I like the headcanon that April is aroace and is confused with romance

Despite Donatello being my favorite character in the show, I always felt that this ship wasn’t very well handled. Like you said, I always preferred the Apritello scenes where they show that both characters care for each other, rather than romance

It's important to note that Donnie had also never seen a human person before April

"Some people take the whole love triangle mess and instead ship - "

I have no problem with the idea of a romance or even just a crush. They are both fully sentient and humanoid. My problem is it’s poorly written in my opinion. I actually really enjoy Leo’s crush on April in Mutant Mayhem because I think it’s well written, really cute, and not bordering on stalker level behavior. It probably won’t go anywhere but if it did, I wouldn’t mind. At the very least, I think the Mutant Mayhem writers know what they want to do with that dynamic in the future whatever that plan is. That’s what I consider to be the biggest problem with Donnie and April. There was no plan. They put it in the show as a cute little thing but realized “oh we don’t have a resolution for this” and they didn’t want go one way or the other so they just kept making sure the show went with this back and forth which I think ultimately hurt both Donnie and April (and to a lesser extent Casey) as characters. That’s just my opinion though.

Funnily enough, I actually wanted Donnie and Casey because they had better chemistry and moments than they did with April. In Speed Demon when they made the car, those boys are so genuinely happy that it's so cute!!

Script 10/10

I think it starts pretty innocent but as time goes on Donnie makes it a little creepy and April just kinda goes back and forth on being a bitch to him. It sucks because they do have some pretty good moments together but it's so inconsistent that I would have rather had them never even attempt it. I always prefer it when April acts as a sister/fifth honorary turtle to the team instead of a love interest.