S T A R S ! This is my biggest piece yet (24”x32” I’m pretty sure) I made this guy for Artprize so if you’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan this fall check it out!!
This is a perfect example of why we need things designed for a variety of body types. Far too many plus-sized clothes are skinny clothes just made bigger, which rarely (if ever) have the desired effect. Not only do things not look the same in this context, it’s fair to say they were not designed (or redesigned) to look good on these different body shapes. The options are often mumus or things not really designed for you.
This man has come up with a variety of amazing outfits that look fantastic on his body. We need more of this.
I love you sir. You are gorgeous and we should say so.
Dusted off my Patreon account and decided that now’s probably a good time to promote it for the first time in years! I have already queued up multiple posts so there will be new content every week for the next months!
As someone that was there and started blocking the SU Crit tag because of so many bad faith accusations, yeah I think I can say a bit of what happened. Might be a bit disjointed but these are the things that I remember happening.
First thing was the release schedule. The Steven Bombs. Releasing like five episodes in one week and then nothing for months. This was something that CartoonNetwork had control over and might have been something that they tried to use to get Steven Universe to stop being so popular because it was gestures pretty queer.
If Steven Universe was a show that every episode was a stand alone, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but it was a linear story. So major developments could drop; major character reveals/fuck-ups could happen and then the fandom would just sit on those for months. Instead of getting the next part of the story that resolved whatever just happened the fandom could sit there and stew in theories and emotions. So characters messing up would be blown out of proration and the resolution wouldn’t feel like it actually enough effort on the one that messed up end.
One example was Cry for Help. When Pearl tricked Garnet into fusing more often. If I remember right, we didn’t get to Pearl and Garnet actually talking out what happened there until months after the fact. In story not much time had past but for the audience that was plenty of time for people to be offended on Garnet’s behalf and distort what happened.
Anther issue was “Gem Harvest” dropped right around the 2016 election. You know when Trump became president. This was made long before the election, but there were people who took that timing as somehow Rebecca Sugar and the Crew saying stuff that they weren’t. I would also say this was when the discourse really took off. If that episode had aired when the crew thought it would, probably a year or months before then, I don’t think people would have misread it was much as they did. It was about communication and also Uncle Andy is the one that had to realize that the way he acted had caused him to be isolated from his family. This wasn’t Steven had to “make his racist uncle no longer racist all on his own” but “Steven gave him encouragement that it wasn’t too late to change”. But the timing was terrible and the Crew had no control on that. The Steven Bombs made several seasons last for years when they should have been over in some months.
Second, studio interference that fandom blamed on Rebecca Sugar and the Crew. The scheduling, the ending of the show feeling rushed; those were things that parts of the fandom blamed on the crew not the network. There were people that I recall saying that the crew just needed to change how Steven Universe was written to fit with the bomb format better, when the bomb format wasn’t something that the crew ever wanted. That wasn’t the show style that they were telling. The show got axed because Rebecca Sugar and the Crew wouldn’t drop the wedding. They wanted it there because it was important to have in a kid’s show. But because they stuck to their guns the rest of the story had to be speed up, and people thought that the crew should have written the ending better; when that ending was planned to have at least another season, not a week long set of episodes. Steven Universe was set up to be a long term story. One that gave time to each character to unpack their mindset and issues. But they couldn’t do that with the Diamonds.
Third, people not understanding the theme of the show. Steven Universe was about family, emotions, and open communication solving issues. Characters resolved their issues by talking about them. By being open about what the issues were. That was the reason Gem War happened; because open communication because Pink Diamond and the other Diamonds just couldn’t happen. We see that Steven is at his worst when he bottles up his emotions or refuses to talk about an issue that he knows he has. But despite this theme by the time we got to Change Your Mind, people were cheering for the idea of Steven shattering the Diamonds. Which ignores the theme of the show; communication. There were people that wanted Steven to kill the Diamonds when this wasn’t that type of show. Steven always hated when he couldn’t talk to another character and had to bubble them. Why would this kid resort to killing? That goes against the themes of this show.
Fourth, the rushed ending. The events of Change Your Mind, was something that the crew wanted to be its own season. I imagine that if the crew had gotten what they wanted we would have spent more time on Homeworld with Steven getting to know the Diamonds and sorting out their issues. Blue Diamond would have been first since we had set up with her character first. We saw her living with the regrets of losing Pink Diamond and now not doing her duties as a Diamond. But because of how rushed the ending had to be at that point the audience didn’t get that time that they had wanted. Think about how long Lars’s arc was. That was several seasons long. If they had gotten a season with the Diamonds like they wanted people probably wouldn’t have thought that the ending was rushed.
Fifth, bad faith criticism and very toxic fandom. As I said I blocked the SU Crit tag because after a certain point people would take anything and start shoving completely off the rails criticisms at the show and expect everyone to take them in good faith. Like people claiming that Sugar, a Jewish creator, was a Nazi Apologist because Steven didn’t kill the Diamonds. People projected things onto elements of the story that weren’t there. People would take a screen shot and call it lazy animation because a character was off model for a fraction of a second that wouldn’t be noticed without slowing it down. There was a lot of bad faith criticism. Some of it was probably from people that didn’t like how queer Steven Universe was and hid it as saying it wasn’t progressive enough. There were probably people that thought that a kid’s show was actually not progressive enough without looking at everything behind the scenes that the creators were dealing with. There were fans that drove one of the story-boarders/writers off the show because on her own Twitter account she posted shipping art of two of the characters (Lapis Lazuli and Peridot). It was just one member of the crew showing that she liked the dynamic between two characters that was not cannon and people started harassing them. There was a lot of entitlement from the fandom.
All of those things combined just made for a terrible time.
