Showing posts with label gay characters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay characters. Show all posts

The Weird World of Gumball: Definitely weird, but is it adequately gay? With Jordan's junk, Kwesi's cock, and Alkaio Thiele

 


After identifying Alkaio Thiele of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place as probably gay due to his many male friends, his romance with Kayden Koshelev, and...well, just look at him, prancing with his mom (the butch one)... I've been going through his work, looking for gay subtexts. 




Left: I don't have any n*de photos of Alkaio, since he's under 18, but here's a random Greek guy.

 He is currently the star of The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball (2025-), the latest in the franchise of animated series featuring a catlike being (Alkaio) and his adopted brother, the evolved goldfish Darwin (Hero Hunter).  They have ordinary middle school adventures in a world populated by an assortment of humanoids, animals, inanimate objects, gods, and spirits drawn in various conflicting styles.

Fans have been claiming that the new series is "super gay" and "insanely gay."  and pointing specifically to Episodes 1.13, "The Letter," and 2.8, "The Diary."  So let's take a look.



Episode 1.13, Scene 1
: After school, Darwin is cheerful; Gumball is suspicious.  Finally he comes clean: He wrote his girlfriend Carrie (right) a love letter, and he's going to slip it in her locker.

"But Carrie is a cursed specter from the Underworld. She might not approve of love."

Then the ghost-being Carrie and her friend Penny, a glowing peanut, appear.  Gumball and Penny rub their faces over each other and smoochy-woochy. Two boy-girl romances.  It's not looking good for the "insanely gay" advocates.

Ghost-being Carrie icks.  She explains that she's dead inside, so she finds physical displays of affection "cringy and gross."  That's why she and Darwin get along so well -- he's not "a mewling puddle of mush."  

Uh-oh, she opens her locker, and her monster-knapsack absorbs Darwin's love letter!  

"But what if you get a cute 'I wuv you' letter?" Darwin asks, grasping at straws.

She possesses Gumball and makes him announce that the dead are deprived of love, so when a ghost hears "I love you," even when addressed to someone else, the hunger makes them lose control and devour your soul.  So is it that you don't like physical affection, or you don't like romantic love?  Make up your mind, lady.

Scene 2: At lunch, Ghost Carrie, Peanut Penny, and a cloud-being are discussing the circumstances under which a boy might say "I love you" and not get eaten. They specify a boy, assuming that all romances are boy-girl.  Things are not looking good.  

Gumball sneaks under the table, where the monster-knapsack eats him.  But it spits him out, and he brings the letter with him, along with Ghost Carrie's book of magic, which they can use to destroy it.


Scene 3:
 Gumball can't read the arcane language, so he tries conjuring at random.  First, a refrigerator.  Then a love spell. Gumball already loves Darwin, but "You really look like a snack right now." Ok, a reference to same-sex desire.

The dimwits finally realize that they could just throw the letter away, but as they toss, the giant ape Hector Jotunheim jumps in front of them, and it ends up in his backpack. Now he'll think that Darwin is in love with him!

Scene 4: Gumball suggests that "a sweet and chill partner" like the Giant Ape is a better match than an emo ghost, but Darwin insists that he loves only Ghost Carrie.  Hdoesn't assume that Darwin's romantic partners can only be girls. 

Whoops, the Giant Ape returns the letter -- during class --- and the teacher forces Darwin to read it aloud.  Now Carrie will know the truth! 

Wait, it's not his letter after all!  It's from the Giant Ape, explaining that he is not romantically interested: "I've tried dating people your size before, and I've been hurt."  Chances are they'll be hurt, too. Giant Apes have giant....you know.


Scene 5: 
Uh-oh, Carrie thinks that Darwin was trying to cheat on her with the Giant Ape and goes berserk, turning the hallways into a Lovecraftian hellzone, with eyes and tentacles everywhere.  Darwin tries to explain that the Giant Ape was responding to a letter to her, but instead of saying "I love you," he says "Eat my face."

Carrie rushes back into the school, possesses Gumball, and returns to kiss him.  "Thank you for understanding," Carrie/Gumball says.  They hug, and Carrie lets Gumball go.


Gumball is happy that he could help his friend, and imagines being there for him "all day, every day."  Well, maybe not all day, like on his wedding... he retches at the thought of watching Darwin's wedding night.  The end.

