--- title: "Animating Queer Futures" episode: 193 date: 2026-01-22 guest: "AJ Hannah" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/193-animating-queer-futures audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-193/audio.mp3 --- # Animating Queer Futures Joanne Lockwood is joined by AJ Hannah, founder and creative director of FWDIO Studios, to talk about what it takes to build an indie animation studio committed to unapologetically queer, more representative storytelling. AJ shares why “a gayer and more colourful Disney” isn’t just a tagline, but a response to mainstream decisions that dilute or censor LGBTQ+ narratives and limit who gets to lead creative work. They explore how authenticity is created not only through characters on screen, but through who writes, storyboards, directs, and voices them. AJ describes casting choices that match lived experience, the value of collaboration and cultural consultation, and the responsibility that comes with representing communities well. The conversation also gets practical: the realities of funding animation through sponsorships and Kickstarter, paying artists fairly in an industry where unpaid work is common, and building a sustainable model without giving up creative control. Alongside the business and craft, AJ reflects on identity, safety, resilience, and the determination to keep making work in the face of political backlash and anti-DEI sentiment. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome - 01:49 — Creating Stories Disney Left Out - 06:09 — Inclusive Representation in Animation - 14:04 — Hollywood's Missed Talent Inequality - 21:16 — Poison Us: Release Plans - 25:18 — Community-Driven Creative Independence - 32:19 — Characters Reflecting Their Actors - 33:12 — Voice Actors as Marketing Tools - 41:41 — Journalism, Pivoting, Sapphic Inspiration - 46:28 — Standing Firm for Representation - 49:55 — Hope Fuels Dreams - 57:54 — Being Me Without Labels - 01:00:59 — Self-Focused Perception Explained ## Key takeaways - The power and necessity of authentic representation in animation—why it goes beyond mere casting and into lived experience at every level of production. - Structural barriers faced by marginalised creators in mainstream animation, and how indie studios provide alternative platforms and pathways. - The realities of ethical indie production, including paying underrepresented artists fairly and the challenges of funding outside traditional channels. - The tension between creative integrity and global distribution constraints, particularly when “queer stories” face censorship or resistance. - Strategies for sustainable content creation: balancing short-form episodes, audience engagement, and monetisation through community-driven models. - Prioritising mental health and flexibility within production teams as essential practices for inclusive creative environments. - The role of hope, activism, and joyful defiance as driving forces for building inclusive storytelling ecosystems in hostile political climates. ## FAQs ### What is "Animating Queer Futures" about? "Animating Queer Futures" is an episode of the Inclusion Bites Podcast, hosted by Joanne Lockwood, featuring guest AJ Hannah. The episode explores the power and necessity of queer, BIPOC-led animation studios that unapologetically create content centring LGBTQ+ and diverse identities. It centres on AJ Hannah’s studio, 3dio Studios, and its mission to address the gaps in mainstream animation, such as Disney, by producing genuinely representative and authentic stories. --- ### Who is AJ Hannah, and what is their vision for animation? AJ Hannah is the founder and creative director of 3dio Studios, an independent, queer, BIPOC woman-led animation studio. Their vision is to build “a gayer and more colourful Disney,” advocating for stories that mainstream studios often neglect – focusing on queer characters, people of colour, and those living at intersectional margins, both on and off the screen. --- ### How does 3dio Studios differentiate itself from mainstream studios like Disney? Unlike mainstream studios, 3dio Studios prioritises authentic representation by ensuring both characters and creative talent share lived experiences with those they portray. For example, a Filipino character will be played by a Filipino voice actor, and a trans character by a trans actor of colour. The studio refuses to censor or dilute narratives for commercial safety, choosing instead to tell bold, resonant stories for the communities they serve. --- ### What are some of the flagship projects of 3dio Studios? The primary animated series discussed is "Poison Us," an adult dark comedy with a diverse cast of characters voiced by actors from corresponding backgrounds. Another project mentioned is “The Manslaughter Project,” a thriller-comedy in pre-production, focusing on female protagonists and seeking active collaboration with indigenous writers for cultural credibility and accuracy. --- ### In what ways does 3dio Studios support underrepresented creatives? 3dio Studios actively recruits writers, voice actors, and artists from underrepresented groups and insists on paying them, even if that means the founder themselves goes unpaid. Their objective is to build CVs and “showreels” for those typically overlooked by mainstream agencies, providing not only representation in media but tangible income and professional opportunities. --- ### How does the studio fund its productions? Funding is sourced from modern community-driven avenues such as Kickstarters, Patreon (considered but not yet enacted), merchandise, and sponsorships from organisations like Toon Boom. Rather than pursuing traditional production financing or courting big studios, 3dio Studios intentionally reaches out to its core community to maintain creative control. --- ## Transcript AJ Hannah: Foreign. Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world without? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share storeys that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. And today is episode 193 with the title Animating Queer Futures. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome AJ. AJ is the founder and creative director of 3dio Studios, a queer bipoc woman led indie studio creating adult anime series, animated series Poison Us. And she also champions globally resonant LGBTQ storytelling. So when I asked AJ to describe her superpower, she said it is telling storeys and it is something she loves to do and always has done. Hello, AJ, welcome to the show. AJ Hannah: Hello. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. This is our Joanne Lockwood: second attempt. So we tried this probably a couple of months ago and detect differences between us and anyway, we're back today. Whereabouts in the world are you? You're. You're. You're in the States somewhere. I AJ Hannah: am in the States on the east coast, near Washington dc. In between that? In between that. So what's the weather Joanne Lockwood: like this time of year? Is it getting colder? Is it. It is getting colder, AJ Hannah: but it's that nice fall cold where you're wearing your plaid and your. Yeah, it feels really nice. And the pollen has finally died down a little bit because it's just cold enough to kill off that last round of like weeds and hay fever. That really tries. