like to see how they would deal with things in a relationship since we've never seen that before. Such as, how would April's dad deal with her telling him she's dating Donnie? How would his brothers react if Donnie and April actually decided to be a couple? What would their dates be like? How would they act as a couple? Hand holding, Kissing, snuggling, whispering sweet nothings? I know to some hard core fans this is an abomination, but I'm willing to go there to change things up.

I just don't want it shoved down my throat. It needs to be in doses and there needs to be full episodes where nothing romantic happens and the guys are off on their own without April. This very reason is why I can't wait to see what they do with Mikey and Renet. I still can't see Mikey thinking he likes a girl or is attracted to a girl. I can't see it.

Then there's Raph. His love will most likely burn hot, but then again they may not give him a love interest and since it seems his character is standing still, that would be a shame. Unless they give him something else to make his character grow.

[IndigoErth]

I'd be just fine if it was left to a light, mutual puppy love kind of thing that's just simply hinted at now and then. And would probably be more relateable anyhow to some of the show's actual target age demographic rather than if the characters went about it like high schoolers.


Serously, I just saw this in the red "breaking news" bar on Huffington Posts's website: "Man-On-Dolphin [cough] Documentary Makes Big Splash At Film Festival".

I do not even want to know. However at the point that whatever that is there was made (maybe it's not really what it sounds like? please?) and a respected news site posts something about it... I think we are way beyond being too sensitive over what happens with fictional characters who have no baring on real life. (Give me April and Donnie any day over what ever that was about... Eek.)

[pennydreadful]

Tarris and aliena nailed it; what's frustrating to me is not that they're putting romance in the show - it's the godawful execution.

I appreciate that there are plenty of fans who don't want romance in TMNT and hey, that's fine. Myself, it's something that I am interested in seeing. Maybe it's part of why I read so much fanfic - I'm not only interested in their love lives, I'm interested in generally exploring what their lives are like when they're not taking on the bad guys. I want to know what happens behind the scenes, what goes on outside of what we see in the shows and the comics and the movies.

Despite still having some relationships in the canon (ie Ninjara, Serilicus etc), it's not something that the fans have ever really had the chance to see fleshed out in detail. There's a lot of potential for interesting stories, showing new facets of the characters.

[ToTheNines]

The funniest thing about all of this is before the series aired and it was revealed that Donnie would be in love with April, everyone was like "oh no, this will be the worst thing ever."

Then a little bit into season 1 we were like "no, it's alright. Kinda funny sometimes."

And now we're like "oh no, it is the worst thing ever." LOL

[BabyTurtles]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

The funniest thing about all of this is before the series aired and it was revealed that Donnie would be in love with April, everyone was like "oh no, this will be the worst thing ever."

Then a little bit into season 1 we were like "no, it's alright. Kinda funny sometimes."

And now we're like "oh no, it is the worst thing ever." LOL

hey that just proves we at least tried giving it a chance XD

[Luckyday]

Perhaps it was bad idea to expect romance to be serious and realistic if the show is cater to the Y7 demographic. Maybe in the future with a TV-PG rated, writers will be able to address it as just something that happens when growing up like Adventure Time instead either looking down on it or hype it up as a big epic romance like freaking Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

One thing that bothered me is Donnie's love at first sight. If we or humans in general are gobsmacked by way they look then one would want to wonder how strange we appear in their eyes.

Now I am not saying it could never happen but even with both creatures being equal sentient beings, they are still two very different species with one that lay eggs and leave every other year like it's a holiday and the other ill fated to have a bloody physical exorcism by the nether regions at least once in her life time.

What I am trying to say that if they are going to try writing a interspecies romance then do so with a non human character being just a little curious or have one become close to a human because said human's motivations is noble and aspiration to non-human or outlook that is unique, or just having common ground whether that be empathy of seeing themselves or having passion that no else understands but them. Love at first sight only works if Donnie has a strong fetish with human females with pre notation fantasy behind them and what's laughable is that he telling with a straight face that it real. Why I am getting Déjà Vu? Oh that's right.



This why Karai and Leo relationship would so easy to write since they have all the requirements on the table. Karai is a rebel to which Leo likes because sometimes his position would often force him to follow the rules, or he might have a white knight complex. Leo's determination to do the right thing is something Karai sarcastically refer as cute but secretly admires as a motivation in life. They both want to be best at what they do and their common ground is that they were both raise by ninja masters.

I don't see any of this with Donnie and April.

[BabyTurtles]

Wanna know the one thing that annoyed me throughout the seasons?

April and Donnie have NOTHING in common with each other and yet I'm supposed to believe she likes hanging out with him and calling him the most.

Just because Donnie likes her doesn't mean April had to humor him and be around him 24/7.

like we could have gotten a big sister April to all the turtles....but NO, the writers wanted to make sure you knew that Donnie liked April so they pushed them in every scene possible.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Luckyday

Now I am not saying it could never happen but even with both creatures being equal sentient beings, they are still two very different species with one that lay eggs and leave every other year like it's a holiday and the other ill fated to have a bloody physical exorcism by the nether regions at least once in her life time.

'Course it's us ladies that got complicated and ended up doing it a little differently depending on species. Men, well, I guess most of them do their part the same more or less be they mammal or reptile, so I can see why the female end of the deal might not really faze Donnie yet at his age. lol