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originalwinnercheesecake · 2 years

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Gus Porter Appreciation Post

I have been wanting to do gull analysis of the important characters in The Owl house since like 2/3rds of the way through season 2. Now that the first season 3 special is right around the corner It feels like a good time to make posts and get views again.

Gus is a character I find particularly interesting. In season 1 and for part of season 2 Gus is there, but he is secondary comic relief, very token, and almost never seems to move or affect the plot. He slowly grows as a character with and develops arc’s though, and whats interesting to me is that unlike with characters like Luz/Eda/Willow I cannot really say when his character hit the turning point. I mean I know when his character had shifts, or started to focus more visibly on certain aspects of his character, a lot of the big moments his character goes through and core aspects that come to spotlight in episodes like “Through The Looking Glass” and “Labyrinth Runners” on re-watch actually start more subtle in the back ground of season 1 episodes.

Warning very long post underneath

Things with Gus that could have been done better

Okay first lets address some of the weakness’s of Gus’s character. I want to get those out of the way so that I can spend more time speaking his praises. Up top I call him 3 things “Secondary comic relief” “token” and “unimportant plot wise”. I stand by all three being true (at least for a lot of the series) and all three can be problems with his character. For the “secondary comic relief” one... King is out main source of comic relief. King is voiced by Alex Hirsch, who many fan’s recognize as the creator and voice actor for many Gravity Falls characters. He is a very funny man. King himself is also a funny character, because he sees himself as big and ferocious, has a large personality, and all of this is wrapped up into a like 2.5 ft tall fluffy little dog body. Gus’s first ever job in the show was to come assist Luz on adventures and mishaps where she would be away from Eda and King. Unlike King though Gus does not have a large personality, and with his a main trait being “Self-proclaimed “Human Expert”, when actually everything he says is wrong” he just never seemed as funny. Also King despite being mostly comic relief had lore and backstory from the beginning, taught Luz about demons and life with Eda, and was able to come up with clever ways to help defeat foe’s. Gus... shares his food, and can do basic distracting.

I called him “token”. that is a word that I know gets thrown around a lot, and there is some argument as to when it is appropriate and what it means. So let me give the definition I learned for “token”: One or a few characters that are different from the main cast in a noticeable way, and are added in mainly to give the illusion of this show/book/game being inclusive.” You know how in 90′s and early 2000′s shows about super hero’s/crime fighting a team will have that one (or maybe two if its a big team) female character because otherwise the show writers can be accused being sexist “don’t you think girls can be hero’s too”? Plus without her they will have more trouble doing cliche romance tropes. Or how about in Christmas specials you always have at least one who is briefly stated or shown to be Jewish, because of course the show runners know that Christianity isn’t the only religion, and Christmas is not the only holiday. Gus would qualify as a token character for two reasons. One is that he is one of the only few boys at Hexside who is learning magic, and is also important enough to have a name. The score for that I believe is Girls 11, Boys 5. Of those 5 Jerbo and Barkus were intended to be one off characters and while we saw them again they got no focus and virtually no development (Barkus is in a hexsis holdum club, Jerbo flew for that jerk professors flyer derby team that one time). Edric only shows up spuraticaly and rarely is shown at school. Mattholomule also rarely shows up, and when he does it is to be a parallel foil to Gus (more on him and that later). So Gus is our only frequently occurring boy to actively bee seen trying to become a witch.

Secondly he can count as a token Black character. The Owl house has prioritized including 3D characters of different sexuality, and learning types. Its disability representation has also gained positive notice and appreciation by its audiance as well. But is does have some problems and struggles in race. I will start by saying that I am white, and as such I do not notice as many things as a POC would when it comes to racial inclusion, and my word should always come second to a POC’s when talking about this. But even I can notice that Amity’s character seemed completely thought out and written with fluid direction when Dana and the crew were still throwing Mabel, Webby, Star, Anne, every other off-beat, family carton, female protagonist of the last 10 years, and multiple popular teen cliche’s all against the wall to see what stuck as character for Luz. Even I can note the racism on giving Luz a new White Mom when she already had a Latina Mom. Then treating White Mom as her main/better/more fun mom, because Latino Mom tells tries to change Luz (get her to tone down her more destructive behavior while at school) but White Mom lets Luz do whatever she wants, up to and including praising her for crime. And even I can notice how Gus got way way less screen time and focus than characters who had lighter skin than him. Now here I want the opinion of POC fans: in season 2 Dana and the crew added 3 more POC characters (Raine, Darwin, and Darius), brought back 2 existing characters (Katya and Mattholomule) and, admittedly more towards the end of the season 2, gave Gus and Skara more focus. Did this feel to you like Dana and the Crew noticing and correcting an issue, or did it feel more like the damage control?

Gus’s plot relevance in episodes is kinda self explanatory. In 1B he does not even participate in shenanigans and mishaps that Luz,Willow, and Amity do. He is the group cheerleader. Which would be fine if they let him do all the cool tricks, acrobatics, and full on routines cheerleaders do. Combining his illusion powers with all of that would have been really awesome. But instead of doing any of that they just gave him two small flags that he waved back in fourth from the stands. That was his whole cheer routine, and most of his 1B character... Okay now I am finally done with writing out the flaws/problems with his character, remember I do love this character, and can move on with praises.

Gus’s magic abilities

Gus’s learning trope is that he the “stressed out gifted kid”. He is a protege magician when it comes to Illusion magic, and have even skipped 2 grades. Okay We do not know that much about how different grades work at Hexisde (it’s an all grade school) since Luz our main character see’s the school for the first time at 14. Given that Luz enrolls during a Summer semester I am guessing that Hexisde is a year round school (how do grade levels work at those? I do not know) that does like 4 three week breaks during each season. But I am going to guess that Elementary level kids learn about the different coven tracks and opportunity’s in them, middle school kids pick their track and learn the basics/early lessons, then High school kids perfect their magic and take more advanced lessons. We have never heard Lilith or Raine or any of the Blights mention Colleges, so maybe its not a thing on the isles and kids only leave when coven recruiters come and take them away...

Gus again skipped two grades and “Labyrinth Runners” implies he does it pretty young, he looks like 9 or 10 in his flashback of his first week in advanced classes. If Willow’s powers came late, could Gus have developed Illusion powers early? We also see that he wasn’t then and still is not now in complete control of his powers. My guess is that when Perry and Bump saw what Gus was capable of they moved him up those grades because they believed the best thing for Gus was to get help from an experienced illusion professor who could help him learn more control and mastery of his powers. We can see how great the Illusion professor is in “Labyrinth Runners”, and how much she cares about Gus.

In season 1 Gus mostly sticks to what seems like advanced basics. He could sentences in the air, and make copies of himself, and he was amazing at it. He was not doing one letter at a time, or even one word at a time, he could magic whole sentences into the air at once with great theatrics. His can make multiple copies at once. His copies still remain fully functional when he is away from them, and they can all talk. For clones made by a child, they are very advanced copies. In “Looking Glass Ruins“ Gus makes an illusion large enough to cover a small grave yard, and then In “Labyrinth Runners” his school. In that episode he also pockets a powerful magnifier glass that lets him peer into foes heads and call fourth bad memories. This gives Gus a way to cause actual damage to Belos in “King’s Tide”.... But Gus may have been hit some recoil on that.

This brings me to another part of Gus’s character that I love: He gets progressively stronger through out the show, but he never reaches the ceiling of his potential. He can give his copies more advanced mobility and speaking skills, But when he does they are less likely to do what he wants. See the that only pretended to take notes for him when he skipped, and the one that he made when he wanted to interview himself who promptly told him “I would rather die than reveal my secrets”. He is not able to make large illusions in season 1, and in season 2 they tire him and he still loses control if they go over a certain size. He learns to use the magnifier glass quickly, but he can only us it on an already subdued opponent and using it may pose danger to him in the process. Gus has all the potential to become a mater illusionist, and the dreams and ambition to become even more. But all of this will be one day in the future. For now he is a kid who needs to keep studying and practicing so he can get better, smarter, and wiser. This brings me to my next point about Gus

Relatable Fears

First off let’s look at the pressure Gus puts on himself. He loves to brag about getting to skip two grades. He can be a show off with his magic, and when mentioning that his dad wants him to become a master illusionist he laughs says “That’s easy”, and declares that he will become this powerful and new figure in relational politics and end a long standing feud between the boiling Isle residents and the Giraffe’s.

When tries to help Willow deal with a pixie infestation with an illusion and it doesn’t help at all, and she gets hurt anyway, He goes through a huge existential crisis and starts wondering openly questioning if the illusion track is even worth studying. Some bullies trick him into helping them clear a way to the graveyard for them, before revealing they do not want to be his friends and do not care about his feeling’s or opinions. Gus blames himself for all of this. Who was he kidding thinking Bria actually cared? Well it’s not his fault. HE thought Bria cared because she did a really good job of putting on a show of acting like she cared. Its pretty high key hinted that he does this all the time at Glandis and that’s how she keeps her three “friends” and probably others under her thumb. Heck its low key hinted that she got Mattholomule in so much trouble that his parents took him out of Glandis at least in part to get him away from her and the members of their group. Gus isn’t stupid, Bria is just a skilled manipulator.

After Bria Gus and the cast, unfortunately meet, Adrian Graye Venworth. Gus see’s through his first illusion and saves Edric and the other kids from being tricked into getting sigiled. But Later Gray and a member of the Emperor’s Coven trick Gus into almost going with them by casting an illusion to make the Coven Scout look like Willow. Hunter See’s through the Illusion and grabs Gus yelling that it is a trick. Gus is devastated that he could not tell the difference between his best friend and an illusion and concludes that he must be stupid and have something seriously wrong with him. A few things that I will point out here (and I am so glad Hunter points out to Gus in the episode). Gus is not at fault at all. The coven guard pretending to be Willow fooling him? They showed up when Gus was in danger, scared, and desperate to find help so of course he feels a wave of relief at Willow. Hunter saw through it because he has rained himself to never drop his guard (he has had to) But Gus has no reason to distrust Willow. Even if he was fooled it was never a fair fight. Gus is a gifted kid, but he is still only a 12 year old kid, and is still learning. The Emperor’s coven is made up of all the most ambitious students and highest scores AFTER they graduated school, past tons of vigorous recruitment tests, and devoted their lives to nothing but improving their magic and serving the Emperor. Adrian is a Coven head, a.k.a the top ranking Illusionist on The Titian. Him and all he guards are older and have both more training and experience than Gus. They were able to fool Bump and the Hexside teachers too, and none of them are fools. Gus’s only problem is the pressure he puts on himself.

