turbulenttautology

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

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Felt that it’s important to share videos like this too.

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i understand why people like the queue and i do respect you guys for using it but that is just not how i roll. if i think these 37 posts are funny you’re seeing them right fucking now

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Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

Security technicians: *takes a deep swig of whiskey* I wish I had been born in the neolithic.

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Fun fact: by just using imaginary numbers, some Evil Math, and 101 rotating vectors You Can Create a shitty approximation of a fish.

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"i want morally grey female characters" you fuckers could barely handle rose quartz

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Mmmmm. Not disputing that its bad on indigenous peoples. Just have a few qualifiers.

That wasn't the finale they wanted, they had the wedding scheduled, and the producers were just "Fine you can do this, but we are through, by the way, you have three episodes, not seven." That was supposing an entire season more and half the season left. Hollywood and Cartoon Network had been set in their ways stubbornly for decades. Steven Universe, and Rebecca Sugar particularly, broke that illusion that there would be a huge lashback and drop in ratings. They always feared losing the evangelical viewers, but didn't bank on just how few liberals had stuck around and how quick they could be called back.

Wouldn't say being critical of it is a red flag... for the right reasons, without other signs there. You know as well as I it was important enough for assassination posts from fkn fashy gamer bros to still be coming out the damned woodworks to this day, so I hope you can learn not to take our defensiveness so personally. I'm sure there's foaming mouths out there over your critique too, but not as much as you seem to expect. It's counterproductive to fight amongst ourselves is all. Yes it did good. Yes it could have been way better. Theres a quiet majority at play here. People are tired of TALKING politics. They want action.

So few indigenous peoples remain in this country, have the vote, have power or even majority land ownership on their own already pittances of territory allowances, that people like Rebecca Sugar can conveniently forget about us to push their own narrative. People like me. I barely knew my grandmother. I'm basically white. She was seperated from her family at schooling age. So much was lost. I barely feel permitted to my heritage. Not trying to make this about myself. Explaining where my argument originates.

But back to the topic at hand... Garnet and Pearl both have been known to actively wash out hard topics out of the narratives they give to Steven, a fifteen year old child, and the people of the town, who "wouldn't understand." Just because it wasn't addressed doesn't mean it's sanctified. Excuses I know. More like plausible deniability than actual points scored.

There has been a whole lot of things like that to apply The Letter From A Birmingham Jail to lately. The wait, wait, wait! The white moderates cry, and they almost always mean never is a better time than now, kind of thing. I hear you. But you do have to keep in mind just how much of a fight it was to put as much representation in the show as there was. Like don't stop the good fight, but don't erase and belittle it either. Garnet being allowed to kiss at their wedding was a helluva step way too long in the waiting for what it constitutes. Its just a damn kiss. Grand scheme of things its SAD it was so big a moment. Still gonna remember it with fondness.

That episode being one of the ones Cartoon Network demanded, to be able to play in any order and still have little lost. Filler was the compromise, and that columbus day episode was... truly unfortunate, honestly.

Between that episode, the Human Zoo occupants being primarily of indigenous colors confirming they did exist (also that THEY were in the Zoo), and several other small things including most of Mayor Dewy's scenes in general, really leave a "Just don't think about it" vibe on the tongue.

You can like a thing without approving of every moment of it. Steven Universe was a bloatedly boring show for the most part. You weren't introduced to the "main mystery" and the actual question, until things were in much fuller swing and closer to its Big Reveal than its first hints that there WAS a mystery.

Was the kiss worth the show imploding? YES. ABSOLUTELY. Was it great for every subject all the time? NOT REALLY EVER.

Until we do start marching in the streets for representation, justice and tolerance again, this incrimentalism reflex of these stagnant institutions is what we're going to be up against.

So I've been thinking about Steven Universe again and I've been wondering

Where are the indigenous peoples???

Like

Really

The show is clearly set in the modern USA, so where are the native people? It's never mentioned.

So one of three things would have happened,

Either A: The crystal gems allowed colonization to happen

B: The crystal gems helped the colonizers

Or C: Indigenous people have been erased in the context of the show and you're just not supposed to think about it

All joking aside, it's definitely that last one. You're not supposed to think about that, this is made clear when native people still aren't referenced in the colonialism episode

There's even references to colonialism in other places such as this photo

"But it's not that deep" YES IT IS

Just because colonialism doesn't go beyond "haha funny hat and boats" to you doesn't mean that's actually what it is in reality

Erasing an entire marginalized group in your show just because you don't want to think about them is blatant racism

And I think the creators just sweeping by and expecting everybody to not consider the implications of American history in SU is just the most blatant white liberal shit imaginable

And honestly? Coming from a show where the main climax is just talking it out with genocidal colonizers? I can't say I'm exactly shocked.

