#lgbtq dcs wave 3

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 9

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Patchouli Knowledge-Touhou Project

Qualifications:

Every touhou character is queer even if it isn't canon. They just are. It's touhou it's just how it is. Patchouli is also canonically disabled, having asthma and anemia, and it canonically gets in the way of her day to day life because she can't cast as many spells as she'd like to

Propaganda:

She's very PURPLE

Hua Cheng-Heaven Official’s Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu

Qualifications:

Hua Cheng is the main love interest in Heaven Official's Blessing, a ghost who has been in love with the hero Xie Lian for over 800 years. As if being dead isn't enough, he once clawed out his own eye in order to save a group of humans from marauding ghosts shortly before his ascension to Ghost King.

Propaganda:

Sexy pirate ghost king swag. Gay for His Highness.

Fun fact: between when he was submitted and when this poll was written the mods both read all of TGCF. Also low key I feel like gay for his highness is a little bit of an understatement.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 15

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Wu Zetian-Iron Widow

Qualifications:

She's canonically bi and polyam, and she's disabled from her feet having been bound, needing a cane because of that, and then from being shot in the back and resultingly needing a wheelchair.

There’s at least one line in the book confirming that she’s bi, and she’s also polyamorous. She has chronic pain with her feet and is a wheelchair user.

She has bound feet, which cause her chronic pain, as well as keep her from being able to walk normally. And she is bi

Propaganda:

She murders people for understandable reasons but has a lot of fun with it.

I love her so much. She is out for revenge and her two boyfriends fully support her.

Jace Beleren-Magic: The Gathering

Qualifications:

Lost his toe

Propaganda:

In Jace's early history, he apprenticed under the abusive Tezzeret. On one of their missions, he was forced to work in the snow until he got frostbite and needed a toe amputated. After he rebelled and left Tezzeret's service, he was implied to be in an intimate relationship with Kallist Rhoka, until they had to go into hiding from Tezzeret's organization and Jace had to wipe both their minds for their own protection.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 13

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus-The Locked Tomb

Qualifications:

She's a lesbian and the author Tamsyn Muir has confirmed she's written as schizophrenic, based on her own experience.

Okay SO Harrow is a necromancer nun who is also a huge lesbian. She spends the books of TLT series being super gay and repressed about her emotions for 1. Butch lesbian Jesus and 2. Human Barbie the death of God. She narrates the second book (Harrow the Ninth) and is author-confirmed schizophrenic. She experiences hallucinations thru the whole book and has since childhood. She’s also WIDELY headcannoned as autistic by the fandom (me too) because. Because she IS SO FUCKING AUTISTIC (source: I am autistic too)

Schizophrenic lesbian with a traumatic brain injury

Schizophrenic and sapphic

canonically a schizophrenic lesbian. neither word is used in series, she isn't in a position to get a diagnosis and queer identities are so normalised in the universe that labels just don't get mentioned, but she is written as both by an author who is also both.

Canon schizophrenia

Canon lesbian with canon schizophrenia

She's a schizophrenic lesbian with a traumatic brain injury

Propaganda:

The Locked Tomb is pretty popular on tumblr but I might as well submit her anyway

She’s a lesbian necromancer nun. She’s a saint and also woke up the death of God, who is a human Barbie, who she is in love with, tho she’s also kind of married to lesbian Jesus. She’s schizophrenic. She’s scrungly. She puts bread in a drawer. She’s even autistic

Harrow first started hallucinating (visual and auditory) when she was ten years old! The traumatic brain injury and seizures are much more recent. Unironically gotta love a pov protagonist who makes you struggle along with her in sorting out hallucination and false memory to figure out what's going on. Also while Harrow's disability shapes the narrative, the book isn't at all about her being disabled. It's a fantasy/scifi gothic horror novel about being trapped at a work retreat with God.

so many women want her but she’s determined to be in love with the soul of the dead earth trapped in a 10ft barbie doll instead. she’s a lesbian disaster and is trying to deal with both schizophrenia and over 200 actual ghosts haunting her.

a schizophrenic lesbian, written by a schizophrenic lesbian! she's in love with multiple dead women, but she's also a necromancer so that's not as big of an obstacle as it sounds. weird little bone-obsessed necromancer lesbian. I care about her deeply

Author Tamsyn Muir has discussed how Harrow's schizophrenia is modeled after her own experiences. It matters a lot in her eponymous novel, where her inability to trust what she sees and hears is compounded by her self-inflicted lobotomy to save her girlfriend's soul from getting absorbed into her own.

