So for today’s blog/rant, I’ve decided to talk about Mikey- more specifically, the Mikey as portrayed in the current Nickelodeon series that launched in 2012;
Why? Well, because of the introduction of the new character Shinigami, who is a new love interest for the pizza loving turtle. For some reason, fans who believe the turtles are heterosexual enjoy going out of their way to bash and flame tcest fans every chance they get, and they feel self-righteous in pointing out mild examples from the show to justify their tirades. Well, I don’t go out of my way to troll and annoy non-tcest fans, but I WILL point out counter evidence and reasoning to support that the turtles are NOT straight. Because if you are going to make a claim and get up on a soap box, you have to also be willing to hear counter claims that are just as plausible.
My claim is that Michelangelo from the 2012 series is bisexual.
Keep in mind that they are teens who are not only just discovering who they are, but they have lived 15 years in isolation- which means they will have more difficulty than most sorting out their feelings than those who have already hit certain emotional and developmental milestones due to growing up surrounded by peers.
I also want to define bisexual and how it is different than pansexual. Bisexual means that an individual is sexually and emotionally attracted to both males and females. Pansexual means an individual is sexually and emotionally attracted to certain personalities regardless of gender- this is not the same as bisexual, in bisexuals you like men for their masculinity and women for their femininity. Pansexuality has nothing to do with physical traits. Mikey is not pansexual because we see him showing an interest in several different people all with very different personalities. Pansexual would mean he has a personality preference, for example, if he liked skater types than anyone who was not into the skateboarding culture would have zero appeal to him- nerds, goths, jocks, they would do nothing for him.
I will also later claim that not only would Mikey be open to tcest, but his preferred partner would be Leonardo.
Let’s start off by listing the characters that I believe Mikey has expressed more than platonic interest in: Chris Bradford, LeatherHead, Leonardo, Renet, and Shinigami. My, he certainly is a “Playah,” isn’t he?
Both Chris Bradford and LeatherHead establish the traits that I believe Michelangelo finds attractive in males; Older than him, larger than him, strong, and show him positive attention on a regular basis.
(Yes, Chris Bradford was leading him on, but until he turned on Mikey, he pretended to be nothing but friendly, warm, generous and an active listener with only nice things to say to Mikey, however false.)
If you recall the earlier episodes, the amount of obsession and idolization Mikey displays when talking about Chris Bradford exceeds even that of Donnie gushing over April. Mikey is also the only one insistent on befriending LH and is very cuddly with him. None of the other turtles are nearly as trusting and would have been extremely hesitant to approach Chris Bradford and suspicious of his motives and friendly nature- and, well, you SAW how they reacted to LH.
Now, I’m sure many will cry out and say that this is grasping at straws as the intent was to show that Mikey is far more naïve and trusting than his bros, the optimist who sees the good in people and longs to have lots of friends. I will agree that is true. However, please note that Mikey was not nearly as excited about April or Karai, he showed almost no interest in Casey Jones, was weirded out at first by The Pulverizer (despite Timothy’s enthusiasm to meet the turtles) and is nowhere near as cuddly with Napoleon or Mondo Gecko as he is with LH. Now tell me, as a turtle who so desperately wants to be friends with everyone he meets, why does he not show the same level of enthusiasm and physical contact with all of them? It seems more likely to me that both Chris Bradford and LH have certain qualities that Mikey finds more appealing.
Renet and Shinigami- those two are as different as night and day; One is a perky airhead who fawns over how awesome the Turtle Warriors of legend are- the other, a confident goth girl who finds the turtles amusing at best and is more mocking of their skills. Both are so different, and yet both caught Mikey’s attention in the classic “love at first sight” (which isn’t love at all btw). So what is it about these girls that caught his eye? They have some shared physical traits; both appear to be older than him (though technically Renet hasn’t been born yet) and both wear very outlandish costumes that include capes and weird head-gear. That’s it.
There have been multiple examples throughout the show of how much Mikey adores costumes, if you truly need me to list them all than that shows you haven’t been following the series at all. Turflytle, Elf Mikey, Savage Mikey, that alien monster mask he wore when asking his bros if they’d seen his iguana in the top hat, and the time he mentioned to April and Donnie that he LOVES Tiaras. Mikey adores costumes and dressing up, the more strange the better! Shinigami is a witch wearing heavy make-up, a comically giant witch hat, and a cape that looks like bat-wings. Renet has a long flowing cape, a weird futuristic helmet thing, and clocks all over her body suit- they are both oddly dressed and that appeals to the random weirdness that lives in Mikey’s heart.
Now is the point where the anti-tcesters will point their fingers and go “ah HA!” as if they’ve beaten me in my own game, and say that Mikey openly flirted with Renet and Shinigami the way you would expect a boy to try to play “smooth” and “cool” towards a girl he liked. Yes, he did. Because they are girls. This may come as a shock to many of you, but there are many differences in how one flirts with females vs. how one flirts with males. The same pick-up lines that you would use on a girl would get you nowhere with a guy. Bisexuals often have different flirting games depending on the gender of their targeted partner. They also often vary in the “role” they play in the relationship.
As a bisexual, Mikey would try to portray himself as the smooth talking cool guy that makes her laugh when flirting with chicks because he would be the “male” in the relationship, the one who takes charge and sweeps her off her feet with his awesomeness. But for guys he would adopt a different role; he would be the cute cuddly one who cooks awesome meals and is essentially the “submissive” or “uke” of the relationship, who every now and then has a wild kinky streak and likes to be more of a power bottom just to keep his lover on his toes, but as long as it’s fun the role of who is the sub and who is the dom isn’t that important to him.
