The Words That Hurt Me

A general rule of thumb for any type of story telling media is to not have more than five main characters. Often, these five are separated into categories, the leader, the smart one, the hothead, the Woman, and finally, the dumb one. While the others are given chances to express their talents and skills in carefully planned arcs, the dumb one is often neglected. No, the dumb one is meant to entertain, he makes a mistake and you are to laugh at it. He is not allowed to have a moment of realization, not given the chance to prove himself, not allowed to be more than the dumb one. A joke. The unwilling jester meant to make his blind peers look smarter, clever, at the expense of his pride and shame.

Michelangelo, youngest ninja turtle, is Doing Just Fine. He means it. The teasing words of his brothers doesn't feel like scalding water against his skin, thank you very much. He Doesn't feel hurt when they brush him off as childish and immature, when they refuse to listen. And he Absolutely Does Not need any help because he doesn't have any problems. He doesn't feel bad. He doesn't really feel anything at all. Mikey can't exactly say there's anything wrong when he can't identify it, but how can he ignore his inner world falling to pieces and his mental health declining? Well, apparently the kid on the computer can relate to that.