As much as I love The Owl House for its lgbtq rep on the big screen coming from Disney, I feel like Ducktales 17 should really get the credit first for its rep! I mean literally they started it!
- Dt17 started in 2017, TOH started in 2020
- Violet canonically has two dads
- LP is canonically Bi
- Penumbra is canonically a Lesbian
- People who worked on the show drew art of Della and Penumbra together
- Gyro is labeled as a chicken but DOESNT have features that other roosters in the show has, and his outfit from the flashbacks from Astro BOYD can probably show he is transcoded!
-Similar stuff with Violet! In real life, Violet Saberwings are only Male but in the show, she is a Violet Saberwing, hence her name and a female! She is also transcoded according to me bc I make the rules!
- Boyd was given the opportunity to chose his identity and his own proper name at the end of his episode, and he took it! and that in itself is rep!
- Lena got to choose her own identity and was still discovering herself in season 2&3
- Thanks to @bardicinspiration-blog for mentioning this! Webby is Scrooge’s clone but they are different genders! However with May and June being Webby’s clones, they are both female! Which means that either Scrooge or Webby are trans!
So as my point proves, DUCKTALES 17 DESERVES THE AWARD FOR LGBTQ REP IN DISNEY FIRST!!
Okay, so, I’m all for giving credit where credit is due, especially when it comes to LGBTQIA+ rep but DuckTales doesn’t actually have all this representation. At least canonically.
A majority of what you described here as “DT having queer rep” are headcanons and not intentional coding on par of the writers.
The only REAL rep DuckTales has are Violet’s dads (which I wanna remind ppl that Frank himself said don’t praise us for the bare minimum) and Penny being lesbian.
That’s it.
The show has no other canonical LGBTQIA+ rep in its cast.
Launchpad is a weird case bc as much as the show and the writers hint that he’s bi or pan, they never straight up confirm that in canon explicitly. So that one is mainly up for interpretation.
People on the staff drawing Dellumbra art doesn’t automatically equal Dellumbra being canon in the show because the show itself never showed that.
Gyro’s design wasn’t intentionally trans-coded, that’s just how Disney designs most of their chicken characters regardless of their gender. The flashback design of him is meant to reference his OG design from the 1987 series, so again not real trans-coding or representation.
Real Violet Sabrewings being male IRL while the character is female isn’t real coding either because the show never alludes or hints that Violet was AMAB at all. It’s moreso the crew didn’t think about the regular gender the bird has and just had fun with a female character bc of the name.
Boyd is one I can actually semi-agree with, as his story can be one that resonates with queer people but whether that was intentional or not I can’t say. If it was, then this counts as canon rep. If it wasn’t then it doesn’t.
Lena’s story is more about an abuse victim breaking away from their abuser and starting a new, happier, and healthier life with a better family. While her identity comes into play about whether she’s her own person or just Magica’s shadow, that’s not really LGBTQIA+ rep? It’s just a coming of age narrative that you see in most shows.
The Scrooge and Webby thing is a mess to analyze with what the show gives us and how the twist is presented. But just because Webby and Scrooge are different genders that doesn’t automatically mean one of them is trans. We’re shown how they both were as babies and as kids and we see Scrooge was shown to be AMAB and Webby was show to be AFAB (or creation I guess). So its hard to say if it’s actual trans-rep when everything else surrounding it contradicts that idea.
Now, I’m not saying all this to be a jerk or ruin any one’s fun, that’s so not what I’m getting at. I’m all for headcanoning characters however you please (as long as it’s safe and legal lol) but that’s the thing. As I stated earlier, a majority of this “representation” you claim the show has is NOT real representation.
They are YOUR interpretations of what the show presents.
And you know what? That’s amazing. If you can look at these characters and identify with them because something in their story reminds you of yourself, or someone you know, or anything like that, do it. Headcanon it as much as you want. Make the content you want to see of that character representing that part of you. Have fun. Enjoy yourself.
But the show did not truly give us this rep. The show was never this explicit or blatant about any of this “coding” or “representation” outside of two instances.
YOU did this. YOU came up with all these ideas that the show could of only hoped they used. YOU created this representation. IT WAS ALL YOU. Not the show.
you can explain why it’s important for aspiring authors to read published books and not just fanfiction without condescending to fanfiction authors/readers and implying it’s inherently of lesser quality
like a lot of fanfiction is genuinely good and well-written! there’s some amazing work there! there is absolutely fanfiction out there that’s the same quality as well-written published works. being like ‘well, it’s cute, but it’s not real writing’ is just dismissive and frankly completely untrue.
but, at the same time, there are a lot of reasons it’s important to also read published works, and those reasons aren’t just ‘it’s better’. for one, a lot of writing original fiction involves introducing one’s own characters and setting to an audience who knows nothing about the characters or worldbuilding, which is generally not something you’re going to learn how to do by only reading stories where you already know the world and characters. that doesn’t mean the work isn’t good; it just means it doesn’t teach all of the skills you’ll need to know when writing
im a lifelong fanfic writer, but one thing fanfic won’t teach you is how to end a story. or how to structure one, really. fanfic is itself a continuation of a story, it’s a transformative work, and… it’s kind of rare for long, chaptered fic to actually be complete. it’s awesome when it is! but you do kind of get used to reading fanfic as a big nebulous cloud of what-ifs, and furthermores, and so ons, and etc.
published fiction pretty much always has to have a start, middle, and ending. you can’t really learn formal anatomy from fanfiction. you can learn a lot of creative stuff that published fiction rarely has the freedom to engage in–aus and remixes, for instance–but fanfic really isn’t where you’re going to be able to study structure and discipline.
Thank god. Finally some good fanfic vs. published story dialogue.
Fanfiction is also usuallypublished as the author writes it, which means authors are limited in their ability to retroactively change story elements (removing plot holes or subplots that go nowhere, or adding foreshadowing for an important event they decided they wanted 1/3 into their story, etc). This means stories overall are generally less “polished” than professionally published work.
On a similar note, fic writers can “get away with” a lot more fluff that doesn’t move the story forward– ie, dedicating an entire chapter to characters cuddling, or spending a very long time explaining the economics system of a secret wizard world. This is a strength of fic because it’s often what people want to read– but it’s also something that usually hinges on the reader already being deeply invested in the characters and the world, which is a luxury you’re not going to get from a lot of original fiction.
Fanfiction isn’t necessarily better or worse than original fic, but it is a fundamentally different art. An aspiring fiction author reading only fanfic is like an aspiring fiction author reading only poetry; it’s great to enrich your skills by reading widely, but if you don’t read *the kind of art you are trying to make*, you won’t know how to make it.
