#its like getting into steven universe discourse? the kids cartoon?

[eightdoctor]

please, please have a seat

i'm here to discuss doctors who with you

Holds casual Dr who fans by the shoulders. Hey did you know that the doctor isn’t a usually a good person with other people’s interests at heart? Did you know that? Did you know they do terrible things for that they believe to be the greater good all the time? That they aren’t a good person?????

[ruthlesslistener]

invincible and spiderverse aren’t “kid shows.” do you see 2d animation and assume it’s a kids cartoon?

No, I just straight-up did not know what Invincible was until I googled it just now, I just assumed that it was because the rest of the shows on the post were a.) for children and b.) Tumblr famously has a really bad habit of only watching shows for kids and then getting mad about how there's either no nuance in them (like Steven Universe discourse), or mad because the adult shows they DO watch are 'problematic' in nature. So OP showing more complex female characters from kid's shows and then saying Tumblr couldn't handle them would track pretty well with its track record of its users saying they want badass complex female characters and then throwing a tantrum when they actually show up on screen.

Into the Spiderverse is still something that I would consider for kids tho, bc its only rated at PG. That doesn't mean that adults can't watch or enjoy it or that it's any lesser for it, but it's still a movie aimed primarily at older kids/young teens. So yeah, kid's cartoon. Not really sure why you're being so hostile about it being labeled as such, bc there's nothing wrong with enjoying kid's animation- the issue inherent to people on Tumblr only liking shows catered to 10-13 year olds is that it ends up creating people whose literary analysis skills never develop past that age range. Which is what I was making a jab at.

(I find this ask kind of ironic considering the fact that the very few things I watch that aren't nature documentaries are all 2D animation, it's just that my tastes are solidly on the Devilman Crybaby/Castlevania spectrum so I rarely dabble in the shit that Tumblr usually loves. I don't really get into live action stuff because I have a chronically bad time with eye contact and faceblindness, so like, all of the shit I enjoy is either 2D or 3D animation. I'm not one of those idiots who associates it exclusively with kid's shows, rather I associate Tumblr fandoms exclusively with kid's shows)

[sundung]

u kno it's weird i was that kid w/ scrupulosity watching steven universe and now i have a monogatari icon. one that arguably is having a loli icon

anyway tho every once in a while i am going to reiterate i Will Still do a SU Discourse. because i think it's so dismissive when ppl say "why do u care so much abt children's cartoon lmao" Bcoz i watched it as a child and was told its narrative of queerness was important! That i was being represented! and if that is the case, then it's my model of how to exist!

and what i took from SU then is that brown nonbinary teenagers are doomed to be adults' sex objects! does it not matter to tell such a story to kids?

i don't believe anymore that media for children should be comfortable, that is, not challenging, nor should they always be didactic. i still think it is worthwhile to be mad about some stories.

rn tho im mad i couldn't get thru future after it was clear the gem lower castes had no revolutionary scholars like. lol if youre gonna make your story that didactically political (steven Learns a Lesson about how to Respect the immigrants doing his Assimilation Into Job Market Project) i get to complain abt the politics.

[dexaroth]

erm. talking abt steven universe. thoughts. yknow the.. Drill. teehehe

ok so i spent the last. 4? days binge-watching su after watching a yt vid that was titled 'in defense of steven universe' and a bit of the followup vid partly bc i was healing from my neck pain but also because i was super into the show when i was like 14 and like. the vids were well. Defending su from the 3 vids with millions of views that changed the whole overall opinion on the show and i was like damn! i vaguely remember watching something and changing my mind about su.. and probably getting bullied for liking su on google plus too lol.

its.. old enough to be nostalgic and worth of a revisit! after all i remember it being so nice and chill..! and cozy.. oh how i missed the piano song after each episode... that SOMEHOW kept being replaced by erm.. Not Better ones. and i remember that very much!

what i dont remember exactly was the capital D Discourse but i remember it was a thing. there were vids that, looking back, i cant tell if they were ironic? talking about oh gee whee steeveni forgave the war criminals! theyre nazis how could he! and and and..... . good lird.

i kinda wanted to talk abt this bc its just so.. idiotic. ive watched up until season 5 and i just finished the movie and holy shit what kind of brain worm got into peoples mind to take su so fucking seriously

it just. it was such a big thing. everyone up in arms about it. about a...

kids show.

i dont say that lightly because there are so many interests of mine that are considered childish but are complex and engaging if people didnt overlook it so much but.. this? seriously? this was what it was all about?

its fun. and cheesy and goofy. there were some parts that i went Oh Cmon! but like, its a cmon in a funny way. like yeah this could have been done better but its. a kids show. and a lot of episodes just end when theyre about to get good because of the limited time they have...

its so weird. This. is what all that was for. and thats just the usual me not knowing about anything popular nowadays besides hearing the news of when someone involved in the show was harassed off twitter or something.. and all the discourse back then of course. for this.

i dont knoww how to put this into words its so ridiculoussss

every day that passes i start to hate fandom even more.. that word already irritates me but the extent to which people elevate things. take things so out of context. bend everything to their will to the point of being unrecognizable. W H Y what do you get from this

its fucking steven universe this is such a cute show and its even better than i remember it being and that was the fucking reception it got..? for this..? ..insane. fetid even. and to think their poison got to me when i was that young.. how many people did to have this kind of rot spread to them. no wonder i have shame issues when this is the kind of reaction thats just completely expected of everyone. fucking hell

the (um. spoilers. ) diamonds being like ohhh steeviinn let us adore you!! aueough we spent like 7 episodes trying different types of nukes on you but were friends now!! is like haha thats cute. a bit rushed and cheesy but in a fun way. and people Lost Their SHIT about it good LORD how are they not cramming shakespeare into the gem cartoon! how come theyre not discussing how rose fucked that old man or whatever the fuck. we must put rebeccas head on a spike for this! //*banging onthis post hello??? is anyobyd thewre?? helppp

[vitos-ordination-song]

To continue on what I’ve been saying about ATLA, a useful comparison point is Steven Universe. Now I’ve long thought the discourse surrounding that show is ridiculous. It does have things to offer and it’s not some sort of propaganda piece or whatever else it gets accused of. However, there’s fundamental issues w it. Imo, a lot of the inaccurate criticisms lobbed at ATLA actually describe Steven Universe. Steven Universe just uses colonialism and oppression as a set up for monster-of-the-week scenarios and family drama. At its best, it delivers good character and relationship writing, as well as fun space-fantasy adventures. But the “war” angle never feels real, and the show’s attitude of compromise lacks any interest in justice, beyond the interpersonal. Notice how Steven Universe: Future focuses just on the damage done to Steven, with very little time dedicated to the state of the galaxy? Yeah. It was always about family, the war was just window-dressing, and it honestly could have been dropped. If I was in charge, I would have just had the Diamonds be really overbearing and close-minded relatives. Maybe the monster-of-the-week scenarios come from them trying to kidnap Steven and save him from his horrible earth family. The gem hierarchy and discrimination can be kept, and then it could be about Steven using his powers of kindness to change gem society or whatever. Problem solved.