Harrow is one of the protagonists of her series & both her lesbianism & her schizophrenia play major parts in the story. The author has spoken about how she wrote Harrow based on her own experiences, and the authenticity comes through strongly. Beyond that, she's a teenage gothic nun in love with a holy corpse & she's the greatest bone magician ever born. What more needs be said.

She's a lesbian, she's psychotic, she has seizures, she faints regularly and can't rely on her own memory worth shit. And the only reason she's not going to kill god is so she and her girl can escape the cycle of violence. Basically, Harrowhark Nonagesimus is the entire package.

Anything Else?:

Listen. Listen. I’m not doing Harrow justice here. I LOVE her (Submitter 2)

The author is also schizophrenic! Which is pretty cool. (Submitter 3)

The author of the series is openly schizophrenic, and has mentioned in interviews that she's drawing on that experience when writing Harrow :) (Submitter 8)

Tokito Minoru-Wild Adapter

Qualifications:

Experiences flashbacks in response to auditory triggers (including his own name, implied PTSD), allegorical medical condition (his animal hand - canonically progressing in severity, canonically caused by a drug, canonically causes chronic pain), canon amnesiac. Wild Adapter originally began publication in a Boys Love magazine, and Tokito has an ambiguous relationship with his roommate Kubota; they share a bed and are shown to be physically affectionate toward and extremely protective of each other. There's also a couple of mini albums with character songs (some with lyrics by the author) that imply their relationship. Also I'm pretty sure this is official art https://www.zerochan.net/1163520

Propaganda:

He is the world's most pathetic wet cat of a man (he's actually compared to a cat by multiple people in canon), he walks through life with near childlike wonder and immense barely suppressed rage, he thinks about cutting off his own hand, he loves video games, he kills people, he is incredibly traumatised, he has a weird codependent gay thing with his equally traumatised antisocial roommate. There's official art of him handcuffed to a bed.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 11

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Lan Wangji-The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi

Qualifications:

Canonically gay, pretty heavily coded as autistic (esp in the show)

Propaganda:

He's an absolute badass - in a series full of morally ambiguous or outright immoral characters, he's one of the only people around to consistently show he's reliable, honorable and strong. Some examples include Lan Wangji defending Wei Wuxian, his love interest and eventual husband, against his own clan and other clans because WWX went against their rules and tried to save innocent people, or LWJ raising WWX's adopted son for years and being a great father and mentor to him. While LWJ isn't *technically* canonically autistic, (not that this word would exist in the setting), he has flat affect, fixates on rules and his difficulty in understanding people's emotions is explicitly brought up and a minor plot point.

Shane-Stardew Valley

Qualifications:

Shane has substance abuse disorder and is an active alcoholic. His storyline includes helping him seek treatment. He is bisexual because he is a romanceable NPC regardless of the player's gender.

Propaganda:

After Shane seeks treatment for his alcoholism, you can romance him and turn him into your ditzy beer-loving house-husband.

Submitted by @hairless

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 8

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Blade-Honkai Star Rail

Qualifications:

He used to be a craftsman, but his hands are no longer dexterous enough to create anything, and he covers them. It's confirmed they're damaged, just not how it happened or in what way. His mental health isn't great either, and affects him greatly. He has to have his memories erased or else.

