zoyzauce:

isammy7936:

faelapis:

secret-fanat1c:

zoyzauce:

mr-elementle:

thebucca2:

nudistbae:

recommendad:

recommendad:

i survived too much steven universe discourse to have to suffer through a new age of she-ra discourse

unless she-ra personally commits a hate crime, i dont want to see you grown ass adults attempting to philosophically dissect yet another kids show

REMEMBER WHEN PPL TRIED TO SAY STEVEN UNIVERSE WAS PRO FASCIST

but it is??? like maybe they didn’t mean to be pro fascist bc Rebecca Sugar is too incompetent to do anything on purpose but it is like. irreparably pro fascist.

I don’t understand how y’all look at Steven genuinely trying to befriend dictators who’ve committed genocide on innumerable accounts and are intolerant of deviation from the norm unless they can weaponize it, and say that’s not fascism.

Like you can still watch the show and everything (hell I will myself) but.  That’s literally the textbook definition of fascism.

Rebecca Sugar probably didn’t mean to write it that way, but the fact is that she wrote a narrative that condones forgiving people no matter how terrible they are, to the point where it is apologizing for people who’ve willingly committed genocide, which is a hallmark of fascism.

Steven trying to turn the Diamonds to his side is fine.  But the point where it crosses into fascist apologia is when she started trying to write the Diamonds as sympathetic.  You cannot write fascist dictators as sympathetic and not expect to get called out on it.

You know what? Fuck it. I haven’t posted a single fucking thing to this blog yet, but you cretins have disgusted me so much that I just can’t take it anymore. This is the last straw. I’m not going to argue with you, because there is no argument. You just parroted a really stupid narrative that’s gotten somewhat popular lately, and I’m gonna tell you exactly why it’s stupid.

“Steven is genuinely trying to befriend dictators!” No. Steven is trying to protect his family and his planet, and he’s trying to save all the corrupted gems. His strategy, for now, is to get on their good side and appeal to their emotions by reminding them that they’re family (which they technically are). There has been no indication in the show that Steven likes the diamonds or that he forgives or excuses the atrocities they’ve committed. He empathizes, because he literally has empathy powers and he can’t physically help it. That is not the same thing as forgiveness, or even sympathy.

“Recebba wrote fascist, genocidal dictators as being sympathetic, which is a Bad.” No. You know what’s bad? SYMPATHIZING WITH REAL LIFE GENOCIDAL DICTATORS. Sympathizing with Hitler and calling him a poor, misunderstood artist is BAD! You know what isn’t bad? Fucking giving your fictional villains more than one dimension! Giving them some fucking personality, some damn motivation. It kind of makes for a more compelling story, you know? You might even say that the Diamonds are multifaceted, harr harr. Anyway, I don’t know how to tell you that the Diamonds are cartoon space aliens who are more comparable to indifferent goddesses or queen bees than they are to nazis. I guess calling the sjw cartoon “fascist propaganda” makes for a juicy narrative, which brings me to my next point:

“I’m sure Recebba didn’t MEAN to write fascist propaganda! She’s just too incompetent, that’s all. That
dumb, stupid, weak, pathetic, white, white… uh, uh, guilt, white guilt, milquetoast piece of human garbage.”

This is really what makes me the most crazy. I’m sure that people know that Rebecca Sugar is Jewish (incidentally, this means that nazis don’t see her as “white,” or even as a human being). I’m sure that they know that she’s a bisexual, Jewish, non-binary woman who’s in love with a black man. It’s more like they just don’t care. “B-b-b-but just because she’s Jewish herself doesn’t mean that she can’t accidentally write fascist propaganda! She’s just a bad writer!” Yeah, no. Do you honestly believe that Sugar, who lives in America as a Jew, who uses the internet as a Jew, who has a Jewish family, who is descended from a gotdamn Holocaust survivor, and who (alongside her partner, Ian) has survived white supremacist violence herself, doesn’t know a thing or two about what it feels like to be hunted? It shows so clearly in her work, too. It shows in how desperately the Crystal Gems fight to defend the Earth and their way of life, it shows in how the Off Colors desperately hide themselves for the sake of their survival, and it shows in how miserable and stifled the lower caste homeworld gems are in their rigidly strict assigned roles.

So, why do all the great, critical thinkers of this nightmare hell site call this show “fascist propaganda?”

Because Steven is squeamish about the idea of killing. Because the villains where shown to have a little depth. That’s it!

