Fanfic / Same Difference

A world where Tang Shen survived, where Miwa never became Karai, where Yoshi never mutated, and where the turtles are humans rather than mutants. Either way, knowing Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey, there are still going to be some insane adventures. Hey, they're ninjas, you expect them to be normal?

Same Difference is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) fanfic that explores the avenues taken from the many cases of For Want Of A Nail mentioned above. The author, Sunny Lighter, has explicitly stated that this is NOT a High School AU. As the fic shows, a proper description of it would be more of a human AU.

This fanfic can be read also on Archive of Our Own, right here.

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Same Difference provides examples of:

• Abusive Parent: Jason's parents are, to put it mildly, complete assholes. They kick him out after he mutates, and while they embrace him when he returns as a human, they go back to being jackasses when they learn that he was the mutant gecko they kicked out.
• Adaptation Expansion: Chapters 37 through 42 are set in-between the Season 2 finale and the first episode of Season 3, adapting episodes from the 2003 series to fit the fanfic's 2012 series plot, as well as a chapter dedicated to how the Mighty Mutanimals recruited Kurtzman, Pigeon Pete, and Dr. Rockwell.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade:
  • Miwa is raised by her actual parents and has a loving family rather than being trained and raised by the Shredder like in canon.
  • Since the Turtles are regular humans in this version, they've managed to live fairy normal lives up until they started dealing with the Kraang, including school, friends and (in Donatello's case) a healthy love-life.
  • While Hamato Yoshi is still haunted by the Shredder's past attempt to kill him and his family, since his wife is still alive and his daughter was never kidnapped, he has it a bit easier in this story.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Since the Turtles in this version have been human all their lives, the dissonance between them and regular humans gets played up after Raphael is mutated into a turtle. The whole family tries to support him in their own ways, only to end up failing.
• Adaptational Badass: Tang Shen is a Kunochi rather than a stay-at-home mother. She also becomes a mutant instead of Miwa, which puts her on the same level as the likes of Slash and Leatherhead.
• Adaptational Heroism: Miwa is never raised as Karai and is one of the Hamato clan from the beginning in this story.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • While Michelangelo is still a bit of a spaz, he isn't as Lethally Stupid as his canon-counterpart. Having lived a normal human life, his social skills are much better and he has a better understanding of things like social media and social cues. His understanding of Kraang-tech is more utilized here as well, usually being called upon when Donatello hits a dead-end.
  • While Casey wasn't exactly Mikey-level stupid, he was a street-punk who thought more with his hockey-stick than his head, making him a Foil for the Book Smart Donatello. Here his breakout into vigilantism is done with the singular purpose of investigating a sudden sting of disappearances among his classmates. When Raph's family dodge his questions, he then orchestrates his study-dates with April probe her for information. When the gang see the notes he kept, they were genuinely impressed.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The Shredder was bad enough as is, but he's way worse here than he was in the original series with fewer Pet the Dog moments. Word of God states that the Shredder raising Karai in the prime timeline gave him something to anchor his sanity to. Without her, he went further down the loony bin than he would have ever gone.invoked
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • While Casey became a vigilante in the original series to fight street crime that could threaten his family, here he had a more specific goal in-mind; to find his best friend Raphael and the various other classmates that go missing. After he finds out what became of Raphael, Jason (Mondo Gecko) and Timothy (the Pulzerizer/Mutagen Man), he convinces the team to help him look for Martin — an innocent, bully-bait kid with a prosthetic leg — out of genuine concern for what happened to him. Not only that, but he completely drops his flirtation with April when he sees that she is in a relationship with Donatello, the two of them having a less vitriolic friendship than in canon.
  • In canon, Zog is shown to be a real jerk when he comes to his senses, thinks that Raphael controlling him was out of selfishness inherent in Earth and was willing to sacrifice himself to bring the Triceraton Empire there. Here, he gets to know the Hamatos well enough to see their reasoning and even considers them friends for a brief time. It still doesn't stop him from contacting his superiors, knowing that they would destroy the Earth to keep the Kraang from taking it. The only difference here is that he wants to take the Hamatos with him, seeing their fighting skills and their retro-mutagen worth saving.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Donnie and April become an Official Couple rather than it being a one-sided crush on Donnie's end.
