crayfish-critical

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why is this youtube comment the best analysis of what i’ve ALSO thought was a cop-out for the past ten years

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The bad taste gang might come for me over this post, but the fact is that BNHA and MP100 have some overlapping themes, and that’s one of many reasons why they get compared. BNHA’s treatment of those themes is shallow and unwittingly cruel, but is supposed to be read as positive. Meanwhile, MP100 approaches those themes with hope and compassion

Both BNHA and MP100 explore themes of value as an individual and in society—value judgments of who is average, who is extraordinary, and who is inferior. From the very beginning, BNHA asserts that people are not of equal value, but anyone can improve themselves to meet or exceed the average and become valuable and worthy. I don’t like that one bit—it assigns worth to each individual based on their level of mental and physical ability. It seems like a positive message at first glance, but upon further inspection it’s just desolate.

BNHA asserts that if you physically can’t conform to norms, the only acceptable route to happiness is to do the impossible and exceed those norms. MP100 asserts that if you can’t conform, you are still no better or worse than anyone else, and the path to fulfillment is treating yourself and others with respect.

MP100 answers the question of who is worthy and who is not with the idea that nobody is special—not in a positive way, or a negative way. (“If everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be”.) In the end, whether your ability level in one area or another is within the bell curve, or if it’s at the extreme edge of the range of human experiences, you are good enough to value yourself and be valued by others, but you are not superior, either.

What makes Midoriya different from the established norms around him is something that he must change about his nature as a person. What makes Mob different is his powers and his neurodivergence, and while he’s insecure about both of these things and afraid of the way they manifest in combination (reaching 100% and having a meltdown), the narrative shows that those are neutral qualities and he can do whatever he wants with the hand he’s been dealt in life. (“Mob, Mob, What do you want?” “Mob, Mob, whatever you want!”)

Midoriya’s happiness relies on meeting and exceeding the social norms set for his body and future—gaining a quirk and becoming a hero. He has to change to be treated with any respect. But Mob’s happiness relies on learning that it is okay to be who he is.

Another theme is power: in BNHA, the pursuit of power is treated as something noble and admirable. In MP100, power is treated as something that only immature, self-aggrandizing, destructive people seek; or, in Ritsu’s case, power is something that people seek when they feel helpless and unsafe. But that’s another essay unto itself.

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all right which one of you filthy degenerates likes h a n d h o l d i n g

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The way I see it is that Steven has half of Greg’s DNA and the rest of his DNA came from Rose - so I dunno, you try living with half of the chromosomes that are required for human survival.  Steven did pretty goddamn well when he was separated if you look at it like that.  But jesus that scene was terrifying, he was dying and tbh im kind of sad if some people missed the emotional impact of that.  You can call him a little twat all you want but that still should’ve been like a “goddamn....” moment.  Altho a lot did happen in the special so I can see how some people forget, god knows I have already.

And another thing. You telling me that all this time Steven could’ve been safely separated from his gem and just lived the life of a regular human? If Pearl did take his gem out Rose probably would have actually come back since the gem wouldn’t have been a part of Steven for so long. 

I mean yeah 50/50 chance baby Steven wouldn’t be able to handle the trauma but you take your chances.

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rb’ing this here too but also im gonna put my opinions on the finale here from now on so uhhh yeah warning in advance for spoilers

TLDR abusive parenting message good, but that was like, not the story that was set up here and I think that still needs to be addressed...

SU spoilers under the cut because i really really need to say this

Keep reading

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If “Mob Psycho 100″ were a generic shonen:

let’s get the most obvious out of the way, the aesthetic would just be the typical anime aesthetic we see in every other show

Mob’s arc is less about self acceptance and more about becoming an op powerhouse

Mob isn’t scared of his powers, he just can’t control them and wants to get good

Mob is just a typical shy boy instead of being cut off from his emotions

Reigen is a sleazy womanizer

Dimple is just a comic relief side kick, certainly not someone explored in depth

Ritsu is the main antagonist and Mob’s biggest rival

Ritsu hates Mob for being naturally gifted with psychic powers while he had to work hard to develop his so he becomes evil

the series builds to a big climactic battle between the brothers inter cut with highly manipulative flashback scenes to make us feel sad when they never give us a reason to care about Ritsu

