The comment I left on Lily Orchard's Steven Universe video
For @harryhenry1 , @ankle-beez and anyone else who wanted my hot take before it was deleted (potentially)
"This video is very bad, and I can give you like a hundred reasons why, but let's stick with some simple ones.
- You have a lack of understanding of the meaning of character development; Steven going from being a silly rambunctious kid with no sense of danger to a soft-spoken pacifist with defined beliefs isn't them going back and forth on his personality, it's him developing as the series goes on. Remember how Finn from Adventure Time started out as just a super obnoxious and loud kid but then slowly turned into a very mature teen with an understanding of how he affects others? Yeah, it's the same thing, except this is Steven Universe (the show that gets more flak than it deserves). Oh wow, Steven changes as a person because of him going through a series of life-changing events from season two to season five, what a big surprise! I would've expected him to just go the Goku route of collecting new powers and upgrades without ever changing his beliefs or ideals to fit with things he's learned, shame on Rebecca (who takes sole responsibility for everything that happens in Steven Universe for whateer reason)!
- It can be very easy to say that the writing of a show is lazy by simplifying characters and events down and removing anything beyond that, (Amethyst being laidback, Garnet being stoic, Pearl being anxious, Diamonds being nazis???, etc.) but if that's what you think the characters boil down to, it just means you don't grasp them too well. For example, you simplifying the events of Mindful Education to just 'Garnet singing vaguely about trauma and nothing happens until the last minute' clearly means you missed the song's message about how to deal with anxiety, and that you think that being subtle and vague is interchangeable.
- Rebecca Sugar is not an animator, literally never is she credited as an animator in any episode of the show, but besides that, I think you don't think you understand the meaning of animation if you think that's the same thing as 'proportion inconsistencies.'
- Using the term Hide Your Gays to describe a character who is literally symbolic for a gay relationship is kinda ridiculous, and the fact that you admit that Ruby and Sapphire themselves have a well-written relationship shows you don't have a foot to stand on with this flimsy argument. Ruby and Sapphire *are* present, if they weren't then Garnet wouldn't exist. I don't have much else to say on this, so let's move on to your biggest point. (I skip over the whole Concrete thing because that issue is over and done with, with her apologizing thoroughly)
- So Pink being Rose somehow ruins every scrap of potential the series had? I think by 'ruin' you mean 'enhanced by adding even more possible potential storylines and plot-points.' Honestly, character growth wasn't ruined at all, it was actually way more interesting that she was a Diamond- having Rose be super badass and perfect by assassinating the enemy singlehandedly in a way that would literally be impossible would be kind of dull, especially since we already knew she was flawed (which is apparently a bad thing to you). If you think this twist is complicated when you've had so long to think about it I don't think spending so long ranting about it was really the best idea- Pink Diamond's time on Earth made her realize that the Earth had life that deserved protecting, she was unable to convince the Diamonds to stop the colonization because they didn't take her seriously, she sparked a rebellion since she knew they wouldn't be able to ignore it, and because she makes the obviously flawed decision to fake her own shattering with the idea that the Diamonds don't actually care about her and will stop the colonization because of her death. What was that about Kingdom Hearts having a more complicated plot? If you think Pearl, Amethyst, Lapis and Steven are 'the most wretched people you've ever met' because of those overexaggerated traits, I can think of plenty more characters you might think are the worst. "Bugs Bunny uses manipulation and gaslighting to get his way, Daffy Duck is a hot-headed idiot, Elmer Fudd is a sociopath who shows no hesitation to kill sentient beings and doesn't learn from his mistakes, etc." Do you see how oversimplyifying things can make anybody sound horrible? And Pink Diamond's motivation was not 'I hate responsibility,' it was 'I feel empathy toward the life already inhabiting this planet and am not being taken seriously, making me think the only way I'll make any impact is by lashing out.' Her motives are meant to be flawed, Rebecca Sugar even once said in a podcast that Rose was a bad person, so all your ranting about her being bad serves no purpose when the creator states that was the purpose.
- I'll summarize the idiocy of this whole "Space Nazi" thing in a sentence: It is ridiculous to claim that a Jewish woman is trying to send a message that Nazis are okay just because she makes her villains sympathetic (aka has good writing).
- People who come to the conclusion that Rebecca Sugar is a fascist sympathizer are... just dumb, don't give them credit for thinking that.
- This video easily could have been shortened to like fifteen minutes if you just went over the essential points in a clear way, but it seems you have a masochistic thing for yelling about things you don't like for as long as possible. In conclusion, anyone who claims this video is taking down Steven Universe and is super epic is kind of just wrong."
