Their Importance: She's quite smart and capable for her age, in addition to being kind. While her home life is pretty bad, the first arc of the series has her form a genuine friendship with Giovanni and even help defeat the villain by creative use of her weakening/power negation Epithet.
Said Epithet (power) also helps her handle her misophonia, which is explicitly stated and when she's triggered by loud sounds, she can form a bubble around herself to get away from the trigger. It's also implied she has panic attacks, since she shuts down when attacked with fire and only calms down once the danger is over.
Issues: Both of the canonically LGBT+ important characters in the series were only confirmed LGBT+ on Tumblr, which I wouldn't consider very meaningful representation. There is also a gay character who is an one-off joke, and a villain who many viewers felt was written in a fatphobic way.
Their Importance: ***Note: Major spoilers follow***
Simon Laurent is the deuteragonist of Infinity Train's third season and ultimately its main antagonist. He is Grace Monroe's best friend and second in command in her organization, with Grace being his only friend that he is codependent on as he had no family whatsoever for the past 8 years.
His parental figure intentionally abandoned him to a monster and never returned when Simon was 10 years old. Simon has PTSD related to abandonment, breathing heavily and having a panic attack when confronted by his ex parental figure, the monster that almost killed him or being triggered by anything that reminds him of them. He is intensely paranoid about his friends, mainly Grace, abandoning him as a result of traumatic life experiences.
Simon has no social skills and often assigns other his own interests. He is very impulsive, often changes moods rapidly, is implied by word of god to have thoughts of suicide, tends to view things in extreme black and white terms ("the rules of the cult I'm in can never be wrong", "that wasn't mentioned in my cult beliefs, clearly its evil") and has rapidly fluctuating thoughts on his relationships (EX: "Grace is always right and I'll lay down my life for her!" to "Grace is bad and trying to get me!"). The show heavily implies he's mentally ill which it was later confirmed by word from the writers, who said one of his mental disorders was Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Issues: In short: Villain and Character Death along with some rep conflation for mental illnesses. Whilst Simon shows some redeeming features including selflessness for Grace until he believes she abandoned him, misguided empathy for others and overall being severely misled since he was a child, he remains a villain.
He also dies violently by being eaten by the monster that traumatized him as a kid without ever redeeming himself unlike Grace and other main characters. The word of god that confirmed Simon as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder listed that as the reason he was villainous and couldn't change.
He is the only character to be diagnosed in the show. Also whilst definitely possessing another mental illness besides PTSD, many feel he doesn't fit the criteria for NPD and fits a different Cluster B Disorder instead such as borderline personality disorder.
Their Importance: Beck was one of the few non-stereotyped Indian characters that I saw on television growing up. Not only is his Indian background ever mocked (in fact, the only time they actually joke about his background was to make jokes about him being born in Canada) but Beck is one of the more popular characters in Hollywood Arts. He’s a respected actor, seen as attractive by the other students, and is well-liked amongst the school. I feel like a lot of times, especially growing up, I’d see that if shows depicted brown men, they would have mock them and/or show them to be unattractive to other people in some way. To see another brown person not only be shown in a non-stereotypical manner but also as an attractive being was really cool to me, as it wasn’t something I had seen before.
Issues: I’m not even actually sure if his character is biracial as his actor, Avan Jogia, is, because they don’t mention it at all throughout the show. His Indian side isn’t acknowledged at all through the show, and it would have been cool to get a mention of it at least once in the series.
Their Importance: She’s a tomboyish, sporty and cheery person with a limp caused by a congenital hip disorder. Unlike most other disabled characters in stories like this this is an authentic part of her personality rather than a show of how sweet or inspiring she is. She is one of a very small number of disabled characters in YA who isn’t defined by angst over her condition. In Puddin she reveals that she’s biromantic and explains asexuality and romantic orientation to her accepting friends about in a very light and accessible scene.
Issues: She was completely removed from the film adaption.
Character: Hannah Perez
Representation: Dominican, Lesbian
Their Importance: She’s a loud, forcible person, completely unapologetic in her identity. She’s way deeper than just being a “sassy minority sidekick”. She can be petty and mean and also call people out on their bs and make powerful points. She isn’t conventionally attractive, mainly due to her misaligned teeth, which doesn’t lessen her worth at all and all the jokes about her appearance come from bigoted jackasses that aren’t funny in the slightest. Hannah angrily challenges the idea that she should have to alter her apperance to be respected (which ties into the central theme of the book). While she becomes friendlier to the rest of the main group she’s never completely softened. She casually comes out to the protagonist towards the end of the book and takes part in the pageant with her girlfriend as an escort. More butch/masc lesbians don’t tend to show up in YA because they’re ”stereotypical” so having Hannah attending the pageant in combat boots with no make-up was pretty special. Despite the whole plot revolving around a pageant she’s never “prettied up” in any way. As she tells us she shouldn’t have to.