Gay Representation: Various allusions to people being pansexual, and no disgust over same-sex acts, but the main romance is between Darwin and Carrie. B+

Left: Another random Greek guy.

The diary and n*de black guys after the break

"28 Days Later: The Bone Temple": A cured zombie, the Devil's son, a Jimmy cult, musclemen, dongs, and 8 gay actors.

 


We just saw 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), the sequel to 28 Years Later, with 14-year old Spike (Alfie Williams) swept away from his island haven into a mainland Scotland ravaged by a zombie apocalypse.  He unwillingly joins a cult run by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Josh O'Connor), who fancies himself the son of Old Nick.  His Satanic Majesty has given Sir Jimmy the task of roaming his countryside and eliminating the remaining humans.  After torturing them, of course.

Very graphic torture. He begins by forcing Spike into a fight-to-the-death with Jimmy Shite (all of the followers wear blond wigs and are named Jimmy, after early 2000s tv personality Jimmy Saville).  Spike wins by stabbing him in the thigh; the other laugh and jeer as blood spurts out like a fountain.

Then the Jimmies invade a farmhouse, string up the occupants in a barn, and skin them alive.  But a woman who escaped returns, sets the barn on fire, and we see people burning to death.


Meanwhile Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who is building the Bone Temple as a monument to the dead, pacifies the gigantic zombie Samson (Chi Parry-Lewis) with morphine and befriends him.  They even dance together.  The gay subtext is so overt that one suspects that it's intentional.  Finally Kelson figures a way to restore Samson to sentience with anti-psychotic drugs.






Spoiler Alert: The Jimmies stumble upon Dr. Kelson, and seeing him surrounded by bones, red in color, and dancing with a demon, assume that he is Old Nick.  Sir Jimmy soon discovers that he is not, but insists that he pretend to be, so he won't lose face with his followers.  So Kelson puts on a sound-and-fire show to Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast."  He's about to let them leave, but he sees Spike as a Jimmy hostage, and changes his mind: in the old order, God sacrificed his son, so Old Nick wants the same.  Sir Jimmy is crucified upside down.


Bone Temple was definitely made with an eye for masculine beauty.  There are several shirtless musclemen.  Chi-Lewis Parry's prosthetic penis is much more visible, and in some scenes his incredibly muscular body is not covered with muck.







We see some other penises, including Dr. Kelson's (but to be fair, name one of Ralph Fiennes's movies where he doesn't show his dick).

I was worried that Spike would get a girlfriend.  He bonds with a girl, but she is much older, and treats him as a little brother or son rather than a potential boyfriend.

In fact, there is no hetero-romance anywhere, among anyone, except when we get a close-up of a photo of Dr. Kelson's long-dead wife, to heterosexualize him.

And so many of the Jimmies are played by gay actors that one suspects a deliberate casting decision


The Jimmies:

Jack O'Connell as Sir Jimmy Crystal.  Straight, but has played gay men several times.








More after the break

Modern Family, Episode 11.4: A pool full of muscle hunks, a future hunkoid thief, and a gay realtor. With some twinks and 7 dicks

 


We've been watching Modern Family from the beginning.  Even at an episode almost every night, sometimes two, it's taken over eight months.  Now we're in Season 11, and continuing just out a sense of duty.  The characters are getting flanderized, there are too many maudlin "misty water-colored memories" scenes, and the plotlines are reeking of desperation from the writers' room.  Haley and Dylan have twins.  Gloria becomes a realtor.  Alex moves to Antartica?  Mitchell and Cam move to Missouri?

Besides, Luke (Nolan Gould) has bulked up, but never takes his shirt off.


Episode 11.4, "The Pool Party," is silly, but offers some excellent beefcake.  In the A Plot, Gloria, wife of family patriarch Jay Pritchett,  suddenly developed an interest in becoming a realtor, so Jay's son-in-law Phil -- who owns a magic store and a parking lot, teaches realty at the community college, runs a food podcast, and still has time to work as a realtor -- has hired her as his intern.  She's pushing to be hired full-time, but Phil isn't sure.

