Would the turtles still be as popular if they were females?

[Powder]

I'm not gay but I feel like I'd be offended by that assessment of Donatello if I were... Well, hell, I kinda am anyway.

[SixthTurtle]

Originally Posted by aliena

But what if they were female turtles who were more interested in clothes and makeup? Would that still be as popular?

They're still ninjas, right? Not just girl turtles who do girly things? Who knows? Afterall, the turtles were made as a joke. So maybe this version of the turtles may have made it too. Maybe, maybe not.

What about two boy and two girl turtles? That would have made the situation different in a lot of ways.

We'd just be used to it by now.

What about rabbits? What if they weren't ninjas? There are only so many animals that would be as cool as turtles. Alligators maybe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Gators. Armadillos? They have plated armor. There are a lot of possibilities, but the turtles just fit. It's like it was fate all along.

Alligators wouldn't have worked. They come off as too heavy and aggressive to be ninjas. Rabbits, frogs, lizards, or foxes would work IMO.

[aliena]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Meeting an alternate dimension opposite gender version of themselves sounds...awkward.

Either risks feeling an uncomfortable and morally objectionable connection to their other self...ORRRR, preferably, find out that someone otherwise exactly like them would drive them completely crazy and each go home with a better understanding of what they put their brothers through.


Which is pretty sad really, because, as a woman, I doubt I'm alone in being able to relate to a male character in ways outside of their gender. It's a shame the reverse rarely seems to be true, or socially blocked from being able to be because of the way entertainment is made.


Now lets be fair, half of the blame will soon belong to Nick.

I doubt Nick will come even close to what I'm imagining.. DA here I come! JK!

[PangolinFeets]

I saw a short fan comic with female Splinter and female turtles and it seemed pretty cool. After seeing Nick produce things like Korra, which features a predominantly-female and totally badass cast, I think it could be great.

Basically all the shows I enjoyed most as a kid were predominately-male action shows like TMNT, Thundercats, Gargoyles, He-Man, Batman, Voltron...
I think the exceptions are Power Rangers and X-Men.
I didn't think much of it when I was younger, because I think I just assumed that girly things had to be girly even though I wasn't so I just never watched anything like that. I ended up kinda hating female representation in most things because I had taught myself that it could only be manifested in a way I wasn't interested in.

At any rate, I think it'd make an interesting and funny episode of the new show.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Powder

I'm not gay but I feel like I'd be offended by that assessment of Donatello if I were... Well, hell, I kinda am anyway.

How is that offensive? I was just taking the traits he showed in the show and finding a unique way of explaining them without going the "he's GAY!" trope route. Of all of them, he was the one who interacted with humans in general the least (and only rarely showed interest in females) and his voice was one that was not what anyone would call "masculine", which always sounded odd to me. As for the purple thing- well, we have Tinky-Winky to thank for that trope, I believe. But blue being a color "for boys" and red(aka pink) being "for girls", it just seemed like a natural logical reason for that choice of color for a closet hermie. Had nothing to do with him being gay at all- I was going at it from a logical position of how he might express his "other side" subtly without drawing attention to it. And why he was so different form the others to begin with.

[Jester]

[Leo656]

I'm stayin' outta this sh*t, I just LOVE it when Jester posts that.

What the heck, ROLL IT AGAIN! Nobody cares, just do it. Do it because I asked you to.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Jester

Sure thing, boss....wait....

[Powder]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

How is that offensive?

For one thing, you assign homosexuality to him (you said it was the obvious choice) for reasons that are essentially rooted in stereotypes of gay men (high pitched voices, mood swings, lacking in masculinity, hiding, a taste for "feminine" colors, etc). That's completely ridiculous & offensive.

Besides that, being true to yourself without giving a damn for what others think (as in, not masking your voice or avoiding apparel in your favorite color despite an alleged stigma) is pretty masculine to me. Being born with a high pitched voice doesn't make you girly or attracted to the same sex. There are some super burly masculine ass gay dudes out there, & just the same you'll find plenty of flamboyant straights. Putting people (or turtles) into boxes like that is a backwards & counter productive line of thinking.

I'm a hermit crab who gets heavily into tech, doesn't really pursue romance, loves the color purple, gets moody, & is somewhat soft spoken, does that make me seem "obviously" gay?

[Leo656]

Nah, dude. I have impeccable Gaydar. For one thing, you can always tell by the handshake. You don't trip it at all.

Donnie does, though.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Powder

For one thing, you assign homosexuality to him (you said it was the obvious choice) for reasons that are essentially rooted in stereotypes of gay men (high pitched voices, mood swings, lacking in masculinity, hiding, a taste for "feminine" colors, etc). That's completely ridiculous & offensive.