To go a bit deeper into Gus’s fears, we see him began to work through his fears in season 2 but I think his arc with fear and overcoming it actually starts in season 1′s ‘Enchanting Grom Fight”. Remember at the end of it when Willow and Gus are helping with the clean up and that peace of Grom morphs into their fears. We see that Willow is afraid of ladybugs (???) and that Gus is afraid of clowns. Now Clowns are a pretty common, it would be enough to assume Gus is scared of their big red grins, yellow teeth, or giant stomping feet. But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” through that Illusions are not able to help solve his friend’s issues like Gus hopped he loses faith in them and himself. Then h starts calling Illusions “party tricks” and himself a “clown”. Which descends to “Stupid”, “Fool”, and “Kidding himself” in “Labyrinth Runners”. You add all this together and it equals Gus not being scared of clowns because of creepy make-up, oversized cloths, or how in-your-face some clowns are. We only see the clown image Grom used on Gus from the back but I am gonna gus its front looked kinda similar to Gus himself. “Clown” is the bad name Gus calls himself when he gets angry/scared/or frustrated at his own mistakes. Gus is scared that maybe he is destined to be a clown. Maybe his dad, teachers, friends, and himself are all fooling themselves when they call him someone special, and maybe everything he is good at is just stupid, unimportant, party tricks.

THAT IS NOT TRUE. Gus’s is a great friend and his support has done a lot for Willow, Luz, King, Mattholomule, and Hunter. He has been a real light and the dark for them all. While his illusions have limits, he starts finding knew things he can do with them throughout the season as he improves (and we thankfully say god bye to the Gus the uninspiring cheerleader and the two tiny flags that all he does is flick back and forth). Gus’s own magic feets even hit Heroic status on at least three occasions “Through the Looking Glass Ruins”, “Labyrinth Runners”, and “Kings Tide” where if not for him things would have gone much worse and potentially innocent lives could have been ruined or lost. Gus can, is, and will be great witch. He just needs to take some time, and come into it in his own way.

Gus’s development into a more empathetic friend and his growth and maturity through out the show.

Just a small heads up most of this will be about Gus’s relationships with other males. I know, I know Willow and Luz are his best friends. I am not trying to undervalue his relationships with them, they are great friends and very important to him. The reason I am not talking much about them is that his friendships with them start from their first meeting and remain really consent throughout the show. There is never really any change. They are all friends, Willow and Luz know he is younger by a couple years but they do not treat him any different for it. Gus loves this and is super protective of both of them, trying to jump on or “Gus chomp” any big kid who calls one of the Trio “losers’ or tries to give them a hard time.

Let’s start with the first time we see Gus in his element. Gus’s time as the President of the Human Appreciation Society (a school based club he started). This was Gus at his absolute worst, most jerkish, and it got him nothing. Gus says in the episode that he created the club because being the youngest kid in his grade he was always overlooked and wanted to create a place where that would not happen to anyone. When he says that it is the only time that he is either kidding himself or just being stupid. Because Gus is a tyrannical leader that and overlooks every other person there. No really he is. Gus calls himself “The President” but also made himself a crown, like he’s the king. He has a huge list of rules that he made himself and that no one else is allowed even comment on. He is the only person allowed to touch the objects, He is the only one allowed to make decisions (he legit see’s the group wanting to vote as anarchy), and judging by his reaction to Matty dumping out his backpack Gus may even be the only one who is usually allowed to bring in artifacts. Gus made himself a place where he would get to be in charge of kids older than him and they would have to listen to what he says. Well later in the show we see that Bigger Kids used to take advantage of Gus’s trust and trick him into doing their work for him. These are his worst memories.So seeing that I can see why Gus would want a place like the H.A.S., but that is an explanation for his behavior and not a excuses. He is acting like his old bullies and it is getting him nowhere. The bigger kids in his club must stay because they are interested in learning more about human culture, because they do not seem to care for or like Gus. When Mattholomule challenges him for leadership two kids support him and one just proclaims himself “an undecided voter”; none of them back Gus. When Bump kicks Gus out of the club none of the kids care or ever speak to him again.

Losing the club was painful for Gus in the short term because it was a club he cared about (and it led to 1b Gus and his boring obsession with two tiny flags. They really could not have also given him a horn, some lights, or put the flags on a baton), but after the way he had acted I cannot say he did not deserve to lose it, and he did grow from this. His relationship with King is the first one to show his growth. In “Really Small problems” Luz gets the day off from school and decides to take King to the carnival. While there she runs into Willow and Gus and asks King if they can join them. Gus is really condescending to King here, but King agrees to let them join for Luz. Willow and Gus do not listen to what King wants to do, gradually take more of Luz’s attention, and eventually fully exclude King. This drives King so crazy that he buys a potion to make Gus and Willow temporarily disappear. Which of course he bought from a con artist, its actually a scam that gets everybody in trouble, and King has to apologize and explain his loneliness to the other kids. He tried to make peace with Gus and Willow by offering them both pieces of broken friendship necklaces which they both take. Gus thanks King saying that he has always wanted “A jagged piece of cheap metal”. Willow gets on to Gus, I guess believing he is still being condescending, but I do think Gus was checking himself. Two episodes later when everyone is getting excited about Grom Gus gets to be the announcer and he goes to King to ask if he would like to be his assistant. When King gets stage fright Gus finds him and helps him through it in a much more tactful and friendly way. Gus is 3-4 years older than King, so to King Gus is a big kid. When King confessed the way Willow and Gus made him feel, I think this was the first time Gus was able to see his former bullies in his own actions. He did not like it and he makes steps in later episodes to be more friendly to King and treat him like one of the group.

Now Let’s go to Mattholomule. Gus was a jerk to the other members of his club, but when Mattholomule does his whole “scared and lonely new kid who just wants friends act (which I know was not completely an act)” Gus believes it and really does seem genuine in wanting to be Mattholomule’s friend afterwards. When Mattholomule turn on them and sends Luz to the detention pit, Gus goes to save her, and Mattholomule gets literally dragged along in the crossfire. Gus could have left Mattholomule to rot down there. There is a few options as to maybe why. Maybe Gus feels responsible since he kinda started this whole mess. Maybe since Mattholomule has the most experience with dentition pits Gus and Luz thought they could need him in the escape. What ever reason Gus shows genuine kindness in recusing Mattholomule as well as Luz. That is not an act that Gus gets repaid back to him right away. As soon as they get out and Bump see’s what they did to the pit, he tries to blame Luz. Gus takes all the blame, part of which should got to Matty, but Matty only speaks up when he see’s that he still has the opportunity to steal Gus’s club. Just to be clear on Mattholomule as H.A.S.P: He is a jerk, he will be just as tyrannical as Gus was, and like Gus the club made him no friends, no more popular, and any power he thinks the title gives him is in his head. Gus has to leave and become better.

But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” we get more back story on Mattholomule. We meet his old crew (whom his brother does not seem to like him hanging out with anymore) and see that they are all better than him at magic and hear how his lack of polished skill led to other kids making Glandis very difficult for him. Mattholomule essentially dealt with the same issues as Gus but on the opposite end. Mattholomule tries his best to keep Gus away from the other kids, and Gus thinks this is just him being mean. Only to find out to late that these other kids are just using them both. Because Gus was once kind to Matholomule, something that try as he might Matty has apparently not been able to stop thinking about or being grateful for, Matty goes back to help him. After watching Gus defend the graveyard from his old crew Matty finally makes the right choice for the right reason (reasons other than power or dept) and offers to help fix it up. Then, at hearing the illusion history may have to be hidden away, Matty suggests that he and Gus can build it a stronger defense system. Gus has a new friend now (who may one day also become more than a friend, they do share interests and passions) and has renewed faith in both that illusion magic matters, and that people aren’t all bad, and are capable of changing for the better.

These lessons all come to play during Gus’s relationship with Hunter. Gus does not really like Hunter when they first meet. Hunter or “Caleb Jasper BloodWilliams” is a strange, rude mouthed, big kid, who Gus has not seen before, but getting Willow’s flyer derby team approved suddenly depends on him... It turns out “Caleb” is really Hunter, a.k.a the Golden Guard, and he is here to trick them into the roughest coven of them all. Yes Hunter regrets it and goes back to save them (actually he may have done it more for their palisman than them, but he still helped them). He did the right thing, only after lying to them, scamming them, and putting all of them in danger. Gus is not obligated to forgive Hunter or try and be his friend the next time meet. When they meet again Gus half expects Hunter to try and pull the same crap, until he learns that Hunter is on the run. Then he offers him help and a listening ear. Gus did this because he knows that Hunter is not 100% bad, feels empathy for how alone/confused/scared Hunter is, and he knows people can change for the better. Gus has come along way from the bratty, vindictive, kid he sometimes acted like in season 1a. To him these basic acts of kindness do not seem like much, but to Hunter, who is going through so much, they mean the world. It’s because of Gus’s influence that Hunter finds the courage to come out of hiding and publicly supports the rebel side. This indirectly helps lead to all 6 kids (I included King) being together on the day of Unity and able to help each other against Belos.

Gus Porter All and All

Gus is a really great, well thought out character. He is in the background more than some others, and I wish the show had brought him to the forefront more (I do believe that if the show had run longer we would have gotten more of him and Matty protecting the graveyard, Matty introducing him to his favorite book series, and Gus meeting Steve. Grrr). But even when Gus is stuck in the background he still has some really interesting arc’s going on and you miss out if you just dismiss him. I also appropriate Gus getting to do important things and be a hero from the background, he reminds me of Codename: Kids next Door’s numbah 5 in that respect. She mostly stayed out of the spotlight by choice, but was indisputably the backbone of her team. Gus’s journey through school and the insecurities that he deals with remind me a lot of myself when I was younger as well as friends I had back then. I am willing to bet a lot of kids in school can relate to Gus and I like how so much of his feelings and situation are shown to us instead of told. Its nice that kids can see him, and have him to help learn to not doubt or be so hard on them selves, You are special, the right people will see you as such. IF the voices in your head call you names, then tell them to shut up because they do not know.

