Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25614818-20150410170303/@comment-995426-20150423083458

First of all, you double-posted.

AllStarTMNT2 wrote: When exactly did Mikey and Leatherhead spoon? Hugging is NOT the same as spooning. Also, I don't remember Mikey or Leatherhead looking into each eyes with cartoon hearts. Furthermore, keep in mind that Mikey and Leatherhead are NOT human. So our standards to what is appropriate would not be exactly the same as theirs. When you see two reptiles cuddling that is not an indication of sexual or romantic interest. Sorry, but I still find the implication of a romance between Leatherhead and Mikey to be creepy. And any "romantic implications" sounds forced rather than what actually in the story. This was when they spooned&mdash;it was an envelope-pushing, somewhat racy "make the audience blush" moment, as Nickelodeon has long been famous for. :) And no, I can't really see them as like "normal" reptiles&mdash;they're first and foremost anthromorphic animal people with a human style of sentience and human style personalities that in large degree reflect their experiences, and with a handful of select animal behavioral stereotypes thrown in for cartoon storytelling. And when I see two people sleeping together while spooning, I tend not to think it's because they're housecats or pet iguanas&mdash;they're either in love, or they're trying not to freeze to death in severe winter weather.  Since city undergrounds (much like caverns) don't have swings of temperature nearly as large as the weather above ground (one of the reason urban homeless people sometimes seek shelter underground), I'm inclined to think it was a scene of romance.

And you're right&mdash;a hug is not evidence of romance. But three separate enthusiastic leap-into-their-arms happy-to-be-with-Big-Green-Buddy emotional hugs in the same two-part episode? I'd be more inclined to think any viewer who didn't see the romance in that, has no functioning gaydar. As one of my friends remarked, "He threw himself into the man's arms at literally every opportunity."

To be honest, I was rather surprised to find anyone who found the idea of their romance creepy. Part of that is that I'd never met anyone before who did tell me it was creepy. (I've met people who just plain don't like romance on the show at all, but that's a different matter entirely.) But also, all the romantic moments were my first, very strong impression, based on my conventional wisdom. When I discussed it with my friends, they told me they'd seen the same thing. Nothing forced about different friends seeing the same thing independently. And we saw it happen again and again&mdash;in most of Leatherhead's episodes. You do just realize that you just described Bruce Banner right? He also socially isolated (thus inexperienced) and has great deal of trouble controlling his emotions but his still an adult at the end of the day. Well, I'm not expert with that, but if I recall correctly, Bruce Banner started out as a relatively more normal adult scientist before he started hulking out. Of course, I only saw the 2003 film by Ang Lee...I don't really read much Marvel or DC comics or anything like that. The only comic books I read heavily were TMNT&mdash;Mirage, Image and more recently some IDW. I'm not really a "comic book guy" in general.

But my point is, Leatherhead went from early childhood to abandonment to torture to escape to living underground. For all intents and purposes, he was a child&mdash;his actual calendar age could have been anywhere between teenager and senior and it wouldn't have mattered much. Michelangelo was merely lucky to have had such a happy and loving family like he did. Had fate been different, assuming they were still mutants and alive, Mikey could have been the tortured broken bird with emotional scars (which kinda happened in late Mirage Volume 4 anyway), or Leatherhead could have been quite happy and well-adjusted (like Mirage Leatherhead was before the Utroms so abruptly abandoned TCRI). Leatherhead is tortured and traumatized but he was NOT a tortured and traumatized child. He always came across as an adult not as an equal to the Turtles. I also didn't see much of Mikey influence as the root in his change in character during his time in Dimension X. Leatherhead was trapped there for years so of course there is going to be a change in character. Not to mention that the fact that he was already an adult before the "timeskip". I think you might be confusing Leatherhead's gentleness with child-like playfulness. There is nothing about Leatherhead that even remotely reminds me of Vash the Stampede from Trigun. Again the character that Leatherhead is most like is Bruce Banner/Hulk. Leatherhead even yells "SMASH" during the "Battle For New York" episode. Sorry, but that's...totally not the way I see it. I never saw Leatherhead as an adult or elder before his timeskip. And again with the Hulk references? I always see Leatherhead as more of a sensitive giant who struggled with his volatile emotions when he was younger and still had green scales. And now that he has grey scales and has mellowed out, he continues to fight mainly because he's needed, but could just as easily be the first to welcome peace. He's much more a Vincent (1980s CBS, not 2010s CW) than a Hulk. In fact, that was one of my stronger impressions&mdash;that he reminded me so much of Vincent (who lived in the "World Below")&mdash;and, as it so happened, Vincent was also a romantic character. As for Leatherhead's similarity to Vash, it's the course of Leatherhead's experiences that are what remind me of him&mdash;personality-wise, he mostly only reminds me of Vash in the times when he gets really calm and reflective. Yes, I understand what acting means. What I'm saying is that Donnie never even acted he like was the most desirable guy in the universe. I don't know where you're getting this pretentiousness from. Both Donnie and Casey made desperate attempts to impress April that doesn't necessarily communicate confidence. Bending over backwards to impress a girl isn't what makes someone pretentious. It's makes them rather desperate but not pretentious. If anyone that should be accused of acting cocky and pretentious it's Casey. His thousands times more aggressively confident then Donnie will ever be. Trying to impress someone, to look like something you're not, is pretentious. Donnie tries to overemphasize a few qualities that make up such a relatively small part of his overall personality. It was when he came to April all humble and level-headed that she was really touched enough to give him a kiss&mdash;that sincere honesty was attractive of him. It's better when guys act naturally and just be themselves, and happen not to be creeps in the process. Wannabe-alpha males are fake&mdash;not attractive. And real alpha males may be superficially sexy, but they're also more likely to love-you-and-leave-you. I don't remember being either awkward or "try-hard" in either incarnation. If giving girl flowers is awkward and "try-hard" then any romantic gesture would fall under that category. Also, Mikey writing A Rose Among Thorns is not reflection of overthinking. It's reflection of maturity since you're supposed to reflect on your actions, and it's even better when you can use your experiences as source of creativity. As for Donnie, sure he can overthink sometimes before he acts. However, part of the reason his the smartest of the Turtles is because he thinks before he acts. I always saw Mikey's relationship with Sara as more of an impulsive spark and fling that turned out to be a lot less than he actually thought it was. Basically, he was in a relationship that didn't exist, because Sara was really too vapid to begin with. He didn't seem to appreciate that sometimes a fling is just a fling. It was similar with Seri. He went way of the reservation, impulsively flirted with someone completely out of his league, had sex with her, may have even fathered children, and was naive enough to think he was in a relationship with her. That Mikey looked for love in all the wrong places, and reading about it made me wince early on because I could already tell what was going to happen&mdash;and it did happen.