The fact that so many people are willing to interpret this show in such bad faith really astounds me. If you don’t like the show, then you don’t like the show. Maybe the show makes you deeply uncomfortable. That’s fine; the show is supposed to be uncomfortable. It shows emotion in all its raw irrationality; it puts mental illness on full display and it doesn’t squirm away from showcasing the consequences of trauma. The good guys do fucked up things sometimes, and the bad guys appear sympathetic sometimes. There’s nothing fascist about that, and it certainly isn’t bad writing. In fact, it’s so real that it’s uncomfortable. And that’s a good thing.

Rebecca Sugar is a really good writer. 🙂

this reply is excellent, and it touches on something i love about SU:

it’s SUPPOSED to be uncomfortable to watch sometimes. 

did this moment make you uneasy?

or this one?

or how about this?

if they did, congratulations, that’s intentional!

there are so many cartoons that go out of their way to be as affirming and coddling as possible, by making their antagonists so Other that there’s no way you would ever see yourself in them. thus, telling this comfortable lie that people who do bad things are just genetically designed for evil, and as long as you’re not a literal monster, you never need to challenge yourself or confront your own demons. 

SU says fuck that. 

SU says that people can do terrible things while fully believing that they’re doing what’s best for everyone. SU says that you can be mentally ill, and traumatized, and vulnerable, and downtrodden, and STILL be selfish. SU says that sometimes, people who are on the “right” side in the Great Battle can still be toxic. SU says that sometimes, you don’t have the support network that helps you grow as a person, and the consequences of that can be scarring for both yourself and others. 

most importantly, SU says that all of this depends not just on the person, but on how you’re shaped by society. not because you don’t have a choice, but because societal ills can never be cured just by wishing really hard that everyone raised in toxic environments will just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and instinctively know what’s right, without any help from others.

that’s what i love about this show. if it was like most other cartoons, where the “good girls” are expected to be born knowing what’s right, and the “bad girls” (yes, especially girls!) are so inhuman that nobody could ever relate to them, i wouldn’t be watching.

look, i’m not saying it’s for everyone. no piece of media is.

if you want a show to tell you everything’s ok and nothing was ever your fault, i don’t recommend SU. if you want a show where the protagonists’ only flaws are insecurities that they never take out on others, i don’t recommend SU. if you need the women and lgbt+ characters to be safe, heroic role-models who never hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it, i don’t recommend SU. 

but. if you want to challenge yourself, i recommend it.

if you’ve ever felt guilty, i recommend it. 

if you’re ready and willing to confront the worst things you’ve ever done, and still keep believing that there’s hope for you, i wholeheartedly recommend it.

@zoyzauce You cant make fun of Rebecca then start playing victim when youre called out. Why not read this thread and reply to it instead with good faith, rather than running from everyone.

“rather than running from everyone” are you trying to be creepy or what…?  And I haven’t done anything to play the victim?  That would require me to be drawing on personal experiences and trying to use them for pity points to make people agree with me.  I also wasn’t making fun of Rebecca.  I was pointing out flaws in her writing.  There’s a difference there that you seem to be incapable of perceiving.

“if you want a show to tell you everything’s ok and nothing was ever your fault, i don’t recommend SU. if you want a show where the protagonists’ only flaws are insecurities that they never take out on others, i don’t recommend SU. if you need the women and lgbt+ characters to be safe, heroic role-models who never hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it”

I never said anything along these lines about needing a show to be comfy to watch.  I’ve personally appreciated the moments where SU has tackled hard subjects and not sugarcoated it.  I don’t enjoy watching shows where the protagonists are always 100% in the right and flawless.

But everyone who’s replied to me so far has put words in my mouth and acted as though I’ve done and said things that I quite literally haven’t, if you read the damn thread.  I haven’t seen the point in replying to people who aren’t even going to be able to agree on the facts of the situation, and seem to be arguing more with a hypothetical strawman than me in actuality.

“SU says that people can do terrible things while fully believing that they’re doing what’s best for everyone. SU says that you can be mentally ill, and traumatized, and vulnerable, and downtrodden, and STILL be selfish.”

Yes, it does say these things.  The issue is, the characters that do this shit and behave in such selfish or callous ways are still presented by the narrative as being good people.  Blue Diamond was consumed with grief, and Lapis was traumatized.  That’s all well and good, but Blue Diamond helped commit mass murder on multiple planets before, during, and after Pink Diamond’s death. 

