Steven Universe
Likes:
Ok, so, this is probably going to sound a bit contradictory, given the very obvious complaints on the "dislikes" side of this, but, it feels like
most of the fandom gives off a very comforting and supportive vibe. People are very good at taking the messages in this show -- some of which are a bit more subtle and woven in -- and bringing them into the spotlight, expanding on them and explaining how much it means to them to see such topics be addressed and handled so well in a kids' show. I've seen posts where someone has pointed to a scene in one episode to explain what clinical social anxiety feels like, one where someone used an episode to explain what effect divorcing parents can have on a kid (even though the episode in question was not explicitly about a divorce, but it makes sense that it could be interpreted as representing one, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was intentional). And I've seen a post where a non-binary person was able to so easily explain their gender identity to a younger sibling/cousin because they could use a character from the show as an example. A lot of the credit here could go to the show writers themselves for doing such a great job at working these themes in, but it's even better to see the fanbase expand on all of it and get really personal about what the show means to them, and the messages that they're glad this show is giving to kids.
Dislikes:
Jeez,
do I even need to say it at this point? Every fandom has its toxic side, and in SU's case, those are the fans who will attack anyone who dares portray a black character as white, a gay character as being in a het relationship
(even though, you know... bi people exist, too), or a fat character as being skinny. As I've explained elsewhere, though, I do think that these actions are
understandable (though still not the least bit justifiable), since, as stated above, the representation that this show provides is really important to some people. And so, when they see fanart of that character that takes away this quality that they really value, I can see how it could be interpreted as "erasure", something that goes against an entire movement that that person values. Regardless, I shouldn't have to elaborate on how harmful this kind of mindset can be -- not to mention it's a huge double-standard (I mean, no one would complain if it was a white character being portrayed as black, or a straight character being included in a gay ship...).
That being said, I do think that there's one
good thing that came out of all this -- before the infamous Zamii incident, it was fairly commonplace to see opinions like "drawing Rose skinny is not ok" or "drawing Garnet white is not ok" being tossed around and met with very little disagreement. I didn't hear much about people being attacked for going against this, but, it was just generally accepted that these things were taboo.
After the Zamii incident, however (or at least, after the dust settled)? I didn't hear anyone say those kinds of things nearly as much... I feel like it sort of served as a wake-up call for all the people who, regardless of whether or not they were actively malicious towards fanartists like Zamii, still enforced these taboos in the fandom. I think it allowed a lot of people to see the error of their ways, so that they could stop enforcing these toxic "rules".
Still, however, the fandom has a bit of a reputation for being a bit unreasonable when people disagree with them, which brings me to...
People who have zero tolerance for anyone calling the gems "female". The idea is that, technically, the gems don't have any concept of gender, and so they would all be non-binary (and I'm pretty sure this was even confirmed by the creators).
However, given the fact that they all use feminine pronouns for each other, and that they are clearly supposed to be interpreted as feminine, and the fact that they don't even seem to mind when
other characters in the show use words like "women" or "ladies" to describe them... I don't think it's really worth going on a crusade about. Like, you know how one criticism of SJW's is that they'll push certain agendas in the name of "defending" certain groups who don't even agree with that agenda? Well, when you not only have
that issue, but also the fact that the people who don't care are
fictional characters... you can see how that's more than a bit ridiculous. I'll acknowledge that the gems are technically non-binary, but I'm still going to refer to them as "female" because that's just
easier (and it's what they present themselves as, anyways).
Similarly, people who push their headcanons like it's fact... this can be applied to any fandom, but I think it can be especially problematic with SU fans, given some issues with that fandom that have already been addressed. For example, there's a character named Onion who, on the surface, is very creepy and off-putting. However, there are some people who headcanon him as being nonverbal autistic -- and that's fine. I don't care if people want to headcanon him. What I don't like is the people who will attack anyone who mentions Onion being weird or creepy --
despite the fact that he's clearly portrayed as such -- saying that Onion is autistic, and that calling him "weird" or "creepy" is offensive towards autistic people...
