Author: Mirra Tubiolo

I feel that the segregation of toys into categorizations of “girl and “boy” is really an important phenomena to address because it affects children when they’re at the most impressionable age. Even subconsciously, children start to associate certain colors and objects and even attitudes to boys and girls and men and women, encouraging stereotypes and stereotypical behaviors. Girls and boys seen playing with things marketed towards the opposite gender then end up being labeled as “odd” or “weird” by peers. This can cause children to question their identities or their preferences, which can make them try to change themselves to whatever is considered the norm instead of risk being labeled as a “weirdo” for staying the way they are.

Even as a kid I thought the gendering of toys was pointless. I didn’t really like dolls, and I was relatively neutral to most “boy” toys, though I did like legos and dinosaurs (but really, who doesn’t?). Everytime I went to a fast-food restaurant as a kid, I had to specifically ask for one of the “boy” toys. This was probably what affected me most about gendering items as a kid, primarily because I really didn’t care what anyone thought about what I liked and enjoyed terrorizing the group of boys who thought they were the cool kids and pretty much tuned out anyone else who questioned why I wasn’t more girly.

Autism is something that affects everyone who has it differently. Though I relate to some of the challenges Owen faces with autism, primarily regarding social interaction, having autism was never much of an obstacle for me. It really is unfair to call autism a disease like Owen’s father said at one point, as it really is just a different way of thinking and viewing the world that is different from the “norm.” Autism may have made Owen less talkative, but it makes me much more talkative, and the primary challenge I have had with autism is knowing what to say and what not to say in certain contexts, as people who think differently than I do might easily misinterpret what I say or become annoyed by my tangents.

In relation to animation, I find it much easier to understand the emotions and motives of animated characters that with the people I see around me. Because characters tend to be much different from each other, I can better differentiate between them as well, but since the people around me do not have exaggerated characteristics or differentiating features it can make it harder for my brain to keep track of who’s who. Especially with people who have similar hair cuts. It took me over a month longer to memorize the names of 4 girls in my high school art academy than everyone else, simply because their hair was the same shape, even though the hair was different colors. When I notice distinctive features in people around me, it starts to become easier for me to distinguish them as I start to notice and make a note of more specific details.

For my section of our conspiracy podcast I’ll be talking about a theory about The Amazing World of Gumball that involves how the reality of Elmore works.

Looking up similar theories came up with this Reddit post, which suggests that Elmore is a simulated reality (which, in animation terms, it pretty much is):

https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/35cldi/spoilers_the_amazing_world_of_gumball_elmore/

The theory that I would like to propose, which we’ll talk about more in detail during the podcast, is that, in order to prevent Elmore from devolving into total chaos on a regular basis, the creators of the world (in a real-world sense), reset the show’s reality often and erase characters and their memories from existence to preserve whatever sanity the town of Elmore might have left.

Hey all! Sorry for the late intro. My name is Mirra and I’m a sophomore animation major. I love birds (probably too much) and I love drawing (and drawing birds).

Fun fact: I have caught several hundred animals with my bare hands. Mostly lizards, though that number includes a large quantity of butterflies, ~50 baby fish, several birds, a baby alpaca and some other miscellaneous things.