They work on the mystery of who is stealing the "For Sale" signs from the homeowners, to keep people from buying the house (don't they usually search online instead of driving by?).  Phil interrogates his rival Gil Thorpe (Rob Riggle), but he says that he's gay now, so he doesn't have time for a petty vendetta.  






Meanwhile, Gloria attaches the tracker for her husband Jay's dog to the sign, and follows it to catch the thief: Sam, played by Hunter J. Mitchell, now 18 and rather hunky (not shown).  The owners' son, he keeps stealing the sign so he won't have to move and leave all his friends.  Gloria gives a maudlin speech about how change is hard, but it leads to new experiences and new people, and Phil is so impressed that he gives her the assistant job. 

In the B Plot, Jay is in charge of housekeeping while Gloria works late and fails to appreciate the dinner he cooked or his new jogging suit. He has become a stereotypic housewife, and feels emasculated. 

In the C Plot, Claire wants to convince her daughters Haley and Alex to go to work in the corporate world, so she claims that being a CEO is wonderfully fulfilling.  Then she has pretend that a major disaster is no problem at all.

The D Plot is the dumbest.  Gay couple Mitch and Cam are invited to a pool party by their friend Longinus (Kevin Daniels).  He says that there will be kids, so they bring their daughter Lily; but he meant "twinks."  



The pool is crowded with musclemen in their 20s and 30s.  How would you respond?  How would any gay guy respond?

Right, he would mingle and cruise, or at least enjoy this paradise of  pecs, abs, and bulges. But Cam and Mitchell are horrified. "We can't take off our shirts at this smoke show."  Huh?  Why not? 



Left: I think the guy in the pink hat is adult video star Chris Wolfe. 

More after the break

"Ghosts," Episode 3.10: A gay wedding, a gay performer, a vengeful Puritan, a naked Viking, and a lot of plot complications

 


In the British version of Ghosts (2019-23), the gay ghost is closeted, with a "disgraceful secret" that he never reveals to his housemates.  I heard that the American version (2021-25) was better at gay representation, so I watched Episode 3.10, "Isaac's Wedding"








The Premise
: Sam (a woman) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) inherit a house filled with the ghosts of people who have died there or nearby, and for some reason can't move on to the afterlife.  Since she was dead for a few minutes after an accident, Sam can see and hear them, but Jay can't.

Nigel (John Hartman, right), a British soldier who died during the Revolutionary War, has been in a relationship with Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones, left), the Continental soldier who he killed (by accident)).  They are going to get married today, but Isaac is worried about his ongoing fantasy about Chris, the adult performer hired for his bachelor party (the humans told him that he was performing for an empty room).  

Isaac asks Sassapis (Roman Zaragosa), a Native American who died in the 16th century, about his attraction to the stripper.  Sassapis reassures him that it's just cold feet.


The DJ hired to play at the wedding arrives -- and to everyone's surprise, it's Chris (Deniz Akdeniz)!  He's gay, he hates the show Hamilton, and he has no sense of smell -- all points in his favor.  When he eats crab and has an allergic reaction, Isaac secretly wishes that he will die, so they can date -- but he survives.










Meanwhile Peter (Richie Moriarty), a 1980s scout leader who accidentally shot an arrow through his neck, has discovered that he can leave the house by poltergeisting family members, so he follows his descendants to a Caribbean vacation, and meets a female ghost from his time period.  They have a passionate affair, but then he starts to evaporate.  

Back at the house, the wedding begins, with Sassapis officiating.  As Nigel and Issac exchange vows, Peter returns from the Caribbean, finds that he is whole again, and interrupts with his shout of jubiliation.  He tells the story of his trip and the intensity of his love, and Isaac realizes that there's something missing in his relationship with Nigel.  He backs out at the last minute.  

Not noticing, lounge singer Alberta, who was poisoned during the Prohibition Era, starts singing "At Last" anyway.  Nigel runs off crying.

Later, Isaac's housemates agree with his decision.  He's 300 years old, and he's been out for only a few years, so he shouldn't rush into a relationship right away.  He needs time to grow.