Issues: She was white-washed and all references to her sexuality (aside from one glimpse of a girl implied to be her girlfriend) were removed for the film (plus the typical Hollywoodizing removal of her “unpretty” features and toning her personality way down).
Character: Millie Michealchuck
Representation: Fat
Their Importance: She doesn’t fit into the narrow band of “acceptable” body variance, being heavier than the protagonist, having awkwardly shaped features and having nothing resembling fashion sense. She’s a sweet and painfully sincere person who has a lot of inner strength and depth. She’s one of the protagonists of Puddin where she determinedly chases her dream of being a journalist, battling against other’s expectations the entire time. Also it is a bit of a refreshing change to see religious characters who are sincere in their beliefs and is a decent person.
Their Importance: Christopher is such a wonderful character on the show. He’s played by an actual actor with CP, which is awesome! The show does a great job of writing Christopher’s disability and how it affects him while also making sure to make sure that they write Christopher as a child, and have storylines outside of his disability (such as his emotions on his parents’ separation, trauma from a natural disaster, etc.).
In the show, we see that although Christopher has things that are difficult for him - such as riding a skateboard - he’s not limited by his CP. I feel like many shows tend to go into “disability porn” content with their characters and focus on things the character’s can’t do, which is why 911′s depiction for Christopher is wonderful in my opinion - there, we have characters finding accommodations so he can continue having fun and not limit himself while also staying safe. It’s done in a way that respects Christopher as a character and respects his agency (both as a child and disabled person).
Issues: I’m not sure if this is actually an issue, but Christopher is 1/4 Mexican in the show (as his dad, Eddie, is biracial), which I don’t believe is true of his actor in real life.
Their Importance: Dean and Cas are two characters that many in fandom viewed as LGBTQIA+, with the common belief being that Dean Winchester is bisexual.
There’s a lot about Supernatural and Destiel, and Dean in general, which I’ll go over in the “issues” section, but I think many people in fandom didn’t expect for the show to actually go anywhere with them - until 15x18, when Cas confesses his love to Dean. It’s riddled with issues, yes, but just speaking as a bi girl who’s been watching Supernatural for a decade now, watching Cas confess his love for Dean was just so incredibly validating. It validated that I - and other fans - weren’t delusional when looking for representation from Cas (and Dean). Cas is a wonderful character and gave a new life to the show, and has been a fixture of the show for 10 years. While like with every character he has his ups and downs, he is a kind, loving character, and the only main character who actually survives the show. Despite the issues on the show, knowing that Cas is canonically LGBT+ is something that’s comforting and validating to me, and continues to be so even as Supernatural kind of trainwrecks around everything else.
For myself, watching the show, I saw a lot of myself and my journey in Dean. Watching him grow and develop as a character, and try to experience happiness and find comfort in his found family was wonderful for me to see. I started this show when I was a young closeted kid, and I clung to Dean in a way that I didn’t fully understand until years later. I didn’t actually expect him to be explicitly mlm in the show, and for the most part, that didn’t happen - until the Spanish dub. There, we see the romantic reciprocation to Cas, and that’s something that is real and cannot be taken away. In fact, although it was said that it was a “rogue” translator, the episode will not be redubbed, so it is canon in a version of the show. Despite the fact that he didn’t get canonized in a way I expected or would have ever hoped, it still does give me some joy to know that he is canonically LGBT+ (and in my opinion, bi, although there is no actual label given to Dean). Even if it’s not in the version of the show I watched, I can go back and watch the Spanish dub of the episode and see that representation happen onscreen, and that means something to me.
Issues: The issues list for this show is a mile long, so I’ve split it up into sections and put most of it under a read more:
Dean + Canon Rep: Trying to wade through if Dean is actually canonically LGBTQ+ was....a struggle, to say the least, and I almost didn’t put him into this submission. If you watch the show in English, Dean never once actually reciprocates feelings for Cas, states that he’s into men, or is even confirmed to be in a relationship with other men. Although for many, it is implied, the average audience member may not see Dean as canonically LGBTQ+. However, in the Spanish dub of the show, when Castiel confesses his love to Dean (which is an explicit romantic “I love you”), Dean says “y yo a ti”, which is a reciprocation of Cas’s romantic confession. This post is very long as it is, so I want to link to @destielintheimpala’s timeline of events that occurred for Supernatural and I think it best lays out all the issues about 15x18-20, why it’s been so difficult trying to figure out Dean’s sexuality in canon, why fandom is upset, and can clear up any misinformation. This situation also goes into queerbaiting quite a bit (something Supernatural is infamously known for), which you can read in this article from @thecoolestfreakyouknow.
