Steven Universe - Now a Griefing Thread

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It's been a while since the Steven Universe hate train disappeared over the horizon, but I've seen bits and pieces of this show while channel flipping and Steven always came off as a chronic whiner who couldn't handle any amount of conflict whatsoever. Another thing I noticed is it was like a compiled checklist of anime tropes without any of the story substance. I've never watched a full episode of Evangelion but Steven comes off as a diet-Shinji based off of what little I've seen from reviews of both shows. How close am I to the target in that comparison?
 
Weird article

And “Steven Universe” was interesting because technically our demographic was specifically six to 11-year-old boys. Part of our goal with the show was to break those boundaries, and free ourselves of those limitations, and make something that would appeal to a much broader audience while still satisfying our jobs, our core demographic.
And then she completely abandoned that to instead appeal to the manchildren in their 30s and 40s. Which may be a profitable demographic, but not usually the target audience for a kid's show.

Shame since setup for the show could have made for something really nice, but then got bogged down by poor writing (likely because they thought writing was unimportant in comparison to storyboarding).
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It's been a while since the Steven Universe hate train disappeared over the horizon, but I've seen bits and pieces of this show while channel flipping and Steven always came off as a chronic whiner who couldn't handle any amount of conflict whatsoever. Another thing I noticed is it was like a compiled checklist of anime tropes without any of the story substance. I've never watched a full episode of Evangelion but Steven comes off as a diet-Shinji based off of what little I've seen from reviews of both shows. How close am I to the target in that comparison?
Pretty accurate. The show often was a cock tease regarding fights and lore. They'd offer up this idea of there being a big bad to take down in a fight and then resolve it with a talk.

Feel like it's a good example of the stereotypical millennial writers desire to "subvert expectations". Since such writers usually write as though you're familiar with all the usual story tropes and imagine it's clever to neuter or do the opposite of what the audience would've expected to have happen.

Their stories usually feel filled with gaps since they assume you'll fill them in with the tropes you should already be familiar with.
 
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@SBG I can't quote your post but something that really annoys me with millenial writing and how it wants to subvert expectations is how it can be ironically oblivious. I distinctly remember it being stated somewhere that Steven sparring the Diamonds was meant to subvert expectations yet its so obvious with how much of a pacifist Steven is and it ultimately still being a kids show where they can't just have a character kill someone else on-screen. Gems get "poofed" a lot but that is akin to being knocked unconscious.
Even Avatar The Last Airbender couldn't have Aang just kill the Fire Lord.
 
@SBG I can't quote your post but something that really annoys me with millenial writing and how it wants to subvert expectations is how it can be ironically oblivious. I distinctly remember it being stated somewhere that Steven sparring the Diamonds was meant to subvert expectations yet its so obvious with how much of a pacifist Steven is and it ultimately still being a kids show where they can't just have a character kill someone else on-screen. Gems get "poofed" a lot but that is akin to being knocked unconscious.
Even Avatar The Last Airbender couldn't have Aang just kill the Fire Lord.
The whole show was basically women writing 101 with how everything was solved by talking about your feelings.

And yeah, Last Airbender's copout ending which is the only real blemish in that show. Specially when it basically was an underhanded threat "I won't kill you, but I will make you powerless in a world that values power and use you as an example of what happens if you cross me".
 
I made some celebratory art for the 10th anniversary of steven Universe

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I've never watched a full episode of Evangelion but Steven comes off as a diet-Shinji based off of what little I've seen from reviews of both shows. How close am I to the target in that comparison?
If you mean he's diet Shinji in the sense that he's Shinji as written by someone who has never seen Eva (a sensitive softboi without any of Shinji's negative traits: self-pity, codependence, people-pleasing) then I'd say pretty close.
 
If you mean he's diet Shinji in the sense that he's Shinji as written by someone who has never seen Eva (a sensitive softboi without any of Shinji's negative traits: self-pity, codependence, people-pleasing) then I'd say pretty close.
Not to mention, you know, the actual mental trauma that made Shinji who he is and the long, painful road to recovery via self-actualization that made the show worthwhile. All of SU is the result of sugar hearing about the memes of the the last episodes of Eva being a counseling session and thinking she could make a heckin' valid show about talking the villains out of being mean or some such shit, conveniently ignoring the agonizing physical pain all three pilots had to endure. Thanks to the neural-link system, Shinji knows what it's like to walk through magma without protection while steven turned into a big gay Godzilla knock off and cried a whole bunch.
 
Now that this show is over and almost no one speaks about it anymore without usually to mock it or poke criticism to its very poorly done narrative, I must comment on something that always bothered me.

How come that neither the gems nor Greg thought that Steven having no major education under his belt wouldnt backfire on his life heading forward? Now, a smart writer would assure that Steven's future is guaranteed with him being an ambassador with an alien race but that would require proper world building and supporters and detractors from both sides making peace difficult...aka, Steven Universe as a setting would need to expand and grow up and it clearly wasnt interested in doing that (reasons could range because CN probably was telling them to wrap things up, the writers arent particularly good, that its a kid show with rock lesbians or all of the above). Besides, we would have to confront subjects like xenophobia and I reaaaaaally doubt these writers were capable of tackling this subject without it all just being cheap analogies for IRL racism because thats as far as they can go.

