Mim was of course boy-crazy in a whole bunch of comics. I think that's quite compatible with the fact that she happily lives alone with Spitfire, her cat!
I know that there are a bunch of comics stories in which Mim hangs out with Magica (or even lives with her, in the same castle?) Those stories could never be convincing to me. That is, I can't even see them hanging out together as friends. One of the endearing things about Mim is that she doesn't need money and therefore doesn't care about it and isn't impressed by it. She would be highly unlikely to be sympathetic with Magica's obsession/life goal of making an amulet in order to become Richer Than All.
I'm perfectly able to see Magica as lesbian. But definitely too obsessed with old Number One to get serious with anyone. She wouldn't have to be lesbian to resist the attentions of Rosolio (and the pressure from Granny), but her being lesbian does fit fine with the Artibani/Arena stories. If the excellent Sarah Jolley's comics ever get published, though, I will accept the Gladstone/Magica romance into my headcanon. The McGreals' "A Gal for Gladstone" didn't make that happen by itself. Nor did Korhonen's "Date with a Munchkin" convince me that Magica could fall in love with Donald.
Clerkly I firmly believe to be asexual, going off his characterization in that funny Christmas Carol spoof whose name I can't ever seem to remember. And though I know you don't give a hoot about it in your headcanon, DuckTales obliges me to acknowledge that Miss Quackfaster has once been married. But in general, you're not wrong.
The story by Korhonen has the eminently forgettable title "Mr. Clerkly's Christmas." Like several other Disney comics characters, Korhonen's Clerkly is too obsessively focused on his task/business/goal to have any mental space available to develop a partner relationship. I wouldn't say that makes him asexual, though.
This issue does bring to mind my old thread on who exactly IS married in the Duckiverse. Precious few continuing characters. Though that's partly due to the apparent high death toll in the Duck and McDuck clans. The presumption of heterosexuality may be widespread, but the practice of marriage, not so much, at least not among the characters we get to know.
I think John D. Rockerduck is gay, has never shown interest in females if not in plans to make fun of Scrooge, and yet is a person who likes to flaunt what he has thanks to money, normally a person like him should always surround himself with models, even his secretary is a male.
the easiest fit in terms of retroactive altering of characters would be fethry as bisexual, although I'd personally dislike that exactly because it reeks of "he's already the weirdo one have him be gay too" to me which some might read as being me having issues with my own bisexuality but whatever
I wonder whether Rosa would be OK with Arpin Lusène being gay?
I don't think so. He's a Disneyfied take-off on Arsène Lupin, though, and it's as central to Lupin's character as it is to James Bond's that his time not spent on high-flying adventures is spent sleeping with every beautiful woman he meets. The censors wouldn't allow it, but Rosa clearly thinks that also applies to Lusène, going by that deleted scene where after his speech about Scrooge being his equal and a worthy opponent, he reveals that he has found and filched Scrooge's lock of Goldie's hair, and goes wink-wink-nudge-nudge at him by noting that in that department too, they seem well-matched.
the easiest fit in terms of retroactive altering of characters would be fethry as bisexual, although I'd personally dislike that exactly because it reeks of "he's already the weirdo one have him be gay too" to me which some might read as being me having issues with my own bisexuality but whatever
The Tumblr Side of the Fandom definitely sees him as bi. Then again, they see almost everyone as bi for some reason.
The Tumblr Side of the Fandom definitely sees him as bi. Then again, they see almost everyone as bi for some reason.
I'd guess that's primarily because any character officially firmly established as straight (or gay) can still be bisexual unless they have explicitly stated otherwise. By that logic, even main characters like Donald, Daisy and Scrooge can be bisexual.
While this is interesting (to a point), if I wanted to read comics about who is attracted to whom, I'd be reading Archie or manga instead of Uncle Scrooge or Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. While stories about relationships are a small fraction of the stories in these titles, thankfully they aren't the constant focus of these comics.
Yeah, I don't really want any particular focus on people's dating or love life. I do think that it's important to include some lesbian/gay/trans characters for reasons of representation. As I said, you can have such characters (couples) appearing in one story, and that will be good. Then the question naturally arises whether any of the characters we know could be shown to be lesbian/gay etc. Mostly the answer to that is no, partly because over the decades and thousands and thousands of stories, almost everyone has been supplied with an opposite-sex love interest. If we feel bound to that record, we're not going to decide that the character is lesbian/gay.