ATLA does not have any of that internal contradiction tho. It’s through and through a story about imperialism and oppression, and it features liberation struggles. Now, it’s handled in a 2000s kids show way, but for what it is, I think it does a good job. I’m not the target audience in more, since I’m in my mid-20s, but when I look back at it, I think it was one of the most well-executed works of its era.

When it comes to criticisms of its politics, I guess my thought is just, why are we acting like this cartoon is supposed to be a radical text or something. Like no shit it doesn’t advocate for murder, it was made for 10 year olds. And I don’t think that it’s particularly “liberal” either—the show balances forgiveness, compassion, and understanding with justice and righteous anger. It doesn’t deal with the full adult reality of war or oppression, but again… that’s ‘cause it’s a show for children. I’m not sitting my kid down to watch Come and See, but they can watch ATLA.

Still, it’s not that I don’t feel ATLA is “overrated.” I just don’t mean it as an insult, it’s more that people have blown it up into this huge thing, like it’s Special and Not Just For Kids and Actually Really Smart and Political. It’s very much a genre work, it caters to its audience, and it presents a simplified ideal of pan-Asia, just fictionalized. Personally, I don’t find it terribly offensive, but I can see why it’d turn people off. And beyond that, as much as it might get kids thinking about political and social issues, it’s like Star Wars. Americans love stories about freedom fighters, but only when we can ignore the reality of ourselves as the oppressors. Star Wars allowed viewers to forget that we are the Empire, and ATLA kinda does the same. But like, I wouldn’t expect anything mainstream to be as anti-American as I am, much less a 2000s children’s cartoon.

[marxistluffy]

There's probably a lot of little things that played into this, but here are some of the major ones I've been around for and noticed:

Immediately before this period of dark nihilism, 2010-2014 fandom culture was starting to be considered "super cringe" so people were constantly taking away words and phrases you couldn't say anymore. "Oh you still use XD? Weird! You're probably really old (fandom ageism taking root) Get outta here!" People would cast you out as weird or cringe for even so much as thinking about using an old-fashioned, text emote (the silly old ones like :P, or :> or TwT). There was whole long discourses about which ones were still acceptable, and it seemed like only the simple smiley :) (passive aggressive) and the uwu survived, which spawned a whole new culture in itself. Young fans were really trying to claim the tumblr space, and tension got super high because of it.

Right after this weird aggressive period, Trump and this utter sense of apocalypse happened, so everyone's mood just... turned dark and sour. That, combined with this weird toxicity on internet spaces (especially tumblr, where fandoms became battlegrounds), made everything very toxic and broody, which was a stark contrast to the kinds of fandoms that were suddenly thriving (Steven Universe, Voltron, a lot of new, potentially diverse kids cartoons, where these kind of rising stars that reeked of toxicity.) Internet dadaism and majorrr nihilism became a thing in the midst of this weird angst train, and it decimated both perky show fandoms, and darker themed ones (GoT, SPN, etc). There was also, however, just this growing sense of unity in... despair and gloom in the growing state of worldly chaos. Covid was hitting EVERYONE, and it was, finally, something we could all talk about and more or less agree on, so long as you were on the same political side of the issue. This probably reached its peak, or maybe climax, when Destiel "becoming canon" happened around the same time we were all watching each state struggle to tally votes and commenting on it like the weirdest, most universal soccer match. The memes were unreal, and the cascade of real-world mixing with fandom events was unparalleled. Life truly felt incredibly surreal at that moment.

It was only after all this drama, weirdness, and STRESS hat things... finally started to calm down. Almost universally, people started to relax, and just... take the little things for granted. Even though worldly issues didn't exactly get better, they did get easier, especially since the vaccines came out, as that was a huge relief for everyone. Internet romanticism hit its peak yet again, except this time it wasn't excitement about being on the internet with quirky little abbreviations and emotes, but with being able to enjoy... outside life as well. After being trapped at home for basically two years or longer in many places, people really wanted to bridge that gap, even all the worst of the tragically depressed nerds. And yeah, that's when the whole real-life-romanticism hit. People are still incredibly addicted to the internet, but with the way we were all condensed onto it in such a toxic mess before, being able to appreciate that space to breathe was just.. a huge feeling everyone wanted to share.

Also the tumblr NSFW ban of 2018 drove a LOT of young people off tumblr, and onto twitter, and while you would probably assume that'd drive just the adults and artists to twitter (it partially did), it also drove most of the younger fandom members with it. Most of the ones that stuck around were older adults, 20s to 30s and beyond. You can see it in the kinds of hit posts that deal with mundane, very adult activities, like getting groceries or parking the car. It's literally settled down because the rampant energy has all moved.. to twitter. And having been on both the whole time, I can confirm that it is still much more of a chaotic mess there, where the youngest fandom-goers gather in bulk and continue to send death threats, share kys jokes, and bully each other <3 Some things never change.

