and it’s easy to forget all of this. that this kind of representation we’re seeing in children’s cartoon isn’t something they can just make for free.
as regular people using tumblr and twitter and ao3 and ff.net, we can write and draw and make headcanons and ship whatever we want.
there’s no risk to us for doing this. there’s no risk for shippers drawing and writing lumity, catradora, korrasami, etc. we can do whatever we want. but getting this stuff on big networks? disney, nickelodeon, cartoon network, and FIGHTING for it when executive’s first reactions was probably audible groaning at the showrunners about the possible controversy they might get?
we need to start understanding that unlike them, there’s a huge risk to this.
Dana doesn’t get to just walk in and say “hey Disney i want to make a show and it’s gonna have a canon bi kid and a lesbian kid and they’re gonna develop their feelings on-camera,” and those execs just said “oh shit yeah that sounds awesome here’s the keys to the kingdom!” Dana has literally stated that without things like the rupphire wedding and that which came before there would BE no lumity. and for this victory, The Owl House has had it’s third season reduced to three special episodes, and the idea of s4 is so laughable at this point it will be a miracle to see it happen.
WE, the fandom, can produce this endlessly for free for ourselves without risk; I genuinely and sincerely wonder if Dana will ever be able to work with Disney again after this, i would not be surprised if they simply refuse to work with her after TOH ends. we forget that for these people, it comes with sacrifice and risk of professional ostracization. because WE do not sacrifice to make this content a reality we forget that people like Dana and Rebecca do.
for YEARS we have heard things about “ITS NOT PROGRESSIVE ENOUGH/TABLE SCRAPS.” fucking goddamn Lily Orchid even made a post that was like, ranking these shows and grading them based on “representation rep” and only giving TOH an A while giving everything else lower than a C and some of ya’ll ate it up like candy.
people are fighting for this and risking their careers because they CAN’T just be anonymous people on the internet to make it a reality. and it makes me happy that we’re FINALLY starting to acknowledge this, but not enough people seem to be aware of this. too many of ya’ll are still trying to make this some dick-measuring contest between lumity and everything that came before it, also because some aired around the same-ish time. it’s not. it’s really genuinely not.
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
izzy806
romaincrisis