Her trauma does nothing to change the fact that she is not a good person.  But the narrative is still being spun as though she is redeemable and deserving of forgiveness.  Call me crazy, but when you’ve got a show painting genocidal dictators in a more sympathetic light than people like Kevin, you might have a problem.  Lapis is also still being painted as though she’s done nothing terribly wrong, when she’s been downright abusive to Peridot and no one seems to give it a second glance beyond “uwu steven’s gay aunts had a fight”.  

The narrative itself is treating all levels of villainy as deserving of forgiveness when there is a line that very clearly needs to be drawn.  Do I think Lapis deserves forgiveness?  Absolutely, but it needs to be acknowledged in-universe that she was being abusive to Peridot and there needs to be proper reconciliation.  Do I think the Diamonds deserve forgiveness?  No.  I wholeheartedly appreciate Steven’s idealistic approach to dealing with these problems, but he seems to genuinely think that murderous dictators should be treated like family just because they’re related to him.  You should not be teaching impressionable kids (and more impressionable teens/20-somethings) that abusive behaviour should just be forgiven regardless of how bad it is.

As a final note because god dammit I’m tired of this hypocrisy, yall keep preaching about how you just want this escapist show that teaches love and kindness, but nearly everyone who’s responded to me on this matter has been hateful and rude.  Some haven’t even bothered to argue their side, they’ve just said shit like “you’re retarded go die” when I haven’t done anything to personally attack them.  If you’re going to argue about the kind ideals preached in this show and then talk to me like I’m an idiot or just the worst person in the world for critiquing Sugar’s writing, I don’t see the point in having a discussion with you, because you clearly do not understand one of the decent messages this show is trying to send.  

The problem with this fandom is not the people who are willing to critique the show, it’s the ones who can’t seem to take its better words to heart on just being a good person.

I look through the comments to see the other replies. If you think that’s creepy, that’s a you problem.

You either know nothing of the SU fandom bullshit or know and don’t care. If you did you would see why these claims piss everyone who doesn’t see the world as black and white off.

People called Rebecca and the Crew horrible things. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was sent death threats either. They have always been kind and when they did something wrong, they apologized and said they would do better. The people who does that, say the same thing you are. 

I don’t condone if anyone said anything horrid to you but you kinda have to do your own research to understand that people are sick and tired of this. Especially when they have always been proven wrong.

Yes you are insulting Rebecca. The moment you called a marginalized victim of oppression who is a descendent of one of the worst genocides in history who is also in a relationship with another marginalized victim condoning those that commits genocide and discrimination, that’s an insult.

Im going to be real here, do you really think every single person is so shallow that a few sympathetic traits are enough to ignore all the horrible stuff they did and love them? There are people who do that, but there are also people who understand that explanation isn’t justification. You don’t, right?

Steven is a child. He can’t do morally horrid stuff right now (Plus you sure Cartoon Network would let something like that happen?). Even then, why do you think he and Connie had a split for a few episodes? Bc he was WRONG in taking the fall, in a situation where everyone knew that he would die if he faced the Diamonds. And he still is repressing a lot and that has never been framed as right.

Pearl nearly let the kid die a couple times, hell the look she gave Steven in Rose’s sword messed Steven up. Did you forget about Sardonyx too?

Amethyst transformed into Rose, fooled around in situations where she should not have done, and totally hurt Greg and Pearl more than once (There are hints)

Garnet represses and pressures herself so much on being a perfect leader, she was stoic and it made Amethyst and Pearl feel the need to step things up to a ridiculous degree.

Is this them being right? Are they flawless? You literally just said it tackled hard subjects without sugarcoating it. How does it do that if their principle characters are flawless?

Their character arcs entailed being able to face those parts of themselves, face the consequences, and be better. And just because they did, it doesn’t erase the bad stuff that they did too.

The only way in which they are wholeheartedly right is in fighting for Earth, which I don’t see why one should object too (unless one is a nihilist)

Did you see the promo? Blue Diamond literally insulted Garnet to her face about who she is. 

Lapis ran again, only to come back when she realized she couldn’t do it forever. Not because of some off screen character development. Hell, the Crew loves Jasper and have talked about the toxicity from Lapis’s side, the episode where we find out she enjoyed it is clearly framed as bad (but Steven doesn’t understand the complexities of abuse so of course he can’t say anything).

So like… if it’s the fandom you think does it then yeah I agree. There are many who have a black and white sort of thinking and woobify and justify characters if they have a quality they like. But that’s not the Crew.

And why are you talking about things that haven’t happened yet? You do realize and episode is 10 minutes long, right? Do you expect a whole arc to be crammed in an hour? Good arcs are spread out, if you can’t handle that then you should watch something else, little patience can’t handle this show (which is known for setting things up for years)