I haven’t been on tumblr for quite as long as a lot of people but over several years I’ve noticed this interesting gradual sorta,, shift in the general culture? that it went from this mostly depressed, nihilistic outlook where people would regularly joke about hating themselves and being hopeless and depressed, to a wave of vehemence of “STOP hating everything actually the world is Good and you deserve love!!!” type posts, to now, where those aggressive ‘PSAs’ have faded away and instead I regularly see people romanticizing simple things like stars and hot tea and rainy mornings, and waxing poetic about their friends, and just trying to put love out there. and I don’t know exactly what that means (someone who knows more than me could probably say something smart about generational expression and trauma or popular perception of mental health and whatnot), but I do know that it makes my heart very full to see people learn to love the world and themselves by extension, and a whole userbase adopting healthier coping mechanisms, and therefore teaching the younger users to do so as well. I might just be following different people, but I really do think we’ve grown. everyone has grown. five years ago it wasn’t unusual for the next post on my dash to be a scathing commentary on why nothing matters or an anon ripping into someone they barely knew or someone complaining about how pathetic their interests are. now I have mutuals who get excited and spam reblog art of cows and friends I see tagging each other in pictures of frogs and strangers writing paragraphs about how much I matter. it makes me happy. idk. just an observation I wanted to make. I think people are good and everyone’s just trying their best at the end of the day

[faelapis]

one thing i forgot to say about belos, i don't really buy the whole "belos is supposed to play on the idea of a villain about to become sympathetic, but then he isn't!" angle as a response to criticism.

for one thing, there's a lot of people talking past each other here. it seems like whenever someone critiques how he's played, there's this underlying assumption that the people critiquing it MUST want him to be a sad woobie. i don't need that, i just want him to be more compelling. so please respond to what people are actually saying.

secondly, i just don't think that's a reasonable argument in a show where every other moral is the most obvious shit you've ever heard. don't lie, be nice, found family good, propaganda and authoritorianism bad (but not bad as in a compelling story that has deep or complex themes, just bad as in "evil power hungry meanies are bad.")... but i'm supposed to believe that despite being played totally straight, he's actually a subtle and nuanced commentary on setup and payoff and how you've grown to "expect" someone like him to be deep or redeemable? please.

thirdly, and perhaps most important to me personally... its a boring reason for your villain to be written like he is. you have to be Extremely Online to think too much redemption is a real "problem" in animation. if you ask a normie to define "kids cartoons morals" they would say it has simple morals, the good guys win while the bad guys are killed or defeated. i swear some of y'all are just angry that steven universe dared to exist in a sea of more typical storytelling where the main villain is rarely ever redeemed.

if you look at the broader history of the medium as a whole, you can probably find more of the specific villain death where someone falls from a high place than ANY scenario where a big bad is redeemed.

i could go on. these are just the first gifs i could find. (picture description: gaston, the evil queen from snow white, frollo and mcleach from rescuers down under all falling to their deaths.)

there's just this extreme paranoia in cartoon fandom spaces lately that - i genuinely think just because steven universe and undertale came out around the same time - we're somehow never gonna get a real villain who isn't redeemed again.

meanwhile, the reality is like. not that at all.

(picture description: horde prime from she-ra and the princesses of power, simon from infinity train, and emilia from kipo and the age of wonderbeasts).

so if your villain only exists to say "wow there's no evil villains who don't get redeemed anymore, i'm gonna make one just to be meta-commentary on how there's no evil villains anymore." all i can say is like... cry more? and watch something other than steven universe, i guess? because redeeming your big bads is the rare exception, not the norm. yet its somehow completely dominated Cartoon Discourse (tm) as if its redefined the rules of the whole medium.

(just to get our terminology straight - by "big bad" i mean the main villains, the primary antagonists, the people in control who are the reason bad plot things happen. they are rarely redeemed. sure, you get more redemption out of sad abused woobie lackeys... but if you take issue with THAT, you might have less sympathy for abuse victims than you think. like. geez. most of the time they aren't even villains so much as trapped in their circumstances. just be born good, i guess. most media has a true evil big bad even if the abused lackey is redeemable anyway.)

and as someone likes redemption, and is therefore a privileged neoliberal hack who has never experienced abuse or trauma myself, according to my haters, i think thats just... a bit sad. we couldn't have One (1) cartoon redeem its supposed big bads without 3+ years of hysterical crying and posturing from every reactionary fuckhead in cartoon spaces that thats it, SU exists, so from now on its Brave and Revolutionary to have an evil villain.

give me a fucking break. get over yourselves. and if thats the intention behind creating belos (which i don't think, so i'm not here for your analysis of why he really exists, but if), then i extend that invitation to the owl house writers as well.

[cipher-fresh]

the way the internet treated Steven Universe frankly enrages me like Rebecca Sugar fought tooth and nail for for everything she could get and she accomplished something beautiful with her show but it’s remembered for “SU critical” discourse and “the diamonds were Nazis” fan argument over and over. I remember people nitpicking the showfor the most irrelevant things like characters being off-model when no other show was doing what theirs did. the wedding of Ruby and Sapphire was a gamble for their career with Cartoon Network and CN retaliated against her violently by cutting down her show’s planned ending. Steven Universe’s impact cannot be overstated in the realm of queer representation in children’s entertainment, and watching the internet chew up and spit out Rebecca Sugar’s near decade-long project that pushed boundaries in both queer representation and storytelling in animation, especially as a “kid’s show” was especially strange since I saw it in real-time. No TV show came CLOSE to what Steven Universe accomplished, especially not 5 years ago. Not only did Steven Universe transcend boundaries and have a beautiful story on its own, it laid down groundwork for the Lumitys of today and set a standard for animation. Theorizing as time went on and appreciating new characters and watching arcs expand was incredible, and it was really an experience like no other. Cartoon Network had it out for the show and in spite of that it still accomplished something memorable. And seeing it being remembered on tumblr as being cringey, overrated and unintelligent is such a shame. Steven Universe celebrated queerness and allowed a young audience to grow up with new role models and it championed love, hope, friendship and the beauty of life. It deserves so much better than the way it’s remembered

[beevean]

@useful-crew-too said:

Yeah but its like a breath of fresh air from the constant redemption of animated villains (not saying every villain gets redeemed)

Serious question: how frequently do villains get redeemed in cartoons?

Steven Universe is of course the most famous example, because there are still people saying that SU is “fascism apology” for giving the Diamonds a chance, but other than that?

ATLA? Zuko is barely a villain and honestly treating him as the only good “redemption arc” feels disingenuous. He was an abused kid who had to learn to stop craving for his father’s approval, that’s character development, not redemption. Azula and Ozai were much more evil than him, and the former was driven insane without even considering that she was a broken 14 yo kid, and the latter was thrown in prison like garbage.

LoK doesn’t have any redeemed villains AFAIK. The one who tried to atone for his sins died in season 4.

She-Ra? Catra got her happy ending, but Shadow Weaver sacrificed herself (and according to Stevenson it was to make herself look good), Horde Prime was destroyed, and Hordak... well, Hordak was kinda neglected in season 5. They do make a joke about forgetting all the evil shit he pulled in season 1-4, as if him getting reunited with Entrapta was a parody of redeemed villains.