As for the lgbt part: he's heavily implied to be or to have been in love with another man. His character revolves around him a lot. They shared a pair of telepathic bracers - that they both still have. Blade is stated to hold his and try to feel the other. He's also fixated on following the other man and having him pay for past sins, but has moments that suggest he still cares. In the original Chinese text there is a line implying they were married, people thought it might be a typo, but it still hasn't been changed so,

Propaganda:

The devastating effects of old man/dragon yaoi. Life ruining, in that you have to live forever as a scarred shell of your former self. Yay Immortality.

Anything Else?:

I think he and his partner created life. I don't think he's aware. Literal deadbeat parent.

Juno Steel-The Penumbra Podcast

Qualifications:

He has lost an eye. And he is canonically bi and nb

Propaganda:

*Spoilers* He is my favourite lady. He's a private detective on mars. He has the best assistant. He has a very sweet, but very up and down romance with a homme fatale master thief. He lost his eye due to some alien shit. Got a prosthetic one that sucked. Got rid of that one with a trauma-memory procedure. Joined a space pirate crew crime family. Leaned sharpshooting again without depth perception. Had amazing character growth. Fucking rocks a dress

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 3

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Daan-Fear and Hunger

Qualifications:

It's widely accepted by the fandom that he's bisexual as most of the playable characters in the Funger games are. For his disability, he is missing one of his eyes and covers his socket with an eyepatch.

Propaganda:

This is the most depressed man in existence, but he's also just really funny. The sheer amount of horrors he went through even before the actual horror game are so overwhelming it almost loops back to being funny.

Johnny Joestar-JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run

Qualifications:

He is canonly disabled (paraplegic) and often seen as LGBTQ+ in fandom. He spends the manga in a cross country horseback race with another man whom he gets very close to

Propaganda:

He’s a badass Kentucky cowboy ex-jockey who races horses despite not being able to use his legs (so he’s all muscle on top baby) - He is incredibly emotionally complex and has amazing character growth throughout the series - He is frequently drawn pressed up close against his male best friend in a not so straight fashion - He can shoot bullets from his nails and that’s sick as hell - One time he gave up the possibility to walk again just to save his partner and I think that’s the epitome of romance - He’s a cutie patootie - He has canonically met Jesus Christ. And Jesus approved of him. So you should too

Anything Else?:

I love him.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 1

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Nodoka Hanadera / Cure Grace-Healin’ Good Precure

Qualifications:

She canonically has a chronic illness that caused her to be in the hospital most of her childhood. Also every Pretty Cure is gay, I don’t make the rules

Propaganda:

🌸🐇🩺

Jack Zimmerman-Check Please!

Qualifications:

I’m pretty sure he has an anxiety disorder of some kind, and he’s canonically queer.

Mod note: excellent graphic novel, you can actually find it online too, it’s really cute and good.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 6

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Data Soong-Star Trek: The Next Generation

Qualifications:

Many fans interpret him as autistic, including me, and he is gay. Also canonically asexual! He has only ever had one onscreen romance (Tasha Yar does not count, that was a one night stand/FWB thing), with a woman, in which the entire moral was that he was forcing himself to be someone he wasn't while in a relationship with her. His closest relationship is with Geordi LaForge, a relationship commonly interpreted as romantic or queerplatonic.

Propaganda:

Data as a character is so important to me, as an autistic queer kid. His whole storyline of wanting to be human, but never being able to be human, because there's something fundamentally different about him that causes some people to treat him as lesser and nonsentient.... very autistic. He often infodumps to people, is very blunt, experiences emotions in an unconventional way, is socially awkward, and has specific interests in things like poetry and painting. He is a very kind person, and is averse to harming even people who are direct threats to him (such as Kivas Fajo). He has a cat and writes poems about her!! He breaks the prime directive to save a little alien girl!! I cannot adequately explain how awesome this character is in words.

