Requested: PaintedRed or RaMona.
Let's see how many corny phrases I can come up with..
Love at first flight (Get it? Cause her hook sent him flying.)
I listened to the "Salamander hottie" audio like a hundred times on tiktok when I was a fresh tween way before getting to the space arc.
This is a hetgem for a variety of reasons, even if it could've used a couple more episodes as it involves one of the main characters, but I wont complain, it makes sense since they're from different planets.
I like the height difference, he's an angry short king, she's a giant warrior, I imagine she could throw him over her shoulder and she's the only person Raph wouldnbe okay with her doing so. Yk that tiktok? Of them with the "How'd you bag that baddie?" audio? I saw it in a tmnt gacha reaction once, I loved it. I still watch those a lot.
Short main hero from earth x tall alien warrior goddess? I see you NightStar/DickKory. I'm rlly into love stories about someone from earth and an alien or someone human looking but from another world. I'm a FangBill lover, the fandom's been dead tho.
The name painted red is also a given, I made it up a few minutes ago, cause Raph likes drawing, Mona Lisa is nicknamed after a painting, and "paint the town red".
I like the idea of Raph being attracted to bigger women, specifically taller and stronger, loved the moment where he stabbed an electric device with the equivalent of a giant fork just to get her out of a cell, he could've been electrocuted but that doesn't matter right now.
Him not being ashamed of being openly smitten, being the flustered one, when his leg lifted up when they kissed. I'm a simple person, I see a fictional tough guy swooning and I click the episode.
Now to start yapping. I think this ship mighttt be the most popular canon ship, since ApriTello was never quite a CANON canon thing, it was mostly very explicitly stated that they had this "will they, wont they?" with all the kisses and Donnie swooning over her and the implication of the robomecha show when April stops talking to them. Then Casey and April, that's also hinted a lot, the whole love triangle was obviously canon but neither became a couple, so that makes RaMona the most popular official ship.
Now about them specifically:
Mona Lisa met him for what, a day? And that's one of the flaws people point out in the ship, but I actually see this as something that sort of makes sense. They're both very active warriors, they live with the "I could die today" mentality, of course they'd want to make things happen as fast as possible, because one of them might not be around long enough for a slowburn romance where they both dance around it until one opens their mouth, that's not a certainity.
Almost died in the cold together in the first days they met btw.
I like that they're both with a person you stereotipically wouldn't expect them to be with if you see their characters separately. Raph is proudly swooning and kicking his legs over a giant salamandrian woman who can beat him with a solid right hook, he's not threatened, he doesn't treat her like another goon, he fell enough to want to meet her again when all she wants is to destroy him, he fell enough to think about going back to someone who defeated him and not for a rematch. He's not mad that his brothers know he adores her and that she makes him twirl his inexistent hairs, he's proud to be all over her.
You'd expect a warrior like Mona to be with someone with her same size and strenght, to look for a partner like Commander G'Throkka. Sure, Raph is imponent, but he's a loverboy, shorter, of another species not like her dear people she did everything for. Raph is used to her appearence, he's lived among mutants of looks like all animals. But in theory, she's never seen something quite like Raphael. None of the aliens we see look even similar to the turtles, not in build, or gear, nothing.
I imagine him painting her in all her menacing glory, "paint me like one of your french girls" but in full armour roaring at the sky. Also, both of them staying loyal and having eachother in mind even if they are planets away is so 💕.
I imagine her bragging about him to her fellow soldiers, 'I got a compact one, I can carry him anywhere'.
Power couple, they'd do that move like Starla and Muscle Man did in Regular Show in the "meet the parents in a fancy restaurant" episode. Yk, when they hold hands and run with their arms extended to trip an evil waiter.
Romantic music, wo woo woo wo wooooo. Yk the violin in old romance movies for the super awaited kiss.
That couple in class always on eachother. Loved that Mikey had to be the one separating them, I loveee his dimension X look.
"What's a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?"
Their 87 version is so cute too, they're like the mini version of them. I like that they look more different to eachother in the 2012 version though.
★ Raph paints her, whether she's there to model or not, her face is burned onto his mind.
★ Mona Lisa brags about him a lot. Commandere G'Throkka (Sal) is tired of hearing about him.
★ Yk that moment where they emntion earth and Mona immediately thinks aboout Raph dping push ups? Salamandrians are clearly a species that not only find strenght resoectable, but also attractive. She was actually considered odd for not picking someone with a kill count.
★ Raph understood a 100% why Leo justified everything Karai did. ("But Mona's better, she was just trying to protect herself and the planet, Fearless.)
★ Raph spent nights before going to sleep trying to learn how to pronounce her actual name.
★ Mona Lisa searched up "Raphael" the minute she was given an earth device, she was confused about why the painting of a man kept showing up. The tech in her planet can search for any salamandrian, and no one shares the same name as the other.
★ Mona roars at the sky at the altar, salamandrians obviously celebrate when they get hitched.
★ Raph has always been a fan of salamanders, they eat roaches like Mona steps on them when he's visibly afraid.
★ Raph was the more flustered of the two when physical intimacy was brought up. She would take the lead.
★ Mikey teaches Mona some slaang after she's spent some time on earth, she uses it around Raph a lot.
Now fic ideas!! I probably wont write them, I dont have the motivation. You can if you wanna.
★ A wedding fic, but before that, Raph has to meet the parents!! The brothers are the wingmen, obviously.
★ A prequel of the one above, Raph brings Mona to the lair, to meet Sensei.
★ We-got-to-earth-faster-and-Sal and Mona-visit AU. Eaph tries to get Mona not to know about his very clear fear of bugs, since yk they're so small and harmless, ir would be better if she didn't know. She does anyway, in a fight with another chunk of Dregg's army. He protects him, obviously, and crushes all the cockroaches she finds through their walk back to the lair. "See, Raphael? You are safe with me."
★ Pigeon Pete is somehow back to the Mutanimal team now that Mona Lisa is also a member, they fight alongside the turtles, but since Dr. Rockwell gave every mutanimal a course in basic culture since mist of them started out as animals, Pigeon Pete is aware it was Leonardo Da Vinci who painted the Mona Lisa, so he confuses her as LEO's girlfriend. He goes on and on about Leo's "scary girl/mate" and no one can correct him because enemies keep coming up for some unexplainable reason.
★ Another crossover with the 87 versions, now Raph and Mona meet 87 Raph and Mona.
★ Crossover, version 2. Raph gets jealous because Mona finds the smaller and squishier version of him cute. Raph sees the other 87 Mona as nothing like his Mona, butttt they are equally sarcastic, atleast they get along. She does like him tho, like a bulkier version of her Raph. (Or she doesn't, you decide).
★ Modern AU, Mikey teaches Mona slaang. She uses it nonstop on a date with Raph. "You look handsome tonigh, Raphael. No cap."
To April "That party garment is serving cunt indeed, April."
"Your gear is well sated." (ate).
★ Raph paints her, his first full canvas work.
★ A date to the art museum, it was a surprise, to show Mona a cwrtain painting(they broke in, but no damage) at night is interrupted for them to stop a robbery, but at the end Raph does end up getting Mona to finally see the Mona Lisa. (dont ask me why, in cartoons she's always somehow there in random school museum trips).
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That's about all I can come up with.
Feel free to give your fic recs of them in the comments or advertise your own!!