#Other shows- like steven universe and gravity falls and the fucking owl house- are incredibly well done high quality works of art

[ronithesnail]

When i say art is less about the quality of the thing itself and more about the impact on its audience (a very cliche statement yes i know), i mean like an iconic tv show is less about the quality of the actual show and more about how feral it makes the fanbase

[yveltalreal]

did you watch the actual noctowl house or like a bootleg version how do you not know what’s going on

i watched the actual noctowl house. way too much happens in the first episode. the amount of shit they do is stuff i would have expected to take place over the course of like 3 or 4 episodes. its incredibly hard to follow, especially when youre someone like me who needs to take amoment to fully process whats happening sometimes. not to mention that it gives you a very skewed idea about what the show is about. i should know the bare bones of a shows premise and what to expect by its first episode. the noctowl house does not let me do that.

you watch gravity falls, you have a vague idea that the show is about two twins who find a weird book that tells them about all the supernatural stuff in this small town, supernatural stuff they will be fighting. you watch amphibia, you have a vague idea that its about a girl and her friends who are sent to an alternate world where everyone are shit like froakies and stuff and its about her wanting to go home and learning how to live with the froakie people. you watch avatar the last airbender, you know its about aang who is the avatar trying to master the 4 elements and defeat the fire nation who are trying to colonize the other nations. you watch steven universe, you know its about steven who is this kid with magic alien powers who lives with 3 other people with magic alien powers and together they fight monsters and save the day and shit. like SUPER bare bones shit, no idea about the full plot, but you know the basic idea.

i could not tell you what they want me to know about the noctowl house. theyre going to be?? breaking people out of prison because theyre weird? being weird is illegal in this world? everything i have the vaguest spoilers of later in this show does not give me the impression that i am right. hell maybe its about luz being a witch?? i have literally never seen this talked about and like. YOU ONLY GET THIS AT THE END OF THE EPISODE. if the whole point is her learning magic why have an entire fucking. jail break and prison riot that served no purpose???? i literally needed a full 24 hours to comprehend what i had just watched. i watched this several days ago. i have been thinking on this mess for several days. this isnt me just like oh i didnt like the first episode at first but now that ive thought about it its fine. im not overwhelmed by it anymore. its just objectively hard to follow, and my close friends have told me that yeah, no, it does not get any easier to follow.

like tbh i think the owl house at least from what ive seen COULD work, just not with the pacing it has at this point. i would have split the first episode up so its like. kinda ends with luz doing more of the chase in the city with eda and maybe seeing more magic shit and putting the saving eda stuff in the city before they escape and have luz ask to be trained to be a witch there and then like. have the next few episodes be prepping and training before they break into the prison and then an episode for the prison break and ensuing prison riot that luz starts. either that or like. the owl house feels like it would be more fitting as a series of fantasy novels rather than a disney show.

like i dont hate the context i just think it has the most dogshit pacing. who knows though this is all from what i know of the first episode and some of my friends being like yeah no the pacing just straight up gets worse near the end so. idk.

[featherymainffins]

I repeat this every few months but one thing that The Owl House just doe snot get enough credit for is the fact that a huge percentage of is cast are people who are middle-aged+.

It is uncommon for stories in general to feature older people in important roles, and it is even rarer for children's cartoons. Sure, it is, of course, understandable that the main characters are kids since that is the target audience, but that doesn't mean that there have to be no older people in the cast.

Like, if you look at a lot of popular cartoons, most of them have very few middle-aged or older characters who are important and a stable part of the main cast.

Gravity Falls has Stan and later also Ford.

I...know nothing about Adventure Time.

Steven Universe has Greg, who is like...well, he IS there but I am not sure if I would even count him as a main character??? The main characters are Steven, Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst and Connie. And the other characters who get a lot of attention are Lars and Sadie. And a lot of the supporting characters are teens. Rose is not counted as a main character because she has a completely special role that cannot be categorised. Also I do not count the gems as middle-aged+ because they are gems.

Infinity Train would have had Amelia, to its credit. Other than her, everyone who is a main character is either a child or a teen...ok actually the Cat might count as a stable supporting character and I guess she does count as middle-aged???

SPOP has Hordak I guess??? Possibly Entrapta??? Iirc nobody knows how old Entrapta is so idk if she's actually middle-aged or like...just an adult.

The Owl House goes absolutely "Fuck it we ball" as basically everyone who is not the small ensemble of kids we have is a middle-aged+ adult, and many of them have very important roles that are given a lot of attention. I would count not only Eda but also Lilith as main characters. The cast develops over the course of the show, but at the start, Luz is the main character and Eda is pretty much the second main character (if we do not count characters who have antagonistic roles at the start, because if we did, then Amity would be counted), which is pretty fucking balling by itself.

Then, over the course of the show, the mainest cast is composed of Luz, Willow, Gus, Amity and Hunter when it comes to the kids, King (I am...not sure how to count him), and Eda, Lilith and Camila form the main adults, who are all middle-aged.