More after the break

Jason Maybaum: Is the gay-vague son on "Raven's Home" gay in real life? With some Disney Descendants and Jake Green's goods

 


In 2021, I reviewed an episode of Raven's Home (2017-2023), the Disney channel update of That's So Raven, in which the girl with psychic powers grows up and moves in with her frenemy Chelsea, and they raise their kids together.  I didn't realize at the time that Raven Simone, an out lesbian in a same-sex marriage, refused to make Raven gay!  Disney offered, she refused!  Friggin' Uncle Tom, complicit in the heteronormative erasure of LGBT people -- including lesbians, darn it!







Chelsea's son Levi (Jason Maybaum, left, with costar Isaac Ryan Brown) is a femme boy, an aspiring actor, cast as the gay-subtext Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.  Mom says "I'm proud of you, no matter what," which is usually what parents say to avoid saying "even if you're gay." And he never expresses any interest in girls in any episode -- I checked.  Due to Raven's insistence on heteronormative erasure, he couldn't be canonically gay, but -- and the writers -- certainly piled on the gay subtexts.  Could Jason be gay in real life?   



Jason was born on August 31, 2007, and began his acting career in commercials in 2014, when he was seven years old.

He played the son in The Perfect Stanleys (2015), about a stay-at-home mom whose life is "perfect."

A bratty kid who criticizes Ders' museum purchases in an episode of Workaholics (2016)

A commercial kid who terrorizes sports great Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell) in an episode of the mockumentary series The Fifth Quarter (2016).






Left: Jake Green, who plays the moderator of the mockumentary, if he's the right one.  If not, just relax and look at his abs.  

And now back to Jason:

The son in Bitch (2017), about a woman who snaps and thinks she's a dog (say what?).

The bratty son of Superstore manager Glen (2017).








A student in Teachers (2017), with Ryan Caltagirone (left) as Hot Dad.

The son in Desperate Waters (2019), with Matthew Lawrence taking a male-female couple on a "three hour tour" (not really; reference to Gilligan's Island).

The son in...well, you get the idea.  A lot of sons.  Let's try some of Jason's when he was a teenager, after Raven's Home.


 



Since Raven, Jason has mostly done voiceover work: Wolfboy and the Everything Factory (2021-22), Spidey and his Amazing Friends (2022-23), Ridley Jones (2023).

Plus a lot of singing and dancing.


His only recent live-action role seems to be Cameron in Descendants 3 (2021), which the IMDB says is about competitive dancers in Los Angeles, but Wikipedia says is an animated film featuring the children and grandchildren of Disney villains: Booboo Stewart (descended from Jafar), Mitchell Hope (left, Beauty and the Beast), Dylan Playfair (Gaston --wait, wasn't he gay?)....







More after the break

"Christmas on Cherry Lane": Three families, including a gay couple, with a big plot twist that you won't see coming

 


Christmas on Cherry Lane (2023) stars Vincent Rodriguez III, the muscular, bulging actor who specializes in family-friendly gay guys.  I figured I would watch in the background while doing other things on my laptop, but no, it requires you to pay attention.  There's a major plot twist.  I'm giving only the character names, not the actors' names.

There are three families on Cherry Lane on Christmas Eve


Family 1:
John and Lizzie, who is due in two weeks,  just moved into the house, and are planning a quiet Christmas alone. They put up the tree and sing "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful," with a Hallmark Tree Trimmer ornament.  This will become important later.



Suddenly Lizzie's Mom and Dad arrive, and announce that they invited her brother and his family!  But Johnand Lizzie haven't even unpacked. Where will they put all those people?  

Left: Dad Frank 




Family 2
: Regina and her friend Daisy, not shown, unpack Christmas decorations.  Her back story: she's a widow with adult children, and a boyfriend named Nelson.    

The adult kids, Winnie and Conrad, arrive in a horrible car.  Why does he keep it, now that he's making a ton of money?  Because his Uncle Ham gave it to him after Dad died. This will be important later.  

Sister Winnie doesn't have a job, except singing at open-mike nights for tips, but she'll be a famous singer one day, she says.  Mom wants her to try business school.

Mom announces that she's getting married to her Boyfriend, and she's selling the house and moving to Florida.  The adult children do not like this at all, and plot to break them up.


Family #3:
 Zian, left, and Mike, who works as a chef at a restaurant called Repair. They just moved into their house, too, and they're planning a Christmas Eve party tonight with twelve people.  Except contractor Quinn and his crew haven't finished remodeling the kitchen yet.  He brings them a plate of Christmas cookies, complements them on what a cute couple they are, and asks if "that famous singer" is coming to the party.  This will be important later.

