#which is fine! not every show has to!

[all-seeing-ifer]

prefacing this by saying that I know that this is truly not a hill worth dying on, it is merely one I am choosing to die on because. idk man I make bad decisions. but I do think it's a crying shame that steven universe got saddled with this negative reputation as being kind of the quintessential example of a piece of media that's very safe and unchallenging and quote unquote wholesome, because like. ok i get that this negative reputation is really more about the fandom than about the show itself (and that's fair. the fandom sucked. i would never deny that. i was there gandalf etc.) but it does still feel a bit unfair bc when you take steven universe For What It Is (namely, a cartoon network show aimed primarily at kids and families) and compare it to other contemporary shows with the same genre/target demographic, it honestly was pretty challenging and complex and ambitious. even leaving aside for a second that it was very ground breaking in terms of children's media acknowledging that gay people exist in a way that left the crew constantly catching shit from the network, I struggle to think of any other children's media that would dare to explore the kind of themes and topic that su explored. things like grief, bereavement, how this kid's relationships with the adults in his life are impacted by the fact that his mum died in childbirth giving birth to him, trauma and mental illness (I know that dealing with mental health has become more common in children's media recently but there's definitely none that have been prepared to address the uglier sides of mental illness in the way that steven universe future did), explaining consent in ways that kids can understand, letting its protagonists be genuinely unlikeable at times, introducing the idea of restorative justice and there not being one singular bad guy that can be killed to save the day. These are topics and themes that you don't see a lot of in kids' media because they're hard to portray in a way that feels honest while still being appropriate and understandable to kids, and I think the show does deserve the credit it got for actually being willing to tackle this stuff and imo doing it very successfully most of the time.

AND to be honest, at the risk of leaning a bit close to talking mad shit about some of su's contemporaries (especially when at the end of the day i do quite like these other shows), it does. kind of grind my gears that other tumblr-popular animated shows like gravity falls and the owl house have managed to completely sidestep getting saddled with the same kind of negative, unchallenging reputation that su has, despite the fact that from a purely storytelling perspective both these shows are WAY safer and more easily digestible than su ever was lmao

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[mainalias]

thinking about compiling screenshots of golden/silver age batman exclusively calling dick his ward to combat the allegations that it was “initially a father-child relationship”

[pass3ra]

cressida's storyline was genuinely shameful tbhhh it's like they started rewriting it in the first half of the season then completely forgot about the changes they'd made to make it fit the book plot and it just ends up making everyone else look bad😐 every character in the second half got a "penelope did nothing wrong" lobotomy so we ended up with eloise completely ignoring cressida being sold off to an horrible man (when she made every effort to support her in the first half of the season) and for some reason resenting her for pretending to be lady whistledown? Then they somehow frame her ignoring colin's offensively bad pleas as it being her turning away from redemption when all she's trying to do is escape being trapped in the country with her likely abusive aunt... and it ends with her meeting her horrible fate and it still being framed as tragic only to immediately juxtapose it with the bridgerton family winning the idgaf war while gleefully seeing off francesca and her future dead husband. The bridgertons were the villains of the season frfr

[luck-of-the-drawings]

two wrongs WILL make a right! ive got another lease on life, and im using it well, who cares if this is all fucked up cause we're all GOING TO HELL! IM JUST WILLIAM WHO SHOULD BE DEAD, HAD TO FOLLOW THE THREAD, thought he was just chillin! now he is a villain! HES ALWAYS SUCH A BUMMER, HE WANTS TO TRUST HIS BROTHER WILLIAM IN A HALLWAY BY HIMSEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

[front-facing-pokemon]

[carcarrot]

you'll be pleased to know that on my first day back at my job after my two week vacation i am already in one of my semi-regular Job Crises where i feel like if i dont find a new, better job soon im going to explode into 5 billion pieces

[knightelf]

maybe i do need to go to therapy bc its probably not good that ive been living on autopilot and the last 7 years went by so fast but also bc i was deliberatly Wanting the time to go by to put as much space between me and the events of 2017-2020 as possible all while somewhat knowing my young adulthood was slipping me by and now both my teenage years and my early 20s are gone and i still feel like my 19th birthday was yesterday yeesh!!

[shiningstarr15]

I love how “Gregory has PTSD” is an official tag on ao3, but “Vanessa has PTSD” is not…

[kraviolis]

if there is one hill i will die on its being very against the constant trend of everyone saying “omg siblings!!” about every single friendship between a man & a woman in fiction.

