Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20151111163045/@comment-995426-20160307075617

I'm 35, and I've been in love many times. But I'm experienced enough to know the difference between love, infatuation, and something altogether fake.

The problem is continuity. Raphael was written in a particular way that really caught to eye of me and my gay friends. He was littered with secondary gay characteristics, and they were both realistic and unstereotypical, like someone had put a great deal of thought into them. Even before anyone like mutated Slash came into the picture, Raph was already getting plenty of attention as someone we could all relate to. I respected that, and I respected Raph.

This held up through the first two seasons. But during season three, those characteristics started to fade very noticeably. Raph had been one of the most complex characters in a series, but then he became a simpler, shallower character, more one-dimensional, and even more of a caricature. He couldn't even get angry in a believable way anymore. And the creators announced that they would have a new version of Mona Lisa who Raphael would be in love with. I was in denial at first&mdash;suggested it was just reported wrong, or something. But it was true. And if the feeling of gay erasure weren't already bad enough, the relationship they were scripted with was a complete shallow fanwanky fanservicy joke. They destroyed Raphael on-screen, and treated it like it was the best thing ever. It was not the Raphael we had come to know and love. There was no more depth or subtlety there. Just an adaptation of a 1987 series plot between very different versions of characters that really didn't need to happen in 2K12.

A plot written badly for someone's sheer fanservice can be the most annoying thing ever for other people who never wanted it. Fast romance, shallow romance, romantic plot tumor and relation sue-type characters are all intellectually offensive to an audience that craves something deeper. That's why characters like Mona Lisa in 2K12 have proven so damn base-breaking.