Doctor Who
Likes:
As others have said, the fanbase is very diverse. With the show being as old as it is, cool to see people of so many different age groups getting into the show. I even used to have friends whose parents watched the classic series when they were their age, and then, when said friends of mine discovered the new series, they
all watched it together. I also love how dorky this fandom is ok with being sometimes — embracing the spirit of "timey-whimey" and pointing sonic screwdrivers at things and pretending they actually work. In all the areas that fandoms
in general find their charm, it just feels like Doctor Who in particular kind of excels at it. Heck, even listening to fan debates can be incredibly amusing, just given how ridiculous the show's history can be. There's… there's a lot of timey-whimey to follow, listening to a debate like that. XD
Dislikes:
As others have stated, there are always the fan wars about which Doctor is the best, but… honestly, I wouldn't mind this as much if it weren't for how
divisive it can cause the entire fanbase to be about
everything regarding a certain era of the show, not just the lead actor. I feel like this is most evident when it comes to the whole "David Tennant vs Matt Smith" thing. Now, if you ask me, a lot of this has to do with how badly the show handled the transition between the two — changing nearly
everything about the series along with that regeneration — unlike, say, Nine to Ten, or Eleven to Twelve, where other elements of the show, such as the companion, the sonic screwdriver's design, and, most importantly, the
showrunner stayed the same, thus giving the audience time to get used to the new Doctor while a number of other things remained constant and familiar, so that transitioning from one Doctor to the next wouldn't be so jarring. But from Ten to Eleven, they changed damn near
everything about the show, so I can understand why people who really liked the Tennant era might not find much of a reason to continue after that. Still, it
really bothers me that there's so much division between the two eras, and most of my other complaints about the fandom can be traced back to this, for example…
Unnecessary Moffat hate. Like, ok, I get it, Moffat's not a perfect writer. He's done plenty of plotlines that were really over-ambitious, hard-to-follow for some people, and didn't make a ton of sense — not to mention the fact that there are some pretty big plotholes in his writing (If Amy's parents were pulled into the crack in the universe and erased from history, how was Amy ever born in the first place??),
but, Russel T. Davies wasn't a perfect writer, either. And, it's funny that one of the biggest criticism Moffat seems to get is that he keeps breaking the rules that the series already established, when
Davies did plenty of the exact same thing — it just wasn't as noticeable because everything he retconned was from the classic series. In any case, I just think that the bashing Moffat gets is really over-the-top. Like, people fucking
cheered when they heard that he'd be stepping down as showrunner after season 10. Really?? Ok, I know a lot of people don't like his writing, and even
I think he's been running the show for just a bit too long, so I was happy to see that they're giving someone else a chance — but fucking
cheering about it?? That's plain rude. Also, on a similar note:
Using the Russel T. Davies era as a standard for what the show "should" be, and/or complaining that the show's "changing too much" and "not what it used to be". Like, I get it, a lot of people started watching the show with the Davies era, so that's what they're used to — but claiming that that's
the creative vision of the show and that anything that strays away from it is just "losing what the show's 'supposed' to be"? That's just incredibly ignorant of what the show actually
is, and how it operates. Seeing the show change over time doesn't mean it's falling apart or losing itself — that's what the show's
always done. That's what, in my opinion, makes it so brilliant. If the show introduces something you don't like, you can come back a few years later and there's a good chance that that one thing will be ancient history. Davies was not the person who came up with the original creative vision for the show — he was just one showrunner, part of a long line of many, adding a new spin to the show just like all the showrunners before and after him. His vision is not the end-all-be-all of what makes Doctor Who "good". The show is very
different than it was when he left, but that doesn't necessarily make it
bad. If
you personally don't like Moffat's era, then that's your opinion, but don't act like the show "needs to die" just because it isn't Davies' vision anymore. I'm sure he knew full well that, if we were to reboot Doctor Who, that it would eventually continue to grow and evolve far beyond its initial form —
just like the version of the show that Davies' watched growing up.