Teru never learns his lesson, his encounter with ???% motivates him to declare Mob his rival but he’s a secondary rival who doesn’t really impact the plot either

if Teru gets redemption its through dying for Mob

the Body Improvement Club is just a bunch of mean jocks

in the climax for the Claw arc Reigen gives Mob a motivational speech about believing in himself and we get what I’m gonna call 100% Confidence

100% Confidence replaces 100% Gratitude and is Mob using his powers to beat up the villains and its framed as The Right Thing to Do

the morality of adults attacking children is never addressed

100% Sadness never happens because what happened to Teru and the school is framed as the most badass thing ever

100% Animosity isn’t done in defense of Ritsu

Tome is implied to have a crush on Mob

Tsubomi has a crush on Ritsu fueling the brother’s rivalry

Mogami arc happens, but its not nearly as dark

Separation arc never happens

there’s an obligatory training arc

100% Ecstasy is framed as Mob enjoying his powers and having fun

every arc is resolved with the power of friendship

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Stop it that last one is something that su crits legit say

hey guys tune in to my 5 hour video essay “steven universe is so bad it vored my mom and it will vore all of yours as well”

[crayfish-critical]

Hottest of hot takes: ppl who make fun of ppl liking miraculous ladybug or voltron (NOT defending their problematic elements, just enjoying the shows even with their flaws) but then go around and claim to be anti-cringe culture about things that are “considered cringe” that they actually like, well they’re just hypocrites

I’m thinking of specific people while writing this btw - and I’m saying this specifically because I am an ex-voltron fan with a deep loathing of the show, someone who really doesn’t care about miraculous ladybug, and I care far more about the “cringe culture” things like SU and minecraft than about ML or voltron just like these people, but like. dont be a hypocrite.

I haven’t watched miraculous ladybug in so long and i have no idea if i ever have intentions of catching up with it, but any time anyone complains about how “why does anyone like miraculous ladybug, its so….average??? and boring??? and cliche??? and heterosexual??? and brings nothing new???” im just like

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I like never use this blog anymore because everything I’m salty about I either just put on my main again or I’m too salty to acknowledge its existence for more than 2 seconds (you know which cartoon im talking about) but I wanted to post this here because I think it’s interesting and I think I have an interesting response to it.

For those of you who don’t want to watch the entire video, it’s basically discussing how the relationship between squidward and spongebob represents two forms of outlook on adulthood.  Spongebob being maintaining your childlike wonder, sometimes to the point of naivety (something I try to embody with my personality and writing) and Squidward being the representation of cynical adults who tell you to just “grow up”.  The reason the later seasons are either stale or have people on the fence is, among other reasons, because the show lacks this.  I’m still not a fan of the most recent seasons because some episodes are...so, so bad (then again that was in 2013 so idk) but I see instances where the writing has improved and yet I still think that this part of it may be missing.  I’ve seen no return of it in the smartly-written episodes and I think that could be part of the reason why they don’t entice me now.

I still think it’s a more complex issue than this, and what made SpongeBob raise to popularity was a variety of psychological factors including the one this video talks about (SpongeBob is well-marketed, well-sustained, as iconic and merchandise-able as pikachu or mickey mouse thanks to his unique design and concept, is a unique design and concept in general, the fact that spongebob is yellow and that’s a recognizable and positive color, ect are examples of a few other ones) but this is still a good factor I haven’t seen talked about in such length before.  I think we all knew it was there but we couldn’t put our fingers on it, like the guy in the video said.

But another thing that intrigues me so much is just how much of a perfect storm SpongeBob’s early seasons were.  I don’t think the writers were consciously aware of the psychological factors behind SpongeBob’s success either - I mean, if they were, it probably wouldn’t have been successful because the passion these people had for SpongeBob is another factor to its greatness.  And you can’t force yourself to be passionate about something when you’re not.  There are other shows that I’d consider perfect storms too - but the thing about a lot of these shows is that a lot of the time, once you break them down to their bare essentials they’re about as messy as a storm.  SpongeBob, when you break it down, is still...fundamentally pretty solid?  Because it’s not an ambitious show.  This is the exact same reason why Avatar was able to become as good of a show as it was - a combination of good circumstances, legitimate but not super-human skill, and a simple premise.  Avatar may be a little more ambitious because it’s serialized, but SpongeBob is literally just about the inhabitants of a city.  Except they’re underwater.  Oooh, fancy.

Television is tricky business and I find it unlikely that we’ll ever get good shows down to an exact science, even though it’s fully possible if studios weren’t money-hungry and overworking their writers.  But ah well, it wouldn’t be as fun if every show ever was perfectly-written - and besides, you can’t give a guide that’s effective for every story, that’d take you your entire life and then some to write!