TL;DR: The show schedule being all over the place, studio interference, people not understanding the theme of the show, the rushed ending, and a toxic fandom with bad faith criticisms all led to the show having the worst reputation. I would say that the show schedule and studio interference played the biggest part of it since other parts stemmed issues that those created.
Agreed with all of this, but as a sort of continuation of point three:
The danger of adults watching a children’s show because “It’s so good it could be an adult’s show!” is exactly this. Shows that are literally and explicitly for kids have much simpler messaging. One of my least favourite sentences in the world is when you remind someone who is whining about a piece of children’s media for not doing what they wanted out of the story that it’s aimed at kids and they say “But being for kids doesn’t mean it can’t still be good!”
Bitch it IS good. ‘Good’ doesn’t mean 'Does the stuff adults want so it feels satisfying and fulfilling to adults’. It means 'Does the stuff the target audience wants and successfully conveys to that audience its message.’ Adults are not the target audience. Get a grip and remember you’re a guest. Your enjoyment is not the point. You cannot say “The Animaniacs sucked because there was no character development and they would suddenly sing educational songs - I wanted more world building about what these alien things were and how they got into the water tower and what that means for the fabric of American society” IT WAS A KID’S SHOW THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY AND EDUCATIONAL. AND IT WAS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
In the case of Steven Universe, Rebecca Sugar once said the aim was to 'redefine masculinity’ for children - the point of the show is that Steven is surrounded by powerful women without ever feeling emasculated, and is properly and healthily connected to his emotions. He’s not afraid to cry. He’s open with his fears. He goes through increasing trauma, and the moral of that is 'Dont bottle up, talk to your loved ones.’
And, crucially, his first and primary response to antagonism is “Let’s talk about this” and not “Let’s punch this.”
It was adults who turned that into a “Talk to Nazis uwu” parable, and then got mad about it; children, the target audience, did not. Children are people who are very much still learning how to process their emotions and handle conflict on the playground. Young boys are learning that they aren’t allowed to cry or have feelings other than anger. Young girls are learning that they aren’t allowed power and strength. All children are being told that a family can only look one way, that love can only follow one path. SU provided clear role models to the contrary and was extremely valuable for that.
And then adults projected real world political allegories onto it because that’s how adult fiction works, and decided that meant it was bad and that Rebecca Sugar, a queer Jewish enby, was actually a Nazi apologist. Just a trash fire of a fandom
This might be harsh but I think those who equate “good character design” to “character I would fuck” and express outright disgust at designs who dared to fall outside their conventional beauty norms should be trapped in the amulet for a thousand years. minimum
hello!! i found your AA “pronoun” and honorifc post in the tag and it was really interesting!! i was wondering if you could expand on blackquill, edgeworth, and klavier in particular when it comes to how they refer to themselves/what others call them? i am INSANELY curious.
This is an interesting Question I got a while back. Now that I’ve replayed some of the games AND am playing Spirit of Justice I feel more up to try and answer it. That said, I am going to go through all Ace Attorney main characters, meaning Defense Lawyers, Detectives, Assistants and Prosecutors, and will give you a profile of how they were written in Japanese, comparing it a little to the original.
This post might be edited when I realize I misremembered something or learn something new.
That said, let’s go!
Currently on this list:
Phoenix Wright
Mia Fey
Maya Fey
Miles Edgeworth
Dick Gumshoe
Pearl Fey
Franziska Von Karma
Ema Skye
Kay Faraday
Apollo Justice
Trucy Wright
Athena Cykes
Klavier Gavin
Simon Blackquill
Phoenix Wright
Japanese Name: 成歩堂龍一(Naruhodô Ryûichi)
Japanese Name Meaning: “Naruhodô” is a pun on “Naruhodo”, a Japanese phrase akin to the English phrase “I see(what you mean).” “Ryûichi” means “Dragon”, and the ending of the name indicates that he was the firstborn son of his family. This “Dragon” is presumably what served as the inspiration for naming him “Phoenix” in the English localization.
Refers to himself as: “Boku”, a rather soft-sounding way for men to say “I”, albeit it’s still less formal than “Watashi” would be. This makes me sound younger than a professional who would be using “Watashi”, since older men tend to prefer “Watashi” in their work life. While we’re at “Boku”, contrary to what you may have heard, women *do* use it veeeeeery rarely, albeit women using this in real life are usually seen as eccentric and odd. It’s more common for women to use it in poetic writing, though. In any case, Phoenix’ “Boku” is written in Hiragana, indicating that it sounds especially soft, hinting at his generally mild-mannered personality.
Referred to by the Textboxes as: “Naruhodo”, with a short “o”, openly acknowledging the pun.
Referred to by others as: Maya, Pearl and Mia call him “Naruhodo-kun”, with the short “o”. Trials and Tribulations indicates that Phoenix tried to stop Mia from constantly cutting off the “O” in the end of his name, but she never did, so the punny nickname stuck. Larry and Edgeworth both call him by his last name, “Naruhodô”, without a honorific, which is common among male friends. Apollo and Athena correctly refer to him as “Naruhodô-san” (with the long “O”). Trucy calls him “Papa”, which explains the writing on his beanie. The Judge calls him “Naruhodô-kun”. Blackquil calls him “Naru-no-ji”.
His Speech-style: Somewhat casual, he does sound like a pretty typical, mild-mannered young man, using less polite forms when talking to Maya and more polite forms when talking to certain witnesses or the Judge. He uses the very common, polite “Desu-Masu” forms (which most people in Japan use when they’re talking to anyone other than their closest friends and family) a lot more frequently than a lot of other characters in the series.
Notes: Probably the character who carried over best in the translation. His averageness definitely helped.