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So it's nice, soft, warmish. We just AJ Hannah: had Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Yes. So the Joanne Lockwood: trick and treating is big in the States. I mean, over here it's become becoming something, but probably not as big as it is in the States. Big AJ Hannah: in the States. I have two kids and they were just tearing through the neighbourhood in the pitch blackness and I was like, great, awesome. Door to door. We noticed over here is you go to Joanne Lockwood: the local cinema and they're Doing reruns of all the horror movies. Sort of October is horror movies these and then everything is there. All the Halloween movies or the, all the Freddy Kruegers and all this other stuff. Final Destination comes out. I think they bring that back. And so yeah, there's a lot of. Culturally we seem to do a lot of horror movies on at the cinema at this time of year. Yeah, we have a AJ Hannah: decent amount of horror movies come out on like the streaming platforms and then there's some that show like, hey, you have a limited showing in theatres, but I mean it'd be nice to do, to do that, but you'd have to find one of those small theatres that probably do it. We do, we're big on Rocky, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. A lot of theatres. Yeah, they'll either show it or they'll have like live acts or plays of it that go on the same time the movie's running. Like that's a big thing. So you never thought about your indie studio knocking out some Joanne Lockwood: R rated horror then? We actually have a AJ Hannah: thriller piece that we want to work on and it is, it's got two women who try to seek revenge on men who I guess treat women poorly. It's called the Manslaughter Project and so it's one of those thriller comedies that. But we're, we're, we're way in, we're still in pre production with that. So that's. Yeah. Oh, sounds intriguing. So I, I noticed from your Joanne Lockwood: bio that you sent through that your studio aims to be a gayer and more colourful Disney. That's an ambition, isn't, is an ambition. AJ Hannah: When you think about Disney? We have just this titan in the industry right now and it's, I mean, I grew up on Disney. A lot of us grew up on Disney. We watched the movie the Lion King and really formative in our years. And then, not to say, I mean, Disney still does great stuff, but there's a whole section of Disney that I feel could be better. And then we had the closings in the last couple of years of a lot of our DEI sectors and our LGBT and bipoc and women were laid off. If you know anything about the animation industry or the Hollywood industry, the animators and artists, while they are a lot of times female, they very rarely reach those opportunities to become the creators or to become the directors or become somebody that can actually call shots. So once that started happening, a decent amount of us still wanted to create and we wanted to create projects that were reflective of who we are and when this studio was formed, we decided, okay, this is going to be. Our mission, is to tell these sort of storeys that are missing in Disney. So when I say more colourful, I mean Disney's colourful when it comes to colour and we love colour, but we also want colourful, as in the different shapes and colours of people represented. So the main character isn't always, you know, a person, you know, a white girl or a white boy or a white male toy or a. I mean, you can argue that Lightning McQueen, he's a car, you know, he's a bright red car. But we kind of know the demographic that he represents. You know, between the manner of speaking and the voice actor and all of that, you. You kind of get the hint as to where he falls. So that's what we want to do, is we want to bring more people of colour in and queer people in and people that haven't been able to really lead and put those things in to animation into storeys without that pushback from the board or, hey, you need to rewrite this. There was not exactly recently, but Disney had that character who was trying to tell her storey through baseball or softball and she is trans and they had. While the aspect of her transness still stayed, certain scenes were cut out, like the scene of her having to choose in the locker room, that was cut out. The. Some of the language was cut out when she was trying to come out. And so we don't want to have to censor those sort of things, if that makes sense. But yeah, it's a big game, it's a big, big reach, but we're going to do it. I think it's down to responsibility Joanne Lockwood: of organisations and production companies like yourselves to take this messaging on, because we can all criticise Disney and other corporates for their stance, but we have to recognise they operate in territories all over the world. Some of those territories. It's illegal to be queer in any shape or form. They've got sponsors, they've got money, they got shareholders, they've got everything going on. So they are trying to tow this middle line and we can complain that they're selling out and they're not really standing up for us. I'd rather invest in some, in an organisation such as yourselves that aren't. Well, you're unashamedly queer, queer led and you're trying to push that message out to the masses and you're not, you're not actually going to be swayed by someone saying, oh, you can't say that in China or no, in, in the. In The Middle east. You're going to have to cut that bit out and change that word. Aiming at a queer audience or an ally audience who are receptive to the message of Chantel, aren't you? Yeah. There are AJ Hannah: people that are obviously going to say, hey, this isn't. We can't show this here. And it's okay, fine, don't show it. That's the people that will want to see it. They'll reach for it, or they'll take it and they'll grab it and they'll want it. And we have such a history, a robust history, and even more, you know, future options for the people that, you know, don't want to see queer or don't want to see people of colour in the forefront. They still have all of their options. We're not taking anything from them, obviously. We are building a media and platform for people that want to and need that sort of representation, want to have and need that sort of representation. So we're not worried about. I mean, even in China, where sometimes you'll get censored stuff, they'll still go, and the queer young people of China will still go and they'll find what they want to watch. That's just the way it is. Just even in the States where you try to, you know, block something as simple as, like high schoolers and you're trying to block, I don't know, Reddit at their school, they'll find ways around so that they can read what they want on Reddit. It just, it comes down to, this is what we're making and we are making it for us and we're making it for our community. And if you don't like it, you don't have to be a part of it. That's fine. Yeah. But the advantage that you have Joanne Lockwood: is your talent through a queer lens as well. It's not just a straight director or a straight screenwriter or the production is tend to be people straight with a queer character or a queer author. Maybe. In there you're telling the entire storey and the concept queer first, if you like, which means you're going to get a different version, a different flavour of the output than you would from a mainstream studio. And that's the power, isn't it? So someone's quoting Abraham Lincoln the other day. By the people, for the people, by the queer community, for the queer community. It's going to be far more representation, isn't it? Yes, and that's important AJ Hannah: when you want to tell a storey, you can put a queer character in there. Or a character of colour in there. But if you don't have the people behind it, the storyboard artists, the writers, the voice actors behind it that can actually tell that storey in a representative and authentic sort of way, then what are you doing? That comes back to that 2020 where you're just sort. It feels sort of like you're pandering or you're trying to give the people what they want for commercial aspects rather than what they're actually asking for. So we have a character in Poison Us in our animated show coming up. We have a character who is Filipino and our voice actress