In our headcanons, we are free to disregard especially those stories we have not read or did not find memorable! Hence my willingness to contemplate a gay Gyro or a lesbian Magica. Not that either of them is going to spend much emotional energy developing a longterm relationship with another person. They're stickin' to Helper and Algorab/Ratface.
Like several other Disney comics characters, Korhonen's Clerkly is too obsessively focused on his task/business/goal to have any mental space available to develop a partner relationship. I wouldn't say that makes him asexual, though.
I felt like since the off-kilter ‘moral’ of that story in particular at least was that Clerkly was actually perfectly happy with his life, it would be logical to assume that Clerkly therefore doesn't want romance in his life.
I know that there are a bunch of comics stories in which Mim hangs out with Magica (or even lives with her, in the same castle?) Those stories could never be convincing to me. That is, I can't even see them hanging out together as friends. One of the endearing things about Mim is that she doesn't need money and therefore doesn't care about it and isn't impressed by it. She would be highly unlikely to be sympathetic with Magica's obsession/life goal of making an amulet in order to become Richer Than All.
The impression I get from that story is that they're the witch version of roommates, rather than actual friends who keep crashing at each other's place as you seem to have assumed. There is a long literary history of witches acting in "covens" and other such congregations which don't necessarily imply what you'd call friendship, more a sort of honorary sisterhood and kinship. I think the "Castle Stories" are a development of that sort of idea.
As for how Mim could tolerate Magica's money-craziness — while she'd think the end-term "be the richest in the world" goal was silly, (but then, don't we find some of even our closest friends to have weird and silly ideas about things, sometimes?) she might well admire Magica's tenacity, and be wiser than Magica herself to the fact that she's really out to beat Scrooge more than anything she might actually gain from it (cf. Erickson's Obsession!). Mim might well liken the Magica/Scrooge antagony to her own endless "friendly spars" with Merlin.
Besides which, the Beagle Boys' and the (1960's version of the) Phantom Blot's end goals also are, or at least appear to be, to get filthy stinking rich through underhanded deeds. And a number of Mim's appearance in the old comics have her associating with them. I feel like if you're going to renege a story for showing Mim approving of any greedy crook, you're going to end up throwing out a very large percentage of all American Mim stories.
(By the way, all this reminds me of a daydreamed episode I once thought up for a Duckburg animated series set in the classic continuity rather than a 2017-style reboot. The series would feature new adventures by the main Duckburg cast, with occasional "guest characters", either Mouseton or lesser-known types, being the focus of an episode. One of these would be Mim in “Magica's Mad Roommate", a Magica-centric episode — there'd be a fair few of those — where her "old roommate from years ago" drops in for lunch and throws a spanner of eccentricity in Magica's latest Dime-getting scheme. Fun ensues. The end would see a strong implication that Mim really wishes Magica would quit her obsessive lifestyle and just have witchy fun like she does, and that she's been very consciously sabotaging her attempts. Comic-wise viewers would see precisely what "that time Magica had Mim for a roommate" and the occasional anecdotes they recall about sneezing dragons and wisecracking crows are referencing — but it wouldn't require prior knowledge of the Castle Stories to work. I quite like it if I do say so myself.)
I'm perfectly able to see Magica as lesbian. But definitely too obsessed with old Number One to get serious with anyone. She wouldn't have to be lesbian to resist the attentions of Rosolio (and the pressure from Granny), but her being lesbian does fit fine with the Artibani/Arena stories. If the excellent Sarah Jolley's comics ever get published, though, I will accept the Gladstone/Magica romance into my headcanon.
Jolley apparently headcanons Magica to be bisexual, anyway. (Also, out of curiosity: since your headcanon-Duckburg is a very personal mix-and-match anyway, why do you feel like you need the Jolley comics to have official sanction to accept them? Seems a bit weird to me.)
On this subject, I've heard a theory that Fethry is sentimentally attracted to Donald Duck. This is not in my opinion without any merit, and fits quite well with some story plots, particularly the early stories of Dick Kinney (if Dick Kinney really meant any such thing, is an entirely different question).