Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25896389-20151205060725/@comment-995426-20151219215245

Though I've largely moved on from the TV series, I still love the earlier seasons, and this topic related to the development of April and Raph's relationship, so I thought I should chime in. :) This represents my overall impression of the two characters before the continuity branched and I parted ways with the show.

I always saw 2K12 April and 2K12 Raph as more like sisters, with zero mutual attraction but lots of subtle camaraderie, mutual understanding, a dash of gurltalk, and a healthy sense of competition.

Of course, that was also back when my friends and I were so sure Raph was gay and also had more of a tomboy female brain in a man's body. (And this impression started to germinate even before the entire Raph&times;Slash thing started flooding deviantART and Tumblr with its angsty tsundere&times;yandere goodness.)

The thing is, all that may have actually been true back then, but the producers and writers later changed their minds for whatever reason. (Knowing their audience better? Standards and practices advising changes?  Legions of 1987 TV fans demanding a renewal of Raphael&times;Mona Lisa?  Who knows.)  And since the gradual noticeable changes in Raph's basic personality on the TV show have made him even harder to analyze, that also makes his relationship with other characters (including April) harder to analyze.

You see, my suspension of disbelief is a fickle creature&mdash;it demands a sense of strong continuity that long-running TV shows with a revolving door of writers tend not to have. A lot of the comics I read have utterly spoiled me with their strong continuity. When I analyze fictional characters, my memory of them stretches back to their debut, and not just within the last year or two which is the limit of how long typical audiences remember a show's details (the fleeting demographic rule). I really should have recognized all these things sooner, and maybe spared myself some grief.