Ok. So I just watched a video about how people are apparently having barking fits about what race the turtles should be drawn as when people draw them as humans. And frankly, that's sickeningly obnoxious for SOOOO many reasons. First off, we have NO FUCKING CLUE what race they would be because THEY STARTED OFF AS TURTLES YOU DUMB TWITS!!! We don't even know what SPECIES OF TURTLE they are! THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT SPECIES OF TURTLE THEY ARE!! And we know this because in the episode where they first go to the noodle shop and beat up the purple dragons, Donnie SPECULATES clearly, SPECULATES what species the might be. So there's that...Another reason I find it obnoxious as fuck is because if you're gonna draw a non-human character as human, make it make fucking sense -_- like in MLP when people draw Shining Armour with dark skin, his coat is white as freshly fallen snow people! It just wouldn't make sense! There are probably plenty of ponies that WOULD have dark skin if they were human that's not the issue, I just really really REALLY doubt the whitest stallion in Equestria would be one of them =_=. But back to TMNT, the third reason I want to address here crosses into headcanon territory. This relates to how I believe the mutagen works. I've studied genetics with interest for a few years, and I've paid very close attention to how the mutagen has effected the various creatures it's contacted in the show and with all this collective information I've come to the hypothesis that the mutagen works like this; Basically a mutation occurs in an organism when a gene that is normally active becomes inactive, or when an inactive gene becomes active. A mutagenic agent (any substance that can cause mutation in organic life) causes these changes, most mutagens will only work on one to a few genes in a creatures entire genetic structure, causing...well usually cancer, but sometimes the effect goes totally unnoticed as the agent may effect a gene that was only part of a code, or one that has no noticeable effect on the creature. The particular mutagen in question however (the TMNT "ooze") is EXTREMELY powerful. It effects almost the entirety of the exposed creatures genetic structure. From what I've been able to observe the mutagen changes genes at random. Just totally random, literally scrambling the victim's DNA. That is when its used on a creature that's clean. By "clean" I mean it only has its own DNA anywhere on it. Like Timothy (The Pulverizer). When he came into contact with the mutagen, he hasn't touched any other non-mutated life form recently, so what happened to him was the unpredictable effect that we're so often warning about throughout the show. However, is the circumstances are different, the result can be easy to predict. Let's start with Splinter himself for this. As you can recall from the flashback in episode 1, splinter had bought the turtles from a pet shop and just after encountered the Kraang, then was exposed to the mutagen. But if you paid attention, you'd see that the last creature he actually touched, was a rat in the ally. It touched his foot and that's what made him jump and give way his position to begin with. That, is why he's a rat. He had this rat's DNA on him when he was exposed to this powerful mutagenic agent. The agent did what it does, scrambled that available DNA, but this time there were two different genetic codes to work with, so they got scrambled together, resulting in a hybrid creature. The turtles are the same way, now in the flashback we see the turtles in a glass bowl, we has ZERO PROOF the Splinter had actually touched them yet, and based on what I just explained, I'd say he probably hadn't. But it's clear that the last things to touch them were humans, and perhaps not even all the same human. But I'll address that in a moment, for now lets assume the last person to touch them WAS Splinter. Then his human DNA would have been scrambled together with their turtle DNA. Scrambled. Creating randomized traits, which is one reason the four of them look so vastly different. Their human-esq traits were selected at random, giving Raph green eyes, Mickey freckles and Donnie his tall stature. So what race they would be if they were human? Who the hell knows? They're traits were chosen at random, they could all be the same race, or four different ones. With the traits they exhibit, there's really no way to accurately tell. Now supposing Splinter wasn't the last human they touched, well that changes nothing. Regardless of which human's DNA each of them were exposed to, it got scrambled like eggs in a genetic bowl. Their race? Totally unpredictable and anything, literally ANYTHING could be the correct answer. SO SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT IT!!!!