Mike is freaking out.  Maybe they could move the party to the restaurant?  No, this is the first Christmas in their new house, where they're going to raise their family, so it's important to hold it here.  They walk outside and sit on lawn chairs in the cold and sing "Silent Night."  All of it.

Speaking of starting a family, the lady from the adoption agency tells them that the foster family they were placing a girl with backed out, so they're getting a child tonight -- on Christmas Eve.  With twelve people coming for a party.  Hopefully a family-friendly party.  How are they going to get a bedroom ready?

More plot complications after the break.  Spoiler alert: it's a big plot twist.

How fans deny queerness in "The Righteous Gemstones" and other tv series. With examples and dicks.

 


New book on fan reaction to queer codes in tv series, especially how and why some fans on social media refuse to admit that a character is gay.

Gideon Gemstone's room is plastered with pictures of musclemen.

He's obviously straight.  He wants to look like them, not at them.






On The Middle, Sue's friend Brad begins "I'm...."  and is cut off when she says "I know" and hugs him.  

Obviously he was going to confess his love for her.






On What We Do in the Shadows, Guillermo tells the vampires, "I was about thirteen when I realized that I was..." and is cut off.

Obviously he was going to say "shy around girls."





On The Hollow, Adam has a Pride flag in his room.

So what?  Lots of guys like rainbows.

He tells his friends, "I'm gay."

Obviously he didn't mean it like that.














Gideon and Scotty have a romantic candlelight dinner while the background song tells us: "The way you look when you get down, you knock me out."  

Straight guys can go out to dinner.  There's such a thing as friendship, you know.


More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Sweethearts: Thanksgiving romcom proving that there's gay life and cocks in Kansas...I mean rural Ohio...so don't move to Oz

 


Christmas romcoms are always about women leaving the Big City to find infinite joy and belonging in small towns.   Gay men can't relate, since they high-tailed it away from homophobic small towns to Big City gay neighborhoods.  

Sweethearts, on MAX, is a rare Thanksgiving romcom that pushes the small town.  There's gay life in Kansas.  Why move to Oz?

The premise: ,Two life-long best friends are going to the same college but distance-dating the boy/girl back home:

1. Ben is dating Claire, still in high school.

Ben is played by Nico Hiraga, left, a former semi-pro skateboarder from San Francisco. He has appeared in Booksmart, Love in Taipei, Goodrich, and The Power.


2. Jamie, a girl (Kiernan Shipka), is dating Simon (Charlie Hall, left), who is dumb as a fence post but got into Harvard on a football scholarship.  Say what? 

 The long distance relationships  aren't working out, so the two make a plan to break up with their partners when they all go home for Thanksgiving.  









Left: Simon butt

Obviously they're going to get together or it wouldn't be a romcom.  I'm fast forwarding through their scenes to get to Palmer (Caleb Hearon), the flamboyantly feminine "third friend" pictured in the animated opening. He's probably the standard romcom gay best friend who facilitates the romance, but maybe he'll get a boyfriend of his own.




Correction: I'm also interested in Ben's college roommate Tyler, played by Zach Zucker , a "Bad Bi Boy Clown" -- literally. He trained for two years at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier.  

On his Facebook page, Zach notes that "Bi Visibility Day is cool because it forces all of the people who have caused you pain by denying your existence to look at your butt and mask-covered dick pics."   Where's the mask covered dick pic, Zach?

His character is introduced smooching a girl in bed, but maybe he's bi:

He looks at Ben's fake id and comments: "I'll go out with you.  Just kidding."

Ben has his hands full, so he asks Tyler to take his cell phone from his pocket.  "Whoops, wrong phone.  Just kidding."  

He seems to be dancing with Ben in the closing party scene.

And that's just when  I paused the fast-forwarding.



Paris: "Third Friend" Parker is introduced at Minute 15, calling the duo, wearing a striped shirt and beret, sitting in front of an image of the Eiffel Tower.  He took a gap year after high school to move to Paris, and he is working at a fast-food place near Euro Disney.  Why would visitors to Euro Disney want to see fast-food workers in clichéd French costumes?  