    • Since Donnie and April are together, their Love Triangle with Casey doesn't exist and Donnie and Casey are much more civil with each other.
  • Casey and Raph are best friends instead of total strangers in the beginning.
  • Mondo Gecko/Jason is best friends with Mikey, not a complete stranger to him.
  • Casey ends up having a crush on Miwa rather than on April.
• Adaptation Species Change: Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey are all born humans rather than mutants, while Splinter remains a human instead of getting mutated into a rat.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Downplayed. Miwa never becomes a mutant, nor does she gain any superhuman abilities, but she remains a Badass Normal throughout.
  • Since the brothers are humans, they lack the superhuman abilities that being turtles gave them. Though they do eventually gain their turtle abilities via mutation, the lack of experience as mutants leaves them floundering at first.
• Alliance of Alternates:
  • After falling through one of the portals, and traveling aimlessly through various Turtle dimensions, Miwa ends up in the 2003 Turtle dimension, where after she helps them deal with the Kraang, she enlists their help to get her back to her home dimension.
  • Later, during the Triceraton invasion, the 2003 Turtles arrive with Chung Ting and Mei Peih Chi to offer their assistance.
• Always Someone Better: April admits that she feels completely inferior to Miwa since she lags behind her in combat, which she shows herself as a master of. Funnily enough, Miwa feels second-rate to April in other categories since she believes she's only good at fighting.
• And the Adventure Continues: The final chapter of the fic ends on this note. The Shredder's reign of terror has ended once and for all, but his hench-mutants and the Foot Clan are still out there. While the Earth has been saved from certain destruction by the Black Hole Generator, the Triceraton Empire is still out there and fully intends on destroying Earth to make an example out of them as soon as they find a new Doomsday Device. Zog becomes disillusioned with the Empire's reign of terror and gets recruited by a resistance movement. While the heroes all celebrate their victory, Professor Honeycutt comes to recruit them to help him stop them, revealing that April's missing uncle Augustus was kidnapped to help build it for them. While reluctant, Splinter and Tang Shen let them go with their blessing, offering to stay behind with the Mighty Mutanimals to protect the Earth while they're gone. To be continued, someday...
• Anger Born of Worry: When Casey joins the Hamatos' nightly excursions, Miwa is the only one against him being there, being the only one among them who is untrained in direct combat and being The Load in general. When he hears a recording of her explaining that she is just worried for his safety, he concedes to take classes at the Renaissance Dojo to make sure that he can at least take-care of himself.
• Animalistic Abomination: While all mutants can qualify as this from one level or another, special mention goes to the Hunterror, a monstrous bear/spider/reptilian mutant the Kraang made to track down the remaining unmutated humans in the Kraang-occupied New York.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Tang Shen survives, so this ensues for her as she's now one of the main cast.
  • Metalhead is given more prominence and is practically a full-fledged member of the clan.
  • Sir Malachi becomes one of the Mutanimals rather than becomes a case of "Whatever Happened to the Mouse?"
  • Mondo Gecko is given some more focus thanks to his connection to Mikey.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Mikey tends to get easily distracted. Justified since he's confirmed to have ADHD.
• Axe-Crazy:
  • The Shredder is not mentally stable in the slightest. His warped sense of entitlement and viscous brutality don't paint him as having the most stable mental health.
  • Following her mutations, Tang Shen has become incredibly feral and violent towards everyone except her children. Stockman even comments that in that state, she and the Shredder are Birds of a Feather.
• Badass Family: Don't screw with the Hamato clan if you know what's good for you.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When forced to play along with Sir Malachi's RPG LARP, Raph demands to be any class other than the Hobbit. Sir Malachi complies and makes him the Princess to be rescued.
• Big Brother Instinct: While Leo isn't the oldest in this version, he is still portrayed as the responsible older brother to his four siblings with each of them recounting a time when he acted as their protector and caregiver in their time of need.
  • When they were younger, Leo saved Mikey from an aggressive goat at a petting zoo, an experience that would have crippled him for life if he hadn't been there.
  • When Donatello was being bullied by an older kid in his class, Leo was the first to notice Donnie's shift in mood and ask him about it. The next day, the bully stopped bothering him, he and his friends having very visible black eyes.