Submitted by @convenient-plot-device

Sir Alistair Hammerlock-Borderlands

Qualifications:

Canonically an amputee, also has a missing eye

Propaganda:

Silly victorian gentleman hunter guy in a scifi setting. His glasses are broken in a way that makes you see his robo eye AND resembles a fancy monocle. Bri'ish for some reason. Goofy lil man who gives you sidequests and is probably the nicest person in the setting. Refined vocabulary which he occasionally peppers in swears. Fabulous facial hair. Makes jokes abt his missing limbs ("[...] my more artificial limbs may begin to rust. Hard to sneak up on prey with a squeaky prosthetic!"). Huge ADHD and tism vibes imo. Also he's gay and has an equally silly + classy husband who is also disabled so epic diversity win (old man yaoi)

Anything Else?:

IM SO NORMAL ABT HIM

Submitted by @wainwrightjakobshammerlock

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 12

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Art of Zolf Smith is by @taikoaiko

Adam Parrish-The Raven Cycle

Qualifications:

He's extremely bi and is HoH (acquired deafness in one ear)

Bisexual and hard of hearing!

deaf in one ear AND bisexual—thats hot!!!!!!!

Propaganda:

I love him

Well if no one else is gonna submit my son then ig I'll have to! He can be such a lil bitch sometimes but I love him so much. He is a witch. He is a genius. He is insecure. He's got the most game out of all of his friends but the bar is on the floor. He and his boyfriend both have extreme daddy issues. He is poor. He is me. <3 I love you adam parrish

i have too little brain to make propaganda right now but he is the Most deserving of this award it is an honour to nominate him

Zolf Smith-Rusty Quill Gaming

Qualifications:

Both legs amputated at the knees

Propaganda:

I love him so much! Chill Sailor Paladin Dad my beloved. He's tired, he's asexual, he's biromantic, he's mechanically grief-stricken, he's atheist, he had a messy breakup with Poseidon Himself, he saved the world (somewhat reluctantly) and he's in a QPR with Oscar Wilde. Yes, *that* Oscar Wilde. I actually really love how Ben Merideth chose to portray Zolf's disability over the course of the show. Coming to terms with it is a pretty big part of his arc, and while I'm not the best person to judge here since I'm not an amputee, it felt very well executed to me. He spends a lot of the show having his agency, specifically regarding his legs, taken away from him (nonconsentual amputation from Mr Ceiling, legs he didn't agree to receiving from Poseidon, being forced into making major world decisions he doesn't feel equipped to handle, etc) and it's pretty clear that it's the feeling of powerlessness and lack of agency bothers him much more than the actual loss of his legs. While he does end up using prosthetics for the bulk of the campaign, after the action is done it's made clear that he much prefers using a wheelchair, which is what he does. Anyways. Vote for Zolf he has loads of hitpoints.

Anything Else?:

Your honor I love him

Submitted by @crustaceousfaggot

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 16

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Eduoar Corabelli II-The Reader Trilogy / Sea of Ink and Gold

Qualifications:

He's canonically mlm and has depression, and both his relationship with the man he loves and his mental illness are very important to his character and story. Since it's high fantasy the term 'depression' isn't actually available to him, but it's explicitly canon anyway and he just calls it 'melancholia.'

Propaganda:

Ed is like a Disney princess with depression--gentle, kind, loves animals dearly, all that jazz. He's also, when we meet him, being crushed under the weight of responsibility and a familial curse that kills every family member and each person they love before their time, and he's in the most fascinating, sweet, twisted little unspoken relationship. He loves this guy, his childhood friend, but is too scared because of the curse to give voice to those feelings; this guy loves him, but is too reluctant to talk about it, because of the guilt of actively poisoning Ed in a drawn-out assassination attempt and having just killed Ed's last relative. Also, Ed knows he's being poisoned and is gladly going along with it, because he's suicidal. It's complicated; he does get better though. Just know that their love is profound, but not as good as Ed deserves, and when he breaks free of the mental prison of being cursed and leaves the shadow of a man who almost killed him despite that love, he finds he's not just a good person but a capable one

Mod note: apparently according to Mod A “I HAD TO SCROLL THROUGH GOODREADS FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES TO FIND OUT IF THIS GUY EVEN EXISTS”