Either way, they went for a cheap convenient conclusion for the giant space nazi women and now we are left without much of a plot left so they thought they were being clever by adknowledging that Steven's future is academically fucked because all his caretakers were incompetent fuckwits with no real excuse. The Gems have been around for centuries, they should have known better, Greg is his fucking father, he should have known better. The world is changing and Steven wasnt taught how to deal with that and all of that was just really making him lose it. We really had a villain arc ready to go but, again, it would require talent and guts for these writers and they would never go that far so the whole thing just kind of ends in a shrug and a whimper, making you wonder why "Future" was even made.

You know its bad when not even its hardcore fans were able to stick by and defend this show for very long after it was clear that it was over and there wouldnt be more content to "conveniently" make everything retrospectively better. They just kind of gave up and moved on to something else, like a fart in the wind.

But then you realize this show never was meant to be anything just a leftists power fantasy so you see that creative juice in your mind is better suited for something else.
 
Now, a smart writer would assure that Steven's future is guaranteed with him being an ambassador with an alien race but that would require proper world building and supporters and detractors from both sides making peace difficult...aka, Steven Universe as a setting would need to expand and grow up and it clearly wasnt interested in doing that
Yeah its pretty evident how little they cared for the worldbuilding.
This reminded me of how Russia is missing on the world map within the show and after fans pointed it out, a crew member said something along the lines of "world events played out differently in the world of Steven Universe", yet this was never actually explained or even touched upon within the show itself.
 
Yeah its pretty evident how little they cared for the worldbuilding.
This reminded me of how Russia is missing on the world map within the show and after fans pointed it out, a crew member said something along the lines of "world events played out differently in the world of Steven Universe", yet this was never actually explained or even touched upon within the show itself.

That opened many unique possibilities. You could have explained it as Earth's geometry being changed thanks to intervention from the Gem empire to produce more of them, showing a legit VISUAL mark of their influence on the planet. But then again, there is supposedly a planet sized monster gem dormant inside the Earth and apparently that never gets brought up again once its "solved" (tho the solution seemed extremely temporary at best).

The world just doesnt exist beyond of what is shown to us. They literally never explain how the military wasnt raining nukes on that hand shaped ship when it first came out. It all felt like it was trying to maybe invoke some Saiyan saga vibes but even DBZ knew to make it clear that the saiyans couldnt be stopped with regularly weapons as they could leve an entire city by just lifting their fingers. Again, they just shrug and just really hope you dont think about it. Meanwhile the gems really havent shown any reason as to modern weapons COULDNT annihilate them as a sniper aimed to their core gem and its game over for them. But thats the thing again, the world just doesnt exist beyond what is shown and that is just extremely poor crafting of a narrative, especially one that IS trying to be bigger and epic.
 
How come that neither the gems nor Greg thought that Steven having no major education under his belt wouldnt backfire on his life heading forward? Now, a smart writer would assure that Steven's future is guaranteed with him being an ambassador with an alien race but that would require proper world building and supporters and detractors from both sides making peace difficult...aka, Steven Universe as a setting would need to expand and grow up and it clearly wasnt interested in doing that (reasons could range because CN probably was telling them to wrap things up, the writers arent particularly good, that its a kid show with rock lesbians or all of the above). Besides, we would have to confront subjects like xenophobia and I reaaaaaally doubt these writers were capable of tackling this subject without it all just being cheap analogies for IRL racism because thats as far as they can go.
Poor pacing and focusing on the wrong thing. Sugar was adamant about making Beach City and it’s residents important, wasting time to ensure Ronaldo is some remembered figure. This emphasis killed the show as Beach City’s cast are only good for comedy episodes and had little to no effect on the final. They detract from the more interesting gem content and it was clear that they wasted too much time by the end as White Diamond was rushed in.
 
That opened many unique possibilities. You could have explained it as Earth's geometry being changed thanks to intervention from the Gem empire to produce more of them, showing a legit VISUAL mark of their influence on the planet. But then again, there is supposedly a planet sized monster gem dormant inside the Earth and apparently that never gets brought up again once its "solved" (tho the solution seemed extremely temporary at best).

The world just doesnt exist beyond of what is shown to us. They literally never explain how the military wasnt raining nukes on that hand shaped ship when it first came out. It all felt like it was trying to maybe invoke some Saiyan saga vibes but even DBZ knew to make it clear that the saiyans couldnt be stopped with regularly weapons as they could leve an entire city by just lifting their fingers. Again, they just shrug and just really hope you dont think about it. Meanwhile the gems really havent shown any reason as to modern weapons COULDNT annihilate them as a sniper aimed to their core gem and its game over for them. But thats the thing again, the world just doesnt exist beyond what is shown and that is just extremely poor crafting of a narrative, especially one that IS trying to be bigger and epic.
I think you are having some over-inflated expectations for a cartoon aimed at angsty teenagers, bro. I really wouldn't expect them to address much of anything beyond the scope of their focus, especially not greater world-building. It wasn't no Game of Thrones.
 
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How come that neither the gems nor Greg thought that Steven having no major education under his belt wouldnt backfire on his life heading forward?
Because he's an alien prince who was raised by an pack of hippies
showing a legit VISUAL mark of their influence on the planet.
They did with the "kindergartens," those giant robots that built them, and the occasional set of ruins.
They literally never explain how the military wasnt raining nukes on that hand shaped ship when it first came out
That space ship is clearly equipped with state of the art stealth technology, genius. Oh, and it's only visible to those who already know about it.

I think you are having some over-inflated expectations for a cartoon aimed at angsty teenagers, bro.
Yeah, but at least the other shows usually used an day at the school for an subplot or two.
 
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