  • Before Donnie and April go on their first date, Leo stops by to give April the "if you hurt my sibling" talk standard for this sort of thing. He goes onto explain to April just how strong Donnie's feelings for her are, cementing their relationship.
  • When Casey had to leave to get bandages for his little sister, Leo offers to chaperone her and her friend. By the time Casey gets back, he is fully committed to their tea party without complaint, even enthralling them on what tea-parties are like in Japanese culture.
  • When they were little, Miwa and Leo were left behind at home to look after a sick Michelangelo while their parents took Donnie and Raph to martial arts camp, Miwa expected to stay and help for being the oldest while Leo volunteered. Angry that she couldn't go, she went to watch TV while Leo obeyed his parents and looked after Mikey. Later, Mikey's fever reaches levels so dangerous that they called an ambulance, Leo's diligence being what saved him. While Miwa is grateful for that, she is still ashamed of herself for it to this day.
• Calling the Old Man Out: April lashes out at her father for knowing that she was half-Kraang and never telling her.
• Childish Older Sibling: While Miwa is the oldest Hamato Sibling, she tends to act more like one of the younger ones and gets into trouble due to general teenage rebellion. She knows this well enough to let Leo be the leader instead acknowledging that he is more suited to the job.
• Damsel in Distress: April starts out like this, and she really hates it.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Mighty Mutanimals are given their own focus chapter in "Struggle on the Homefront", where they have to stop the release of the Huntterror to protect the humans still hiding in the city during the Kraang occupation.
• Decomposite Character: In the parent-series, Irma was a disguise Kraang Subprime took on to locate the turtle's lair, a design he stole from Rook. Here, Irma was an actual person that Kraang Subprime had kidnapped and mutated, designing his suit off of her to spy on April and the Hamatos. This version of Rook was the one who stole it from the Kraang when they raided one of their bases, the Kraang having had an entire stockpile of Irma-bots ready to be used for espionage purposes.
• Demoted to Extra: While he still exists, Rat King's relevance in the story is non-existent since Splinter isn't a rat mutant.
• Dented Iron: While Tang Shen is still a formidable kunoichi in her own right, the massive scars left on her back by the Shredder have left her weakened, only going out to fight when it is absolutely necessary.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In canon, Shredder is ultimately killed by being decapitated by Leo. Here, he is bitten by all of Tang Shen's snakes at once.
• The Dreaded:
  • The Shredder puts the entire Hamato clan on edge even before he arrived in New York. Yoshi starts having nightmares about his mortal enemy killing his family when he gets word of the Shredder's arrival.
  • Played for Laughs, but Miwa is considered the scariest of the siblings. One of the reasons Mr O'Neil wanted specifically Raph to guard him? Miwa scares him more than Leatherhead.
• Entitled to Have You: Oroku/Shredder believes that everything is his right and nothing is ever his fault. From his perspective, Miwa, Shen, and her children should be his. The only exception is Leo, and that's because he's so much like Yoshi that Shredder is disgusted by him.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Even though the Hamato Clan don't ask for the Foot Clan's help when the Triceratons invade in this one, they still pitch in to help anyways. While the Shredder could not care less what became of the human race, his various minions most definitely do, Shredder only involving himself when Fishface points out that the obvious fact that if the Earth is destroyed, so is Tang Shen.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The siblings, being human this time, start out slightly wary of mutants due to most of the ones they encounter either being feral of crazy. They do progressively move past this as the story continues.
  • Jason/Mondo Gecko's parents absolutely HATE mutants. While they were in "The Shelter" during the Kraang invasion, they actively tried to rally everyone there against the Mutanimals despite said mutants literally being their only chance for survival at that point.
• For the Evulz: When April points out that the Kraang could just harvest her DNA by taking her hair rather than put a large needle in her head. The Kraang admits that she's right, but they just find the painful way more entertaining.
• Freudian Excuse: While canon!Splinter claims that he doesn't join his sons into battle because he wants them to be self-reliant, here there is another reason: Tang Shen survived that night against the Shredder with wounds that left her weakened. While he trusts his sons to defend themselves, he stays to protect his wife.
• Gentle Giant: Leatherhead is incredibly soft-spoken and kind-hearted for a large crocodile mutant.
