Introduction
this will be similar to my recommendations but it will only be my favs and I will write why i like them in more detail
keep in mind this isn't necessarily just my favorite stuff but rather things that i have smth to say about or that shaped me
shows
Star vs the Forces of Evil
I think I was about 12 when I first watched that show. It was probably the first cartoon I didn't watch on TV and impacted
my life quite a bit. I was only kinda starting to draw more and I immediatly made fanart of this show after I fell in love
with it. At this point I mainly showed my art to my mom and family but because of Svtfoe I joined Amino which was essentially
my first experience with social media.
There where definitely some toxic things there however it mainly motivated me to draw more and from then on I realized I wanted
to make art.
I still like the show itself. I loved all of it as a kid though now I do think they kinda messed up in season 3 & 4
by adding so much shipping content.
It's kinda funny how I resonated with Marco back then only to much later find out they where initially meant to
be a trans girl which looking back explains a lot about the character and my connection to them.
I'm still mad at disney for not allowing it.
Star herself also gave me some gender envy looking back.
Especially these lines in her ballad song in season 2 really summed up the vibe that I admired and aspired to be back then and still to this day to be honest:
'Cause she's a rebel princess, she's the best
She's a ball of lightning in a hot pink dress
She's a thunderstorm roaring through the night
She's our shooting Star, and she's lighting up the sky!'
Kim Possible
When I was a child I at some point decided not to watch the show anymore because "It's a girl show".
Before I didn't really care for it. I for example loved watching barbie movies as a child and also had a toy horse
that was one of my
favorite toys.
But I developed some of that toxic masculinity through elementary school.
However when I was like 14/15 I started to slowly get over it and decided to watch it again and I absolutely loved it.
It made me quite mad at toxic masculinity for how it made me refuse to enjoy such nice things and after that I let go of
it more and more.
Kim possible is funny enough the show that made me realize how dumb it is to judge media like that in this gendered way.
And it's not even a "girly" show, it literally just has a female protagonist.
And of course there was also some gender envy of Kim looking back. I actually wanted to learn a backhand spring because of
her but that never happened obviously.
It still holds up as a great and funny show. Kim and Rons relationship is the cutest and I love that they had to make a 4th
season even if it wasn't initially planned as we could actually see them in the relationship and not just have the first
kiss be the climax and end of it.
Also fun fact as a child I didn't have a crush on Kim or Shego but her texan cousin who only shows up in like 2 episodes.
And this fear at the end of season 4 where they have to decide what to do after highschool and Ron is worried to be
separated from Kim is so real. Like to be fair I don't care too much about my future career as long as I can do art
even if it's just a hobby and be with my gf, but this fear of being separated from the people you love is relatable.
The fear of change.
But that's also why I think it's a fantastic coming of age show because it represents those aspects quite well.
She-ra
space lesbians go brr
those where the kind of edits that used to make me bawl my eyes out at 3am
Catradora || You deserve love too by SnowFalls3
take me back to the start | catra/adora by nialies
Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls was one of the first cartoons I really go into just like svtfoe.
I've made a lot of fanart back then and I still adore the show.
I even had a version of the journal and was obsessed with translating all the codes and mystery. And at that point I still had
trouble with english because I was like 13, so I was literally reading the journal with a dictionary next to me trying to translate not
just the code but also the english.
I even remember especially struggling with the word "muse", which is how stanford described Bill at the start but I didn't know what it
meant and the dictionary just gave me the same weird word in german.
It absolutely loved the show and the characters back then. Mabel was and stil is my favorite because of her happy, kind, excited attitude.
I wanted to be more like her in many ways however I also quite related to Dipper. His struggle with masculinity and acceptance for his non
comforming parts are of course relatable to a trans person
Arcane
Incredible show.
I mainly checked it out for the art which is breathtaking. Like the animation is absolutely amazing and so is the background art.
I've made quite a few fanarts and style studies of this show after I finished because I wanted to learn from it.
Avatar the last airbender
what's there to say
If you haven't watched it yet get off this website and start now.
The owl house
Omg gay witches
Amphibia
I wasnt actually super sure with this show for a while because while they weren't bad, I didn't love the episodic
episodes that much but the story still kept me watching and after season 3, I don't regret that one bit.
The ending was fantastic. Marcy is a total comfort character for me but I love all the main characters
(Spoilers)
I loved the relationship between anne and her parents, how they were kinda toxic sometimes but also ended up growing
together.
And I loved they showed friendships don't always last. Many shows end by saying "and decades later they were still
besties". But here they don't.
Some friends you lose because of life circumstances, like anne and the planters being separated but others also just
don't last. Anne and Sasha stopped being close naturally and while they still know each other and obviously sometimes
though rarely see each other, that's it.
this tiktok edit shows it nicely
(Spoilers end)
And that's sad but also very real and it especially personally hit because of similar experiences.
I don't really talk to anyone from high school anymore (except my gf) and while I made new friends at college, I assume it will be
similar with a lot of them and that's unfortunate, but I guess it's also ok. That's just how life moves on I suppose.
Seeing these characters grow up like that just really makes me think of my own life and how I'm becoming
more and more adult
Wakfu
Had to include the show where I got my name from
I was actually watching it when I was really questioning my gender and was thinking, why not try to come up with a name
just in case and see how I feel about it. Amalia just felt right.
It's beautiful name and starts with the same letter as my deadname so it was also convenient. I was actually even
considering evangelyne but even I just had to google how to spell it so I think you can guess the issue. Not to mention
it would seem very weird in german and no one would know how to pronounce it.
And I also love amalias plant magic and her charater so I suppose it fits well enough.
