Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20151024145123/@comment-995426-20151102050151

THANK you Gil, if there's one lesson Steven Universe teaches us is that gender and sexuality are not black and white. I don't remember who said that, and it doesn't seem to be in the thread anymore outside of other people's quotes. But yes, I appreciate very much that gender and sexuality aren't black and white. I also realize this could mean a character like Raph may have a murky bisexual side.

I mean, I knew of a gay man whose interest in men was 99% and interest in women was 1%, and ended finding a woman in that 1% and marrying her. Perhaps it helped that his wife was said to have an exotic gender identity of her own, but I don't know the details.

Still, even if Raph and Mona Lisa had had genuine chemistry, Tarrlok is absolutely right: Don't try to go from 0 to 60 in one episode. You never find your true love in speed dating. I mean, even if someone you meet in speed dating becomes your true love, it's virtually guaranteed they're not your true love yet after just half an hour. The show pushed this too far, too fast, and it was appalling to some of us who have been in love enough to know how much of a disaster fast romance can be.

The funny thing is, there have been more fast romance plots in Image and Mirage comics, but they realistically addressed the consequences. Usually, it was Mikey who got into a fast romance, jumped into bed with someone, felt some strong emotional passions for them, and then felt let down when he was hit with the reality that they weren't going to live happily ever after with him after such a brief tryst. And he usually lost something in the process, whether it was his virginity, or part of his innocence, and he even fathered children he may never see again.

When you're an adult and not a complete dumbass, you usually know about this already. So, what is written to magically work out without consequences in a show for kids, would be absurd to write the same way in something adults read. Considering it was mostly adult fans (often my own age, but mostly just fans of the 1987 series) who demanded Mona Lisa be brought onto this series, it's only an awkward reminder that most adult 1987 series fans today are complete and utter manchildren who seem incapable of growing up. I can't confidently say I've totally matured in every way appropriate to my age (considering how manic I can be), but I know I've matured enough for my priorities to have shifted such that I find all fast romance plots painfully facile unless they have realistic consequences.

Also, I'm still annoyed the show spent so much energy in building up Raph and Slash all the up to the season 2 finale only for the writers completely drop the ball on their further development. This made Battle for New York, Clash of the Mutanimals, Dinosaur Seen in Sewers and Annihilation Earth all rather frustrating for me to watch, because I wished for them to readdress that arc, and they only gave them the briefest acknowledgment at best. My circle of fan friends also found them disappointing, but most had completely stopped watching the series altogether by the time I was still watching Annihilation Earth all by myself. All of us were thoroughly convinced Raph and Slash were a natural pair, not just me.

The more I thought about it recently, the more I realized that they still may have actually been a natural pair back then. It's just the show itself has been retooled, and they went a different direction and tweaked personalities to try to make something new work. One of my friends later admitted that, even though he was as convinced as everyone else, he didn't think Nick would ever eventually allow any of the central main characters to come out of the closet&mdash;not on the 2K12 series, not in the more mature IDW comics, or anywhere in licensed works&mdash;at least for now. Lindsey is a main character in IDW's Mutanimals series and she's a lesbian, but she's exclusive to the IDW comics anyway. It now seems like the Legend of Korra's revelation was an embarrassment that caught Nick uncomfortably by surprise, and they're likely afraid of any possible bad press, loss of toys sales, or any reputation from other licensed works rubbing off on their TMNT cartoon. So, while Raph and Slash may have been genuinely originally intended to be love interests, their further development may have been vetoed by Nick, perhaps relatively late into their development, which is why their plot was so unceremoniously left dangling the way it was. I know that Kevin Eastman has said in interview that Nick frequently vetoes ideas he has for the IDW comic, so I know Nick does clash at times with their writers. My friend could still be wrong&mdash;maybe they would allow one of the main characters to be gay under certain circumstances&mdash;but right now Lindsey's the only openly gay main character in a licensed TMNT work.

So, this is a lot more complex than "Raph is gay" or "Raph is bi" or "Raph is not gay at all," because it relies on the assumption that Raph is a real person. Raph is what Nick wants Raph to be with only several months prior notice, which makes every aspect of his character development subject to change. He was written to be in love with Mona Lisa because that was decided in advance at least several months ago. It does not necessarily reflect on Raph's permanent character development, because as has become apparent, the characters have no permanent character development since Nick can and does change whatever they want for whatever reasons they want. And while I appreciate the possibility that this episode did maybe give more to the plot and character development than it took back, it's still difficult for viewers with long memories who feel that it violates the continuity of character development as they understood it. Of course, if that development happened two or more years previous, a statistical majority of the audience has reliably forgotten about it (I'm not kidding), and the entertainment industry actually relies on this rule to know when they can safely retool characters, recycle scripts, etc. while receiving only minimal complaints for it.

UltimateTitan6: How was that? I tried to write all of it with a cool, logical mind. :) I also tried to balance viewpoints and address other people's input. No gagging, no "trash."  How successful was I?