Autism real

So...how much of the bad discourse surrounding Steven Universe is just because people were really hoping that the Gems would beat up Andy DeMayo in "Gem Harvest"?

I was astonished to learn that there was controversy around this episode, because I felt like it was just kind of a normal children's cartoon about getting along with difficult relatives; and then I looked it up and learned that it had the extremely inauspicious timing of airing right after Trump's 2016 victory, and, yeah, okay, I can understand why a children's fantasy about reconciling with your obnoxious conservative relatives and getting them to accept your alternate family structure would play rather poorly at the time.

I think that Rebecca Sugar probably assumed, like most of the world that wasn't my specific flavour of extremely online in 2016, that Clinton would crush Trump and that this episode would maybe help to smooth over divisions; but of course what ended up happening is that an episode about how you should be empathetic towards your bigoted relatives ended up airing just as your bigoted relatives were going around victoriously hate-criming people in the street.

Watching it now, though, it ends up feeling wistful more than anything. Like, yeah, sure, it doesn't work like that, and we all know that now...But wouldn't it be nice if it did? It feels like a pleasant dream.

Steven Universe is fundamentally a power fantasy—but the fantasy is being able to get through to people and heal things. The power is love instead of strength.

"Like, yeah, sure, it doesn't work like that, and we all know that now...But wouldn't it be nice if it did?" Yeah....

i think some of you dont like narratives or stories or characters i think you just like fanfiction tropes

protagonists can and will be sexist, racist, insensitive, cruel, stupid, etc, especially towards the beginning of a story. these are called character flaws and they are a surprise tool that will lead to narrative fulfillment later

And sometimes "narrative fulfillment" doesn't mean "the character overcomes their flaws" or even "the antihero is punished for their flaws"! sometimes it means the narrative says "wow was that fucked up or what? anyway i'm rod sterling"

Queer joy detected!

can't wait to say "during pride month?" at every minor inconvenience all of next month

Restricting the biblical levels of greed contained within every pet cat

Everyone has an accent it came free with your language 🙄

Congrats to every reply like this for failing to understand the fundamental definition of an accent. Of course you think you sound normal! It's the way you speak!

Gonna sign language at you in a very southern accent

You can lie when you name things

Queer joy detected!

the thing about being a Tech Person™ is the universe takes it as a challenge. oh you can handle normal problems easily? take some Extremely Not Normal ones. my friend just told me my outgoing voicemail message is in Italian for no apparent reason

This.