Especially in the 3rd season she was great. Before that she was sometimes a bit annoying but that's totally fair for a
13 year old charater.
I even played dofus for a little while, after watching the show, which is the game it's based on and it's quite fun as
well
Also Dally and Evangelynes relationship in season 3 was the absolute cutest and most wholesome thing. I do have some mixed
feelings for the season and the ending but it still had many great things.
Anne with an e
insert description
Sense8
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The end of the fucking world
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music
Against me
I dont remember when I found against me and at first they didn't have much of an impact on me but as I questioned more about my gender they became my comfort band.
The punk lyrics and the queerness as well as just banger sounds make this pretty much my favorite band at the moment.
Laura has an amazing voice with great energy and the fact she continues to sing the same way she did pre transition is really powerful and helped me find acceptance with myself.
Trans people living unapologetically is a big comfort for me and helps me with how I am different from cis people and that is ok.
But of course also relating to "transgender dysphoria blues" with lines like this make me feel less alone with these thoughts
"You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl
They just see a faggot"
Yungblud
Yungblud was one of the artists I found when I was listening to a lot of modern rock music. I remember the first song I heard
of him which was "loner".
Aside from being a banger itself it lead me to check out the rest of his stuff.
"Mars" was one of the other songs I found early on which is about a trans girl whos parents accepted her after they came
to a Yungblud concert with her and saw all of the people around her just embracing her.
At that time when I found him I was starting to express my femininity more still thinking I was a cis boy and Yungblud was
one of the people I found comort in. In that time as he also frequently expresses his femininity by wearing skirts and dresses.
Something I used to very much admire and still do.
Now that I figured out that I'm a trans girl Yungblud's "Mars" has become one of my favorite songs. I find comfort and joy in
many of his songs but especially "mars" helps when I'm feeling isolated or lonely.
On top of that I find it really encaptures the feeling of being trans especially in this time with the rise of transphobia around the world.
Shouting out into the world if there is life on mars in hopes to find community and support after the world has made you feel like an
alien.
That's what the song means to me.
Mars by Yungblud music video
Guns n roses
Appetite for Destruction was essentially my introduction to rock music.
I used to play a lot of PlayStation with my brother, especially fifa. And at some point,
when I was about 10 years old maybe, he found an old vinyl player from my parents and the album Appetite for Destruction on vinyl.
So we put that on while playing and I instantly fell in love with this genre.
After that I really got into rock especially older stuff from the 80s and it was the genre I
predominantly listened to for the next few years.
I also had this thing for a while where I would write off other genres mainly pop and rap as dumb
and boring which is really stupid looking back.
Back then Axl Rose was a sort of role model for me. Not because of his personality but because
of his vibe and confidence and also his style. I didn't change my appearance much in these years
but this 80s rock aesthetic was something I admired for long.
I probably mainly liked it for the androgynous gender expression and also because I found these rock stars hot.
Guns n roses had a huge impact in my taste of music and influenced a lot the kind of music I wanted to play on
guitar though I did move more towards modern rock as I got into my early teens.
games
celeste
This is probably my favorite game in general.
It has a really cute story and the gameplay is fantastic.
I have over a hundred hours in it because I absolutely love it. Though 30 of those hours are in the strawberry
jam mod and not the base game.
The story about self hatred and depression and how to deal with that is fantastic and I love that the game has a
trans protagonist.
It is a bit weird how most of the game happens sort of separate to the main story with the b and c sides as well as
chapter 9. However I also don't know how you could have done it otherwise except for leaving this content out which
wouldn't have been that nice.
Kena Bridge of Spirits
It is definitely the most beautiful game Ive ever played. The animation looks like a Pixar movie and the story made me cry
multiple times.
The gameplay is really fun and I love the little spirits that follow you around.
The environment art is also gorgeous.
It also has this cool semi open world. The game is relatively linear but it still gives you enough to explore to make the world
feel big and alive. And since it's only semi open world, meaning you can't just go pretty much anywhere but have more clear paths,
this means that everywhere you can go is a beautifully made environment that will for certain have some sort of reward for exploring.
Unlike bigger open world games where you can often walk for hours through the same landscapes without finding anything interesting.
I actually did a few painting studies of it (which I should probably do more of ) and it made me consider going into
environment art for video games but I'm still very much not sure of it.
But Kena really showed me again how beautiful games can be visually.
Getting Over it
relaxing game
Undertale
cant get myself to play the genocide route
also have a crush on undyne so thats that
Echo
Echo: A Magnificent Furry Horror Game by Locke
After this visual novel I just accepted that I was a furry lol.
I found out about it through patricia taxxons
video on the marble blast series where she just put this random segment on
echo and I'm so glad she did.
Though I only got the game after watching the video for like the third time (it was sort of a comfort video for me)
And at that point I wasn't super sure if I was a furry because while I quite liked the art and the community I also didn't
engage all that much with furry media.
But then I played Echo and oh my is it good.
The characters/ world building and story in general are fantastic and while I'm not the biggest fan of horror I still loved
it.
Every route is amazing on it's own but the way everything is connected and you just get this huge full story in the end is
amazing.
I would recommend keeping Flynns route for the end because it's the wildest and also my favorite.
Because of Echo I also started Adastra which is equally amazing.
Minecraft
Minecraft has been one of my oldest gaming experiences. It was by no means my first game but definitely one I played the most. My time with the game however was nothing special. I played it a lot with my older brother back then but also alone. I remember building all kinds of things without ever looking at any references or tutorials. They looked shit but it was fun and I liked them
I recently found out that Mooblooms could have been in the game and now I'm mad about everyone who voted for the damn glow squids instead.
