Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25684889-20150822230425/@comment-995426-20150824081219

Not in It Came From The Depths. In Into Dimension X!, in Mikey's flashback stills.

(By the wake, Korra+Asami was canon, and they were foreshadowed in their body language for two seasons. Korra blushing when Asami complimented her appearance, Asami angsting about Korra in Avatar Korra Park while they were apart, and such.  Don't just listen&mdash;pay close attention to details. :)

And I wasn't suggesting that Slash putting his hands on Raph's shoulders in Slash and Destroy was in itself a gay gesture. I linked that image because of what Slash was saying at the time&mdash;that they do everything together. And then Slash went yandere in that episode&mdash;yandere is a trope about obsessed love interests who try to eliminate distractions from the one they love&mdash;"We may need to lose some dead weight." Honestly, that entire episode was so intense, and more because of the discordant emotions than any actual fighting.

But if you notice carefully in that once scene from Clash of the Mutanimals, Raph ran to Slash and instantly caressed Slash's cheek with his left hand (the one relatively more obscured from the camera). And they're saying so much with their body language in that one scene, much more than they're saying with words. First of all, they're not just making eye contact, but their eyes are locked together during the entire scene. Raph's face is tense, wanting&mdash;needing&mdash;for Slash to be all right. Slash arches his eyebrow ridges as he speaks Raphael's name, lending a greater meaningful emphasis to his words. Then Raph's face eases, as if thinking, "Thank God Thank God Thank God Thank God." It was really one of the most complex scenes in that episode, especially in a season that has had a dearth of complex expression like that.

(The first two seasons had so many body language easter eggs though. Like, in User:Gilgameshkun/GIFs/It Came from the Depths (2012 TV series), when Mikey finds Leatherhead in his subway car lair and chews him out, Leatherhead turns to Mikey, and is silently, passively absorbing every last uncomfortable word without becoming agitated&mdash;as if he has come to completely trust Mikey and let him have total control of that situation.  Then when Mikey said "I thought we were friends," his pupils quickly dilate, which happens when the brain releases a large amount of dopamine during a feeling of great personal longing, giving the impression that Mikey's heart was already in deep with Leatherhead, whether or not Mikey himself fully realized it.  I can't say how mutually independent the writers, storyboarders and animators were from each other, but the body language...is just amazing sometimes. It's one of the biggest reasons I've made over a thousand GIFs from the 2K12 series for Turtlepedia.)

One of my friends suggested something to me: Raph's a very emotionally passionate individual, but he's also very discreet about open displays of affection. He hates it when people see his tender side come out, as if they're seeing something too precious to be shared. So, if Raph and Slash are affectionate with each other, they'll almost certainly keep that private, except in emotionally tense emergencies like that one scene in Clash of the Mutanimals. That means very few displays of affection in group scenes. But Raph and Slash have almost never been shown alone together in season 3 the way they were at times in season 2.

That's another thing to pay attention to when Mona Lisa arrives. If Raph starts expressing indiscreet affection, we'll know his personality's being rewritten.