Why would he be so different? Because of the psychology of gender roles- typically, girls appreciate a man who is confident, who can take charge of a situation and can take care of her, who will make her feel pretty and who will be strong and bold for her- not to say that all women are damsels in distress who are waiting for prince charming, they can want to be equal partners too, but I don’t think any woman looks at a potential mate and wants to see a child that they need to take care of, (unless she’s a creepy pedophile). Many guys have been raised to have a sense of masculine pride, that they need to be the one who takes charge and takes care of business, who has a sense of control and “be the man” if you will. The types of men that Mikey show an attraction to are of the more Masculine variety who would see themselves in a more dominant role in the bedroom, who would want to play the protector. Mikey would play a much different role in a relationship with a guy than he would in a relationship with a gal, and being that he is such an easy going turtle who can go with the flow, he has no problem adapting accordingly.
Finally, getting to the tcest aspect of this drabble, I would like to address why I think Mikey would prefer Leo over Raph or Donnie.
Mikey’s interactions, responses and dialogue with Leo are much more positive and affectionate than they are with either Raph or Donnie. Mikey pranks all of his bros, but Leo is not pranked or bothered nearly as often. Mikey seems to look up to Leo the most, has more respect for him. Mikey doesn’t question Leo’s orders like Raph or Donnie do, and Mikey responds more favorably to Leonardo’s attentions, even when they aren’t praise or affection. Think of this, whenever Raph smacks Mikey what is the orange banded turtles reaction? He is annoyed that he was smacked, pouty, and even afraid that more hitting will follow. Do you remember the episode where Spider bites was introduced? Mikey felt something was missing with Raph gone, so as a joke, Leo smacked him, and Mikey was very happy. Later however, Donnie spotted a spider crawling on Mikey and smacked the pest away- Mikey was very irritated at this and felt the need to retaliate even though Donnie insisted that his intention was to help not harm, Mikey still took great offense. We have seen Mikey take great pleasure in insulting Raph and making fun of his phobia of insects. We have also seen Mikey poke fun at Donnie and even plea that Snakeweed take Donnie instead of the poor hapless Pizza deliver guy. Mikey has never made any disparaging remarks about Leo. The most fun he has had at Leo’s expense was a water balloon, imitating him when he got to use Leo’s swords, and to draw on his face while sleeping, but even then it was his opinion that his bro looked handsome. Mikey insisted he be paired up with Leo during the hunt for Karai, yes it was because he wanted to go to the theme park, but he was also much more physical with Leo, grabbing onto him and asking if he’s been working out. Also while in Space, after Leo saved him, Mikey clung on to him like a koala and proclaimed that Leonardo was his hero- Mikey has been saved by both Raph and Donnie before, but neither of them have received such praise. Mikey also was the one to sneak out after Leo when he tried to break into Shredder’s headquarters by himself to capture a brain worm. When Leo was showing off, both Raph and Donnie were very annoyed, but Mikey admitted that he was extremely impressed. Mikey also hurled an entire couch out of a window to avenge Leonardo’s injuries.
Leo is the nicest to Mikey, he doesn’t yell at him or hit him as much as Raph and Donnie do, and Leo even scolds Raph if Raph is being too rough with Mikey- Leo has never jumped to Donnie’s defense like he does to Mikey’s. Leo is also the most likely to humor Mikey when it comes to dressing up in costumes and can really get into character. Leo praises Mikey the most for his specific skills like throwing water balloons and shadow puppets, and remember, it was only Leo who knew how to revive Mikey after he had been knocked out by Snakeweed. He was also the first to insist that they go rescue Mikey from the Triceratons.
Those two get along so well, and even though they are different, the differences in their personalities compliment and support one another. Not to mention they look super adorable together.
If you don’t enjoy slash, that is fine. If you don’t enjoy tcest, that is also fine. I don’t know about you, but I come from a free country where everyone is entitled to their opinion. You can claim that my reasons stated here are circumstantial at best and the examples are weak, but the same can be said about any example YOU could give that supports the opposite, and frankly, you have far less examples to pull from.
I will also concede that this is a show marketed towards children because that’s how you make money; buy selling toys. So no relationships that are not heterosexual will not be acknowledged. But also because this is a kids show, neither will definite romantic relationships between the turtles and any females be acknowledged. You know why? Bestiality. Parents would be outraged and demand the show cancelled if Apritello or Leorai ever became official. So all you will ever get is teasing just to appease the older fan-bases. April will end up with Casey, it is cannon and it is appropriate and will not get any angry letters from parents. And personally, I feel that this version of Karai is a lesbian, so she won’t end up with anybody- plus think about this, you hypocrites- you think Splinter would never approve of his non-related, adopted sons dating, but you think he would totally be okay with his blood daughter dating his turtle son? Yeah, that ain’t happening. Sorry. But if you want to draw and write fanfics about Leorai, that is your right to do so and I will not criticize you for it. Why? Because I’m not a closed minded asshole with nothing better to do than troll people on the internet.
I hope this rant has given some relief and emotional support to my fellow tcesters out there who love the idea of Leo and Mikey together and aren’t happy that the show has introduced a new female character for the sole purpose of being a love interest.