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historyhermann · 1 year

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Reviewing Queer Animated Characters With Trauma

Amity fights Hunter in a season 2 episode of The Owl House

Recently, there has been a growing number of queer fictional animated characters with trauma. I decided to examine this trend and offer my thoughts.

Reprinted from The Geekiary, my History Hermann WordPress blog (it will be published there on Dec. 24) and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-first article I wrote for The Geekiary. This post was originally published on June 13, 2022.

Trauma is a common theme in fiction. This makes sense especially for conflict-prone series, either in live-action or animation. Recent years have made this even more pronounced as animation holds an "exceptional potential" to portray trauma, an emotional response to a distressing experience of some kind, unlike other mediums.

I'll examine over 20 characters, who are either confirmed as part of the LGBTQ community or implied as such. The characters described in this article are only a small sample of a larger list of characters. I've only chosen characters in Western animated shows that I have watched to date, as a similar post on anime characters would be as long as this one.

This post contains spoilers for the series that I'm writing about. With that, let me get started!

The Owl House

Luz and Amity dance together as their magic causes the grom monster to explode behind them

This fantasy and horror comedy animated series has trauma at its core. It emphasizes the importance of chosen family and discovering who you are as a person.

The show's protagonist, Luz Noceda (Sarah Nicole-Robles) ends up into a magical world called the Boiling Isles. It is far away from her home and she soon has no way of returning. While she makes friends along the way, what happens to her is, at times, traumatic. In fact, one reviewer even stated that nearly every resident of the Owl House, including Eda Clawthorne (Wendie Malick), King (Alex Hirsch), and Luz, have post-traumatic stress disorder, commonly known as PTSD.

By the second season of the series, Luz has begun a romantic relationship with Amity Blight (Mae Whitman). Luz is confirmed as bisexual by the show's creator, Dana Terrace, while Amity is a lesbian. Her voice actor is pansexual. Additionally, Eda is queer as she was in a relationship with Raine Whispers, a non-binary head witch of the Bard Covern. The voice actor of Raine, Avi Roque, is non-binary as well.

There's also Eda's sister, Lilith, who was recently implied as being asexual by her voice actor, Cissy Jones, the dads of Willow Park (Tati Gabrielle), Gilbert and Harvey, and the mysterious god-like creature named The Collector. The show's creator may have implied the character is non-binary in a recent tweet. Lilith was later confirmed as an aromantic asexual character.

All these characters, and every other character in the series, have trauma on some level. Even the series villain, Emperor Belos (Matthew Rhys), has a mind filled with decades of "triumph, trauma, and loss."

Amphibia

Anne (left) and Sasha (right) fight in the season two finale

This recently-concluded series may seem harmless at first, but there is more below the surface. The three protagonists, Anne Boonchuy (Brenda Song), Marcy Wu (Haley Tju), and Sasha Waybright (Anna Akana) open a magic box. They end up in a wild tropical land known as Amphibia. Their friendship faces strains and hardships, including betrayals, pain, and death.

One of these characters is prominently part of the LGBTQ community: Sasha. Voiced by Akana, a talented voice actress, the show’s creator, Matt Braly confirmed her as bisexual after the show’s finale. This built upon a bisexual sticker on her car's mirror in a final sequence. As it turns out, during an acceptance speech for the Streamy Awards she came out as bisexual, even though she was drunk when she made the speech since she didn’t expect to win the award.

Her character begins the series as a jerk, bully, and almost a villain of sorts. Sasha even fights the show’s protagonist, Anne, her high school friend, and butts heads with Marcy. She later works to make amends and fights King Andrias who has evil plans to take over the world.

Sasha joins other recurring LGBTQ characters, mostly in the show's last season. This includes Frodrick Toadstool and Toadie who have a gay romance, confirmed by the show's creator. Also, Yunan and Lady Olivia become a romantic lesbian couple, while Ally and Jess who run an Internet video channel together. It's also implied that Mr. X, voiced by RuPaul, is gay.

All these characters have some level of trauma in one way or another. At the same time, the series serves as a "form of solace" and can ameliorate trauma often associated with media like The Owl House.

Disenchantment

Bean fights with Gretel, a cannibalistic serial killer, in the season one episode "Faster, Princess! Kill! Kill!"

Although her father, Zog, works through his trauma in the most recent part of this mature animated series, Bean suffers from trauma as well. This is because events which involve a "serious threat to life...and feel beyond a person’s control" fill her life. Examples include loss of a parent, physical violence, sexual assault, military combat, or death of a loved one.

Through her role as princess, and then queen, these events include her father's live burial, an elevator chopping off the head of her friend, and kidnapping of her friend Elfo. She isn't alone with trauma, as her friends also have it as well, as do many other characters within this series. It shows that series is not afraid to tackle mental health as a theme.

In the most recent episodes of this series, she kisses a mermaid named Mora (Meredith Hagner). This romance and others with male characters, including Elfo, indicated she is bisexual or pansexual. She was directly confirmed as bisexual by an official Netflix account. Furthermore, Bean's voice actress, Abbi Jacobson, is also bisexual.

There are other LGBTQ characters in this series, like Odval and Sorcerio. They are a gay couple who live in the Dreamland castle. It is further implied that Big Jo and Porky may have been in a toxic relationship with one another.

All of them experience physical violence, loss, and serious threats to their lives in more ways than one.

High Guardian Spice

Olive and Rose fight in the 9th episode of this series

This series has major themes such as acceptance, togetherness, and discovering one's identity. Rosemary (Briana Leon), has a recurring nightmare where her mother disappeared and left a magical sword behind. Unsurprisingly, she gets nervous when her locket, which has an important family memory, gets lost.

Rosemary isn't alone. Sage (Lauren White) gets nervous when everything doesn't go according to plan. She ends up questioning if she should be at the magic academy and what "right things" she should say to people. The latter is emblematic of her social awkwardness.

Both are implied as being in love with each other, in what some shippers call Sagemary. Since Rosemary shows an attraction to a male student in one episode, she could be bisexual. One of the show's writers and voice actor of Amaryllis, Katie McVay, seemed to imply some the show's characters are bisexual. Parsley (Amber Romero) and Thyme (Michelle Deco) might be lesbian characters. The latter has a crush on a mermaid named Coral in one episode.

Anise and Aloe are a lesbian couple. Haviland Stillwell, a lesbian actress, voices Anise. Then there's Professor Caraway who reveals to Rosemary he is a trans man. The show's creator, Raye Rodriguez, who is a Cuban trans man, voices him. Finally, the snarky student Snapdragon appears to be on the road to transitioning toward a trans woman. Julia Kaye, a comics writer and trans woman, voices her.

Traumatic events shape all these characters and many others. This includes queer-coded characters like the catgirl Olive (Stephanie Sheh), Slime Boy (Julian Koster), and professor Wyverna Dretch (Stillwell).

Legend of Korra

Korra at a low place at beginning of the show's fourth season

Trauma fills this classic, but divisive, anime-inspired series. Trauma affects two of the protagonists, Korra and Asami Sato.

Throughout the series, Korra becomes poisoned, physically traumatized, and emotionally scarred. This manifests itself in her losing her bending abilities and having her friends captured or maimed. Through it all she has to continue fighting as the Avatar, with a duty to keep the peace. One reviewer said that her PTSD storyline is sad, but also "so good", as she survives through her drama which continues to inspire.

This contrasts with Asami. She loses almost everything in the series, from her imprisoned backstabbing father and almost losing her family company. One person argued that Asami's trauma inspires her to "save others from feeling how she felt." This includes Korra, who confides in Asami as she works through her trauma.

In the show's final episode, and subsequently confirmed by show's creators, Korra and Asami become a romantic couple. This was further shown in the graphic novel The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars. The same novel confirmed that Kya, daughter of Katara, is a lesbian. The novel also explores Kyoshi's bisexual romantic feelings.

During the series, Korra and Asami date Mako, a male character, and are good friends with one another. With Korrisami confirmed, both are canonically bisexual.

Final Space

Ash, imbued with the power of Invictus, prepares to strike Little Cato in the show's final episode

One of the protagonists of this cancelled mature animated series manifests trauma more than any other character. Ash Graven (Ashly Burch) is a complex character with a troubled past. Like other protagonists, the destruction of the Earth by the Lord Commander, and near-death experiences, traumatizes her.

Invictus, the show's primary villain, exploits her trauma triggers to great effect. Similar to how triggers for people with PTSD manifest themselves, she lashes out, blames others unfairly, retreats, and her emotions flair.

Before this happens, she bonds with a genderless lifeform trapped in Final Space, named Evra (Jasmin Savoy Brown). Their growing relationship makes clear Ash's romantic orientation as a lesbian. Since the show was not renewed, her relationship with Evra did not progress beyond one episode sequence.

Trauma and tragedy scar the memories and lives of every character in this series. This includes a recurring character named Clarence, confirmed by show creator Olan Rogers as bisexual, and Tribore Menendez, who may be genderfluid.

Just as literature can be a "valid resource" to learn about complex issues like trauma and mental health, with books even playing a role in recovering from mental illness, animated series can tackle the same topics. Final Space is one of those series.

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Fight between Jamack (left) and Wolf (right) in the first episode of this series

This young adult animated series is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland known as Las Vistas, set in what is now Los Angeles. Animals have morphed into anthropomorphic characters and humans fled underground to burrows. The show's protagonist, Kipo (Karen Fukuhara) is the series' narrative center and a foil for the "world’s trauma and alienation."

Kipo was never confirmed as part of the LGBTQ community. She is traumatized as much as any other character and with her troubled past. Some have headcanoned her as queer, but that is pure speculation.

The show's creator, Radford "Rad" Sechrist said he never thought of Kipo as LGBTQ. She was recently confirmed as a Blasian character. It wasn't directly stated in the series due to a worry by Sehcrist of "whitewashing and lightening black characters". This led to a bit of a hullabaloo online after his clunky response.

She is not the only character who afflicted by trauma. For instance, there's Benson Mekler (Coy Stewart) and Troy Sandoval (Giullian Yao Gioiello). Both later begin a romantic relationship. Sechrist hinted Troy as pansexual at one point. There's additionally Asher Berdacs who is non-binary and voiced by River Butcher, a non-binary actor. Each of them has their own childhood traumas, as does Kipo's friend, Wolf (Sydney Mikayla) and many other characters.