• Handicapped Badass: Tang Shen suffered from severe injuries saving Yoshi from the Shredder's killing blow. She can hold her own in a fight well enough, but she's nowhere near as capable as she used to be. Until she gets mutated and takes a couple levels in badass because of it.
• Happily Married: Tang Shen and Yoshi are a loving, married couple that strives to raise their children well and keep them safe.
• Hate Sink: While H.A.T.E. as an organization in itself can qualify for this, special mention goes to its leader Skonk. He is introduced hunting one of his own former subordinates because he tried to leave, having moral objection to his plan to blow up New York City with a nuclear missile. He thinks that all aliens and mutants are an inherent threat to the human race and sees no problem killing humans as collateral damage in wiping them out. When the Hamatos try to reason with him, saying that they know that there is a cure for mutation, he shrugs the idea off, saying that even if they were turned human again, they can no longer be trusted because "once they get oozed, there's no going back."
• Head-Turning Beauty: When they aren't terrified of her, Miwa tends to garner a lot of Abhorrent Admirers, including Casey, the Pulverizer and Bradford of all people.
• Hero of Another Story: The Mutanimals became the protectors of New York during the Hamato family's absence. They even get their own focus chapter in "Struggle on the Homefront".
• High School AU: Subverted. Sunny Lighter has stated that this isn't the case. Though some chapters take place at the high school, these are few and far between.
• Humanity Ensues: The Turtles are all born as humans here.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Three of the four (Raph, Mikey, and Leo) end up becoming turtle mutants. Though they eventually change back to normal after Donnie creates enough retro-mutagen.
  • Baxter Stockman still ends up serving the Shredder.
  • Kirby still ends up getting mutated, only this time it's during the Kraang invasion of New York rather than earlier.
• Internal Reveal: After gaining audio from a Foot-bot Miwa and April destroyed, Shredder learns that Tang Shen survived and that the rest of the ninjas are her children.
• It's All About Me: This is Oroku's primary mindset. He views Tang Shen's children as his because she should have been his and blames all of his problems on Yoshi.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Martin's reason for choosing to remain as Sir Malachi is because as a human, he was a complete nobody. As Malachi, he not only has cool powers, but he can use them for good.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Both Raph and Miwa are impatient, aggressive, and rough around the edges, but they care and love their family, going out of their way for them.
• Jive Turkey: This is Jason/Mondo Gecko's default way of talking.
• Last of His Kind: The Shredder spent his time hunting down the Hamato family across the planet. As a result, the Hamato clan in New York are the only surviving members of the family.
• Lesser of Two Evils: After Zog betrays them by contact the Triceraton Empire, Mikey cites the Kraang as this. He points out that while what the Kraang have been trying to do to the Earth is awful, it is nothing the Hamatos can't fix and casualties have been kept to a minimum, a stark contrast to the Triceratons literally destroying planets and everyone on them.
• Like Brother and Sister: Tang Shen tells Shredder that she loved him like a brother. Unfortunately, Saki doesn't believe her and lashes out at her for "lying".
• Like Father, Like Son: Leo is so much like Yoshi that Shredder has absolutely no issue trying to kill him when he avoids doing so with the other Hamato children.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: With how dickish Jason's parents are and how much of a Nice Guy Jason himself is, you have to question the relation.
• Mama Bear: Never harm her children unless you want Tang Shen to raise Hell. Triply so after she becomes a mutant.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Downplayed. Yoshi and Shen have five children; Miwa, Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey, the latter four of which are quadruplets.
• The Multiverse: After having fallen through the portal, Miwa travels through the 1987 dimension, a dimension with four Turtles in superhero outfits flying by futuristic buildings ^note Presumably the dimension, where Mikey ended up during 'Reality Check' of the 2003 series, ends up on the edge of a crowded dance floor listening to four Turtles singing "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!", appears on a New York rooftop where she spots four Turtles with 'more muscles than she'd seen than some pro wrestlers', lands on a fire escape above an alleyway, where she spots a another Turtle version of Raphael, college-aged Casey Jones and a mutant arctic fox, before making a brief trip to a gritty black and white world, then finding herself in a dimension similar to hers, except for the fact that her brothers are Turtles, and she is Karai, her biggest fear. Then finally, Miwa ends up in a dimension of Turtles, where she resolves to get some help in returning home.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: While most of Shredder's minions serve him out of loyalty and/or fear, they all seem to acknowledge that he is not exactly the sanest man to be taking orders from, all of them audibly sighing with relief when the Shredder "chose the sane option for once" when he decides that they should help defend the Earth from the Triceratons.