Eda Clawthorne-The Owl House

Qualifications:

She has a magical chronic disorder which has flare-ups, is mitigated by taking medication (potions), and has similar side effects to many real disorders such as fatigue, greying hair, and physical impairment (drains magic, a natural ability of *most witches). Unlike in other stories however, her condition is NOT ever completely cured. It does evolve and become more manageable over the course of the story, but she still experiences symptoms from it. Eda also loses one of her arms later in the story. She does get a replacement hook, but it is never shown whether she has a functional prosthetic or not. Most likely, she only has one fully functioning arm after this. As for being queer, she is in a relationship with a nonbinary person and is all but confirmed bisexual (has a secret box with the bi flag on it seriously why else would she have this). Also the owl house has a Lot of queer characters in it and I mean. just look at her. I would be surprised if she wasn't queer somehow.

Bisexual, and has a curse that affects her day to day life

Bi & lost arm and has a chronic illness metaphorically

Propaganda:

Has canonically dated both men and a non-binary person. Her curse affects her ability to use magic (and at one point outright stops it), which is very important in witch life. Said curse also causes her body parts to fall off sometimes. Many have said her curse is like a metaphor for depression but really it's more like a magic version of a physical disability (although I wouldn't be surprised if she actually also had depression).

Uuuuh she’s great and stuff idk I can’t propaganda well sorry

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 14

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Hebe Harrison-Doctor Who Big Finish

Qualifications:

She's a wheelchair user, and in my heart she is bi.

Propaganda:

She is hands down the best disabled rep I can think of. She doesn't take shit from ableists and neither should you!

Fun fact from the mods: her VA also plays Shirley Ann Bingham in the main(?) Doctor Who.

Frodo Baggins-The Lord of the Rings

Qualifications:

Frodo & Sam are very homoerotic. As JRRT knew and loved several openly gay authors, one of his closest friends was suspected of being gay, and with other historical events of the time, you can’t convince me it wasn’t at least a little bit subconsciously on purpose. Frodo, of course, has ptsd and probably some form of chronic illness due to the lingering effects of his nazgul wound.

Propaganda:

Frodo carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and was forever changed by it. The literal devil’s soul was constantly around his neck, always tempting him, growing stronger by the minute, twisting him and torturing him mentally. He didn’t know how his journey would end when he offered to take on the burden of destroying the most evil object in the world, but he chose to do it anyway. And he was forever ruined by it - so much that he never truly came home, not really. And once he was home, life was so thoroughly ruined for him that he could not stay. There is one other known account of this happening - Arwen’s mother, who was captured and tortured for years by orcs, and while her body was healed, her mind could not be, and she, too, sailed away. Do you understand that? Frodo’s journey was on the same level as *being captured and tortured for years on end.* He is probably the gayest non-canon confirmed character I have ever come across, queer-coded through and through, and his ptsd was enough that he could not come home, and had to sail to paradise to find peace. He deserves everything.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 10

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Crazy Jane / Kay Challis-Doom Patrol

Qualifications:

Canonically a system (has DID with over 60 personalities/alters) and canonically WLW

Propaganda:

She's tough and not the greatest person to be around, but grows to care for the team nonetheless and gets some pretty great character growth throughout the series. Her alters all have their own powers and distinct traits, and while I can't speak on the show's accuracy in portraying DID it does at least seem to make a genuine effort at realistic representation of the condition even if Jane is a fictional superhero. Jane is also confirmed WLW and has a currently-complicated relationship with former villain Shelley Byron.

Ballister Blackheart-Nimona (Novel)

Qualifications:

He’s gay and an amputee

Propaganda:

He’s a lot more evil and also more established on what he’s doing than the movie. I think he’s neat, he does a lot more scheming and plotting and general shenanigans.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 2

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Tougou Mimori-Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero

Qualifications:

her legs are paralyzed for a long time and even after she regains leg movement she still likely has some form of ptsd due to her experiences (she also clearly shows signs of some other kind of mental illness but that isn't explicitly stated by canon), she also canonically has a crush on her best friend and has an extremely homoerotic relationship with her other best friend

She is canonically sapphic and a wheelchair user.