is Filipino. We could have just cast a regular, like any other sort of voice actress like that came to us. We could have found somebody cheaper. We could have just said, hey, we need an Asian voice actress. But no, we want somebody who. That is representative of the demographic that we're putting out there. Other character in Poison Us, Oleander, he is a trans man. And we have a trans person of colour playing Oleander because that's important. It's important and authentic to have somebody in there. And then I can also. If there's moments in the script that don't read right or that maybe need to be changed, we allow that flexibility to talk back and forth and be like, hey, actually, in this culture, or in. We have that exchange of ideas, so it's not gonna run up against some sort of. I guess. What is that word that I'm looking for? Not political. I'll just use the word inauthentic so that it doesn't sound inauthentic. When we're creating a character, when we're creating a storyline, we want it to be reflective of other people. Like other Filipino people when they see it, or other ace people when they see it, or other trans men when they see it. We want their experiences to be, hey, I actually relate to this. Even though it's set in a world. With magic, I hear something there Joanne Lockwood: about this authenticity part. And by going back so it's 100% through the eyes, through the ears, through the writing of someone with that lived experience and then portrayed by someone with that lived experience, the character becomes real to the people that it matters to. We see it in mainstream movies all the time. We think, well, is that a straight guy playing a gay guy? Is that. Is he. Is he really getting off on that kiss or that. That love scene? Is he just performing? And, yeah, act is acting, but if you believe that as well, that's part of the storytelling, is that belief in that storey, that message that resonance, actually, that is my storey as well. And there are so many AJ Hannah: talented people that are not seen in Hollywood because it's very much a who you know, or this person knows this person and recommended them. So you end up, or you went to school with this person. And that leaves out a whole demographic that leaves out several demographics of people. That leaves out people in other countries that maybe couldn't afford to go to scad. That leaves out people that, you know, even in this country that couldn't afford to go to acting school or, you know, knew that, hey, acting school is probably not my best choice. As a queer person of colour. I need something that I can fall back on, that's going to spend more money, but at the same time, they're a great voice actor or voice actress and they, you know, do it on the side. They're not represented, they're not being seen by people or they're just. They're thought to be too niche, so they're not picked up by an agent. There's so much talent out there that, you know, if you just look, you can find it. Joanne Lockwood: I think what you just said there about they're not getting picked up by the mainstream agents, films, whatever it may be, because they're not of the typical blend. So what you're also doing is the valuable part of this is actually putting money in people's pockets, giving visibility to people, amplifying people that would not sort of be amplified elsewhere. So it's not just about telling someone else's storey and the audience, it's actually providing income into that, into that segment as well, isn't it? Mm. And there's a big critique with AJ Hannah: indie animation right now. There's a lot of people that create their own studios, that create their own shows. And for pre product, pre production or even sometimes production, they're not paying their screenwriters or their voice actors. And for some people, especially getting started in the voice acting scene, I mean, explain exposure or building clips, that's great for them. Some people can do that. And. But indie animation gets a bad rap because we're. It's like, oh, you want us to work for free for you? No, Wideo doesn't want you to work for free. No, we pay everyone. Except for me. I don't get paid right now. And that's fine. I put all the money back into the company and back into the artists and animators and people that work with me to create our projects. We know that, especially with all the people that got laid off, it's important to have income, any kind of income. And right now we can't afford to pay union rates. We want to. And we want to be able to pay union rates to people that are underrepresented, are. You know, without an agent at this point, we don't have that sort of income. Our Kickstarter has the goal of being able to pay people that. And it's going on right now, but we'll see if we reach that goal, honestly. But until then, I'm paying people. FWDIO is paying people. We want people that are underrepresented to get paying gigs so that they can also put on their resume that they had this paying gig. They have done this thing for actual money for a company and hopefully launch them even further. Yeah, because that. That c. Joanne Lockwood: That showreel, that testimony is so valuable. How can you get experience? And you need experience to get experience. It's. It's a crazy world we live in. So this social proof, this footage you can give, the portfolio you start helping people build is invaluable for their career. As well as it is. And I remember going AJ Hannah: into my first job, my first interview at I was 15 or 16, and I went in for a stockroom position. Position and at a grocery store. And she asked me if I had any experience. And I said no. Cause I mean, I'm clearly high school at that point. And she goes, well, we're looking for someone with experience. And I remember sitting there thinking, well, how do I get experience if nobody gives me experience? But I mean, either way, I was hired not in the stock room, but I was hired as a cashier up front. So that was, I guess, but that was that first foot in the door of okay, this is a job. And any kind of job that I get, I have to use it to pivot to whatever I'm doing next. Because it's hard. It's hard to go in there with no experience and try to get something. Especially when it says, hey, you need to have experience. And that's why I see a lot of people in indie animation doing clips for free, doing voice acting for free, because they're building that roster. So what is the typical Joanne Lockwood: length of a feature that you produce? Is this long hour, two hour, or is this short? We AJ Hannah: have short. Okay, so Poison Us, the pilot is about 10 minutes. The next several episodes are also in that between 10 and 15 minute range. Just because that's the amount that we've budgeted for. And we've also found that we can tell that short enough storey in that amount of Time. Now, what I was talking about briefly before the manslaughter project, that's at more of an hour and a half for a movie length. That's. But again, that one is still in pre production, so we haven't nailed down the number. We just still have the script that we're finishing out and fleshing out and actually I'm looking for a co writer on that one just because the topic does have a mAJor character, dear Woman, who is part of the indigenous community. And this is one of those projects that I'm not going to go forward on until we have a writer from the indigenous community that is wanting to join on this. Because that's a cultural icon. I guess icon's the wrong word. That's. A dear woman is a cultural. Dear woman is a part of their culture that I don't want to mess up personally. And if I don't have somebody that can consult on it and I don't have somebody that can write on it, then that's not something. We're either gonna have to pivot hard with the film or that one is gonna have to be shelved because it's just. That's the way of the world. Like I. That's the way of foidio, at least. It doesn't matter how great it is. It needs to be responsible, reflective and resonant. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: Where do you push these films shorts out? Is this a YouTube or is it self hosted? Is it through independent cinemas and things? Or a bit of everything? So with Poison Us, AJ Hannah: we have several shorts that come out on TikTok, but the actual pilot will come out on YouTube, but it'll come out on YouTube after we do a separate screening for the people in the Kickstarter that have paid, you know, the $25 to be VIP or we have. I think we're also debating right now whether or not to do a physical screening alongside. Like a. Alongside the early screening. When it comes to Poison Us, the rest of the episodes will come out on YouTube. And when it comes to indie animation, it's kind of like you can make a pilot or you can make an animation, but then if you end up partnering with another company, like a production company or a distribution company, then it has to be held until they put it on whatever streaming platform it's going to be. We don't have that issue right now with any of our projects. So we get to decide when we're putting them out, which gives us amount of time, whatever amount of time we need to finish it or to make it so if somebody has. Somebody has surgery or somebody needs a mental health break for a week, especially like one of my animators or one of the cleanup artists. Okay, cool. Like, if I can't get somebody else to jump in on that week to fill in that piece that we need, that's fine. We will wait a week. We have that luxury right now. And that's great because mental health is so important to me and it's important to a lot of the people that work with, you know, in this industry. It's easy to burn out and burn out fast. So your route to monetization is through Joanne Lockwood: sponsorship. Adverts, YouTube, watch, revenue monetization on the channel. That is that. That's primarily your. Your trAJectory to. To revenue generation. AJ Hannah: Yeah. So we have. We have sponsorships. We actually just about a month ago landed a sponsorship with Toon Boom, which is a big animation software piece in the field. Big player for 2D animation. So we have a sponsorship from them. We also have two other sponsorships right now. And then we have the Kickstarter going on, which will fund the mAJority of the pilot. Ooh, your puppy. Puppy's Joanne Lockwood: here. Puppy's here. She's getting. She's getting all excited. She's playing with a nylon bone and she's making her very excited. So, yeah, anyway, yeah, sorry, yeah, no. So we have several different AJ Hannah: streams of revenue. So we have the sponsorships, we have the Kickstarter, we will have merch also, and we have whatever comes back to us from the YouTube or TikTok, that sort of thing. And we're. We're thinking about doing Patreon, but that's not something that we've committed to yet. Joanne Lockwood: So this is using sort of modern, you know, sounds quite patronising, modern, young, younger ways of doing this. You know, you're not looking traditional production, fundraising, going to the usual suspects. This is community sponsored and fed and the people are sponsoring. You are predominantly interested in queer bipoc content, so that you're accessing that market as well, right? Yeah. So we do AJ Hannah: have. There's a couple of reasons for that. One is that our topic and our. What we're producing is niche in the idea of. This isn't what Disney would put on. This isn't what necessarily Netflix would pick up because it is. Because it is queer and it's bipoc and it's right there. So unless we, you know, negotiated some sort of control of, you know, content and creative direction, that's. And that's probably not something that they would take and want to give up those liberties. So there's the reason for that. But the other reason is, yeah, we're community driven. We are making things for our community by people in our community. And that's what those people want to see as well. So we're reaching out directly to them rather than to a studio or, you know, financial backers that, I don't know live in the clouds. They don't live in the clouds, obviously, but they people that we also don't have access to because a lot of us were in the lower tiers of the echelons of Hollywood. We never had access. There's no way to go up and be like, hey, look at this script, look at this project that I have an idea for. We never had access to that anyway. So we also don't have the type of access to the financial that I guess other creators would have. So we have to put our content. We have to make our content and put it out first and say, hey, look, this is what we have. This is what we love to do. This is how good we are. And this is how many people want to see it. And then maybe they'll be like, oh, hey, do you want to also distribute that over here? Be like, oh, sure, yeah, we can do that and distribution. A lot of times you don't have to give up your creative direction for. So that's excellent. So what's the genre Joanne Lockwood: apart from queer and bipoc? Is there a style? Is it gay at Disney? Is it a Pixar type or is it anime type or. AJ Hannah: So we do 2D animation. We do 2D hand drawn animation. If you know Boondocks how it had a little bit of that anime feel, but it was still very American cartoon. That's kind of where we land. It does have a little bit of that animation anime feel to it, but it is still very much an American cartoon. We also have, yeah, Poison Us is an adult dark comedy. But then we have the manslaughter project, which is also supposed to be like a. But it's a thriller comedy. And we have a book that came out, which was a rom com kind of book that came out earlier in Halloween. That's. We have all kinds of. We're trying to. When it comes to genre, we're trying to spread across. The next thing that we want to also work into is comics and. But that's just, you know, time management. Joanne Lockwood: So you say hand drawn, obviously computer hand drawn on paper. You know, you're not drawing slope. It's hand drawn. AJ Hannah: But yes, it's Computer. It's not like. It's not like we're actually doing it on paper anymore. So is this frame by Joanne Lockwood: frame animation hand drawn, or is this. Are you. Yeah, AJ Hannah: 24 frames per second. Yeah, yeah, Joanne Lockwood: yeah. It's a. It's quite a. Quite a AJ Hannah: mountain of time. But we have such a talented crowd, group of people that every time when they come back with pieces, I'm just like. I was just. I just showed my. My character designer. Why can I not remember the name for that? There's a technical word, there's a fur. It's not character designer. Anyway, I showed them the key art to one of the pieces of animation that has come in recently and they were like. And I was like, I know, it's amazing. And that's just like for the opening scene, for the opening credits of the show. Of the show. Poison Us. Anyway, so how long does it take to Joanne Lockwood: generate each frame? So presumably you've got some stock foot, you've got some stock animation that you layer on. You're just looking at the specific character or their movement or what they're interacting with. But everything else is a stock image. Is it? I presume AJ Hannah: not for us. So we have. We have background artists that draw in the backgrounds and we have, you know, our colour person and our cleanup artist that does the colour. We have. Every character is animated by our rough animators and fine animators, like our. And our character animators. So there's not any stock footage right there. Every piece of art that's in there, even like one of the girls has tarot cards. Even that has been illustrated by one of our people. So