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I have decided that you will never impress me if one of your selling factors of your show is that “it’s a cartoon that proves cartoons aren’t just for kids!”.  Like ever.  If that’s your legacy then thanks I hate everything you’ve ever contributed to the industry.  It’s not that I inherently have a problem with adult animation, its just that like.  Nobody does it right.  Sometimes, individual episodes do it right, or a series starts doing it right later but never entirely.  Like Bojack Horseman sold itself on being an adult cartoon abt an ex-sitcom star, and making raunchy jokes and generally just being a piece of shit.  That was and probably still is from a mainstream standpoint its primary hooker to get people to check out the show.  And I’m specifically talking about Bojack btw because that’s like, the only adult cartoon I actually enjoy.

As many gripes as I have with anime, anime doesn’t market itself solely based on its age range.  Rather, it puts more emphasis on genre and style.  This makes me gravitate much more towards the stories in anime because there’s so much variety to choose from.

Also, there’s no such thing as “just a kids show” or “just for kids”.  I probably use those phrases too because I can’t remove things from my dumbass brain’s vocabulary (thank you world for never letting me memories the r and n slurs) but I want to be very clear when I say that such phrases are a direct reflection of how children are demeaned, devalued, and abused in our culture.  Ergo, saying something “isn’t just for kids” supports the idea that kids are stupid, can’t think for themselves, and don’t deserve fair and humane treatment.  (I would say equal rights here, but clearly there needs to be some limitations - however those limitations are far, far less than our current limitations so I don’t like discussing them.  It requires nuance that our current culture doesn’t have.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show for kids.  It is a well-written show that is just complex enough to get kids thinking and just simple enough to not go over the heads of children.  It’s a perfect showcase of what is and isn’t a factor in whether or not children can handle something, combined with a writing style that makes it appealing to sillier kids.  It’s a complex story that is easily understood and well-explained in a way that isn’t condescending but also doesn’t give me a headache.  But because it’s such a well-developed story, many people outside its target age range enjoy it too.  And that’s what children’s media should be - with the exception of some jokes since humor is subjective to age, children’s media SHOULD be enjoyable to adults.  You don’t need stupid references and innuendos to get adult’s attention - or if you do, then I’m sorry but your show is shit.  Like it just is.

Really in a way, comparing Avatar to its sequel The Legend of Korra kind of illustrates what you can and can’t do with a kid’s show.  Not so much as in, legally can’t do, but what will go over kid’s heads and what won’t.  LOK is a much grittier, much darker show that goes more into muddled morality and yet still doesn’t have as much time to explore said gray morality as ATLA did.  From the colors to the jokes to the plotlines, none of it feels like something that can appeal to a kid.  The few jokes that are kid-ly are bottom of the barrel as far as fart jokes go and they stick out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the show.  I don’t think LOK is bad, actually it’s my second favorite western cartoon (you can guess what my top fave is).  But it’s much more suited for a tween-teenage audience between the romance drama and the darker tone.  It feels like the kind of show that treats you like you know a lot, and that it can help teens feel respected at that age, but it’s not what’ll leave younger kids feeling respected.  If I remember right though, they have the same age rating (TVY7) and one being a sequel of the other means they’re often lumped together.  Both are good and bad in their own ways, but they’re for different audiences.

I think this kind of muddling SHOULD be what we strive for when it comes to media, but our current rating system isn’t really devised well for that.  Or perhaps, our culture isn’t structured well for that.  LOK doesn’t have anything that’ll mentally scar your 7 year old (well ok that’s debatable but so did ATLA) but I don’t believe it’s structured in a way that’s beneficial to that age demographic.  Meanwhile, teens and tweens, who I think it’s much better suited for, will dismiss it because it’s “just a cartoon for babies”.  Because that’s sadly what they’ve been taught by the world.

And when a cartoon gets a PG13 or M rating slapped on it, people think, oh my gosh!  What a masterpiece!  When that couldn’t be further from the case.

Maybe a lot of people like these cartoons for their hot takes, but I dunno.  I find that either their hot takes are fucking stupid, or I’ve already heard them before, sometimes from myself when I was like 12.  No I didn’t watch these cartoons, nobody in my household does, I came up with them on my own.  So seeing these cartoons bore me and then get praised for teaching me something I already knew is pretty infuriating, and that’s why I hate adult cartoons.