Propaganda:

she's so amazing, like she's the mom friend, the tech wiz, she pretended to be a vigilante one time, she tried to destroy the world, she's a history buff, she's stubborn, she had amnesia, she prefers her last name even with her closest friends, she's a total goofball, she loves to cook and bribes her friends with snacks

Are you a fan of magical girls? Of magical girls who would like to kiss other magical girls, perhaps? Well then. #togosweep

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @melodemonica is the first submitter.

Isabella Peretti-ValorPUNK

Qualifications:

I don't have to try and argue for people to see my Vision (tm) or make up headcanons to get her into this competition. Isabella is a CANON wheelchair [user], bi/pan teenage girl!

Propaganda:

Her exact romantic/sexual orientation hasn't been stated because she is discovering it throughout the course of the show! She falls for a girl and their romance is a long-running plotline with a lot of major focus, and then when it crashes and burns (because the other girl has unresolved mental illnesses), she takes some time to heal before dating a ninja himbo sweetheart. As for her being [a] wheelchair [user], she got into a car accident when she was little and it paralyzed her from the waist down. This is NOT a focal point because the show starts when she's a teenager and the chair is already daily life for her, but there IS one very funny scene where she goes to a classmate's house to help him with his computer and his house is two stories, so he has to carry her fireman-style up the stairs and it's awkward and silly.

Anything Else?:

ValorPUNK is a TTRPG show with a ton of LGBT+ and disabled representation! All the players are queer and many of them have chronic pain or mental illnesses, so the rep is all authentic and well-done.

Submitted by @candaru

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3, Poll 5

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Cui Buqu-Peerless / Wushuang

Qualifications:

He's canonically disabled and LGBTQIA+. He has a chronic illness, and the story contains a romance between him and another male character, Feng Xiao.

Propaganda:

"....every one of them wanted me dead, they were waiting for the time I would die—A profound smile appeared on his lips, 'Yet no one can make me choose that path. I chose to live. Even if living with illnesses hurt, even if my life was torture, this determination still burns.'"

Alex Manes-Rosewell, New Mexico

Qualifications:

I saw you guys wanted him in the tournament and he absolutely should be!

More specific qualifications from the mods: He’s gay and he’s an amputee. (Fun fact, there’s a banger song from the second season that he sings that’s very gay)

Propaganda:

Alex is so strong and brave, love him so much

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 3 Matchups

Nodoka Hanadera / Cure Grace (Healin’ Good Precure) vs Jack Zimmerman (Check Please!)

Tōgō Mimori (Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero) vs Isabella Peretti (ValorPUNK)

Daan (Fear and Hunger) vs Johnny Joestar (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure)

Crona (Soul Eater) vs Wade Wilson (Deadpool)

Cui Buqu (Peerless / Wushuang) vs Alex Manes (Roswell, New Mexico)

Data Soong (Star Trek: The Next Generation) vs Alistair Hammerlock (Borderlands)

Billie Lurk (Dishonored) vs Zhou Zishu (Faraway Wanderers / Tian Ya Ke)

Blade (Honkai Star Rail) vs Juno Steel (The Penumbra Podcast)

Patchouli Knowledge (Touhou Project) vs Hua Cheng (Heaven Official’s Blessing / Tian Guan Ci Fu)

Kay Challis (Doom Patrol) vs Ballister Blackheart (Nimona (novel))

Lan Wangji (The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi) vs Shane (Stardew Valley)

Adam Parrish (The Raven Cycle) vs Zolf Smith (Rusty Quill Gaming)

Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb) vs Tokito Minoru (Wild Adapter)

Hebe Harrison (Doctor Who) vs Frodo Baggins (The Lord of the Rings)

Wu Zetain (Iron Widow) vs Jace Beleren (Magic: The Gathering)

Eduoar Corabelli II (The Reader Trilogy) vs Eda Clawthorne (The Owl House)

Check out the other waves here.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 3, Wave 2, Poll 1

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included. 