Even a mandrill named Scarlemagne (Dan Stevens), who wants to subjugate humanity, has deep-seated trauma. Any of his cruel acts are not justified by this, but they serve as a reason for what he did. While some object with his redemption of sorts, another villain is his abuser: Dr. Emilia (Amy Landecker), a manipulative and power-hungry scientist. Others have stated that her role as an abuser emphasizes the "potency of early trauma."

Tangled

Cass, using her moonstone powers, stands in front of her throne and speaks to Raps

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, called Tangled: The Series in the show's first season, focuses on trauma. The 2010 animated film Tangled, which preceded the series, also explores trauma, toxic parentage, and emotional abuse. Others even employed the terrible tower where Rapunzel "Raps" lives, by force, as a metaphor for stages of abuse.

The series introduces Cassandra "Cass" (by Eden Espinosa), a complex character with trauma and PTSD. She sings about it, declaring she has nothing left to lose as she goes down a "path paved in black." As acknowledged by storyboarder Amber Vanich, lesbian vibes were imbued in her drawings of Cass.

She has a troubled past like Raps. She has the same "mother", causing the show to declare they were "sisters". This couldn't be further from the truth. Gothel, the birth mother of Cass, was Raps' kidnapper, leading to irreparable trauma.

The evil Zhan Tri manipulates her, exploiting her trauma and plays on her triggers. As a result, she lashes out, blames Raps, and her emotions flair, especially when using moonstone powers to fight Raps, with sundrop powers. Often, Cass processes her thoughts and feelings about Raps, sometimes feeling that Raps is holding her back.

In the series finale, she helps Raps to defeat Zhan Tri and both reconcile. While Raps marries Eugene, her boyfriend since the series' beginning, Cass and Raps declare their love for one other. This is presumably platonic as Disney wouldn't allow it otherwise.

There is potential for a series spinoff of Cass, who departs on a journey at the series end, possibly to come to terms with her trauma and atone for her past misdeeds. Some fans have theorized a romantic ending for both characters, shipped as "Cassunzel," say Raps is pansexual or bisexual, or otherwise embrace this ship.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Adora and Catra clashing with one another in the season five opening

Trauma interlaces this now iconic series, a reboot of the 1980s Filmation animated series She-Ra: Princess of Power.

The series centers on Adora and Catra, voiced by Aimee Carrero and AJ Michalka. They begin as friends but continue to have complicated feelings as they are on different sides of the conflict. At the series' end, their romantic relationship begins. They kiss and it saves the world from destruction, canonizing what fans dub "Catradora."

Adora has a specific type of trauma. One reviewer described it as eco-trauma, saying that Adora suffers from treating ecological harm as a form of trauma, something which someone tries to repress to avoid its "painful effects." This repression for Adora is external, as the First Ones impose it on her and attempt to turn the entire planet into a Death Star-like weapon.

Even so, it is through this planet she can access the memories of her predecessor. Light Hope (Morla Gorrondona), Adora's AI guide of sorts, imposed a memory wipe to forget the previous She-Ra, Mara (Zehra Fazal). In the end, Adora doesn't sacrifice her life, but Catra saves her, with both confessing their love for one another.

Trauma continues to follow Adora throughout the series, as she feels unworthy of doing "anything good." In contrast, Catra appears self-assured on the surface, but she becomes plagued by her own doubt and guilt. This causes her to become controlling and aggressive, almost destroying the entire world at one point. More to the point, she spends a majority of the show as a broken and battered woman "defined by her trauma." She makes decisions dictated by her experience with loss rather than from a place of love.

Adventure Time

Marcy in monster form, and Bonnie, fighting together in the episode "Varmints"

Marceline "Marcy" Abadeer is a fan-favorite vampire queen in this animated series. Marcy is more than a wacky character voiced by Olivia Olson. Instead she is a bisexual badass. Her character informed how then-storyboarder Rebecca Sugar told LGBTQ storylines in the future.

Marcy has a long and painful life, with her past trauma defining her. In fact, she becomes a vampire, or more exactly a half-demon, half-vampire multiracial woman in a traumatic way, becoming a source of her misery. She becomes stunted as an 18-year-old and never grows beyond that. Even so, she goes through an emotional journey of sorts, feeling like a monster.

This doesn't happen on her own. She begins a romantic relationship with Princess Bonnibel "Bonnie" Bubblegum (Hynden Walch) in the series finale. The Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode "Obsidian" explores the relationship further. The episode was all the rage in fall 2020. Queer fans who love Bubbline (Bonnie and Marcy) were glad to see more of a focus on their relationship.

In that episode, Marcy grapples with her outer and inner demons, singing to Bonnie that she "always felt like a monster". Bonnie comforts her while she has her own insecurities. They work through her struggles together while Bonnie has her own traumas born from her position as ruler of the Candy Kingdom.

This is not unique to her. Protagonists Finn and Jake, voiced by Jeremy Shada and John DiMaggio, are often thrown into conflict, either with the Lich, or other enemies. Even BMO (Niki Yang), who is a computer/video game console unit, who has no definite gender, becomes traumatized through the series. The Ice King (Tom Kenny), Huntress Wizard (Maria Bumford), Flame Princess (Jessica DiCicco), and many others have trauma, too.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Mariner fights with her digital self in the episode "Crisis Point"

Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is a character in this mature sci-fi comedy series. She is a human and an ensign aboard a ship known as the USS Cerritos who likes to buck rules. This is in part because she is the daughter of the ship's captain, Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis), even though she is very good at "all things Starfleet."

Although some have argued that her trauma is sometimes played for laughs, the series still explains her motivations. Others have argued that the whole Starfleet crew needs therapy and better mental health care for everything they have gone through. One character, Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore), even dies at the end of one season to save Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero).

Mariner breaks protocol as a character, with the most recent season indicating she is bisexual or pansexual. At one point, the show's creator, Mike McMahan, stated that Mariner's former lover was Captain Amina Ramsey. He added that that "every Starfleet officer is probably at the baseline bisexual" in a sense.

She was also shown to have dated a man named Steve Levy. In one Season 2 episode she even declared that she had dated "bad boys, bad girls, bad gender non-binary babes, [and] ruthless alien masterminds" in the past. McMahan confirmed that Mariner will be dating a woman named Jennifer Sh'reyan (Lauren Lapkus) in the show's next season.

Mariner is not the only character with traumatic experiences. The same is the case for the ship's chief engineer, Andy Billups. He may be asexual, as he has no interest in having sex with male or female guards. Other characters are in thrown into conflict-prone situations as well, which are the breeding ground for trauma.

Arcane

Cait and Vi look in horror at Jinx's missile heading toward the Piltover council

Trauma and tragedy fill this mature series. This is balanced with a tone not "too dour" and a plot that doesn't drag the story down. This is a series with themes of class oppression taking place in a world with "no sexism, racism, or homophobia." Human experimentation, acceptance, struggle, and family separation are important themes. There's also depiction of attempted suicide, death, and kidnapping.

The adopted brother of Jinx (Ella Purnell), first known as Powder, taunts her, undermining her self-confidence. This combines with her fear of abandonment and guilt after some of her adopted family dies, causing her to become traumatized. She is still haunted by what happened in the past. Silco taps into these feelings, raising Jinx as her own. He doesn't fault her for lashing when when triggered, even when it threatens his own operations.

She isn't the only one affected by trauma. For Violet "Vi" (Hailee Steinfeld), this comes from her rough childhood living in the undercity, and separation from her sister, Jinx. For Caitlyn "Cait" Kiramman (Katie Leung), she has to deal with the pressure of working as an enforcer for the upper city of Piltover and new pressures of the undercity. This includes tense, stressful, and violent situations, especially with Vi.

Although some criticized its depiction, there is no doubt that in this series, Cait and Vi have romantic feelings for one another. It is what fans call "CaitVi," "Violyn" or the official moniker, "Piltover's Finest", with over 10,000 subscribers to subreddits for the pairing. In the aftermath of the end of the last season, Vi and Cait will likely have to pick up the pieces after Jinx assassinated the council members of Piltover.

gen:LOCK

Fight between Madrani (left) and "Sinclair" (right)

Like Arcane, this sci-fi mecha action series is mature and filled with sorrow. Due to a generally negative audience response and a subreddit which has turned against the show, renewal is unlikely. HBO Max and Rooster Teeth threw the show to the wolves. For all its faults, the series depicts trauma unlike any other, so it deserves a mention in this article.

Val/entina 'Val' Romanyszyn, who is a genderfluid and pansexual woman voiced by Asia Kate Dillon, goes through a lot in the series. The man she loves, Kazu Iida (Kōichi Yamadera), dies in front of her, and she watches countless others get injured or killed.

She is not alone in this. A demon named Nemesis, in the head of the show’s protagonist, Julian Chase (Michael B. Jordan) torments him throughout the series. It turns out that he is only a copy of his original self and the "demon" is another copy. Even so, he comes to terms with Nemesis and sees it as another part of himself.

Trauma and the subconscious are major themes in this series. Other members of Chase’s team, Cameron 'Cammie' MacCloud (Maisie Williams) and Yasamin 'Yaz' Madrani (Golshifteh Farahani) are also traumatized. Fighting the purportedly "evil" Union deeply affects Cammie, Yaz, Kazu, and Val, as does stresses from their lives before the war. The same is the case for Robert Sinclair, a fighter for the Polity and later a guerrilla. The show's second season reveals that he has a boyfriend.

Some reviewers have stated that the series has "mental illness, trauma recovery, technological intimacy and identity" at its center. Others said that the series has characters with distinct personalities who have to tackle their own trauma.

Closing thoughts

There are many other examples of characters with trauma who are part of the LGBTQ community, such as Daisy in Magical Girl Friendship Squad, and Fry and Hamburg in Kid Cosmic to give two examples.

There are other characters who struggle with trauma, although it is harder to pin them into the LGBTQ community apart from headcanons. Take, for example, Beck in Tron:Uprising, Reagan Ridley in Inside Job, and Ron Stoppable in Kim Possible.

I would be remiss to not mention Steven Universe in the series of the same name. Due to his fighting against corrupted Gems and Gem warriors, he develops trauma. This is further explored in the limited 2019-2020 series, Steven Universe Future, which brings trauma to the forefront. He attempts to come to terms with and address the traumatic incidents which plague his mind.