it's a. It's a labour of love. It takes a long time. It's that fun, I guess, clip or gif that goes around where it's like, animation takes a long time and it does. I don't expect Poison Us to be out until I'm shooting for, like, the worldwide premiere date of Halloween of next year. Just because. Yeah, I know. Just because we do have storyboards down and we have the voice acting mostly down and all of that. But then we still have to finish the animation. We have to clean up the animation. There are going to be some effects to it. We have original music in it as well. So it's really. Yeah, I mean, it's great. It's coming together, but it takes a while to make sure that everything hits. And then there's that whole thing that you have to do with marketing and run up and, you know, that's like three months within Itself, even if it's. Done, do the characters Joanne Lockwood: get modified so they look a little bit like the voice actor? Because I think about Jack Black or the Rock or things like this, or Jason Momoa when they're playing. Jason Momoa is in the Moana, isn't he? And his character looks a bit Jason Momoa. Like, do you kind of blend that reality of the person with the character? Or you have a character and you have the voice. AJ Hannah: That's an interesting thought. So I have had people say part of it is that, okay, so we had. We have a Filipino character. She's played by a Filipino woman. So we have a Latina character, she's played by a Latina woman. We have a trans man, black character played by a trans black person. You know, that in a way, they sort of mirror each other or they look like each other. But I feel like as the series goes on, there's always tweaks in animation, and I. I do feel like the characters will look more and more like their people or the people will take on more and more of their character. Um, especially. I want to say especially Belladonna, but we'll see. Belladonna is a white redhead and she is a nurse. But she's also, from what I know of the voice actress, they're similar in how. In their, like, studiousness, I suppose, in the way that they approach the world. And I feel like it's kind of like that thing where you name a baby and it's like, is the baby reflective of the name or is the. Did you name the baby that way because you already knew that the baby was gonna be, you know, kind of like that? Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: I was wondering whether the voice actors themselves, whether people fan over them, you know, sort of like they were following and, you know, I think Disney and other big animation studios now, they pick the actor, voice actor as part of the promo to get the publicity, get the credibility. There's. I guess you want their acting skills as well. Whereas you go back 20 or 30 years, did you really care who the voice actor was if it was animated? You didn't really think about it at all. Whereas now the voice actor is a critical part of the marketing of the movie. So presumably your voice actors, when they become part of the queer bipoc community, they're going to be known and people are going to follow them. They'll want the merch. You said they'll ought to be associated with that one, though. Vinvox, who does Oleander. They AJ Hannah: actually do a lot of other indie stuff and they do a lot of other queer indie stuff, so they're a person for sure to follow. I always see them everywhere. To me, they're going to be like the next Michael Kovach, like the next. But like. Or they're already that way in, like the queer sphere, you know, I don't know if you know what I'm saying. They're. Do you know Michael Kovac name Isabelle? He does. He's Jax in. And I don't know, I always say Kovach, but it's not Kovach. It's like Kovac or whatever. He does Jax in the Digital. The amazing Digital Circus. He voiced Angel Dust in the pilot of Hazbin Hotel. He voices one of the main characters in another. And like another big indie thing that's coming out Lackadaisy. So he's. He's a big indie voice actor right now. Vinvox to me is kind of like that. They're in a bunch of stuff and I. When we're in different. When I'm popping around through different indie spheres or indie, like the communication channels when I'm on. I'm gonna call it Twitter. When they're. When I'm on Twitter or Blue sky or any of that, I see them there a lot in the projects for those upcoming things, for those upcoming pilots or the indie work. And they're just. They go. They're like a machine with how much they audition and put out. So, yeah, they're going to be up there in one of these days and I'm going to be like, ha, ha. You talked about. We talked about Joanne Lockwood: funding and how you raise capital for these projects. Is there a kind of like an umbrella funder so that people want to get involved? They could sort of fund a funding organisation who then hands out money as needed. We can bid for money for your project or do people invest direct for indie projects? As far as I know, people invest directly into the AJ Hannah: indie project, whether that's through the indie projects Patreon or that's through purchasing the Merch or, for example, our stuff. Um, we have the Kickstarter open a lot of those. Lackadaisy, which was another indie project, did a Kickstarter for their pilot and for their first couple of episodes. And that's where if you wanted to fund them, you would go directly to, I guess, them and fund it. But that's a. I mean, that's a good idea. I don't know of anybody that actually takes in the, hey, we. We want to, you know, we want to fund indie Animation, especially queer indie animation or we want to fund indie, you know, media in the queer and, you know, people of colour sphere. I want to give you the money and then you can distribute it. That's a great idea. I don't know anybody that, that does that. Wish I did. You want some sort of philanthropist, don't you, as a, a huge Joanne Lockwood: bundle of cash somewhere who you can embid to for your project. You want, I don't know, hundred thousand dollars or something? Absolutely. I tell people all of AJ Hannah: the time if I didn't have to do any of the fundraising, that would be amazing. Like if I had some extroverted clone of me that wanted to go schmooze and talk to people and, you know, bring back the sponsorships or the deals or the indie animation. Amazing. Because I'm an introvert at heart. I'm a behind the camera person. I absolutely, absolutely like abhor going out and having to do this, but I do it because I believe in the cause. So Joanne Lockwood: you said. Yeah, you said Poison Is what, 15 minutes thereabouts? Is that right? So what does 15 minutes of poison Us take in terms of funding? You know, obviously don't have to give me your exact figures, but just. Are we talking a hundred thousand dollars? We're talking $200,000, we're talking a million dollars. What do we talk about that? That's a great, that's a great question we have AJ Hannah: right now. We could do it in about $50,000, but that wouldn't pay people what I want to pay people. So I would love to get $90,000 for the Kickstarter so that I can pay people living wages. And again, that's not me taking any money, that's them, you know, me paying people to take money to do this work so that they can get living wages. When it comes to, you know, and union. Union, I guess, wages when it comes to doing this sort of work. That would be about $90,000 for an episode. Yeah, but we're gonna, if we have to, we'll squeeze it through there. So what was going through my mind Joanne Lockwood: was it's not a lot, but it is when you're trying to, when you're trying to get it, get the cash in. Especially when you're niche, you haven't got big budgets and big, big marketing departments. You say you're doing it all yourself. You're a little introvert sat there in your studio begging for money, which