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Haven’t seen the new Voltron season yet so no non-vague spoilers, but

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its so funny tho bc dekus trait that made him worthy of all might was that he ran to help bakugou but also like ashido did the same thing in her backstory and inspired kirishima to be a hero so like by that logic she shouldve gotten it anyways deku would be a much more baller protag if he never got a power bc lit what makes him unique is being quirkless and that trait is erased in three seconds so instead he just has a punch too hard quirk which is BORING

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Two-sided abusive relationships are common in the real world.  That doesn’t make Lapis or Jasper either the victim or the abuser; they’re both victims and they’re both abusers.  Relating to both characters is valid and good, and both have good traits about them that deserve to be recognized as such.

😣

So tired of defending Lapis to people who have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be trapped against their will in an abusive relationship (or in this case, fusion)

Learn a little bit about PTSD and how the survivors of domestic violence act, then you’ll be qualified to judge the behavior of an ABUSED GEM! *end rant*

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youre the only valid critical blog on all of tumblr

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I'm honestly super glad your blog isn't purely SU critical tbh, because at least blogs like this don't have an obvious bias towards one show and they act completely stricter on one show compared to the other. While I personally casually enjoy Voltron and BNHA (I do agree there's issues with how both treat some of their characters), and love SU, your points are extremely valid and you give good reasoning behind them besides reaching for subtext that can be interpreted in many different ways.

Aw gosh thank you anon, this honestly means a lot to me!  My goal is to be fair to most of the media I criticize.  To be honest, I probably criticize Voltron about as much as SU (and then BNHA more since I have such strong opinions on pedophilia) and I really think both of them are good shows.  I just like to scream, but I also like being fair about it!

Criticism whose goal isn’t to positively influence the original media’s creator or positively influence others is ultimately worthless imho; like hey, free country, you can say what you want about it.  As an aspiring cartoon/kids show creator, I learn from criticizing the shows of others and put their mistakes as something I can learn from.  I’ve honestly learned a lot about pacing, story structure, and character building from my problems with both SU and Voltron, and they’ve helped me sort out what does and doesn’t make a good story since some parts of them are so good and other parts aren’t.  Honestly it’s kinda embarrassing to look back on my original story now, having learned everything from SU and Voltron - but hey, that’s alright!  I’m far, far from above the writers of either of those shows, yknow?  I don’t think they’re bad people or bad writers; at worse they have a skill level similar to me.

I’ve also first-handedly put the pieces together of a show that became a mess for seemingly no reason, realizing that there was a reason and it was basically unavoidable.  There was a sitcom I watched that’s overarching love triangle bullshit became an absolute goddamn nightmare of a mess (sprinkled in between with various weak episodes that didn’t even reference the drama).  But, when you put together that a major reoccurring character would have likely been part of that plot since the beginning (as opposed to just being in the very end), whose actor got into a serious accident around the time when the episodes would’ve been filmed, the original intention of the arc makes a lot more sense.  Like seriously, once you watch the episodes with that knowledge, the pieces fit in perfectly.  The show was a horrible victim of circumstance and I just hope all the actors and writers have a good rest of their lives.

Point being, you never know what’s going on behind the scenes of a show, so I think it’s unfair to act like minor plot holes and weird pacing are some moral failing of the writers.  Yes, it’s their job to write a good story, and yes, you have a right to dislike their writing.  But it shouldn’t be seen as such a crime??

The crewniverse has made mistakes, like the Concrete incident, but they’ve tried to fix issues that they’ve caused.  Quite frankly, racism is the only argument in SU that I can’t defend them against; not only is it not my place, but it’s hardly revolutionary like their LGBT representation.  As a dumbass white person, I can tell you that Rebecca and her clue is probably more clueless than the SU critical community realizes (if you don’t live in SoCal, you don’t know how sheltered us middle-class white folks are) but that doesn’t make it okay.

