Steven Universe is interesting to me because it’s got the most extreme dichotomy between ideas that would be better fleshed out in a show for adults, and ideas that are interesting specifically because they’re native to an unironic children’s show.
Can you elaborate on this? It seems interesting.
Sure. This is gonna be a long one.
Here are two things I believe about Steven Universe:
First, Steven Universe has a lot of high-concept science fiction worldbuilding concepts that it is not really interested in engaging with, because it is not what the show is about. These include:
The radical alternate history of the world, including the changed division of the states, the fact world war 2 possibly didn’t happen, the absence of Russia, the cultural fallout of California (somehow!) being flyover the way the Midwest is often treated as in real life. All of these are, like, hugely interesting, and totally ancillary to what the show wants to do, so they’re exclusively used for one of gags.
The presence of “Roadside picnic”- style depots of abandoned alien technology all over the planet, including in places that teens are capable of casually accessing in some cases, as well as the presence of wandering inhuman monsters that have coexisted with humanity for as long as there’s been agriculture. This is the kind of thing that should have a much larger impact on the shape of culture than it was shown to, and the main reason it doesn’t is because the show is thematically about Steven acting as a bridge between the two mostly siloed worlds- but the world is implicitly big enough that stuff should be happening without him and around him! And yet you never get anyone remotely curious about any of it who don’t use Steven as an entry point.
The occurrence of a massive extraterrestrial war in the show’s backstory, with thousands of superpowered aliens fighting an ideological rebellion against their totalitarian homeworld, culminating in a giant not-qute-but-arguably-worse-than-a-massacre, and including ideological infighting among the “heroic” side about how far is too far. All issues famously better unpacked in a show for adults.
The biology and society of the gems themselves. Generally examined in broad strokes as needed to make the story work, but many of my favorite SU fan works are the ones that do deep headcanon dives into the how and why of the gems- what are gems, how did their culture come to be, what does the day-to-day look like, why do they all have weapons by default, what was their militarization for, what are the mechanics of fusion, why do fusions always have a coherent aesthetic concept if cross-gem fusions aren’t supposed to happen, what are the implications of a society where “wall decoration” is a job that a sentient being is custom-engineered to fill, often digging even further into the horrifying implications of their society than the show itself could get away with.
However.
Steven Universe has a number of emotional arcs, character arcs and trope examinations that work so well specifically because Steven Universe is unironically a show aimed at children. One one level, this is because you have to adapt really mature themes and arcs so that kids will get them and so the suits will let you; on another level you have to pull it off with the constraint of 11-minute episodes, you have to work with the strengths and weaknesses of animation, you have to throw in the flashy stuff that kids watch cartoons for. And that leads to some beats that, in terms of pure craft, are interesting in terms of how they’re executed in the specific context of a kids show.
Rose’s arc, particularly the fact that her death is suicide-coded as all-get-out, and her behaviors are allowed to ripple forward, benefit and damage her survivors in a consistent way in a way that I’ve never seen- in a children’s show.
Pearl’s abandonment issues, rampant projection, complicated feelings regarding Steven and Greg, her treatment of Connie, her difficulty forming an independent identity and the ways in which that hurts the people around her- in a children’s show.
Amethyst’s arc, her guilt simply for being born (and what that’s a metaphor for), everything that’s implied about her dynamic with Greg and Rose in Maximum Capacity, her identity problems and lack of cultural context, all unpacked over the course of dozens of episodes of a children’s show.
Lapis’s bumpy, non-linear recovery arc, including her toxic relationship with Jasper and an excellent approximation of an emotionally abusive relationship with Peridot, all- and I cannot beat this drum enough- in a children’s show. Similarly, Sadie and Lars’s whole thing and how that was given space to breathe and play out.
And of course, Steven himself. Steven’s long term arc is normally something you would find in a show like The Venture Brothers, something that’s willing to play off the tropes of the kid hero while being very much aimed at an older audience, with a level of detached parodic irony baked into the execution (since they’re often unpacking specific characters via expies.) Steven Universe is literally the only children’s thing I’ve seen on TV that, even as it does all the unironically fun adventures and misadventures, also does the work to examine how much being an archetypical wholesome Saturday-morning cartoon kid hero would screw you up, and we watch it happen in real time, and there’s a whole season fully highlighting the damage his status as a kid hero has done to his identity. And I can’t stress enough the degree to which the impact would be lost if this arc hadn’t been done “in house;” if Steven Universe Future had been done twenty years from now as a deconstructive parody of a nostalgia property, it would suck. It wouldn’t land.
Steven Universe is a show that taught me to meet a story where it’s at, and judge it’s success and failures in terms of what it chose to prioritize, and not what I would have wanted to prioritize had I been writing it. Because at the end of the day, it’s fine to let the high-concept nerdbait setting elements fall by the wayside in favor of prioritizing the character-driven thematic stuff and genre analysis stuff.
(Indeed, I feel like it was a very pointed choice to have this whole OC-friendly gem-with-weapons-and-powers character-design schema and then have huge chunks of the show where the fighting and custom weapons and monster hunting weren’t relevant to what was going on, they lure you in with the promise of a RWBY-style monster-fighting show and then do mostly slice of life. Very funny trick.)
Yeah Mr. Darcy’s proposal was a complete turd and a half but you gotta understand. You got your life together. A good career, stable income, retirement plan, all that shit together. And you meet this girl. And she’s everything. Clever, outspoken, funny, calls you on your bullshit. Grade A cutie, right? And she doesn’t go out of her way to spend time with you but she’s nice, and sometimes you catch her looking your way in a way that makes you think you might have a shot.
But her family. Holy shit.
First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever
Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.
And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves three more, and two of those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper
And while one of the two is young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.
And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK
And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”
So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE
And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for
And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker
And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”
And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”
And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth
Happy international Romani Day! This year with the ongoing genocide against Palestinians i would like to draw attention to the Dom people in Palestine. The Dom and Roma people are not the same as the groups left India at different times and using different routes but they share similar origins and face similar struggles and oppression. There are estimated 2.2 million Dom people in the Middle East and North Africa. The Palestinian Dom people live in West Bank, Gaza and occupied Jerusalem. The biggest Dom community is in Gaza — around 12,000-15,000 people were living there when the war started, but nobody knows how many of them are still alive.
The Domari Society is a non-profit organization based in Jerusalem aiming to improve the conditions of the Dom people, founded by Amoun Sleem who’s interviewed in the recent article linked above. The Domari Society is unique for being founded and organized by the Dom community itself and has done incredible work such as providing education for children and women and preserving the endangered Domari language. The organization relies on donations to fund its activities and i recommend donating to them if you want to support the Palestinian Dom people in this particularly difficult time. Just raising awareness about the Dom and their situation is important too even if you can’t donate
conservatives have fully lost the plot its actually extremely normal for little kids to pretend to be animals. it’s a pretty essential part of their mental development and helps them practice creative skills actually. if a kid comes up to you and says “I’m a kitty cat” you don’t need to reality check them. it’s fine actually. the correct response is to say “are you? have you caught any mice today? what kind of kitty cat? do you have orange stripes? should we have tuna salad for lunch?”
I mean it’s entirely possible that they’ll take one bite of your tuna salad and say “hmm. I don’t want to be a cat anymore i think”
the average comic book artist or colourist has never seen a mixed person in their life
if you tell a comic book artist that a character has heritage from more than two races they’ll fall to their knees crying and screaming and try to kill themself right there in front of you
somehow no matter what the world keeps turning