[queer-reader-07]

queer characters are allowed to die in media. and it isn’t inherently A Problem or homophobic when they do.

i understand that it hurts seeing queer people die in shows and books and movies, especially if you’re queer and you saw yourself in those characters.

but the thing is, if you want better queer rep in media you have to be ok with queer characters being treated the same way cishet characters are treated. and that means letting them die sometimes.

Bury Your Gays is a problem, I’m not going to pretend like it’s not. but Bury Your Gays isn’t synonymous with every death of a queer character that happens. you’re allowed to be hurt and devastated by a character death, but i don’t think it’s fair to act like that character death is part of some wider issue just because that character is part of a minority group.

not every queer story is sunshine and rainbows with a happily ever after. some queer stories are violent, some are devastating, and people die in some of them. and that is OK.

if we act like queer people can’t die in media we’re contributing to the othering of our community. it’s saying “queer people are this special group you can’t ever do a bad thing to in media because if you do it’s homophobic.” which is not a true statement.

we can’t act like every death of a queer character is homophobic or has capital I Implications about the writer’s opinions on queer people. if we keep pushing that specific narrative queer stories are going to be stifled. writers need to be able to tell the stories they want, even if that includes a queer person dying. and acting like they can’t is doing more harm than good.

you can dislike a writer’s decision, you can stop watching a show because of that decision. that is OK. but you don’t get to go around saying the writer is homophobic because they did something you didn’t like to a character you loved.

[twinklebitch]

idk if it’s just me but i feel like so many criticisms of this season boil down to expecting an actual play improv show to be as coherent and cohesive as a scripted piece of media.

and also i don’t think some of you have ever played dnd and it shows

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

One of the many, many reasons I love Blade Runner is that it doesn't have this Big Epic Final Fight you've come to expect from literally any action film ever.

There's just Deckart and Roy - all others are dead, or not here - and it's just them and one was supposed to kill the other and has become the hunted.

Our main hero protagonist is at the end, he's beaten down, he's at the brink of death, he can barely still walk and is just fleeing as far as he can, as long as he can, and he won't be able to go on much longer and there's really only so far he can run before he's inevitably caught. There's no last minute saviour, no sudden burst of strength, no last attempt to fight. He's terrified. He's running, limping, for just a few seconds more.

And the antagonist - the one who was supposed to be killed, the one who was supposed to be sub-human and is living his life as a slave, in fear - he's going mad. He barely ever had anything, and he lost the few others he had - the only ones who understood when the world was against them. He has only minutes to live, minutes that not even his creator - his god, almost - could drag out, a human god who died by his bare hands. There's nothing left to lose and nothing left to do, but there's the person who hunted him down like a machine or an animal that's one rogue, the one supposed to kill him, entirely at his mercy.

And then they're on that roof, and I don't know what Roy might think, but I know Deckart was done with his life. I know he was convinced he'd die right here - that both of them would die on this roof in the rain.

And when Roy pulls him up? There has to be an explanation. Surely he'll kill him now. What else could he possibly want?

But Roy isn't out for revenge anymore. For as little as he's lived, he's seen so incredibly much. And he knows there isn't anything to be done. He'll die, he'll be forgotten, just another rogue replicant - like moments in time, like tears in rain.

"Time to die." No sadness, no anger, nothing. There's nothing more to it, not anymore. It's a fact.

It's when he's free for the first time.

He's no longer living in fear. He died on his own terms. He's as free as he could ever be, in the only way that was ever even a possibility. And as he dies, as he no longer lives as a slave, that white dove flies away through the rain - a symbol of freedom, finally let go.

And Deckart is left alone on that roof, bleeding, his hand broken, exhausted, still not quite away from the brink of death he's been limping along for the last, what, minutes? (How long was it? Can't have been long. But it sure felt endless.)

There's no winner. No one has been defeated, either. There's just one who died, as he was always meant to, and one who lived, but his world might be in shambles.

What is life worth when you're just waiting for death? Is it freedom when you can never settle down? Could there ever be a different ending?

Also I'm going absolutely insane over the white dove which is a symbol for freedom btw like DAMN!!!!!!! IMPLICATIONS!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[sonknuxadow]

why is literally everyone on my sonic tomodachi life island in love with shadow as if theres not other people to choose from and hes not gonna reject them every time . stop creating a love spiderweb with some guy whos not even interested in you

[bimiio]

<3