However, everything else I find to be rather shit.  As a fat person, Steven becoming “thinner” isn’t fatphobia; the art style changed.  Rebecca is a BISEXUAL NONBINARY WOMAN, and I will literally never forgive the SU critical community for their insistence that her nonbinary rep is enbyphobic (bc they “present as women” and “go by she/her pronouns” and “sure stevonnie goes by they/them but they act like nonbinary is just male + female and its not” and “either way they don’t call themselves nonbinary in the canon” even though nonbinary people can present and go by whatever pronouns they want, bigender people exist, and the only valid point is the last one but its still fucking stupidly insignificant.  Like Korra and Asami didn’t call themselves bisexual [ok scratch that korra called herself “buy-curious”] but they’re still bisexual.).  And yeah, “lgbt people can fetishize other parts of the lgbt community” but do you know how hard it is for a bisexual woman to fetishize lesbians?  It’s.  Pretty fucking hard, considering she’s a wlw.  She can be lesbophobic but when you have one (1) “predatory lesbian stereotype” out of a cast of different types of lesbians, maybe you should uhhh stop policing how lgbt people are allowed to act?  There’s a big difference between a predatory lesbian stereotype and a lesbian who happens to be predatory (and pearl isn’t a predator anyways, she’s an abuse victim - that doesn’t excuse her behavior but I digress)

god I dunno, there’s just so much stupid shit that goes on in SU critical, which is a shame because it’s an idea with a lot of promise.  Really, the SU critical community developed because fans didn’t like having negativity towards something they cared about on their dash.  But since it became an isolated pocket of everything negative towards SU, it just festered and festered and what started as simple criticisms has turned into outright hatred and malice.

Personally, I hope that SU’s portrayal of LGBT people becomes outdated some day - it’s really not that bad and I think even if we make great strives in the next decades, it’ll still be able to hold its own, but as an lgbt person I think Rebecca would agree with me that only good things can come from kids shows being better than SU.  But for now, it’s far far ahead of anything else in its time, showing LGBT people as real people (or….aliens), as flawed individuals.  It doesn’t make them particularly evil nor does it make them particularly good.  They’re characters who happen to be their sexuality, and that’s alright, and that’s normal.  And that should be celebrated.  People should be allowed to celebrate what SU has done so far, and I hate how SU critical likes to shit on fans minding their own goddamn business.

I feel bad for SU critical too, because keeping yourself in that kind of environment becomes very toxic.  I’ve been trying to keep my own opinions under control (actually, that’s part of the reason I made this blog) because I can become very angry and opinionated while typing and I know that that can hurt other people.  But it’s just exhausting and toxic for me at this point to keep doing it too much, so I just write what I can but also try to embrace the positive so I don’t die of a heart attack lmao.  I can’t imagine what running an SU critical blog 24/7 must be like, it sounds absolutely exhausting and immensely unhealthy.

You have the freedom to choose to do that, but as someone who shares some of your opinions and mindsets I advise you to take a break and have things you DO like in the things you critique.  Point out things you like alongside things you dislike.  It’ll make the world so much better for you.

Overall though sorry for rambling anon haha, but thank you for the kind words! <3 I’m always open to other people’s arguments too, which I think helps me be more reasonable to the shows I like.  I dunno, at the end of the day this is one thing I feel like people are allowed to have opinions on!

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im gonna say it.

hori is racist for his treatment of camie (aka her speaking aave/similar to aave and that being seen as dumb) and we as non-black people need to listen to black voices on this issue. hori is racist for his treatment of native, a non-indigenous wearing a caricature of indigenous cultures, and we as non-indigenous people need to listen to indigenous voices on this issue. hori is transphobic for his treatment of magne, and you as non-trans people need to listen to trans voices on this issue. hori is sexist for his treatment of almost every female character in bnha, and you as non-woman/woman-aligned people need to listen to female voices on this issue. hori is pedophiliac for his treatment of all the 1-A girls, and you as adults need to listen to minor voices on this issue.

tl;dr: bnha is full of problematic issues and im tired of the fandom constantly silencing minority voices in favor of not having to think critically just bc you like the show. bnha is shitty in many ways but yall dont wanna address it so you can call yourself “unproblematic” and suck your own dick.

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Hottest take: SU suffers greatly by not being allowed to be a saturday morning cartoon.  Steven Bombs and special multi-episode events ruin the show; a regularly-weekly cartoon would not have the problems that SU’s schedule has.  It stays on cliffhangers for months on end and that’s absolutely fucking horrible.  It’s such a poorly-managed show (which BTW is not the crewniverse’s fault, so don’t blame them for it) and I feel so bad for everyone who works on it.

Give SU a regular airing schedule.  No more steven bombs.  No more special events.  No more app episodes early.  Give us regularly-airing weekend or weekday episodes.  Please.  SU isn’t the kind of show that you can bomb and then leave for a long time.