Gravity Falls doesn’t have any redeemed villain either, unless you count Pacifica going from a shallow bully to a victim of her own rotten family, which a rather lowkey definition of redeemed villain.

I have never watched SVTFOE but I do remember the discourse about Star genociding an entire planet, which seems to be the exact opposite of redeeming.

The closest thing to SU I can think of is MLP, who redeemed villains the likes of Discord, Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer, but MLP was also not above turning the more heinous villains into stone, giving them a fate worse than death and negating them the chance of redemption (Lord Tirek, Queen Chrysalis, Cozy Glow)

I’m sure I’m missing some popular cartoon of the last decade (I don’t know a thing about Amphibia and The Owl House, for instance), but I genuinely don’t see this trend of “redeeming villains that don’t deserve it”. People are just salty about SU :\

[enigmakiwi]

Yeah I’ve been sitting on this shit for a while… my hot take is that Steven Universe was a really, incredibly good show, and it’s a fucking shame what happened to it, both on the studio end and the fandom end. A travesty, even.

Steven Universe was historic, actually. Y’know that wedding between ruby and sapphire that the crew fought so hard to make happen and that ultimately doomed the show into getting that rushed ending? Yeah, that was the first EVER gay wedding in a kids’ show. EVER. And they fought so, so hard to make that happen. And then for the fandom to continue— even some to this day— saying it didn’t have enough representation or wasn’t progressive enough? Baffling. To then have the fandom losing their shit over the rushed ending that they were forced into by cartoon network as a result of this? I can’t even imagine the frustration.

You don’t have to like the show, obviously. Everyone has their own opinions, and I’m not saying it’s good because it has a gay wedding. (There was already enough of that from Steven universe fans claiming it was good because of the rep, not in conjunction with it.) But the people shitting on it for this specifically really pissed me off.

People really did forget it was a kids’ show. People really were livid and frothing at the mouth over how “the diamonds just got to keep ruling with no consequences! They just let the fascist dictators go! They’re saying that nazis should be forgiven!” when it ended. They really were harassing Rebecca sugar and the crew for this and that, calling them nazi apologists and cowards for saying “murder is bad” in a kids’ show.

It’s been long enough now that I no longer feel embarrassed over saying that I really love Steven Universe. This post does a really good job of explaining why shit got so insane. It was a tragic case of something beautiful getting torn to shreds from multiple sides. It also explains exactly why I loved the show so much: it really said fuck toxic gender roles, be open about your feelings, they don’t make you weak, be kind to others, it’s never too late to change, and conflicts can be resolved without violence by just talking. Great messages for kids and great messages for adults who just need a reminder or need that reassurance.

And hey, if you avoided it entirely because of all this shitty discourse and the bad impression you got from it? Go watch it! It’s not the garbage the fandom’s awful antics made it appear to be, I promise! You’ll probably be very pleasantly surprised, and you won’t have to deal with the absolute shitshow that happened when it was airing and for a while after! You can just bask in the powerful alien women and unconventional but loving family and themes of healthy communication and lesbians and pretty music and the surprisingly in-depth universe (ha) the show gradually builds with its lore!

people discovering steven universe in 2023 are always like "this show is really good why the hell were yall so weird about it"

[la5t-res0rt]

Wanted to ask about beetlelyds, sorry, I thought it was technically cannon? Like in the old comics after the show ended she grew up and married him. Sorry I’m an old school fan and have no idea why this whole thing is such a big deal. Wasn’t the actor like 20 too? I’m sorry if I sound very dumb. I’m not used to this new tumblr.

youre fine you are one hundred percent allowed to especially when you do it civilly as you have done here

first of all the biggest issue faced in the whole what is and is not canon debate is the fact that there are three (four if you count the limited comics run) publicized iterations of my media

i will go over each very briefly just kidding this is going to a long answer so i will spare the dashboard with a readmore

there is the movie which im sure you dont need me to explain the plot since youre an old school fan but basically the climax is that yes beetlejuice does go for the marriage angle in exchange for stopping the exorcism of adam and barbara and his motive for this is so that he can cause as much chaos as he wants on the mortal coil but his plan is thwarted when barbara rides a sandworm into the house which promptly eats beetlejuice sending him to bureaucratic death limbo

the end of the movie features the deetz and the maitlands happily living together with lydia havign a new appreciation for her situation and beetlejuice gets his head made real small which is very funny haha 

so no in the movie they are not canon editors note the actress who played lydia winona ryder was a teenager while filming the movie she turned 17 the year it released 

the next is the cartoon which i will admit has the most grounds for being considered canon but in the end the show is about a middle schooler and her best friend who is a ghost which in itself is a pretty iffy gray area sort of thing but for a childrens cartoon to work a friendship is better than the obvious enemy status they held in the movie

anyway in the cartoon they are potrayed to be very close friends with lydia being the person beetlejuice cares about the most and honestly if you were to watch it with no prior knowledge of the media and if you ignored their massive and obvious age difference than yeah you probably would read it as a romantic relationship 

however lydia is a middle schooler and that is simply immoral

there have been writers for the cartoon who have been credited to say that a relationship is what they were trying to invoke but for obvious reasons they couldnt exactly move forward with that angle with them establishing that lydia is a child in middle school and a fully grown adult man dating a child who is in middle school is immoral and also illegal in the united states and in canada 

this isnt a good argument for whether or not something is canon and i will tell you why with one simple name and that is luke weber

if you dont know who luke weber is he was a storyboard artist on the cartoon steven universe he is known for making a lot of self ship artwork of him and the character pearl

he worked on the show isnt his material canon no of course it isnt it wasnt put in the actual publication and also if memory serves he was eventually asked to leave the project after he drew art of the shows creator giving him permission to date pearl and calling them her otp and a lot of fans hated this because the most generally accepted interpretation of pearls character is that she is sapphic so a lot of people took issue however that again is just a widely perceived headcanon it is never stated what her actual sexuality is no one in that show is because it isnt a show about that its about wait im getting off topic sorry

what im saying is what can truly be considered canon is what you see on the screen and with the cartoon they are definitely the most friendly with each other and that is why so many people in the beetlebabe shipping community take so much stock in the cartoon because it is the easiest to read the relationship between the mas romantic although that is not what the show actually provides in black and white terms

interpretation does not equal canon and in this case no matter what anyone says the fact remains that in the cartoon itself they are friends good friends yes but friends all the same