He announces that he is no longer "vaguely pretending to be straight." Really?  Who would think you were straight after talking to you for 30 seconds? 

He'll be coming out to a select group of former classmates at a party at his house on the night before Thanksgiving.

More after the break, including a rural Ohio gay community and some dicks,  Caution: explicit.

"Fionna and Cake": Complex adult-oriented sequel to "Adventure Time," with two out gay couples and lot of back story and butts

  


The Cartoon Network series Adventure Time (2010-18) sent 12-16 year old human Finn (Jeremy Shada, left) and his magical dog companion Jake on adventures in the medieval-style world of Ooo (occupied by sentient candy, slime, and fire beings, plus a few animals and humanoids).  Eventually we learn that this is a post-apocalyptic world where things went wrong during the Mushroom Wars 1,000 years ago.  It gets more complex and much more sinister, with back story after back story, with Lovecraftian cosmic beings pulling the strings of the world, only to discover that there are darker gods changing reality on a whim. 

  All you really need to know about is the only same-sex romance in the series, between the Bubblegum Princess  --really an Elemental, one of the four substances that created the universe and all life, but presenting as a 16-year old girl -- and Marceline, a 1000 year old teenage vampire whose mentor Simon Petrikov put on a magical crown and became the insane Ice King -- got all that?  They become girlfriends in the last scene of the last episode -- typical, no open gay characters until series fade-out. 

Fionna and Cake were a gender-swapping Finn and Jake in the Ice King's fan fiction. Then an omnipotent being decided to bring them to life, and after some adventures, remove their magical powers and memories and place them in a pocket universe designed to look like a 21st century city.  But things are a little off-- generic names like "City Park", backgrounds a little smudged, everything tastes like cardboard, there is nothing but elevator music on the radio, nothing on tv but reruns of Cheers and Friends.  Cake is non-sentient, and Fionna is so discouraged that she keeps getting fired from dead-end jobs.

Episode 1.6, "The Winter King," features a meeting between the male counterparts of the Bubblegum Princess and Marceline: Gary Prince (Andrew Rannells, left), a baker who has discovered a way to give food taste; and Marshall Lee (Donald Glover, below), an aspiring musician who has discovered how to use a guitar. They kiss in Episode 1.7.

Both voice actors are gay in real life.








Left: Gratuitous Rannells butt.

One day Fionna and Cake find their way to Ooo, where they meet Finn from the original series, now middle aged, and the Ice King, now reverted to human form as Simon Petrikov.  After many adventures on a variety of worlds, they decide that they like their original pocket-universe, and return in time to save their city from destruction under a godlike being named Scarab.  End of Season 1.




We hear all of this in the opening sequence of Season 2: it is told in story form to Simon (the former Ice King) and girlfriends Marcelline and the Bubblegum Princess by a little girl whose back story on the fan wiki is too complex to mention.  So maybe the Fionna-Cake universe is still a fan fiction?

I think we're ready for a review of Episode 2.1.

Scene 1: Fionna awakens, relishing her new human life, and sets out with Cake into the still-recovering City.  She helps out at the places where she was fired previously, except for the tour bus ("on your left you'll see more destruction"), where tour guide Queenie (a gender-reversed, child version of the evil King of Ooo) calls her a "deadbeat."

Scene 2: Next the Candy Supply Store, where the shape-shifting, still-sentient Cake transforms into a buxom woman so she can flirt with the owner.  Fionna grabs the last bag of cocoa powder, but the evil Lady Cutter steals it and calls her a loser. They fight.


Scene 3
: On the street, Fionna gets a call from Simon Petrikov, back in Ooo, who is living with the Bubblegum Princess and Marceline.  He'll start teaching magical arts at the university tomorrow. Meanwhile, Cake destroys all of the posters advertising DJ Flame, Fionna's ex (the gender-swapped version of the Flame Princess, Finn's ex).

Scene 4: In a forest on Ooo, a lion steals an orange from a tomb, and the Huntress Wizard, the middle-aged Finn's estranged girlfriend, gives chase.  She finds it in a cave with a cow and a duck, squeezing the juice into the mouth of the  nearly-unconscious Finn.  He is dying.   

More after the break