Besides that, being true to yourself without giving a damn for what others think (as in, not masking your voice or avoiding apparel in your favorite color despite an alleged stigma) is pretty masculine to me. Being born with a high pitched voice doesn't make you girly or attracted to the same sex. There are some super burly masculine ass gay dudes out there, & just the same you'll find plenty of flamboyant straights. Putting people (or turtles) into boxes like that is a backwards & counter productive line of thinking.

I'm a hermit crab who gets heavily into tech, doesn't really pursue romance, loves the color purple, gets moody, & is somewhat soft spoken, does that make me seem "obviously" gay?

Were you even paying attention? I said I didn't want to go THAT route, because it's been done to death, and yes, it IS a tired stereotype. That was the POINT of NOT using that as an explanation for his quirks! IT's an obvious trope that plenty of other writers have used (if you read any fan-fiction, you'll quickly see what I mean) and using those traits to describe gays in general IS overdone. Which was why I DIDN'T do it. Geez, read what's actually IN the post, not what YOU think it means. Instead, I gave him an actual "feminine" side that made sense in context of that, without him being gay AT ALL. In fact, he DOES have an appreciation for females in the fic (as far as he's able) but simply can't DO anything about it, so he doesn't really bother with it at all. In essence, I made him an asexual male, but with a "plumbing mix-up" that also qualified him as female (on a technicality only). What the heck does that have to do with him being gay? The POINT was that I wanted to have him be "different" in some way, (in accordance with his OT personality and mannerisms) WITHOUT him being so blatantly stereotyped. Stop putting things into it that were never there. It's annoying.

[Powder]

What's annoying is your use of constant use of caps lock, & that it's used in place of italics, though that too, in such excess, would be annoying.

What's really irksome is that you're still blind to the fact that in using his quirks as the baseline for any sort of non-binary persons personality, you're effectively treating them as stereotypes all the same, whether it's being gay or something else. "He's this way, & that's clearly indicative of an issue with gender/sexuality!"

If there's such a thing as giving a microcosm of a rats ass about your fan-fiction, that's what I give. Point is, you're treating real people's often painful circumstances as a fun bit of flare for the "weird" character.

[Jester]

So what you're saying is you made him "different" via stereotypes, but just didn't go for the super-obvious difference?

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by Powder

For one thing, you assign homosexuality to him (you said it was the obvious choice) for reasons that are essentially rooted in stereotypes of gay men (high pitched voices, mood swings, lacking in masculinity, hiding, a taste for "feminine" colors, etc). That's completely ridiculous & offensive.

Besides that, being true to yourself without giving a damn for what others think (as in, not masking your voice or avoiding apparel in your favorite color despite an alleged stigma) is pretty masculine to me. Being born with a high pitched voice doesn't make you girly or attracted to the same sex. There are some super burly masculine ass gay dudes out there, & just the same you'll find plenty of flamboyant straights. Putting people (or turtles) into boxes like that is a backwards & counter productive line of thinking.

I'm a hermit crab who gets heavily into tech, doesn't really pursue romance, loves the color purple, gets moody, & is somewhat soft spoken, does that make me seem "obviously" gay?

Actually, she's writing him as Intersex, not gay. She inferring that due to popular culture's ideas of the color purple, and high pitched voices, that people would assume that he was gay, due to these popular culture stereotypes. Thus why she's writing him as Intersex, not gay. It's not breaking the stereotype, but it's not confirming it either.

Someone mentioned about males not identifying with female characters, I'm wondering if it's not because male characters are the 'norm,' while female characters are 'abnormal' and jarring simply due to not being done as much? We rarely have female protagonists in video games, most 'action orientated' things feature male protagonists, and most action heroes are male. I think the only way to combat this is simply to create more female characters, not just bemoan the lack of them. I'd say just create them, but making sure they don't fall into easy stereotypes like sexing them up (a common tendency in comic books) or having them fall prey to predictable tropes like always wanting to shop and wanting to get married and have babies.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by Metalwolf

Actually, she's writing him as Intersex, not gay. She inferring that due to popular culture's ideas of the color purple, and high pitched voices, that people would assume that he was gay, due to these popular culture stereotypes. Thus why she's writing him as Intersex, not gay. It's not breaking the stereotype, but it's not confirming it either.

It'd be like If I wanted to write about a drugdealing street thug, & rather than going with the "obvious choice" of making him black, I made him Hispanic. 'Cause, ya know, that's totally not the same thing!

Oh, and they exist in droves- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...e_protagonists Whether or not they become popular is another matter, though. I highly recommend Portal, Mighty Switch Force, & Metroid, for starters.

[Leo656]

Thread needs more Vinnie Vegas.



Nailed It.

[Powder]

He wears pink, can't make eye contact, & has an aversion to sunlight, he must be a hermaphrodite!

[Leo656]

Big Daddy Cool is Speechless.

[Jester]

[Leo656]

^^^ What we did to this thread.