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Yang Xiao Long-RWBY

Qualifications:

She is canonically wlw (has been for years but specifically kissed and got together with her now girlfriend in the latest season) and uses a prosthetic arm and has been shown to struggle with PTSD due to the traumatic nature of losing it during the show.

Canonically had her right arm chopped off, uses a prosthetic. Has PTSD. Is canonically in a WLW relationship.

She has a canon girlfriend and canonically has a prosthetic arm and PTSD

She's canonically sapphic (part of a recently canonised wlw slowburn relationship) and is an amputee (due to events from the 3rd season finale) who wears a robotic prosthetic. She also suffers from PTSD which is explored in the show

Propaganda:

I will keep on submitting Yang to relevant brackets until I die. RWBY has plenty of strengths and weaknesses with writing, especially Yang's recovery arc, but instead of forcing her to push past her trauma and enter the battlefield immediately, we see her struggle with it, take time to process, and not be pushed into repression and when she chooses to wear her prosthetic, chooses to train to ready herself, and chooses to seek out her family and save lives, she isn't perfectly healed, as no one is. The show depicts her having flashbacks due to sudden loud noise, shaking hand the first few times she has to fight for her safety instead of training with her dad, and snapping at friends when they bring up Blake, the person she lost her arm trying to save (who, near immediately after ran away due to feeling she was endangering those she loved, furthering Yang's already present abandonment issues.) It isn't done perfectly but the intentions and general message sent are extremely positive and honest. She struggles less as the show progresses, and there are opportunities to consider herself less for being disabled or "become whole again" but she explicitly refutes these ideas and says that's she's better because of her failures and losses, and isn't any less whole. Her becoming disabled is also extremely tied to her being LGBT, because, as previously mentioned, she lost her arm protecting her then friend and partner, now girlfriend, directly after the villain who cut her arm off told her love interest that he would "destroy everything [she] love[s]. (Camera pans to Yang, he looks at her.) Starting with her." LIKE. He attacked her BECAUSE Blake cared for her so much and Yang ran to her defense blindly BECAUSE she loved Blake so much. When they reunite, they struggle with communication because Yang feels Blake is seeing her as weak, and through several things, mostly a climatic battle against the man who severed Yang's arm, they affirm each other as equals. I can go on but this is already too long. YANG SWEEP!!!!!

Yang lost her arm while protecting her best friend and future girlfriend from said girlfriend's abusive ex. Had a whole arc about learning to live with that loss and dealing with PTSD. Is totally devoted to and in love with Blake Belladonna and is just the sweetest but most badass character in the show.

She's one of the main characters, and just finished a 10 year slow burn romance. Plus, she has both physical and mental disabilities, but is never treated as lesser or incomplete.

Yang Xiao Long was one of the first examples of a sapphic character I ever saw in animated media with her character journey in the show being an iconic part of my teenage years and current young adulthood. The loss of her arm after a traumatic event in the show's 3rd volume was one of the big shockers of the show that nobody saw coming. Since then the show has done an amazing job in exploring both the mental and physical effects of her losing a limb, gaining a prosthetic arm and the recovery journey. Her character also has a major arc regarding handling her PTSD from both this and her past most notably in the 5th and 6th volume. Her character also has a slow-burn romance with her teammate and fellow main character Blake Belladonna which is one of my fave romances ever (it has everything: canon soulmates, friends to lovers, sunshine x grump,battle couple etc..) that has recently became CANON BABIEE!!! There are MULTIPLE characters in RWBY with various disabilities that are handled well in the narrative but i would say Yangs definitely the top FAVE!

Harrier ‘Harry’ du Bois-Disco Elysium

Qualifications:

Bisexual. Struggles with addiction, post-polio syndrome, multiple kinds of mental illness, and whatever else he's accrued by living in a city with no accessible healthcare.

Propaganda:

You know who he is. Vote for him.