In the end, more series with mature themes and LGBTQ characters suggests that characters racked with trauma are in the cards.

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gaydiation-poisoning · 11 months

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If I have to see that Lib/Democrat circle jerk post with the fuckin Alex Hirsch 'Imperfect allies' screenshot one more goddamn time SOMEBODY is gonna fucking die

There's imperfect allies, and then there's war mongering, imperialist, exploitative, abusive, lying, police militarizing, environment destroying, corrupt capitalists.

And if THAT is your idea of an 'imperfect ally' then who the FUCK is your enemy

#leftist #liberals #democrat

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showtoonzfan · 2 years

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I get we need lots more LGBT+ representation around in the world, but, like,,, media with straight couples is still going to, y’know, exist??? Wether we like it or not. It may be a little redundant and disappointing to see yet a another straight couple, but just because it’s a movie where the two romantic leads are heterosexual, it doesn’t mean that the movie is automatically going to be bad. Hold your judgements for until it releases.

Sorry if my point sounds offensive or muddled, I just wanted to say my piece.

Agreed, and it’s alright. Like…..here’s my gripe.

I get it, I want more gay stories too, but the hypocrisy really shows when people say they want more cultured stories, and then when they finally get that, they bitch because it doesn’t meet their standards. And once again, the damn movie isn’t even OUT yet. Like I can see where the LGBTQ+ community is coming from, but if you’re a person who’s attacking and bitching about a movie that isn’t even out yet simply because it’s a straight story, then I don’t sympathize with you. And yes, I get that people are also sick of the “forbidden love” trope but just because a movie has a trope that’s been used a lot, doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad, so long as it can add something new and creative to the table. We’ll have to wait and see. But yeah, I didn’t want to say this but people really need to wake up. I get that we all want more gay stories, but people need to realize that it’s fucking DISNEY. We’re never going to get an upfront movie that is a love story between two gay characters, at least not now. The closest we have to that are the Disney channel shows like Luz and Amity from the Owl House, and Molly and Libby from The ghost and Molly Mcgee. Disney doesn’t care about gay people, most of the time they have few gay characters only for clout and people need to realize that, like how they hyped up Lefou from the live action version of Beauty and the Beast, only for the “gay scene” to be 2 seconds long. I’m not saying you can’t want for more and demand more, but honestly at this point, if y’all want more gay media, watch something else and don’t turn to Disney, cause they’re mostly greedy assholes. It’s sad, but it’s the truth, I mean look at what Alex Hirsch had to go through when he was writing Gravity Falls, or how Disney cut out a character in Turning Red that was supposed to be trans, and another character that was going to kiss a female.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound like I’m saying “oh the people who keep saying “we want more gay stories” should drop it lol”- cause I’m all for wanting to make a change and expanding on storytelling and media, and people deserve to ask for that, it’s just that they’re doing it in the worst way possible. By shitting on a movie that isn’t even out yet, you’re not getting your point across well. If you want to turn to Disney and ask for more stories regarding the LGBTQ+ community, do something like protesting, or making blogs and having your voice heard. Or, you could work on a story yourself. But again, I wouldn’t be so mad had some of the community not once again acted like jerks (not every member, just referring to the people who are mad at this movie because it’s straight). Y’all need to realize that Disney is the last…the LAST company you should expect to provide you with gay media. I do hope they change some day, but it ain’t ganna be now. Just don’t take it up with a movie that isn’t even freaking out yet.

#ask #my asnwer #my response #anti disney #lgbtq

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val3ntino · 1 year

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* · ˚ THIS ᴬᴵᴺ'ᵀ A FUCKING 𝓶𝓸𝓿𝓲𝓮. YOU ᴬᴵᴺ'ᵀ THE FUCKING 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓻 { . . . } WE'RE JUST A BUNCH OF 𝑴 𝑰 𝑺 𝑭 𝑰 𝑻 𝑺 WITH A 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕.

# 𝐕̲ 𝐀̲ 𝐋̲ 𝟑̲ 𝐍̲ 𝐓̲ 𝐈̲ 𝐍̲ 𝐎̲ . an independent , private , ⅋ highly selective portrayal of robbie valentino from alex hirsch's 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓋𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝒻𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓈. headcanon based. low activity. minors ⅋ personal blogs : do not interact. embalmed by alyssa ☠ established in january 2023. basic rules ⅋ info can be found below cut.

♡ affiliated with : @nrthwst , @c0rdroy.

* · ˚ WHY ᴰᴼ ᵂᴱ ONLY FEEL 𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓿𝓮 { . . . } WHEN WE'RE READY TO 𝑫 𝑰 𝑬 ? ¿ ?

✟ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 : a sheep in wolf's clothing , the misfit , inferiority superiority complex , the jerk with a hidden heart of gold , heavy fucking metal , ⅋ boys that wear more makeup than your girlfriend.

¹ CARRD. ² SIDEBLOG. ³ PINTEREST. ⁴ SPOTIFY. ⁵ MAIN BLOG.

ROBERT "ROBBIE" STACEY VALENTINO. CISMALE. 18 - 25 YEARS OLD. (VERSE DEPENDENT) GRAVITY FALLS , OREGON. VOCALIST ⅋ LEAD GUITARIST FOR THE TOMBSTONES. ( ON TOUR NOW IN A CITY NEAR YOU ! )

a full rundown of my rules can be found on my main blog but here's the short version if you're feeling lazy ! (don't worry , i understand.)

this blog is going to be considered low - medium activity. my main blog is @daevilhorns and your chances of finding me there when i'm not here are very high.

basic roleplay etiquette applies. don't be nasty , don't be an asshole , don't be weird in the uncool way , and don't steal. i've been around here long enough and i'm tired.

the content i post here shouldn't be very triggering but i'm usually very mindful about tagging the basics. i personally have zero triggers.

i love shipping and robbie is an extremely easy muse to ship with if your muse doesn't mind an asshole that's working on himself. however ! please don't forceship on me. ( unless we're friends. then we're automatically forceshipping. ) just run it by me first ! i'm sure i'll be down. on that note , i'm a big robbie x wendy and robbie x tambry shipper. but i'll never go into interactions with those muses assuming those ships unless we've established it.

my name is alyssa ( she/her , twenty5 ) and i'm a metal music and all things horror enthusiast ! i'll be your local emo kid turned metalhead mom for the rest of your journey. my discord is available to mutuals upon request and my im's are open to everyone. please be aware that i'm a slow writer , a hoarder , and my social battery drains very quickly. if i'm quiet , it's not you , i promise. you're doing amazing sweetie.

#last updated: 02 / 05 / 2023.#she / her. twenty5.#d̲o̲ n̲o̲t̲ r̲e̲b̲l̲o̲g̲.#i fully committed to the bit. xo

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chaoskirin · 2 years

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Media and Mistakes

In light of the video Alex Hirsch posted about the emails with Disney Standards and Practices, I’d like to remind everyone of the following:

Creators often have limited control about what they are able to “get away with” on screen. S&P creates problems where there are none. And instead of telling religious people to fuck off (as they should) they bow down and cater to them.

Yes, shows created in the United States are controlled by what the most religious people in the country will think of them. This is often because if Momma Born-Again Christian doesn’t approve of two men hugging, she won’t let Junior watch the cartoon or buy any show-based merch.

So you get things like ‘bottles will be spun’ getting shit-canned because what if kids conjure images of kissing in their heads? How will they remain chaste for their future monogamous partner?

It’s censorship under the guise of protecting children. And while this seems innocent enough--if a bit misplaced--it’s led to further censorship on materials written and meant for adults. I’m not going to link it here because then tumblr will tank the post, but look up a Virginia judge’s decision on “A Court of Mist and Fury,” wherein she opined that the book was obscene, and so as not to be seen by children, should not be sold in book stores.

There are several other cases of book censorship in the United States RIGHT NOW, mostly involving queer material.

And with Democrats becoming disillusioned with the current administration and either not voting or (more confusingly) voting for Republicans, this is only going to continue.

Change does not happen overnight. The GOP has been playing the long game for over 50 years and are only now seeing their goals come to fruition.

With left-leaning voters’ impatience and resistance to playing the long game, I see attacks happening at the front lines denouncing shows for “not being representative enough.” If a creator tries only to be handcuffed by their network’s standards and practices department, the entire show is thrown in the trash. I often see the term “queerbaiting” thrown around without knowledge of what it actually means.

And just last week, left-leaners had a knee-jerk reaction against Lizzo--A known ally--telling her she should have known the meaning of a certain word and to literally “do better.”

Lizzo, upstanding as always, changed the lyric to the song. The backlash was never necessary. Yet some people on Twitter have decided that the slip was unforgivable.

(And no--not everyone knows everything about every issue. This requires a whole conversation about positive Dunning-Kruger effect that would be too long to post here.)

With left-leaning disillusionment, the initial response is always anger and dismissal. So often when well-meaning people make mistakes, they go vehemently unforgiven, especially when there is any initial pushback or questioning.

While pushback and defensiveness are frustrating, I’ve often seen confused allies become initially defensive, only to change their mind with more information. Unfortunately, it’s become taboo to ask questions, which means by the time these people come around, they are unceremoniously dropped, and a new champion finds themself appointed in the eye of public scrutiny.

And this cycle perpetuates. Perfection is expected. Any deviation from perfection is unacceptable.

I will concede that after so many years, so many deaths, so much pushback from the right... Anger is often an appropriate response to many things. But it’s important to temper that anger and use it appropriately. When queer media is discarded for a single mistake, the people involved stop trying. When queer media is discarded, it sends a message to conservative networks that that media is not wanted, and so no more media of that type is made.

Boycotting a show for not being representative enough does not send a message to networks that they need better representation. It sends a message that they need LESS representation.

We also run into a new effect brought on by the age of the internet wherein well-meaning people essentially dogpile creators and messages of concern and constructive criticism are lost in a sea of absolute vitriol and rage. I’ve seen queer creators and allies run off their platform for a mistake they corrected many years prior, and I’ve also seen creators disconnecting completely from their fanbase to protect themselves.

This leaves behind people who don’t care what you think. For example, no matter what you say, JK R*wling is never going to leave her platform. Conversely, no matter what you say, Jenna Marbles is never going to return.