• Mythology Gag:
  • After Raph mutates, Mikey starts coming up with potential nicknames for him, which all reference other characters (or character identities) within the franchise, such as Slash, Turtle Titan, Tokka, and Nightwatcher.
  • Casey's younger sister is named Shadow, which was the name of his adopted daughter in the original Mirage comics.
  • Raph and Casey hiding from Foot-Bots in a shed on the rooftop, and Casey revealing that he knows Raph is a mutant is reminiscent to the 2007 CGI film where Raph and Casey hide from the Stone General, and when Casey reveals he knows that Raph is the Nightwatcher.
  • When Miwa was in the 2003 dimension, 2003!Raph makes reference to when their world had a dimensional crisis and was almost erased by the Shredder.
  • A bully Donatello was forced to put-up with in the fourth grade was named Vernon.
  • Chapters 38, 40 and 41 are loosely adapted from episodes of the 2003 series; "The Golden Puck", "H.A.T.E." and "Cousin Sid" respectively.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Tang Shen remarks that calming Leatherhead when he's enraged is no different than calming Ralph when he's angry.
• Papa Wolf: Yoshi is as much of this as Tang Shen is a Mama Bear.
• Pet Dress-Up: When Slash and Leatherhead try getting Casey's family to safety when the Kraang invade, they are naturally terrified of these two gigantic mutants at their doorstep. When Slash tries convincing him that he is friendly, both of them knowing about Raph's pet turtle Spike, Slash reluctantly recalls a time when Casey's younger sister Shadow put him in a dress and called him "Princess Spiky". It is especially embarrassing for him because Leatherhead is standing there off to the side, respectfully quiet but otherwise amused.
• Related in the Adaptation: In the 2003 series, Cousin Sid was Casey's relative. Here, he's April's cousin.
• Same-Sex Triplets: Quadruplets actually. This is part of how April was able to recognize the four when they saved her even when in ninja garbs, as quadruplets are extremely rare.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Shredder's sanity has been going downhill for well over a decade at this point. He's more of a cold, calculating insanity rather than a raving lunatic insanity. He gets progressively worse as the story continues.
  • Once Tang Shen mutates into a medusa-esque snake mutant, she becomes almost completely feral and lashes out at everyone except her children. She does start to regain a decent amount of lucidity after a while, but she's still pretty feral.
• Selective Obliviousness: The Shredder ignores all obvious evidence that Tang Shen is happy with Yoshi and no longer cares for him even as family. He even dismisses it all as lies.
• Shout-Out:
  • After April starts developing psychic powers, Mikey calls her Jean Grey.
  • Leo says this to Shredder regarding his obsession with Tang Shen:
    Leo: Mother is never going to leave Father for you! So as a lonely, single man in your forties, I suggest internet dating or getting a cat!
  • The chapter "My Kingdom for a Cosplay" is full of this. Firstly, Raph being the Hobbit, to which he ponders why he's always this. Then, after he manages to escape from the bubble, much to displeasure of Sir Malachi, Raph responds with "Do I look like some peach who'll wait around to be rescued?". Then after giving Raph another costume, comes a question on whenever it'll vanish at midnight, to which Malachi responds with "Do I looketh like thy fairy godmother?". Then, there's the Monkey Goblins who look like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. And of course, "What you talking' 'bout, Willis?".
  • As the Hamato siblings are about to undergo their spirit quest, they encounter the spirit deer. When it appears in humanoid form, Mikey, Raph and Donnie are about to attack it, only for Miwa to stop them dead in their tracks and ask them if they remember Princess Mononoke when they were kids, and if they remember what happened to the 'deer-thing in the movie', which makes them think twice about attacking it.
  • During their trip to medieval England with Renet, Miwa remarks that if they run into "any Black Knights, French jerks, or freaks who say 'Ni!'", she'll scream. Leading to Raph threatening to "slap the green off" Mikey if he starts quoting Monty Python.