is not your forte. AJ Hannah: No, you know, I'm actually one of those people that I can't Even I've been in instances where I needed to hitchhike. I can't even work up the courage to stick my thumb out on the highway. I would rather end up walking 10 miles than ask for help. And, and so this is a whole new world that I'm going into because I want, you know, I want these people to see their passions come to life. I want these people to be paid and they should be paid what they're worth. And I'd love to do that. I'm just, you know, I don't come from a tonne of wealth was born. I'm the first in my family to go to college, to graduate college, I should say, you know, I don't know that I'm the first to like be out, you know, out as a queer person. But I grew up in upper middle class, but I grew up in a way that was like house poor, I guess. So we have a, we have a nice big home kind of that I grew up in that districted to a nice school district so that I could get the education. My dad's originally from West Virginia. He basically finished his high school education and went straight into a union job. And as a, you know, black American with a high school education in order to get into upper middle class, that was a big thing. So yeah, that's not. If I had the money, if, you know, if my dad was able to donate a million dollars to start my, you know, whatever, that would be great. But that's not how it is. You know, we're here and this is, I've got to do it myself. And that is perfectly fine. Love doing things by myself. Joanne Lockwood: So how did you get into this? Is this something you went, you picked up at school, college, university, or did you get a. You've had a career first and you then said, hang on a minute, I want to jump out of that corporate BS and start my own thing. What, what kind of. How do you, how do you set the studio up? Got you into it? I AJ Hannah: wish, you know, part of me wishes that, yeah, I had that corporate thing that I could, you know, fall back on. But no, I, I was a journalist for about a decade and then journalism really started to. I mean, it was already a dying industry when I went into it as an 18 year old who didn't know that I shouldn't be taking out all those student loans for journalism. But I did that for about a decade and for a couple of years you could see the writing on the wall. And I tried to get out, I tried to pivot I tried to, you know, look for something else, but it just wasn't happening. And I actually did whole, I think segment on the podcast, this queer book saved my life or something like that about how I ended up reading a storey about two Sapphic women who not only fell in love, but there was also like this otherworldly mystery that was going on. And I was like, oh, this can be mainstream. And so I was like, well, why aren't there more storeys like this? Where can I find more storeys like this? And one of the, one of the Sapphic women was a person of colour too. So it was like, it was just hitting all the notes for me. It wasn't just like a coming out storey or like a first love storey or a rom com. It was like this thing that had a little bit of like sci fi mystery to it. It had, you know, a person of colour as a main character. It had, you know, adult overtures. It wasn't just like a high school, you know, storey. So I tried to look for more of those storeys and I, and I found a few, but they're so hard to find. And there were mostly indie creators and I had had some connections in the industry before the whole journalism collapse and I had always wanted to get back to creative writing. So I was like, you know what? And then all those DEI shut offs were happening and layoffs and stuff in the animation industry and I was like, okay, well if nobody else is going to do this, we're going to do this. Let's do this. Let's come together and start making stuff and actually put it out there for people that want it and need it and we don't have to. Let's stop trying to pitch to people that aren't going to listen to us anyway. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the long and short of how I ended up here. So you mentioned the layoffs, the dei, Joanne Lockwood: the political climate. In passing there. We're living in a, I hate this word, unprecedented. Everything's become bloody unprecedented, isn't it? But the world as we know it has been kind of kicked into the orbit at the moment. What's going on? The pushback against dei, the pushback against what we thought was progressive moves to be a more inclusive culture, society, workplace now seems to be kind of fighting against right wing extremism, doesn't it? And are you fearing that within what you're doing? I mean, it's precedented in AJ Hannah: the way of like Nazis, but to be, you know, quite honest, yeah, in Is there ways that I fear it? Sure. My. Even back in, when I was a journalist, still my face was put on a white supremacist website for what I write about. Know that we're not going to get certain funding and I know that we're going to get blowback from people in the right wing. That's if we ever get popular enough to be seen by them as pushing an agenda. But that's not. What else am I going to do? Compromise my morals? What else am I going to do? Pretend to be someone that I'm not? They already know. They, the big. They already know who I am. I'm already I. For a lot of us, we have nothing else to lose. We lost our jobs, you know, we, we lost our source of income. We are struggling against places that aren't going to hire us because of the names that we have on the application or because we are born female or because, you know, we're people of colour or because, you know, a Google search will show you that this person is queer. We're already there. So what's to stop us? I mean, is the smart thing to lay a bit low? I suppose, but laying low is not helping in a way, I guess, like we're not, we're not making that sort of healthy impact on our own life. We touched on it right at the beginning Joanne Lockwood: of this. Who are we doing this for? Who are you doing this for? You're doing it for the queer community, for the bipoc community. You're doing it for people who look up to you as people, who are representing them and having a voice and giving them hope. I think if you lay low, what you're doing is you're copping out, you're doing what corporates do all the time. They say it's just too difficult, we'll step away from it. And I don't think we, and I say we, as in marginalised communities, we have a responsibility to say, hang on a minute, I'm not going to lay low, I'm not going to hide. I'm here whether you like me or not. In fact, the more I'm distasteful to you, the more I'm going to make myself in your face because I want to remind you that I'm not going to go away. And I think that's the world we're in at the moment, isn't it? Try and repress us, try and oppress us, try and shut us down, but we've got to keep existing just to be unpalatable to the people who don't. Like us, I guess. AJ Hannah: So there's. I have two thoughts on that. One is that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel and he wasn't necessarily religious, Right. But he painted this religious, beautiful piece of art that is recognised now. And so it's. I have the thought of how can we be subversive or kind of, how can we be there and very much still be loud and showy, but also like just under their nose enough to where we're able to paint on their ceiling? And then they come back and they don't realise it at first because of all of the prejudice that they have in their hearts. And it's not until years later that they realise, oh, this beautiful piece of art was made by like this little gremlin of a person. But so I. I have two thoughts. Yes. And I never. I don't do things for people. I've been told in the past that people look up to