So hey, if you think being critical of Steven Universe is a quote unquote '''red flag''' because it '''did so much for LGBTQ+ rep!!!''' Shut your colonizer ass up for once.

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Stolen from @tinysweetvoid but i wanted to make it a bit more descriptive

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always blows my mind as a european when people talk about states like “yeah theres nothing in ohio/montana/wyoming/etc” because i look at a map like but. but theyre so big. every state could qualify as its own country what do you mean theres nothing there. and then i ask people from those states and theyre like “yeah theres nothing here” what do you mean theres nothing there!!!

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why my hand shaky

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It takes so, so much more strength to hold to your convictions in times of war, and to do better than your opponent, do what NO ONE HAS CONSIDERED BEFORE.

The above, yes, but I take serious offense to even the wrong idea he could be a wimp for that. Those convictions gave him his hardest battles and won him everything. If not for his staunch pacifism, Zuko would have frozen at the north pole in that blizzard.

Without Zuko chasing and tripping her up and distracting his sister, could the Gaang have survived that particular bluefire? They would have had less of a hard time at ba sing se, but then again Katara looking hard was helped by tracking Zuko too, how WOULD that all have gone down, and where exactly would he have learned firebending?

I kinda never really got into LoK but have watched the relevant clips bit by bit. Really, Aang is also HUMAN, with a world on his shoulders he firmly never let go of. That he was not perfect to any of his kids was fine. He's no bigot of any spark.

Not to discuss ATLA this fine Saturday but I feel like Aang’s flaws within the narrative can be explained by remembering that he is a child

He is not a misogynist, he is not an abuser, and he is certainly NOT a wimp for not killing Lord Ozai. HE. IS. A . CHILD

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Sometimes i think about the idea of Common as a language in fantasy settings.

On the one hand, it’s a nice convenient narrative device that doesn’t necessarily need to be explored, but if you do take a moment to think about where it came from or what it might look like, you find that there’s really only 2 possible origins.

In settings where humans speak common and only Common, while every other race has its own language and also speaks Common, the implication is rather clear: at some point in the setting’s history, humans did the imperialism thing, and while their empire has crumbled, the only reason everyone speaks Human is that way back when, they had to, and since everyone speaks it, the humans rebranded their language as Common and painted themselves as the default race in a not-so-subtle parallel of real-world whiteness.

In settings where Human and Common are separate languages, though (and I haven’t seen nearly as many of these as I’d like), Common would have developed communally between at least three or four races who needed to communicate all together. With only two races trying to communicate, no one would need to learn more than one new language, but if, say, a marketplace became a trading hub for humans, dwarves, orcs, and elves, then either any given trader would need to learn three new languages to be sure that they could talk to every potential customer, OR a pidgin could spring up around that marketplace that eventually spreads as the traders travel the world.

Drop your concept of Common meaning “english, but in middle earth” for a moment and imagine a language where everyone uses human words for produce, farming, and carpentry; dwarven words for gemstones, masonry, and construction; elven words for textiles, magic, and music; and orcish words for smithing weaponry/armor, and livestock. Imagine that it’s all tied together with a mishmash of grammatical structures where some words conjugate and others don’t, some adjectives go before the noun and some go after, and plurals and tenses vary wildly based on what you’re talking about.

Now try to tell me that’s not infinitely more interesting.

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I’m still not over this whole interaction, because honestly Dupree’s live-to-kill antics never get old to me. of course she stabs Tarvek out of gratitude, that’s how she shows affection

Gil’s used to it - consider the scene right before he gives her the wasp antidote - he’s working through her attacks without batting an eye, clearly something he’s done before. so of course he treats the incident like she spilled her drink at dinner, that’s the bit he and Klaus have been doing with her since day 1

BUT AGATHA - the last time she saw Tarvek get stabbed, it was in the chest, with a fast-acting, gruesome poison, and she was helpless to do anything about it. and this time we see her intimidate Bang like she’s never intimidated anyone before. every other time we’ve seen Agatha intimidate someone, it was a show of bravado or exasperation or fury, but we’ve never seen her go stone cold like this, and it is literally chilling could you imagine volume I Agatha making Bangladesh Dupree practically shit her pants?? no way in a million years she clearly loves Tarvek to have her protectiveness of him bring that out of her, holy fuck