I know you’re tired. I know you’re tired of handholding. Again, I accept that the anger is righteous and oftentimes deserved, but it is SO IMPORTANT to remember that you are now a participant in a long game and you HAVE to play it. Become savvy. Learn who can be talked to and who is a lost cause. Reserve your anger for those who refuse to change. Try to give the people who mean well but made a mistake a second chance.

I hope I was able to adequately able to convey what I wanted to say here. And I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people whose response will be that it’s not their job to educate people. But the anger has gone so far as to be damaging, and I’m afraid what the future will bring if queer media is allowed to be censored for being obscene.

#american politics #not bestiary

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aholotte · 6 months

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i had a dream where dana terrace got a new girlfriend and then went off about how much of a jerk alex hirsch was (they broke up a while ago if you didn't know), causing hirsch to be shunned the same way other cartoon creators like butch hartman, justin roiland, chris savino, or john k were. i saw a post about hirsch and i thought to myself "too bad he's shitty" only to realize that it was only a dream. still, if hirsch turns out to actually be a piece of shit, i'm gonna be really disappointed. this is why i don't really idolize anyone or subscribe to celebrity/creator worship culture

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legendary-defender-of-fandoms · 5 years

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Grunkle Stan - The Difference Between “Lovable Jerk” and “Annoying Asshole”

Does anyone else think our media is over saturated with jerk characters? It seems like every dramatic show these days has at least one jerk, and the sitcoms & animated shows aimed at older audiences are composed of nothing BUT jerks! And I really don’t get the obsession. Someone said that the appeal of Jerk characters is seeing folks do the things we wish we could do, or hear them say the things we know we shouldn’t say. But there are a lot of ways that sort of wish fulfillment can be abused or misunderstood by producers. And if everyone in your show is awful to each other all the time, how is that enjoyable? There’s enough misery of that sort in real life. So I try to avoid shows that feature mostly jerk characters, or revolve around characters being horrible to each other.

But then I started watching Gravity Falls, and I slowly realized that Grunkle Stan was not only a jerk, but possibly the most perfect jerk ever written. And there are 3 reasons why that is.

1) He’s More Than Just A Jerk

One of the many strengths of Gravity Falls is their lack of one-note characters. No one in the show exists just to say some stock cliches or fill some niche. Grunkle Stan has his jerk moments, but he’s not there just to make fun of Dipper & Mabel or crack some old person jokes. Sometimes his jerk moments are meant to be tough love, as we saw in “Dreamscaperers” when he told Soos he wanted to prepare Dipper to fight back. Other times, Stan will put up the jerk front to hide his softer side, like when Dipper & Mabel ditched him to hunt for the Gobblewonker with Soos. And then there are moments when Stan drops the jerk act altogether, like when he gave Mabel the trophy sticker & wished her luck in the mini-golf contest against Pacifica. Stan has to carry a lot of the Mystery & drama in the story, and that wouldn’t be possible if he was just an asshole all the time.

2) There Are Consequences For His Jerk Behavior

In the DVD commentary on the Gravity Falls collector’s set, Alex Hirsch said he always wanted to make sure there were always consequences for jerky behavior. Mostly because he also isn’t a fan of people being awful to each other without repercussions, but also because the consequences of jerky behavior can be just as funny as whatever the jerk did. Sometimes the come-uppance is just simple karma, like when Grunkle Stan scared Dipper with the monster mask & gave himself a coughing fit from laughing so hard. And sometimes Stan winds up getting as good as he gave, like when Sheriff Blubs threw him in the stocks all day for yelling at townsfolk & making fun of Pioneer Day. If Grunkle Stan just insulted everyone all the time & never had to face any consequences, his bit would get old fast.

But this also ties into the final (and most important) reason why Grunkle Stan is such an amazing jerk.

3) He’s Self-Aware.

Grunkle Stan KNOWS he can be a jerk. Hell, sometimes he ENJOYS being a jerk. He knows there will be consequences for his actions, and sometimes he decides they’re worth it. But he also knows there are limitations to his jerky charm. When he teased Dipper & Mabel after their epic gnome fight & they just walked past without dignifying him with a response, Stan knew he needed to tone back the jerkiness & apologized by letting them each have a free item from the gift shop. No one had to tell Stan he was going too far with his teasing - he caught on right away & fixed his mistake. And there are tons of other little moments in the show when he COULD have been a jerk, but decided not to.

Tyler Cutebiker, for example, has probably never been heckled by Stan because Tyler’s the nicest guy in Gravity Falls. Sure, Stan locked him in the Mystery Shack gift shop once while he took the kids to Greasy’s for pancakes, but I think that says more about Stan’s trust in Tyler to not steal anything, break anything, or discover the Portal while he hemmed and hawed over potential Christmas presents for friends & family. And while Stan & the kids DID teepee Tyler’s house after the mayoral election, I’m pretty sure Stan would’ve done that to whoever won.

TL:DR - Grunkle Stan is a perfect jerk because he serves a greater purpose than just insulting everyone, the karmic repercussions for his behavior can be just as amusing/satisfying as the behavior itself, and he knows how to keep himself in check.

#gravity falls #stanley pines #grunkle stan #disney #alex hirsch #this is why I stopped watching Family Guy ages ago #it’s just a bunch of people being horrible to each other #Stan is the greatest jerk ever written #also a secret fourth reason why Stan is an awesome jerk #his favorite person to bully & insult is himself #seriously he’s always saying self-depreciating stuff #that boy needs to learn to love himself

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heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon · 1 year

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Like, literally all of them? Go fuck yourself?

"Less representation than Gravity Falls..."

So...

I guess all of the crippled queer kids are just going to have to be okay with Tyrone (strangely appropriative and fetishistic name for the disfigured clone of your 13 y/o white boy character) happily exclaiming something like how he's apparently "Better Off Dead!" when he gets a soda poured on him and destroyed, huh? Oh Wait! I forgot.. That was Paper-Jam Dipper!

Nope. I think crippled queer kids would much rather appreciate Toby and Minty being there just fine. After all, I think that it must be the first time we've ever seen any visible wheelchair users in a Queer Coded Disney Show since Kim Possible. Let alone this queer coded and let alone twice. And they're two separate characters existing at the same time and their presence doesn't even revolve around teaching anyone anything! They're just ALLOWED to EXIST!

Didn't see anything like this in Grabbity Balls though, did see a stereotypical man-ish little girl with a big, deep man-ish voice be implied to have "something wrong with her" by an adult authority figure character who's voiced by the same straight, white, openly anti-black Canadian man that you all have been heralding as the ultimate alley for your fictional LGBTQ+ Cartoon Characters' rights, for some reason.

At least the Star Crew tried to give us this:

Which in my opinion was a bit more forwarded and impactful than some dude bro frat boy "love guru" type character just wearing a bunch of symbols and ornaments around his neck, even if they both didn't get through the censors ... You all know this is way more explicit than that.

Speaking of in your face and explicit Queer Coding:

Golly gee... I wonder why such cute and beefy but shy Little Leather Monster Complete with his own Harness and what appears to be a Gimp Mask just had to be regulated to the back?! So funny how Daron Nefcy literally said Disabled Rights, Trans Rights, and Leather/Kinkster Rights while Alex Hirsch only said Eugenics, "Trans Rights" (if you can pass to him, if he can pronounce your name, and you don't say "bae" ) and of course, let's not forget Cops at Pride, despite how little they could apparently both get away with... :)

... But of course, the last and most important Queer Reading to me in Star vs. :

The whole idea of being forced to be with someone you don't love to the point where you have to take a Secret Lover and elope with them and preserve your own sanity because you're a"Bad Girl" who likes a lot of dirty, kinky things to the point where your own voice actress is herself an open kinkster who likes dirty kinky things and that shows through her fun performance, as well as the canonical writings of this kinky character.

And we're not even getting into all of the WAM and Food Fetish stuff in Star vs. The Forces of Evil but it's there, and it's 'glorious'

And after the show is over ,like the actual Queen of Darkness you are, you gotta go sue your old washed up has-been rock star ex boyfriend for misusing the forces of what he says is kink to abuse you ... Because kink is great actually and he's just evil.

Anyway, Esmé Bianco is amazing.

Don't even get me started on Meteora and the blatant disrespect. Especially after Jessica Walter's passing.

I'm writing this post because I'm just ... So fucking sick of people shitting all over the wonderful representation that Star vs. was able to even achieve in favor of praising Alex Hirsch, every time... When in reality, Star vs. The Forces of Evil has overall better representation and overt, and, as some have even said, both in out the show, literally abject Queerness in it than Hirsch will ever have in whichever eye y'all tried to put the eye-patch on your sexy twink Bill Ciphers only to have Hirsch shit on all that and immediately "fix it" by redesigning it as some disfigured ablest caricature before literally switching over to yet another anti-black one.

Dana broke up with Hirsch for a reason: He's a jerk!

If you think that Daron didn't do a "queer enough" narrative with Star vs. despite it being so by it's nature since day one, despite that being already being promised by it's very nature in it's influence being Sailor Moon and Scott Pilgrim, and if you read the Book of Spells even and still say shit like: "I don't see how Star vs. is QUEER????"

Then like, I'm sorry you can't look a little deeper to find that queerness already everywhere in the narrative all around you and if you actually think that Alex Hirsch ever did Representation TM better than Daron Nefcy, all I can say is that I'm sorry you're like a misogynist with shit taste in men and I'm so glad Dana Terrace is free from her shitty boyfriends shadow now at least.

Saying something even more petty about this because I'm gay: A giant, "Size Shifting", People Eating, Purple Pussy Monster who spends his time in mostly just booty shorts, his Chocolate Fountain Jumping Wife who orgasms when she eats candy and left her arranged marriage so that could have more orgasms, and their Giantess, Purple Pussy Monster of a daughter who sucks the souls out of people and spent most of her life as the Milfier than her own Mom, Terrifying Headmistress of a reform school, where she sucked the life of her own students in a Bathory-uqse fashion, before blowing up her cyborg simp, with his own heart, then probably being able to use the severed arm of her Lizard Cyborg Ex Boyfriend as a make-shift dildo to get a final wank in before ultimately experiencing a growth spurt, losing her mind, and killing everyone ... Will always be more Queer in their very nature, than a floating stale dorito in a top hat and two "gay" cops that are designed to be classicist, racist stereotypes for the sake of the unspoken running "joke" that they could even get along, ever were...