Reading Dean as a queer character as well - having a character who is queer (or queercoded) and an abuse survivor and then immediately killing him off is also a huge problem. As mentioned in the link above, Jensen Ackles himself felt uneasy about Dean’s ending, and many Dean fans felt the same way. To have a character suffer through abuse and traumas for 15 seasons, imply or straight out have him be LGBT+ (depending on the canon), and then immediately killing him off in the finale is needless to say, an odd choice.
Also, with Dean being an abuse survivor - his father, John Winchester, is commonly shown to be neglectful throughout the show, and Dean has to raise his younger brother Sam by himself most times. He expresses trauma from the experiences he’s had growing up with their father and being forced to hunt at a young age. However, the show weirdly seems to flip flop on their portrayal of John, despite also specifically stating that what he put his children through was child abuse. They have Sam telling John that he did the best he could, they have characters excusing away John’s actions, etc. - it was like the writers themselves couldn’t figure out if they wanted John to have been an abusive parent or not. The show ends with John in Heaven with Mary - thus absolving John of his actions and putting him in the same Heaven with the children he abused.
Castiel: Cas confesses his love for Dean in 15x18, but gets dragged away to a void called “The Empty” immediately afterwards, where he’s meant to be suffering for all of eternity. Cas does get out of The Empty, and even helps to rebuild Heaven - he’s actually one of the few characters to survive the finale - but he never appears onscreen again after 15x18, so fans’ last image of him is getting dragged away to The Empty. Dean never has a follow-up conversation, and there was only one line referencing Cas’s fate, so many fans believed he was still in The Empty suffering.
As the timeline linked above shows, the situation around Destiel is an odd one - the Spanish dub, cast’s overall silence, the lack of Misha Collins in the finale all led fans to believe that something was switched around last minute in terms of Dean’s sexuality and Destiel as a general ship. Obviously, this is speculation unless someone from the show explicitly comes out and says that fans are correct, but it’s included in the issues section because - regardless of it it turns out to be true or not - it’s such a big part of the issues currently surrounding Supernatural and canon representation. In any case, however, Castiel’s confession in 15x18 gave fans hope where they may not have had hope before, and then it was unceremoniously dropped with no real follow up - from a writing standpoint, it isn’t good writing to confirm a major character as queer via a love confession and then never go back to that plot point. While I’m happy that Cas is canonically queer and I’m not trying to say that I would rather not have more representation, I do look back on the show and wonder, with the story that made it to screen, what the actual point of writing that in was.
As mentioned before, Castiel was a main character on the show for 10 years - while I’m glad that his character survives the series, to not have him show up in the final two episodes (particularly the finale, and especially after canonically making him LGBTQ+) felt like a slap in the face to both the character and the audience who loved him.
Miscellaneous treatment of characters: In general, Supernatural has many problems in its treatment of female, characters of color, and LGBTQ+ characters. Alongside being incredibly underrepresented in the show, if they do show up, they are commonly tortured, treated poorly, and/or killed off (if not all of the above). Even thinking about their recurring characters who are also representative - Kevin, their only recurring Asian character, is killed off and appears as a ghost multiple times, Charlie, who is a lesbian, gets killed off and replaced in the show with an Alternate Universe version of herself, Eileen, a Deaf woman, gets killed off and then is brought back and is implied to survive the show, but like Cas, never actually shows up in the final two episodes even though she’s Sam’s girlfriend. I can think of very few minority characters in the show in general, much less those who got any type of happy ending.
Their Importance: Jared is the main character in the podcast, he shows romantic attraction towards a character named Darius. He is clearly queer, even if labels haven't been used in the podcast itself. Also, his voice actor is an asexual/nonbinary voice actor as well! The podcast is actually full of canonically LGBTQA+ characters, even in just the first few episodes.
While it hasn’t been explicitly stated in the show yet, he has had flashbacks, panic attacks, and has been described as having hyperfixations as well.
Issues: The representation listed for Jared hasn’t officially been confirmed in the podcast in-canon yet, but the writer and voice actor for him has confirmed it on social media/streams and it has been stated that it WILL be canonically confirmed. His asexuality has been heavily implied, but only stated as canon so far on social media.
Their Importance: She is the queen bee of the school, and has an interesting if subtle character arc where she learns to be a kind person and let go of her rather manipulative past habits (like spreading hurtful rumours). Lexi is played by a trans actress, and her being trans is only mentioned as a fact about her. She's not treated differently for it and is in fact rather popular and seen as attractive/cool by fellow students. One particularly good scene does mention she was afraid of coming out to them, but being open about her transition helped and she's a happier person nowadays, especially with her friends' support.
Issues: Lexi’s actress is of Palestinian and Lebanese descent and Lexi has a partly Arab last name; however, the show doesn’t actually acknowledge Lexi’s culture. She is referred to as a “priviledged white girl” by one of the other characters, with no reference to if Lexi is Arab or not.
