Mona Lisa is my favorite TMNT character

I desperately need to rant about her omg

So, if you're reading this, I'm assuming you're a TMNT fan. I should hope so, or else I'd sound crazy. I think I'd sound crazy regardless, actually. Let me give you some context.

Mona Lisa was introduced to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise during the run of the 1987 series in the episode "Raphael Meets His Match".

The episode's plot is pretty simple. Sort of. Basically, Raphael is invited to some billionaire's costume party, which takes place on a cruise ship. He decides to go, using his mutant appearance as his "costume". As he is about to use his ticket to get on the boat, the lizard mutant Mona Lisa comes in and acts like she knows him. She tells him to play along, and they pretend to be a couple for a brief moment. Mona Lisa is using him to get onto the boat without a ticket. For a while, it's assumed that Mona is wearing a lizard costume, so it didn't seem all that crazy to the others (the others being April and Vernon, who were covering the party for the news). Raph had his suspicions, though. Following Mona, he sees her tying up the people controlling the boat and jumps to the conclusion that she's a criminal. Mona explains herself, saying she's trying to save everyone on the boat from being attacked by a different villain. Mere seconds after Raph says he doesn't believe her, the boat is attacked by the pirate-themed villain Captain Filch. Raph agrees to help Mona take him down. Later, it's revealed that Mona Lisa was a human college student who was captured by Filch due to her intelligence and aimed to use it to his benefit. Mona agreed to the terms, only to later on attempt to backstab him and destroy his lab. During the lab's destruction, Mona caused more damage than she intended, causing pipes to break and spill water everywhere, along with numerous dangerous chemicals, turning her into a mutant. To defeat Filch, Raph and his brothers distract him while Mona risks her life to destroy his submarine, almost getting her into another accident. The submarine explodes and causes Raph to worry about Mona. When the turtles return to the sewers, it's shown that Mona survived the explosion and April took her to the turtles' lair to have pizza.

That was seemingly the end of Mona's story, never being used in another episode again. She was later used in the franchise as a character in 2012 and the IDW comics, which I haven't yet gotten around to seeing. I haven't read the comics yet and I have not reached that point in the 2012 series.

Fun fact: Mona Lisa was supposed to appear again in the Red Sky seasons before they decided to replace that plot with one about Dregg and Carter instead (does anybody actually care about those guys?? I'm so mad rn). But people wanted more content of her, and she is now a much more frequent ally to the turtles in the recent "Saturday Morning Adventures" comics.

Anyway, seemingly pretty normal, just another side character. Except for the fact that SHE'S MY FAVORITE CHARACTER. PERIOD.

I don't even know why I love her so much. I've made custom merch of her, got any green and pink crafting supplies I can find, bought her NECA action figure, and I'm currently trying to buy her original 90's figure. For some reason, I often latch to the most obscure of characters. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT HERRRR

In the very few times her character is explored, she is shown to be intelligent (mainly in terms of chemistry and physics, as shown by the accessories included with her NECA figure, but chemistry primarily), sarcastic (on a similar level to Raphael), very acrobatic, reckless, and a bit playful.

AAAAAAAAHH she's my favorite character ever like omg I can't