And again... If you're an adult and 'Star Vs.' still isn't enough for you... Then maybe you should STOP looking to cartoons and Disney for your ideal representation and make your own...

I'm done.

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eerna · 5 years

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the number of times I stop to rewind GF to hear a joke again says a lot about me as a person

#it's not my fault alex hirsch delivers his lines with enough conviction to move a mountain #''he's a fat naked jerk''#me watching a 7+ show: ah yes this is my exact type of humor #gf liveblog

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wayward-delver · 4 years

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Don’t hate me, but I honestly think Amity Blight is a better rival character than Pacifica. Don’t get me wrong, I ended up loving her later but Amity is definitely more three-dimensional and serves more to the plot than just being a stuck up jerk to the protagonists. She’s also actually a good person at heart and does nice things like reading to little kids, tries to play fair, and being grateful to those who help her. But she’s is so caught up with her pressuring and competitive life trying to be the best witch she can is persistently bullied by her older siblings that she’s become outwardly cold and bitter to hide her vulnerability so as to not get hurt.

Pacifica’s problems may be relatable to some sure, what with incredibly overbearing parents and all. However, most of her character’s screentime was just being a jerk, the characters hating her for it, and then her being punished for it. These plot points are generic, shallow, repetitive, and are ultimately just there to make Mabel and Dipper look better and set off a revenge scheme than actually getting somewhere important or trying to understand her like Luz did. After the Northwest Manor, she had an enormous leap forward in likeability and humanity seeming like it would be setting up for more significance in the story, nope had to wait for the follow-up comics for that.

The Owl House promotes good communication and empathy early on rather than just feeding the fire with more toxicity. Please don’t hate me for this, Gravity Falls has been and still is one of my favorite shows. It's okay to look back on it years later and spot things that you didn’t notice earlier and consider how it could’ve been done better. Alex Hirsch's name wouldn’t be slandered for this as he’s also working on The Owl House too and has a close relationship with the director. (If that wasn’t obvious)

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adhdfixations · 2 years

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💢💎🍀

Hello, friend!!! Ty for asking me stuff! :D Same as the last two, Gravity Falls (🌲) and Over the Garden Wall (🍂)

💢- What do you NOT like about your hyperfixation? is there something you would want to change about it?

🌲 - HMMMMMM hmmm I think I would have liked Mabel’s character arc to have been a little clearer. She’s a goofy kid who sometimes can be selfish (because… y’a know, she’s a kid) and Dipper would do the same and then have a very clear redemption where he rights his wrongs, and I feel like Mabel could’ve had something more there, too. In the comic they mention it briefly that she’s “trying to be a better sister” but I’d like to have seen more in the show. I STILL LOVE HER THOUGH 10000/10 babie

🍂 - MORE EPISODES GOD DAMN IT - but other than that nothing. The characters are clear and relatable and the story is brilliant. Maybe a little bit longer after the conclusion where we see Wirt apologize in the hospital for being a jerk, but idk that’s a little nitpicky and it was still a satisfying ending.

💎- Are there any fun facts or trivia that you would like to share?

🌲 - OK OK god I have so much. So much. But I’m completely normal about this so uhh let me pick one. Did you know that the cipher wheel shown in the beginning of every ep (the one with all of the emblems of the main characters) was total bullshitting? And then Alex Hirsch saw people trying to figure it out and was like “oh damn I have to do something with this now” they didn’t even know if Bill was gonna show up he was mostly an inside joke and they threw that cipher in to look mysterious. Also Alex during production had a very strict rule book with few rules that SHOULD NOT BE BROKEN. For one, characters were NOT allowed to have “Garfield eyes” - half lidded. He said it made them look dumb. And the second one I remember is Dipper and Mabel love each other and care about each other, and shouldn’t be seen fighting often. It’s very cute.

🍂 - Most people probably know the trivia, but my favorite is 1) Wirt was actually not meant to leave The Unknown, he was going to be redeemed by dying initially, 2) the story was going to have a completely different direction with the beast and the train (the boys would be told that the train will bring you to death, but it actually brings you to life, and the beast was a conductor trying to help these boys but being misunderstood), 3) Wirt and Greg (according to the comics) still visit the unknown together in their dreams, and 4) In the official merch “For Sara” tape, you can hear a clip of baby Wirt talking to his father, who is voiced by Patrick McHale, who was the director and PERFECT for that voice (and it’s hecking adorable)

🍀- Do you have any kins or comfort characters from your hyperfixation?

🌲 - I don’t really understand what a kin is (kinning? Kinney?? Kidney idk, I’m not very hip) but both Dipper and Mabel will have a special place in my heart. I was always top of every class, struggled with self identity (and crushing on people WAYYY out of my league lmao), enjoyed conspiracies and mystery novels, loved adventure, felt misunderstood and have always been a bit of an outcast, so Dipper Pines would be probably the best. Of course, I also wear mostly sweaters, I’m a bit rambunctious and energetic, love sweets, love animals, have lots of tactile hobbies involving scrapbooking, art and needlework and if I could have any pet I wanted I’d have a pig, so Mabel is another one.

🍂 - Wirt!! My boy. Again, still vague on what kinning is?? But Wirt is my favorite in terms of relatability. Greg is my favorite more from the standpoint of “he’s adorable and I want to love and protect him” (and maybe I want to be a little more creative and fun like him), but I’ve always related to Wirt. I drink black tea, wear mostly sweaters that look like something academic, enjoy music and poetry (I’m actually a published poet!!), struggled with social groups (“EVERYONE HATES ME!!!” “Oh hey Wirt” SO RELATABLE), I’m spacey, clumsy and tend to retreat into my own little world. Plus I stutter a lot and fumble over my words. I play guitar, so not quite clarinet, but the idea is there. I don’t relate to the anxiety quite as much anymore, since I’ve pulled myself out of that place, but watching that as a kid made me feel like I was watching myself (except I’m not an ass to my siblings haha).

#boy I CANNOT keep these short to save my life #I could talk about these two shows for HOURS ask me shit I love them #TY ANON MWAH!!!! HAVE A GOOD DAY I’ll get you some soup and bread stay a while #text post #ask me #answered #over the garden wall #gravity falls

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wrestlingisfake · 3 years

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AEW Fake Rankings, 9/25/2021

Men's singles division - babyfaces

CM Punk

Bryan Danielson

Jon Moxley (GCW world champion)

Chris Jericho

Cody Rhodes

Darby Allin

Christian Cage (Impact men's world champion)

Eddie Kingston

Orange Cassidy

Brian Pillman, Jr.

Men's singles division - heels

Kenny Omega (AEW men's world champion, AAA mega champion)

Miro (AEW TNT champion)

MJF

Malakai Black

Adam Cole

Andrade El Idolo

Matt Hardy

Powerhouse Hobbs

Shawn Spears

Daniel Garcia*

Unranked: Brian Cage, Dante Martin, Dustin Rhodes, Frankie Kazarian, Feugo Del Sol, Jake Hager, John Silver, Lance Archer, Lee Johnson, Matt Sydal, PAC, QT Marshall

* Not listed on official AEW website roster

A big talking point lately is that AEW's roster has gotten pretty huge. One effect of this expansion is that it's a major pain in the ass for me to keep track of all the wrestlers who mainly compete on the YouTube shows. Going forward, I'll be focusing on the performers who have wrestled in the past 30 days on television or pay-per-views.

There's concern that the big stars from other major-league companies (mostly WWE) will crowd out the wrestlers who came up from the minors. That issue became more clear to me when I put together the above list. Twelve of my men's top 20 came to AEW best known for their WWE runs, and Omega made his name in New Japan. So if you expected AEW to be "the best of the rest," you're left with Darby, Eddie, Orange, Pillman, MJF, Hobbs, Garcia, and a bunch of guys in the background.

We'll have to see if this becomes a problem. I'm optimistic that AEW knows what they're doing, and wrestlers will be regularly cycled into and out of the spotlight. But WWE has conditioned wrestling fans to think that if a wrestler only appears on the C-show, then the bookers have totally given up on them. So I don't blame fans for being skeptical that AEW can find a better way. It's on AEW to prove that guys like Brian Cage, Pac, John Silver, Dante Martin, and Lee Johnson will get their day in the sun. And that's not even getting into the dozens of wrestlers that aren't listed above.

Men's tag team division - babyfaces

Lucha Bros. - Rey Fenix & Penta El 0M (AEW tag team champions, AAA tag team champions)

Santana & Ortiz

Jurassic Express - Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy

Evil Uno & Stu Grayson

Chuck Taylor & Wheeler YUTA*

Men's tag team division - heels

The Young Bucks - Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson

Men of the Year - Ethan Page & Scorpio Sky

FTR - Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood

The Butcher & The Blade

Private Party & Marq Quen & Isiah Kassidy

2point0 - Matt Lee & Jeff Parker

TH2 - Jack Evans & Angelico

* Not listed on official AEW website roster

At any given time, AEW has about 16-20 active tag teams, but a lot of them are mainly on Dark and Elevation. Limiting the rankings to teams that have been on real TV in the past month gives us just twelve men's teams. Then again, that's still more than you'll see on most other wrestling shows.

I think it's important that three of the heel teams (Butcher/Blade, Quen/Kassidy, Evans/Angelico) are in Matt Hardy's stable, so it feels like Matt is begging for one of those teams to break away and turn face. The Dark Order also features three teams (Uno/Grayson, John Silver/Alex Reynolds, Alan Angels/Preston Vance), but their storyline about internal problems could break up one or more of those pairings, if not the entire faction. Interestingly, they've started to set up a feud between the entire Hardy Family Office and the sort-of reunited Dark Order, which may be where they blow off a lot of these issues.

Women's division - babyfaces

Ruby Soho

Kris Statlander

Thunder Rosa

Anna Jay

Tay Conti

Hikaru Shida

Big Swole

Riho

Red Velvet

Leyla Hirsch

Women's division - heels

Britt Baker (AEW women's world champion)

Jade Cargill

Nyla Rose

The Bunny

Penelope Ford

Jamie Hayter

Abadon

Diamante*

Unranked: Emi Sakura, Kiera Hogan*, KiLynn King*

* Not listed on official AEW website roster

AEW doesn't do a lot of women's matches on Dynamite and Rampage, but because of the battle royale on the 9/4 pay-per-view some of the overlooked ladies managed to make the cut.