it is definitely not a show about a grown man grooming an adult and if it were you definitely shouldn’t be stanning it the extreme because grooming a minor is wrong and it is apparently a problem in the fandom

anyway if the cartoon and the movie are both products of their time and there was more leniency on content bear in mind this was the same era as notorious animation powerhouse and known predator john k who was a showrunner on ren and stimpy and he maintained a relationship with a teenager which was an open secret that nobody really took issue with because in that time being a woman in the animation industry was tricky business and your career could be ended easily if you rejected advances luckily time has moved forward and the animation industry although still full of problems of a similar nature at least people are getting called out and punished for it

you can look more into that yourself its really upsetting though

as for comics i havent been able to find good scans of them and im not willing to purchase them but in my search i never found anything about the two of them ever being married in the cartoon again because she is a child i did find a cover where he appears to be getting married and hes asking lydia to get him out of it but im not sure where the comic actually goes all i know is she is standing off to the side shrugging and looking like she doesnt really care

anyway that brings us to the musical which is set in the modern day 

in the original libretto lydia is described as thirteen but since they got an actress who was older in the updated librettos she is listed as 15 and the story is pretty similar to the movie the young girl befriends ghosts and they try to scare her family out etc etc

the major difference between the film and the musical are that lydia and beetlejuice are more like friends like in the cartoon 

she summons him to help scare after the maitlands attempt doesnt really work so he shows up and they have fun terrorizing people together however she drops him for the opportunity to perhaps get her mom back but when no one will help she goes back to beetlejuice who tricks her into almost exorcising barbara

she agrees to marry him in order to stop the exorcism and he only wants to get married so he can be alive again and cause problems on the mortal coil like in the movie in the musical he states several times its a green card thing whihc obviously doesnt make it okay but still

anyway lydia tricks him and runs off into the underworld before the wedding can happen blah blah blah she goes back blah blah and she agrees to go through with the wedding to save her friends and family with a plan to make him go away for good

theres a very tongue and cheek song called creepy old guy which points out how wrong the whole thing is but everyone is going along with it in a very comedic matter and it includes the line 

i cant believe some cultures think this kind of things alright

basically saying yeah this is very very wrong anyway they do get married and beeltjeuice is alive for like 6 seconds before lydia stabs him to death with bad art and he dies thus nullifying the marriage because death do you part etc

so in the musical no at the end of the show they are not canon because he is dead their marriage is nullified and they go their separate ways

anyway sorry about that i just need to make it very clear that these three properties are all very distinct from each other and basically all three are indeed canon since they are publicized material and arguing the validity of which one is pointless editors note all actresses who played with the exception of dana steingold were minors for the majority of their runs as lydia with sophia ann caruso the originator of the role turning 18 during the run and dana being in her late twenties presley ryan however was a minor the whole time and still is one

tldr no they aren’t canon but to the credit of some people in this fandom their interpretation isnt too far of a stretch thanks to the era and some of the writers wishing to imply a relationship between an adult and a child

i also need to address how this is all a big deal and i suggest you take a peak through my discourse tag and check out @leedia‘s blog to see some of the more harmful things done by beetlebabe shippers

the beetlejuice fandom is home to many minors after the musical came out since musical fandom is vast and the ages of its members varies and normalizing pedophilia is harmful to them not to mention the people who have been effected by sexual harassment at the hands of adults

both sides have victims of csa but one side continues to perpetuate the cycle by showing time and time again that this behavior is normal and easily romanticized in the name of coping and literally anyone who has ever been to a good and credible therapist could tell you that posting cp even if it is simulated cp isnt a really good way to cope and you can get mad at me for saying that its totally fine but and im going to remove my character veil here for just a second as a csa survivor myself i think its harmful to not only myself but many others ok the veil is back down

tldr again there is a lot of bullying and harassment going on with both sides having their own issues but there is one side whos issues run a bit deeper in my humble opinion 

thank you for your question it allowed me to talk a lot you are welcome to discuss further with me in dms if you wish i honestly recommend giving the musical a listen because it is very fun and despite what some people say its very clever and if you get a chance to see a boot of it its visually stunning

one last note that i couldnt really fit in here but a large portion of the beetlebabes shipping community ignore the musical because it openly condemns the idea of beeltejuice and lydia having a relationship and a lot of the antis take issue with much of the writing and characterizations of the cartoon just a note that i think is important since were talking about canon

[janiedean]

OKAY GUYS *ALMOST* LAST THING ON THE DAMNED YA DISCOURSE POST

now: the fact that it took twenty minutes to have one person actually come at me in the askbox calmly and telling me ‘hey I get that op of that post sounds reasonable but they’re actually of the fandom moms are embarrassing corner and I know because I remember them from discourse etc’ without jumping at me for having reblogged a post that was worded fairly neutrally about a genre I always said I didn’t read and assuming that I somehow a) knew op b) supported op c) had read the comments d) agreed with the comments kind of says a lot about this entire situation and honestly in the future actually not jumping at people would be a preferred course of action, and I’d like to again remind everyone that I’m not omniscent and idk everyone on this hellsite but other than that

guys

I thought there was no need to specify this but whatever

I personally don’t give a single damn about what people like, I am worried about the way they engage with the content in question 

now, if a 14 yo watches voltron and a 30 yo watches voltron and they both enjoy it and the 14 yo buys merch and the 30 yo writes fic about it and they both enjoy it and they both cosplay keith at the local comicon no one cares and good for them, if the thirty-year old sends death threats to other fans both minors and not because they ship sh/eith or to the creators/the actors because they don’t think sh/eith was the worst that’s a goddamned fucking problem and that adult is overreacting to a goddamned cartoon for kids who should only be a thing you enjoy consuming, not discourse that badly about

or, people can read hp at whatever age they like, but the moment every single franchise’s gray characters end up compared to sn/ape because apparently there is no other grey char in existence I can go like ‘god I wish people didn’t consider snape the alfa and omega of grey characters’

or worse, again three days ago I had to read ‘we need to stop teenage girls from reading the vampire diaries because IT’S ABOUT PREDATORY CENTENARIES PREYING ON TEENAGERS SO IT’S PROBLEMATIC’ which is basically applying adult lenses to a fucking harmless ya book/tv shows about falling in love with hot vampires who LOOK TWENTY and like this entire point ends up up actually assuming teenage girls must be protected from stuff aimed at them that’s made to cater to their interests and even I, a person who never was into it, know that the hot vampire romance is a thing 14yo girls might be into for obvious reasons, and like come the fuck on it’s not that deep