• Single-Target Sexuality: If Leo is to be believed, Donatello's feelings for April went well-beyond a simple crush before they officially started dating, Leo's description delving right into worshipping the ground she walks on.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Before he found out that it was run by the Hamato Clan, Bradford acted like this towards the Renaissance Dojo.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The entire story changes thanks to Tang Shen's survival.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In-Universe. Part of Miwa's dislike for April is because everything seems to revolve around her. The Kraang are after her, she has multiple connections with them that she's unaware of, her brothers are actively protecting her, and even the Foot clan prioritizes her as a target despite actively targeting Miwa beforehand.
• Sssssnaketalk: Tang Shen speaks this way after she's mutated.
• Surprise Multiple Birth: The fact that Tang Shen gives birth to quadruplet sons comes as a total shock to the Hamato Family.
• Synchronous Episodes: "The Great Hockey Heist" and "Portal in the Puzzle Box" both happen at the same time, with the boys going on their own adventure to a hockey game gone wrong and the girls winding up in Dimension X.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Generally, the Kraang are given a lot of free time to speak, which gets humorously averted when Miwa takes them down in the middle of their speech and lampshades this.
  Miwa: Seriously, why do we let them talk?
• Token Human: After he returns to normal, Jason is pretty much the only human on the Mutanimals.
• Tomboy Angst: Miwa admits to April that one of the reasons why she has trouble accepting her as a friend is because she thinks that her parents wanted a more traditional girly-girl instead of the brawler that she is and April fits that bill more than she does.
• Took a Level in Badass: Tang Shen becomes much stronger after she gets mutated, with her prior injuries fully healed and now having enough physical strength to easily overpower the Kraang Huntterror.
• The Victim Must Be Confused: When Shredder discovers that Tang Shen is alive and has her kidnapped, he takes her rebuking his advances and claims of being Happily Married as a twisted form of Stockholm Syndrome, intending on breaking her out of this mindset after he kills Yoshi.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: This trope is actually subverted by the story. The author has been very insistent that it isn't a high school story, and it shows. While there is some occasional focus on the school lives of the Hamato kids, it's very rare that it comes up. Much of this is because a lot of their work is at night and they're usually smart enough that this isn't an issue for them. On top of that, their parents are part of all this, so in the event that school becomes an issue to them stopping the Shredder or the Kraang, Yoshi just pulls them out of class for a few days.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: When Shredder finds out that Raph and Mikey had been mutated, he decides to find a cure for their mutated states with the assumption that it would be enough for Tang Shen to side with him as thanks for curing her sons. The fact that he tries having them imprisoned so they don't run off does very little to help his case.
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode: The fear-inducing fungi episode still happens, though some fears are different and some are added.
  • Miwa is terrified of becoming Shredder's daughter and potentially killing her family.
  • Since Raph is a new mutant this time, his fear of cockroaches is mixed with his self-consciousness about the fact that he's no longer human, but now a mutant. He also sees his family dead, with cockroaches crawling all over their bodies. And the worse part of this? He sees the wounds that cause their demise, and they're not done by Slash, but by Raph's own sai!
  • Donnie is terrified of April hating him as well as the possibility that everyone he knows turns to monsters because of him.
  • April's fear is now losing her father to the Kraang and the fact that she's one of them.
  • Casey's is rats.
  • Mikey? Squirrels. Specifically the Squirrelanoids.
  • Leo fears failure as a leader.
  • Leatherhead fears the Kraang for the experiments they did on him. His nightmare is fighting them for so long that he can't feel anything anymore and just gives in to their torture.
  • Mondo/Jason fears his parents despising and abusing him for his mutations, which already came to pass.
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!:
  • "A Few Aprils to Many" is literally April's worst day ever. She constantly gets treated like a damsel due to being a target for the Kraang, ends up being next to useless when the group was fighting the Kraang at TCRI (even Gecko, who has less fighting experience than her ends up being more useful), gets captured, cloned, nearly tortured, and at the end of the day, learns that she's half-mutant alien.
  • When Mikey tries to make a Rousing Speech to the others to save their mom from Shredder, Raph calls it the "Lamest. Speech. Ever."
• Yandere: Shredder. To say he's obsessed with Tang Shen would be an understatement. Once he learns she's alive, he does everything in his power to cut Yoshi out of the picture and gain her affections.

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