We've seen some alliances forming in this division, which has stoked talk of introducing a women's tag team championship. However, it looks like AEW has other plans, involving a new women's TBS title to complement the men's TNT title.

I don't think the women's roster is deep enough to support any new belts. That doesn't mean I don't want a secondary title or a tag title. I do. But I'm not convinced that introducing a new title will commit AEW to actually push more wrestlers and expand the roster. That commitment is what I really want; new belts are just gravy.

Part-time/semi-retired: Chavo Guerrero Jr., Homicide, Karl Anderson (Impact men's tag team champion), Luke Gallows (Impact men's tag team champion), Mark Henry, Minoru Suzuki, Rebel, Sting, Tully Blanchard, Paul Wight

I don't get the impression that Homicide and Suzuki will be sticking around for very long. Aside from them, all AEW is getting from the "forbidden door" these days is Gallows and Anderson, and all they do lately is stand in the back of Kenny Omega's entourage. These crossovers have been fun and all, but they've been more like Green Lantern/Silver Surfer than JLA/Avengers, if you get my drift.

The Dan Lambert/American Top Team storyline appears to be setting up some kind of match involving Junior dos Santos, Jorge Masvidal, Paige VanZant, and a bunch of other MMA jagoffs I can't be bothered to remember. We'll see if that actually happens, or if they just jerk around about it for another two months.

No TV or PPV matches in 30 days: Aaron Solo, Alan Angels, Alex Reynolds, Anthony Bowens, Austin Gunn, Billy Gunn, Colt Cabana, Colten Gunn, Griff Garrison, Joey Janela, Luther, Marko Stunt, Max Caster, Nick Comoroto, Peter Avalon, Preston Vance, Ricky Starks (FTW champion), Shawn Dean, Sonny Kiss, Wardlow

This doesn't include people like Julia Hart and Serpentico, who regularly appear for AEW but aren't on the official roster and apparently aren't under contract. Regardless, this gives you a good sense of which wrestlers would be the "AEW Dark roster," if we treated it like a separate brand or something. It'll be interesting to check in a few months which of these names are still stuck in this category.

No matches in 30 days: Anthony Ogogo, Brandi Rhodes, Brandon Cutler, Christopher Daniels, Leva Bates, Michael Nakazawa, Sammy Guevara, Yuka Sakazaki

As huge as AEW's roster is, it's impressive that only eight wrestlers are listed here. Guevara has a match set for 9/29, and Daniels is doing a little crossover thing on Impact Wrestling. Brandi just got back from maternity leave, and while I assume she plans to get back in the ring, that remains to be seen. As for the others, it's possible some of these people have injuries or are taking time off, and the details just haven't gotten out.

Inactive

Darius Martin (knee - unspecified ACL injury)

Hangman Page (paternity leave)

Kip Sabian (undisclosed injury)

Serena Deeb (left knee - unspecified injury)

Trent Beretta (neck - herniated intervertebral disc)

The big story here is Page, who was being set up for a major run for Kenny Omega only to suddenly lose his title shot and disappear from the show. That left everyone pretty anxious for Page to get back, especially since a wave of big new stars could crowd him out of his spot. I'm sure AEW knows when Hangman is scheduled to return, but there's no way for any of us to figure it out, which is frustrating.

Trent had neck fusion surgery, which has a notoriously slow recovery time; I don't expect him to be on TV until the middle of 2022. I haven't seen any kind of timetable for Sabian or Martin, probably because there are so few details available about the extent of their injuries.

Deeb had knee surgery in March, returned to the ring in May, and went back on the shelf in July. Evidently she came back too soon, and she's still rehabbing the original knee injury. I worry about that kind of thing when I see Britt Baker (or Impact's Chelsea Green) working through a broken wrist.

#aew #fake rankings

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disneytva · 4 years

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‘The Owl House’: It’s a Hoot!

You would never think that the dark art of 15th century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch would serve as the inspiration for a children’s cartoon. Well, thanks to Dana Terrace and her wild imagination, the strange creatures conjured by the European painter have found their way in the new Disney Channel series The Owl House. The show, which debuts in January, and is already in production of its second season, follows the adventures of a young teenage girl named Luz who decides to pursue her dreams of becoming a witch after she stumbles into a strange realm, inhabited by feisty witch Eda and her tiny warrior friend King.

Terrace, a former director on DuckTales and storyboard artist on Gravity Falls, recalls starting to collect her notes and images and putting together her pitch for the story back in 2015. Then, she finally began pitching her story about a young girl who becomes a witch’s apprentice only a few months after she started directing DuckTales.

“Many of the characters have barely changed since then,” recalls Terrace. “I knew I wanted an older witch mentor figure and a young optimistic girl who was the main character, who learns and grows throughout the show. There’s also this trickster little jerk character named King (voiced by Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch).”

The setting for The Owl House changed a little bit since its early days. Terrace says for a brief time, she was toying with the idea of the whole show being set after the young character dies, so that the Owl House is all set in the afterlife. What really had a clear impact on her work is the work of artists such as Bosch, John Bauer, Remedios Varos and the puppetry of Jim Henson.

Real-Life Models

In addition to the crazy creatures of Bosch and religious illuminated manuscripts, Terrace found inspiration in some of the familiar elements in her life as well. “I have always wanted to tell a story about a rough-around-the-edges mother figure, based off of my aunt, nana and mother who raised me,” she recalls.

Terrace says the show’s central character Luz evolved from late-night conversations she used to have with her former roommate roommate and close college friend. “We were both dorks together,” she recalls. “We tried to cut our own hair and it never worked out. We didn’t have many friends. So, in a way, Luz bubbled out of our conversations. When I told her that I was going to base the main character on her, she said, ‘Yes , but you’ll have to make her Dominican.’ So that’s what happened. Luz now also works on the show as a storyboard artist and consultant, and I get to work with my best friend every day.”

As a young girl, Terrace used sneak into the living room to watch cartoons and copy what she liked in her flip books. Her love for shows such as The Simpsons, Pokémon, The PowerPuff Girls and Studio Ghibli movies finally lead her to study animation at School of Visual Arts in New York and make her way out to L.A. to pursue a career in the animation business. Her first big break happened when someone discovered her art blog and sent her a storyboarding test, which led to her landing a job at Gravity Falls and opened other doors as well.

During her big pitch to Disney, Terrace says she was a bit worried to mention Bosch and his odd, evil creatures, but to her surprise, one of the executive’s response was, “Heck, yeah!” “They have been nothing more than enthusiastic and helpful from day one,” she notes.

After spending a good year writing and making the pilot, Terrace began building her production team in 2018. Art director Ricky Cometa and supervising producer Stephen Sandoval also joined the Disney TV Animation production. At capacity, the show has about 50 staffers as part of its pre-production crew, and an overall count of 120 including the overseas teams at Sunwoo, Rough Draft and Sugarcube in Korea. We’ve been very fortunate to work with all of them,” says Terrace. “They’ve made the show really, really spark.”

The Owl House has attracted a top-notch list of vocal talent as well, including Wendie Malick as Eda, Hirsch as King and Sarah-Nicole Robles as Luz. Among the guest star lineup for the show’s first season are Matthew Rhys, Isabella Rossellini, Tati Gabrielle, Issac Ryan Brown, Mae Whitman, Bumper Robinson and Parvesh Cheena. Terrace points out that having a sterling class led by Malick has been a real treat. “Our witch could have been a very hard character to cast, because we wanted to have sass and energy, and Wendie was absolutely perfect. She came in with all her talent and experience, and my first instinct was ‘You don’t need any direction. Do whatever you want to do because you are amazing!”

She also mentions that she knew Alex Hirsch was going to end up playing the little sidekick King. “I used to hear him pitch when I worked on Gravity Falls. I knew that he can bring a lot to the characters he plays. He would also give me some helpful advice about running his own show and working at Disney.”

Art director Ricky Cometa (Steven Universe, Costume Quest) says he was swept away by Terrace’s wild ideas and spectacular imagery, things that were not usually seen in children’s animation. “The second she came in and said, ‘I want you to read this show bible. The first thing that caught my eye was ‘Bosch and the demon world?’ I very much needed help to figure out what this world looks like. We had this blank canvas and there was a lot of religious iconography. I knew we were going to push the boundaries. I mean we are doing the demon realm on the Disney Channel? You bet I’m in!”

Cometa points out that it was clear that they needed to balance the darker aspects of the witch’s world with the more light-hearted and fun components of Luz’s comical adventures. “At first, I wasn’t sure how dark we could have made the world this world that Luz jumps into initially. We had to make clear decisions about when the story needed to be scary— when do we highlight the darker moments versus when the story is lighthearted and welcoming. It was all about finding that right balance of warmth and spookiness.”

Terrace agrees. “If we made everything super scary and spooky — which is something I’m not afraid of, scaring my audience — but if we made everything the same color, then the scary parts and the day-to-day light-hearted parts wouldn’t have popped. We needed that contrast for writing purposes.”

Amazingly enough, Terrace is only the fourth woman to solely create and run an animated series for Disney — following in the footsteps of Sue Rose (Pepper Ann), Chris Nee (Doc McStuffins) and Daron Nefcy (Star vs. The Forces of Evil). She says one of her biggest challenges on the show was going through the learning process to run a writer’s room, which includes four other writers and a writer’s assistant. “Before this show I had always written and drawn my own comics and cartoons, but this was the first time I had written scripts professionally. Learning the process of writing scripts and learning to run a writers’ room was probably the biggest challenge for me. Luckily, I was with a team of talented writers, and we all kind of learned together. Most of that team has carried on to the second season, and we’re very excited to keep writing together.

As the show begins its run on Disney Channel, Terrace says that ultimately she hopes audiences will be entertained by Luz’s world and her off-the-wall adventures. “There are so many different kinds of animated shows out there and so many traditional and streaming services, that I don’t think it’s possible to have a gigantic blowout hit anymore. At the end of the day, no matter how much stuff is out there, stories with interesting core characters and relatable, understandable stories will shine through.”

#The Owl House #Owl House #Dana Terrace #Disney Channel #Ricky Cometa

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