and at contrary, then I have to read people idk talking about asoiaf like they’d talk about a young adult book when asoiaf is not the same goddamned target and is not aimed at the same audience and is not even that

and that happens because some people who are older than 18 ie the oldest ya target can’t apparently engage with media that’s not ya or kids’ shows and treat everything like it should do what ya is supposed to do ie being catered to teenagers which is not the point, and at the same time viciously tear each other apart over the damned shows for kids, and that’s why steven/universe is by general opinion the most toxic fandom in existence when it’s like a cartoon for kids which from what I gather just wants people they should be nice to each other and give others second chances which is apparently a message its own fans don’t get or they wouldn’t drive people to attempting suicide which happened forreal

and like if you’re an adult you absolutely can and should enjoy ya and kids’ media but you can’t honestly presume to behave like they’re worth sending people death threats or presume that all the rest of the media in existence has to cater to their tastes/the audience that ya is catered to, which is why I would sincerely like it if more adults on this website didn’t seem to live for disney movies discourse finding whatever the fuck is problematic in frozen when their 12 yo cousins at whom frozen is aimed most likely enjoy it without overthinking that shit and instead engaged with at least more than one type of content possibly also content aimed at their age range because the current situation where everything that would be problematic in ya books is apparently problematic in each piece of fiction ever really has run its course fo me

that doesn’t mean I don’t think people can’t read or enjoy ya at the ripe age of 60 if that’s what they like because everyone can like whatever the hell they like, I didn’t suddenly become ageist, I think people can write fic at 80 if they want to, no one should be shamed for their fictional preferences and they can enjoy/write whatever the fuck they want

but I also would like to peacefully be able to say I dislike something without people assuming I’m judging their tastes, thank you and I hope we’re done with this discussion because I have the got anniversary fic to update and I honestly can’t believe I have spent half an hour on this discourse, thank you and good night

[ingayderzim]

not to be that person who asks a googleable question but wtf is hazbin hotel bc i googled it and the only “critical” thing i could find was a typo-ridden article of someone saying it has good animation and its haters are stupid. i was able to glean what it is/what it’s about but idk about the discourse lmao

Im actually so glad u asked this. Here's the lowdown, this is my definitive answer to hazbin shit from here on out, unless new info comes about of course.

Hazbin hotel is an independent cartoon by vivziepop. Most people (that ive seen) have agreed that the pilot of the show really isnt that great but the reason it has so many fans is bc of the entertaining livestreams, massive amounts of canon content produced (she has had these characters for years), unique art style, and the characters. (Ass ugly but unique.)

Its haters are totally justified bc of some of the "controversial" (read: bad) things vivziepop has done. Here's the conclusion that my friends and classmates (several of whom are Black, one Hispanic woman, and one trans woman...nellie if ur reading this i 💜 u) and i came to after discussing this stuff. I am NOT saying "well my black/trans friend said it's ok so i dont have to think about it!" this is based on a few different conversations that my friends and i have had about this topic so what im saying is that my opinion was formed by talking about this situation with multiple people affected by the controversy.

One controversial thing is a drawing u can easily find on google (called beastiality.jpg i believe?) It's a cropped (chest and up, but hes obv naked) drawing of vivziepops character, drawn by vivziepop, moaning, with a snake around him. The character is 17. Many people have interpreted this as child porn. I dont think this image is pornographic, i think it's a stupid joke (it was even tagged as a joke iirc) and completely inappropriate but since it's 8 years old on top of not being porn, i think it's just an example of a dumb drawing. That being said, i would NEVER argue that someone who is uncomfortable w the drawing (im uncomfortable with it! It's gross just not porn) or considers it porn is wrong. They are entitled to that opinion and i would never expose them to vivziepops work or talk about her stuff around them if they expressed to me that they disliked the image.

Another thing is that she drew a doodle of two racist TERFs. This is the one where my friends of color, my friends who are black, and my friends who are trans women took the lead. I sat back for this part and here's their and my opinion on this after talking about it and verbally going through this whole situation.

She was following these women (who had done blackface and stuff) and drew art of them. The art was a "quick doodle" that she did apologize for and she said she didn't realize the extent of their beliefs. She knew they werent great but hadnt consumed much of their content in depth. I believe her bc while ive never followed anyone as bad, ive certainly followed some pieces of shit and didnt notice for months simply bc im not online all the time and bc of the volume of people i follow, combined with the non chronological algorithms lately.

At the risk of screwing myself, im going to admit that there was about a year or so of my life where i enjoyed The Amazing Atheist. I was even subbed to him. I was a nonbinary lesbian (2 things he cant stand lmaoo) in catholic school and therefore i strictly watched his videos about theological stuff since thats what was frustrating me at the time. I had no clue the type of evil racist, transphobic, homophobic (yes ik hes bi), misogynistic things he thought, said, and did, bc i didnt watch those videos. I literally only watched select theological ones that could be of use to me while edgily debating my teachers (sorry mrs macdougal but u had it coming). I was about 15 at the time and im 19 now. Im sorry to everyone i hurt by ever having supported him. I had one of his quotes written in the inside of my religion notebook in high school. I regretted it and ripped the page out the moment i discovered the truth about him. I cant stress enough how much I HATE HIM. Thats an example of what i think happened here tho.

One of my friends who is a trans woman said (paraphrasing) "i think the worst thing shes done is that terf art but i believe the apology especially bc it was a quick drawing."

That being said, i would NEVER argue with someone who wanted nothing to do w vivziepop bc of this. That's their right. 100%. I would never expose them to her work after that.

The last thing i remember is something about a pedophilic couple in a comic but i heard it was a 17 year old and a 19 year old. Im 19 and if one of my peers did that i wouldnt say pedophile but id say ur a fucking weirdo, BUT, the kids were fake and being written by an adult so i can totally see her thinking that age gap is much less of a big deal than it really is. Like she forgot what it's like at this age. Idk how true any of that part is tho, i heard that info entirely secondhand.

Another thing to do with racism is that there's a joke within the show where one character says to the other

"don't get your taco in a twist"

"Was that supposed to be racist or sexist?"