me for stuff and I don't necessarily do things for people, for other people. I don't know if that's the autism in me or if that's just the. Hey, I don't have the time to process other people thinking about me in any sort of capacity. Joanne Lockwood: Nobody sets out to be a role model, do they? Nobody sets out to be a people's champion. People will accuse you of it and you go, okay, if you think I'm a role model or other people's champion, thank you, I appreciate the. But I don't do it for that. No. AJ Hannah: So I. It's more of the play in their face, like, okay, you're gonna lay us off. Okay. You're going to not give us jobs, Fine. Okay, you're not going to put our characters in front of the audience. Fine, we'll do it ourselves. We'll do it. We'll build it and make it and put it out there. And just because you don't want it doesn't mean it's not going to be out there. Doesn't mean it's not going to not be made, doesn't mean it's not going to not exist. It's still going to exist. That is, I guess, where I come from in the whole. Yeah, let's. For what purpose do I do this? If that makes sense. Joanne Lockwood: Presumably, I look at why I do what I do sometimes and I use. Probably use the word hope. You don't buy a lottery ticket expecting to win the lottery, but if you buy a lottery ticket, at least you've got some hope you've got a Dream. You can pretend you think, oh, if I won, what would I spend the money on? So people don't buy lottery tickets. If anything other than a dream or a hope. And I think I could be repressed by society. I could have people telling me I'm not good enough. I'm this, I'm that. I'm a Byron. All the things people say about queer trans people, whatever, and I could just be downtrodden by it, or I could say, actually, I want to have power. I want to have agency. I want to reclaim that. I want to be part of a wider community. I want to be in the middle of that, because that gives me hope. It makes me believe that I'm not alone. It makes me believe I'm part of something bigger. So I think that's why I do. What I do is to be part of something bigger than me, so I get hope. And I can. By helping others. I don't worry about helping me anymore because I'm part of everybody. And I think that's why I do what I do, and that's why I won't stop doing what I do, because it gives me a purpose in life to do something. That's a good reason. It's AJ Hannah: good to have a purpose, I guess. Like, it's good to have a purpose and to have a reason and to. And to give people hope. And that's very positive. I do things on the opposite spectrum. I do them for chaos and vindication and, you know, that sort of troublemaking. Yeah, good Joanne Lockwood: trouble. Good trouble. You tell me it's wrong. You tell me I can't do this. AJ Hannah: Fine, I'll do it. Like I don't care. Fuck you. Yeah, that kind of. All right. Fuck you. We'll do it. You're not gonna stop me from doing it. Part of that comes from a lot of people of colour. Queer people of colour especially. We realise early on you gotta be twice as good to get half as far just because of the way that you look. So as a. As a person of colour. So then once you add in, like a. As a queer person of colour, as a trans person of colour, it's like, fuck it. Like, we're gonna. We already know we gotta work hard for anything. So you're already gonna tell me I can't have it. So I'm not gonna. Like. Doesn't necessarily mean I actually can't have it. It just means you're gonna tell me I can't have it, and then I just gotta work twice as hard to prove that I can. Do it. So what's it matter? But the secret is you Joanne Lockwood: don't want. Don't want them to have it anyway. You don't want what they have. You don't. You don't. You don't want it on their rules. That's what you're doing, what you're doing because you wanna create your own rules, create your own platform, create your own audience. It's that sense of justice, like what is right AJ Hannah: and what needs to be right and what should be right. Everybody should be equal. Everybody should get an opportunity. Everybody should have this. If they have this potential, they should be able to show it. It's that need for justice. It's that need to be able to dance on the graves of your enemies. Like, that's why I do things. I continue to live for spite. I continue to be me for spite, you know, for hope. And that's. It's, it's great to have hope because you need to have the dichotomy. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: well, I know that I. People off just by existing, just by speaking, just by being. Being in spaces. I. I upset people. I know there's people in the room who look at me with their. Down their nose going, oh, you're not normal. It's like. I go, hell, yeah. Hell yeah. Good. Is it sometimes intimidating? Yeah, absolutely. AJ Hannah: Do I always. There have been times when I've wished I don't look the way that I do. Not because, like, I don't like who I am, but just because I don't like the attention. But it's never actually stopped me from doing anything. So. Can I unpack that a bit? You say you don't Joanne Lockwood: like the way you look, or you just look like a young person of colour. Queer person. I mean, you didn't look queer. You just looked like a young. A young. Yeah. Well, and that's the, that's the thing AJ Hannah: is like. Okay, so as a person of colour, you already stand out sometimes. Going into a classroom or going into a business or going into, like a boardroom. You're already kind of standing out as a person of colour because that's not, you know, that's not what. I don't know. You just. You, you are. You get that. That blowback sometimes, or you get that, you know, second glance. And then for the longest time, like right now, I don't have it on, but for the longest time, I couldn't wear a binder because even wearing a binder, I still had it. Just made it look like I had a sports bra on. I'm Non binary. I'm gender fluid. So. So, you know, I do a lot of she her. That's the way I grew up. But there were so many times, especially post having kids where I was like, I am not a she her. Especially today. But I couldn't, I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't wear a binder. I couldn't, you know, or I could, but it just didn't, it didn't give me that whatever sense of who I am. And I got top surgery. So now I'm able to be femme when I want to or feminine presenting when I want to, and I'm able to be masculine presenting when I want to. They took five pounds off the top. Five pounds. And I still have a significant, you know, thing here. So that's. But it was quite something. So you had, Joanne Lockwood: you were well endowed up top. Yeah. So I AJ Hannah: haven't always felt that I look the way that I should. And I haven't necessarily always liked the attention, whether it was because, hey, you're a black person in this upper middle class boardroom or you're a black person in this, you know, advanced placement class, or you're a. Clearly you're a woman doing this very masculine thing. I guess in those ways, if that makes, if that does a little bit, digs into my treasure box. Yeah. I mean, I have Joanne Lockwood: a experience. I walk into rooms of several hundred people. I got on stage, speak to people, 600 people in the audience. Statistically, there will be other trans or gender diverse people in the room, but often I'm the exception. You know, I get on a bus, I get on a train. Generally I'm the only trans woman in my immediate, visible, immediate, immediate circle there. So I'm used to walking into places, being the old one out, or people look at me and go, what's your name? And you say, and they say, yeah, it's Joanne. Yeah, Joanne. Okay. They're kind of querying it or they hear the voice and not sure. I've kind of got, I don't know, over the last 10, 12 years, I've been. I kind of got