There are also many supporting recurring characters who are middle-aged and older. Not all of them have positive roles, but all of them have a story that is explored. Amity's parents, Alador and Odalia, come to mind first, since both of them have a lot of stage time and their own arcs. Then, of course, there is Raine, who is not only middle-aged but also nonbinary, and they have a whole story going on with Eda, which is incredibly balling in its own right.

You see, usually, when a cartoon has a romantic plot revolving around a middle-aged supporting character, it's a quick one-off thing that is like...the episode of the week. Eda and Raine are a pretty memorable part of the plot and their relationship is crucial for both characters.

Iirc Darius is as old as Raine and Eda, so that is another middle-aged recurring supporting character who is pretty important. A more minor but still recurring older character is principal Bump, who is pretty memorable and he is shown as very capable depsite his age, which reminds me of that one Dark Souls screenshot:

I already mentioned Odalia, but when we go over the other antagonistic characters, we see that a chunk of them are middle-aged+ as well, though these are mostly minor roles we're talking about. For example, we have Adrian, then we have Terra,...probably Jacob? And possibly Kikimora??? Idk. No idea about her age actually, I can't remember.

Well and of course when we're talking about antagonists, there's Belos himself. Though that isn't really something revolutionary because cartoons do tend to feature adults, including old adults, as main villains. Because I guess it'd be kinda weird to have kids beating up kids. And it's easier to find a reason for someone older to have a fucked up gripe. Like he gets counted o the percentage but he isn't like...something fresh in terms of the role he's in.

[universalidiiot]

You know what I love about new cartoons with LGBTQ+ representation?

I love that I am seeing more cartoons being explicit with the sexualities and relationships of their characters. To show this, let's make a timeline of how LGBTQ+ has progressed.

(And, spoiler warnings for Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, She-Ra: Princesses of Power, and The Owl House)

First we had Adventure Time. I remember when Olivia Olsen had said that Marceline and Princess Bubblegum were in a relationship but were now exes. As a questioning kid, I was so excited to hear that even though it was unofficial and wasn't on screen. It was the best I was gonna get. Then Cartoon Network made her say that it was a lie.

Next Gravity Falls. DEFINETELY had some queer-coded characters and ideas thrown in the air for certain characters to be LGBT, but it never got okayed by Disney. So we got some weird flirting between two cops as a joke and headcanons that Wendy was bisexual with now proof.

Then, we had Steven Universe, and that was when shit really started to change. We had canon gay characters/relationships/representation. We had love stories that were thought out and continuous through the series that made sense. Hell, we had a WEDDING. A GAY WEDDING. That was insane!

After Steven Universe got the ball rolling, I noticed that more and more cartoons got bolder with their representation. When Adventure Time ended and Steven Universe: Future aired, we got even more canon queer relationships like with Bubbline and Shep/Sadie, and I NEVER thought Bubbline would be canon.

Amidst that, SPoP aired on Netflix and OH MY GOD. By the end of the series, we had nonbinary characters, trans characters, bi characters, gay PARENTS, HEALTHY AND CONINUOUS LESBIAN RELATIONSHIPS THROUGHOUT THE SERIES, GAY SUBTEXT THAT WAS OBVIOUSLY FLIRTING. And then, of course, a canonically gay MAIN character. Not a background character, not even a side character. A MAIN character. You cant imagine how fucking surprised I was for catradora to be canon, I never thought in a million years a cartoon show for children would be given the ok to show this amount of representation.

Even though SPoP did so incredibly well, the flirting and the tension was forced to be subtext. Yes it was VERY obvious subtext, but we still have fans who say "it kind of came out of nowhere" because SPoP was forced to keep its queer rep on the downlow.

Luckily, we've grown past that standard with one of the latest shows: The Owl House. The Disney cartoon that I didnt expect to have any queer representation.

But I watched the Grom episode and Wing It Like Witches, I was shook. Amity has a crush on Luz and Luz was confirmed to be bi. And when I say Amity has a crush, I meant it is EXPLICITLY a crush. Not the subtext semi-flirting that happened in SPoP, she wanted to ask out Luz to Grom and Wing It Like Witches?? The ENTIRE FUCKING EPISODE showcases Amity actively crushing on Luz.

This--THIS-- has made me so incredibly happy. These shows are going to be here for young LGBT kids to relate to, and not just make gays the butt of a joke or an idea that had to be dropped. I didnt have this, and if I went back in time to tell younger me that there would be gay main gay characters in cartoons, I would have laughed in my face. But here we are.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying to hate on shows like Gravity Falls or Adventure Time. From what I understand, the creators of both shows fought hard for LGBT representation but couldn't get the greenlight. It wasn't their fault, and the networks they worked for are becoming more and more progressive.

This post is only here so others can realize that shows are getting better about their representation, and just to add some positivity to this hellsite.