"Whichever one pisses you off more"

I thought that was gross but one of my friends pointed out that vivziepop is of el salvadorian descent so that's her business. Like if i made a lesbian joke of equal or greater offensiveness than that and someone tried to call me lesbophobic over it id be like "that's literally my territory."

Oh speaking of which that character's name is vaggie and shes a lesbian but it's not pronounced w the same G you'd hear in "vagina." Vivziepop seems to name characters weirdly (like how in helluva boss theres a guy named blitzo and the o is silent) so maybe it's a pussy joke but i have no idea.

The animation was.................better than i could do, i wanna say the faces and gestures were good but god i remember there was a part with a car and my gf had to pause so i could laugh my ass off at it. I wouldn't describe the animation as a highlight but i liked the style in motion i thought it was a fun change. Vivziepops style is not appealing imo but i appreciate it as an art student and as someone whose friends all like she ra and steven universe where every character looks the goddamn motherfucking same, and while its chaotic and i dont care for it, the style actually works way better in motion than you'd think.

A good rule that i def use is to assume hazbin fans are guilty until proven innocent. If someone says they dont care about the discourse surrounding it and like it no matter what, RUN! They would support the show even if the creator was in fact a pedophile, or had done the blackface/was a terf herself! They probably support some horrible ppl and are probably "anti antis." A lot of them are minors tho so i'd say block and move on.

So, do i like it or not? Im an art student and all my friends like it so while i didnt think it was funny, i do fuck with it. At the convention this weekend my friends and i had a convo that led to me drawing an ahego hoodie where the faces were angel dust (a character's) face. It was a joke that i could make a killing by selling that in a booth at a con.

Theres really nothing compelling about the show but my friends like it so i join in on their conversations, and i do have a soft spot for angel dust bc he's like a worse, less amazing and gorgeous version of one of my characters, Candy, the love of my life.

A lot of people say the show was edgy/offensive and maybe im just desensitized but besides the taco thing i didnt pick up on that whatsoever??? The Archer episode "Swiss Miss" is worse than helluva boss and hazbin combined and even archer isn't offensive.

Im probably not aware of all the "discourse" (aka people being reasonably uncomfortable by weird and bad shit this random woman has done, and other ppl saying their opinions are wrong when it's literally just an opinion about a show) so if anything she's done isnt included in here it's not to defend vivziepop, this is genuinely all i know. I wouldnt describe myself as a fan of hers.

[garetthawke]

i really will never get over steven universe fandom criticism. like yall know it's a childrens cartoon right? the primary fanbase is still minors? can yall grown adults stop looking at a childrens cartoon and the fandom full of minors and stop calling it cringey?

like i literally saw a post that said "the polar opposite of eating pussy is watching steven universe" and it turned into a joke discourse post but my amazement at the original still stands. its a CHILDRENS SHOW. i certainly fucking hope that kids are not only watching it and not having sex, but that that's the peferrable option to you? like what the actual fuck is wrong with you people

[mandareeboo]

Is there any to get the Disney channel to listen to us on how to schedule their shows because it's really bad? Like, for Tangled they're airing at 1:00 pm and that's when kids are still in school and it being aired all at once. And it's not even with this, but with Amphibia, Ducktales, Big Hero 6, etc. I checked and they had way more viewers with the regular schedule than with the bomb formats or airing over a month. So I don't know what they're doing.

Yeah, the cartoon revolution is great and all, but what good is it going to do when all the cartoon channels care more about making a quick buck than telling a story these days. Steven Universe barely airs on CN, and currently Tangled the Series is only playing its new episodes while the target audience is at school. 

AKsmdoclockocso I have opened. The Discourse on my blog! 

Honestly, cartoon channels never rlly gave much of a hoot about story. It’s how shows like Two Stupid Dogs got so many episodes. It’s how Johnny Test ran so long. It’s how Fairly Odd Parents is STILL running. I like those shows! But they aren’t GoodTM. If fancy folks with lots of money can make a cruddy show with little effort and make extra moolah they will. It’s the crews and creators who care and want to get their stories out there!

I know very little about how this sort of thing works, I’m sorry to say. Does petitioning help? Do we have to make like soccer moms and bitch out some managers? Idk

[dukeofriven]

Let Boys Love Girl Things

For a deeply depressed, angry, and vitriolic bisexual 20-something who stumbled out of a toxic 2-year intensive college program confused as fuck about his gender and hurting everyone around him, it is with no exaggeration that I say My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’s low-key stakes, warmth, humour, kindness, and utter lack of cynical irony was my first step on the road not only to recovery but coming even sort of close to having an accord with my identity. So I quite frankly I am exhausted that I have spent nine years being judged on the behaviour of a fandom group from 4chan. Nine years ago there was a gross perpetuation of toxic masculinity where men were ridiculed en-masse for liking a “girl’s show,” a campaign of derision that only intensified as the worst elements of 4chan gave everyone the evidence they seemed to want to justify their snap-judgement that boys liking girls shows was fundamentally weird, gross, and worthy of censure. We like to clap ourselves on the back for how woke we are now. There’s no discourse that says it is “skeevy” that men enjoy She-Ra, and petulant MRAs on Reddit getting upset about the show’s new ‘feminist’ agenda is considered to be representative of nothing other than petulant MRAs on Reddit, not the She-Ra fandom as a whole. Steven Universe is triumphed everywhere as a victory for better masculinity - without anyone ever noting that Steven would love every single moment of My Little Pony: FiM. He’d cry at the wedding, and he’d weep at the destruction of the library, and he’d think the Storm King was an effective villain while Connie rolled her eyes and tried and failed to point-out the weak characterization. Steven would cheer and cry every time a villain was redeemed through the power of love and friendship. Because he’s Steven, and he loves schmaltz, and it’s okay for a boy to like schmaltz. If we truly believe that, as we say we do, it’s time let the habit of shaming boys who liked a cartoon show go. It’s been a decade. Yes: MLP: FiM had a disgusting contingent of its fandom. You know what other franchise has that problem? A little film series you might have heard of called Star Wars. A contingent of Star Wars fandom was so racist it drove actors of colour off of twitter because it piled hate upon them. It was so misogynistic that somebody out there recut the entirety of The Last Jedi so that men save the day and all the women get reduced to bit parts. And yet if I see a Star Wars avatar my first assumption generally isn’t “oh you like Star Wars, so you must therefore be a misogynistic racist.” Because statistically speaking, you aren’t - just like, statistically speaking, the men who liked My Little Pony weren’t 4chan users. Not that most people bothered to find that out, because - shockingly - the worst elements had loud voices and got all the press, and the standard we applied to them was so entrenched in patriarchy that none of us wanted to accept that men could like the girls show without it being some gross violation of the proper order. I’m tired of that. The show’s been on nine years - long enough that kids who grew up watching it are old enough to start entering “The Discourse Space,” and what kind of example do we want to set for them that a show that might have meant so much to them growing up is given a defacto label of deviancy? ”Adult males like this show about the little kiddie ponies - that’s so creepy.” There’s a point I want to make here that I think really needs to be said so I am going to make it large

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a show for children; it is not a show about children.