Insisting that everyone has to start at the beginning of the 2005 series and watch every episode in order from there. Urrghhh. This is just…
not how Doctor Who works. Yes, there are some arcs — especially in Matt Smith's era — that make the most sense when watched in-order. But there are also plenty of standalone episodes — especially in Tennant and Capaldi's eras, that are perfectly serviceable to watch
at any time. So long as you understand the basic concept of what the show's about, it's amazing just how many episodes can be watched without any context. (In fact, I'd even say Eleven's era is the odd-one-out, seeing as how most other eras in the show don't place nearly as much focus on season-long arcs.) Sure, you might understand some of these standalone episodes on a
deeper level if you had watched everything up until that point, thus making them more interesting… but that's what makes the show so rewatchable, imo. In any case, what
really bothers me are the people who think that skipping ahead
at all is the worst thing ever when there are
so many people who just
do not like the early seasons, especially season 1 (for a lot of understandable reasons…). And, why should they be forced to slog through season one when, say, seasons 5 and 6 have
nothing to do with the events of season 1? If someone sees bits and pieces of Matt Smith and decides they want to start there,
let them start there. There's no reason why someone should have to slog through episodes of what was practically a completely different show, just to watch the parts that they already feel like they'd be interested in. I mean, I know
I got into the show by watching random episodes that were airing on TV, a lot of which just so happened to be really good episodes that a lot of fans praise. They may have been late into Tennant's era, but they're what got me into the show, and there's a very good chance that I might not have stuck with the show if I was forced to slog through season 1 without already being invested in the show as a whole. The show is
not set up in a way that demands it be watched from the beginning, so stop acting like it is. Besides, it's not like people can't go back and watch the episodes that they "skipped",
just like I did. Oh, and, if you really want to cling so tight to the argument of "it's deeper and more interesting if you've seen everything that comes before it", well, guess what? I could make the
exact same argument about the classic series, and how even the early New Who episodes are deeper and more interesting if you've seen all the background that comes before
them. But, I think we can all agree — it would be ridiculous to make any potential fan start all the way back at 1963, especially given the fact that the show back then was so different than the parts of the show that piqued their interest in the first place…
Also, in general, fans of the show whine way too much about change, which is especially ridiculous given the fact that A) change is a fundamental aspect of the show, as touched on before, and B) a lot of their complaints don't even make any sense in the context of the show's history. Like, when people complained about Capaldi being "too old" to play the Doctor, despite the fact that plenty of Doctors in the past were right around his age range, and this trend of younger actors is a relatively recent thing. And
then there was the fact that the Doctor lost his sonic screwdriver early in season 9, and went most of the season without it, and people
went nuts about it, so
outraged that the writers could take away this part of the show. And,
the craziest part is, it's insane how many people, when explaining why they didn't like this change, said that the sonic screwdriver "has been around for 50 years", which…
isn't even true. Yes, it existed in the classic series, but not since the very beginning of the show.
Brief history lesson for y'all: Classic Who ran from 1963-1989, encompassing Doctors 1-7. Then there was a TV movie in 1996, which introduced the 8th Doctor (and it was supposed to launch a reboot of the series that would pick up where the movie left off, but apparently the movie wasn't successful enough to make that happen), and
then we got the 2005 reboot that most of you are probably more familiar with, which started with the 9th Doctor. Now, the sonic screwdriver wasn't introduced to the show until
almost the very end of the 2nd Doctor's era, in the late 60's. And
then, they actually
got rid of the screwdriver early on in Five's era (in the early 80's) — and unlike Twelve, he didn't get his back at the end of that season. Instead, the screwdriver was
completely absent from the rest of the original series. It then made a brief cameo appearance in the 1996 movie (seeing as how that movie was filled with references to the original series), but the Doctor didn't really make much use of it in the film. And it was only the 2005 series that made the sonic screwdriver a regular part of the show again. And, then, after that precious screwdriver gets taken away for
one brief season, you have the nerve to assume that's "been around for 50 years", without even bothering to fact-check, which would've revealed that it's really only been around for about… 20 years, and not even all at once.
Psh. This show isn't nearly as static and unchanging as a lot of people seem to think. And it
certainly shouldn't always be measured against Davies' era, as that's just not what the entirety of the show should boil down to.