used to it and I don't even think about it anymore. I don't know, just maybe I'm privileged that I can not think about it. But yeah, I get away with it. And people don't say anything if they do Them. Them. Yeah, no, I still get that sometimes. I'll get AJ Hannah: that liberated feeling when they go, oh, thank you, sir. And I'm like, yes, yes. Like, yes. Especially if, like, I'm checking out at a grocery store or something like that. And I'm having a very masculine day and I'm, you know, have a binder on and I'm dressed in baggier clothes and I have my beanie and stuff like that. I'm like, yes, like that's. Or when they do that very long pause. For me as somebody that's like non binary or gender fluid. Awesome. You don't know what I am. Great. Love it. Because I don't know what I am half the time either. Ha ha. That's the whole point. I think that that goes along with that autism thing of like, we just like to. We don't think about ourselves a lot as like, people, so as people with like physical stationary planes of being. So it's like, okay, you want me to determine if I'm a boy or a girl today? That's like, can I just not be me, the creature that I am? But yeah, no. But then there's the. There are some days where I guess maybe one day I'll have the less thought about walking into a room and seeing who I am being reflected on people's faces. But I'm still very much in that young portion of thinking about what other people think about me, and I hate doing that. I try not to do that. At least thinking about what other people think about me in the physical sense of my being. That's something that like, comes up often enough because I have to, you know, you have to think about physical safety and blah, blah, blah, blah. Joanne Lockwood: Most people are more worried about themselves than they are about other people even notice you most of the time. Yeah, no, that's. That's true. AJ Hannah: And I. I'm also one of those people that can be a little bit. I have two kids. I have two younger kids. So I have found that I will step in front of them more to protect them and not care as much about my physical body as theirs. But then again, I didn't always think about my physical body that much. So it's one of those weird moments where it's like I know their. I don't want their physical body to be harmed, but like, forgetting that I have one that can also be. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I don't know if it's. I've. I've kind of reached this sort of plateau of existence where I don't think about, yay, I'm a woman. Yay, I'm this. Yay, I'm that. Which is, I think, what Cis people feel. They don't have any kind of. They don't get up and go, yeah, I'm a bloke today. Oh, yeah, I'm a woman. Great idea. Yeah. They just are. And I think I've found this plane of existence where I don't wake up thinking, yay, I'm a woman, or anything like this. I just wake up being me. But I still get. I still get queer joy, or trans joy, by someone saying, mind this lady, she's coming, you know, or mind this lady with her puppy or something like this. You know, people are talking about me and I. Oh, yes. So those, Those micro validations you get are brilliant. But apart from that, I guess I'd be pissed off if they said, mind this man or mind this bloke or something. I probably would get upset. But no, I. There's little moments of joy where people get it right without. Without prompting. And I'm. I'm not feeling particularly glamorous at that moment. I'm just wearing my hoodie or my wear. Wear a pair of jeans and I think, oh, life's good, life's good. But take in the joy and let everything else wash over you. Yeah, that's right, it is. And it's. I think you get too hung up on worrying about what other people think of you because you start to realise that they don't. They don't think about you, they think about themselves or they're rushing for something. The example I often use is if you've got a photograph, like a family photograph with a wedding or something, and there's 20 people in it, you hand the photograph around. Nobody looks at anybody in that photograph apart from themselves. Everyone, oh, I've got my eyes closed. I don't like my glasses in that one. Or they're standing like that and you won't notice anything about them because you're too busy looking about you and say, people just. People care about themselves. People will always look for themselves in a photograph. They'll always worry about themselves in public and they're too busy getting on their life. And I realised that and I think, okay, all I gotta do is just get on with my life. They'll get on with theirs. If I don't interact at that moment, we'll probably never interact again in our lives. So it doesn't matter. True. AJ Hannah: Very true. It's like that high school thing. Not everybody's looking at you. Don't worry about it. Nobody cares. They're worried about themselves. They're worried about Joanne Lockwood: themselves. When you realise that, life becomes much simpler if you just worry about yourself and don't worry about what other people think of it. Worry about AJ Hannah: yourself. Yeah. Because they're not thinking about you. Joanne Lockwood: They don't care unless you tell them to care. Unless you show that you care. AJ Hannah: Unless you show that it's like a weakness or something like that. Yeah, yeah, Joanne Lockwood: yeah. Then they can turn that against you or whatever thing. But generally it's their own insecurity that's coming out, not you. AJ Hannah: True. Yeah. But I've turned 60, so I guess Joanne Lockwood: I'm. I've had a lot of life and a lot of experience that I've learned these lessons. And if you're younger, you're still trying to figure yourself out, still trying to fight your way in the world, then I guess these challenges are real. I'll get there. I'll get there one day. Yeah. When you're a fantastic queer studio, Gay Disney celebrated the world over with revenue coming in and people looking to fund you, and you'll be sat there going, I made it. It got there in the end. And now giving everyone the finger if they're not interested. Yeah. All my AJ Hannah: wrinkles don't matter. The way that I look in my physical body doesn't matter. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Elevate yourself to Whoopi Goldberg status, won't you, where you'll be kind of like this really celebrated person that. Who doesn't give. Who doesn't give a flying fuck about anybody else because they've made it, and that's. That's where you're going to be. You're going to. You're going to be celebrated. True. You just got to project AJ Hannah: confidence, I guess. Project confidence. Just. Yeah, just go for Joanne Lockwood: it. Go for it, A.J. we've had a fantastic hour. I mean, I feel like I just carry on chatting to you, and it's a shame you're so far away, because I'd love to drop in for a coffee one day and see the studio, but. Yeah, no, it's been lovely talking to you, and I'm glad we got this reschedule. And our little puppy made an appearance halfway through just to say hello, which is good. It was nice to meet you. Yeah. Our first podcast. So many of my other episodes, I've had other people's dogs joining the show, and this is the first time I've had my own puppy joining in my podcast. So. Yeah, that's right. I don't know where she is now. I think she's fallen asleep somewhere. So she's. Puppies needs lots of AJ Hannah: rest. Puppies need. Not so. Well. I need to take her out for a walk. Joanne Lockwood: Now it's just about turned get dark so I need to put my head torch on and get out there and take her for a walk. Okay. Thank you so much. It's been amazing. Thank you. It was great talking with you. As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, storeys or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo. lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.