What do I mean by this? Adventure Time is the story of Finn, a 12-year-old. Steven Universe is a show about Steven Universe, a 12-year-old. Ok K.O. is a show about K.O. a 6-11 year-old. Avatar: The Last Airbender is about a group of kids aged 11-14. She-Ra is a show about Adora who is… 16-ish? 17? And so on.

MLP:FiM is a show about 20-somethings. It’s a show about a grad student, a small business owner, a baker, a farmer, an environmental technician, a… trust fund baby?*... and, later, a former dictator. Yes, there are some kid characters, but the primary cast are all young adults who’ve reached adulthood and found themselves having to learn over and over again all sorts of shit they really ought to have known by now but don’t. It is, in short, a story about Millennials: an entire generation who reached adulthood not knowing what that meant or how to cope. Every time you laugh at the characters and go “how do they not know this [obvious thing that is obvious to adults]” you do so while watching a children’s cartoon rather than paying your taxes because you’re still not sure how to do that properly and are just low-key freaking out about it and hoping the problem goes away on its own. I speak from experience. The list in endless: we might ridicule the ponies ignorance at social graces, but i’ve been on this hellsite long enough that I’m pretty sure most of you are social-anxious neurotics who cock-up just as often and just as spectacularly as any pony on the show.

I’ve grown up in-sync with these characters. I’ve seen them go from floundering at 20 to sorta getting their act together and coming to grips with adult life as they reach 30. I’ve seen them become successful, get new jobs, start new careers. There have been episodes about how to deal with parents who embarrass you, how to get your parents to understand that you’re an adult now and want to be treated that way. There str stories about how to handle deadbeat older brothers who won’t stop mooching off your emotional labour, and how to mourn parents who’ve died. There are also stories about the byzantine nature of school regulation. (If next season is all about Twilight Sparkle reforming the Equestrian tax code it will be entirely in keeping with the adult-life-trend the show has been on for a while.)

My point with all this is that the “liking the kid’s show” narrative is disingenuous in the way it frames fans as creepy. To get tu quoque about it all I could raise my hand and point at all you adults gushing about all these kid protagonists in your favourite cartoon shows and go “Isn’t that CREEPY and GROSS you DEVIANTS” and on and on and on.

But I won’t.

Because it was never really about that, was it? It’s never been about that.

It was, at first, about what it was and wasn’t okay for boys - for men - to like. As a kid who’d been mercilessly bullied for being even the tiniest bit effeminate, openly embracing the fact that I liked this show about the colourful cartoon ponies felt like painting a target on my back. As for the boys younger than me - the boys still in high school in 2010 and 2011 who openly embraced this show? Braver than any US marine. When this all started it was about policing what was ‘appropriate’ for boys - nobody gave the adult Transformers fandom the same kind of shit, I assure you. It was about patriarchy - and how unwilling we all were to let go of it, no matter how progressive we told ourselves we were. Just like any moral panic, it developed a far more disturbing tone of disapprobation because if a handful of fans on 4chan were creepy than surely all the fandom was creepy. I’ve had plenty of fun mail in my inbox as people with cartoon avatars told me my opinion was invalid because I had an avatar from a different cartoon show. If I had an MP avatar that made me a “brony,” which made me a creepy MRA edgelord. Never mind that I don’t even use the term, and haven’t since… well, since the grossest elements of 4chan got it tattooed on their phalluses and trumpeted it to the heavens as the calling card of their misogyny.

There was a moment, I think, back in the halcyon days of 2010 and 2011 where we could have taken this another way. Where, socially, the rise of boys watching ‘the girl’s show’ was treated as a breakthrough, as a paradigm shift, as something to be celebrated and nurtured instead of something to revile like an anti-homosexual PSA from the 1950s. “Can’t let the adult men near that children’s show, who knows what might happen. They might repeat the trends that all fandoms have done for decades upon decades - the horror!”

We could have been better - but we weren’t. We mocked, and clutched our pearls, and looked appalled, and in doing so we fed the trolls all the ammunition they’d ever need to turn themselves into The Poor Oppressed Babies who just wanted to be left alone to watch their ponies and belittle women in peace. So the gender-questioning bi boy trying to feel good about himself got rounded-up with the usual 4chan suspects because we both enjoyed the same television program.

Patriarchy is not an external force with its boot upon our necks: it is a collaborative social effort, reinforced both consciously and sub-consciously every day. The internet of the early 2010s was a very different place, and the decisions we made then still live with us today. If we want to stop the perpetuation of toxic masculinity, we have to ourselves cease to perpetuate it. There’s an entire generation of queer boys and non-binary boys and non-bro cis-boys - the kind who cry and care and give a shit about kindness - who have grown up on Steven Universe and Adventure Time and yes, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. These are boys who deserve to have a better place prepared for them than I had, one that isn’t still littered by the baggage of all the dumb stupid crap from 2010 and 2011.

It’s time to let the ghost of Toxic 4chan Fandoms Past go already, and let this show about cartoon ponies be free to entertain and delight without incurring a moral inquisition. Life is so bad right now, the news is so dire. Curl up with My Little pony: Friendship is Magic and let all its goodness, and kindness, and laughter, and caring carry you away and remind you that we can still tell stories about worlds in which those virtues are treasured. Let the show stand on its actual merits, and not the cultural lodestones of long-gone reprobates. And stop granting the phantoms of 4chan the power to say anything meaningful in 2019.

_________________ *Serious question: what does Fluttershy do for a living? Like, as her job? For most of the series? She’s the only one who doesn’t have a meaningful career, and after meeting her enabling parents you just know she’s been living off pre-existing savings for years (she’s thrifty like that).

[Note: this post was originally posted in this thread. It has since been re-edited and slightly modified.]