First and Last Shots ↳ Steven Universe seasons 1–5, Steven Universe: The Movie, and Steven Universe Future
Steven Universe is ending soon...
and I don’t have much more activity here in tumblr anymore, but the thing thats making most upset is that the Steven Universe fandom is the community i’m most familiar with. Like, honestly, I’m just bitter that all this knowledge and love I have about this show is gonna have to be put in a shelf until I feel like rewatching it.
For now I’m gonna spend this afternoon watching old Steven Universe clips and songs to be nostalgic. Made of Love STRONGER THAN YOU is first.
I usually don’t do this kinda stuff, but let’s talk about that last steven universe episode because I need to vent. Steven has PTSD. When a person experiences trauma, the supporting relationships this person has will be one of the most determinating factors when it comes to developing PTSD. Until Future, Steven had a really great support net, but then everyone started drifting away. Steven lost his support net, and his trauma started manifesting as c-PTSD. The gems had been really absent this season, and chapter after chapter we saw how he felt. How Connie went from a supporting relationship to a trigger. And in these last two, we saw two irreversible turns. First, he has stopped trusting Greg with his issues. Greg was a loving father but didn’t give Steven discipline, structure. And steven is missing this so much right now. After the van crash, Greg, instead of apologizing (validating Steven’s feelings) just… said he was proud of him. After he crashed a van. And this makes him feel like he can’t rely on him anymore. Because whatever he does, Greg won’t give him any kind of structure. He’s just like mom. Then, in the next chapter, the gems instead of being patient, demand an answer from him, telling him how “somebody could’ve been hurt”… when steven was on the floor, hurting. Again, steven doesn’t feel like he can trust them, so he runs to the only place he feels he can be with someone where he can be himself. Jasper. But Jasper isn’t the kind of gem who likes talking about feelings. She likes fighting, so she tells him to unleash all his feelings in the form of violence. Now, this can be a good strategy when it’s controlled, but she wants the opposite. She wants steven to use all his strength. So he does. He stops restraining himself, stops caring about hurting, and enjoys fighting. And when he does, he shatters her. Now, this is the breaking point. The guilt steven must’ve felt must’ve been unbearable. He enjoyed fighting, he enjoyed letting out his anger, and he shattered her. Something he despised his mom for. And now he is just like her. And when miraculously Jasper survives, he hopes her to be mad, to scream at him. He’s apologizing over and over again because he’s drowning in guilt. But it is THEN when jasper bows at him. Claiming him as a superior. They are no longer equals, steven can no longer rely on her because they are at a different level. He’s at a different level than everyone else when what he needs most is someone to be at his same level. His last support net on earth just shattered. So now he’s going the only people who can be on the same level as him. The diamonds. He’s desperately searching for someone who can be his support net, give him structure, purpose, but… Something tells me he’s not gonna find it.
Fragments was a crazy episode, I think we all know why. But i gotta say what made it stand out what the way it was edited and cut. It was great storytelling. Some cutaways were so drastically different yet implied so much even before they told you what was going on, really impressive.
you know, I’ve seen a lot of people say that they related DEEPLY to Steven’s issues in Steven Universe Future, but I only ever kinda related to them at surface level.
But Mr. Universe hit really close to home. In a lot of weird ways. This is the episode of SUF that read my mind. Everybody’s got one.
Steven Fergilious is a reality in whatever alternate reality i somehow take the place of Greg in
Talking about small son and dead pink space wife
someone already beat me to the punch but ill upload it anyways
i havent seen a damn thing about the new grinch movie, but if they didnt make him a love interest that’s just another grinch but softer w/ eyelashes and one blue streak in her hair named The Binch then i dont wanna know
my sweet Binch…..
well whom else would be voicing The Binch??????
i want to thank everyone for getting this horrible post to 40k notes today thank you
ITS DECEMBER!! 🎄 YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!
The Steven Universe episodes
I’m gonna say, the last two were brilliant!
Rose Buds was so intense and akward, for the characters and for the audience, but still had the comedy down.
And Volleyball was a masterpieceeee! Perfect balance of plot-forwarding, lore expansion, world building and all in the 11 minutes!? Really impressive! It was beautiful as well.
These two episodes, inclusing Guidance as well, really had some interesting, unique and beautiful contextes and morals to them, if this is what SUF is going to be made of I am excitedddd to see the rest!
Not sold completely on the Steven powers thing, it seems like he’s already so powerful, it’s weird to add another power that seems so, vague... But I also trust it will be well-handled, since we already have some hints of a “destructive power” Pink Diamond used to have...
I’ve already found someone
requested by @moldy-junk
There’s a Fine Line - Spinel Animatic
Spinel: I'm going to kill you and your planet
Steven:
SPOILERS INBOUND
SO I WAS GOING BACK FOR SCREENSHOTS (specifically for the Pearls because they’re uwus)
At first glance it would seem like they’re doing their normal pearl duties to which I was like “fair enough” BUT
Then Yellow Pearl gives White Diamond SASS
“Cut the feed!”
“Your time is over anyway”
AND (this is the big part)
They’re wearing headsets. They’ve never worn headsets before. And I know why.
They have their own freaking TV show. (I bet you Blue Pearl designed the logo) BUT THEY HAVE A SHOW THAT IS ADORABLE OH MY GOD I AM SO PROUD AAAAAAAAAAAAA
LOOK AT HOW HAPPY BLUE IS
SHE IS LITERALLY SKIPPING
MY BABIES ARE ALL GROWN UP *gross crying*
What do you think they’ve called their show?
unfortunately i think the thing abt spinel and pink’s relationship is that it was doomed from the start—spinel was literally created to be pink’s friend, and whether or not pink enjoyed her company, friendship just can’t be made in a lab. friends don’t only exist to please you or to make you laugh—they have conflicts with you, they make compromises, they have attention to give to other people and activities.
and perhaps this could be compared to an arranged marriage; apparently, many of these work out well. but even with arranged relationships, a partner isn’t custom-made; they have a life outside of their marriage, they have other things to do. and the diamonds didn’t understand that, of course, which is why pink gravitated towards other gems for stronger relationships. while pearl, pink pearl, and the pebbles are in servitude to pink, they weren’t literally made to be her Friend (tm)
maybe rose quartz would have tried to bring spinel to earth, and attempted to form a real friendship with her. but pink, after having another “plaything” forcibly taken and mind-controlled by white, didn’t know how to gently let go of spinel. perhaps spinel would react to any hint of rejection with complete horror—i don’t know if factory reset spinel desperately saying “don’t leave me!” to steven is in her nature, or the repressed memories of pink leaving her. it’s probably both.
maybe rose had plans to come back, maybe she didn’t. it’s likely the corruption song that ended the war completely blindsided her, and any plans to aid spinel were forcibly put to rest. as the garden montage goes on, pink becomes less happy around spinel—is she annoyed at the living reminder of her childish past? is it her growing discomfort with the oppressive gem system? was pink’s game for spinel to wait an order, akin to pearl’s, or was it the best “take a hint” she could manage?
the movie doesn’t answer these questions, and the show going forward might never address these, either. but i don’t think these have to be either or—people are motivated by several different things at once, and we can come to our own conclusions. this all just goes to show that the relationship was, tragically, artificial from the start; and for spinel to heal, she has to slowly and steadily learn to not rely on the affections of a single person. perhaps white, yellow, and blue can learn that friendship is something that has to be nurtured, not scientifically explained and created; and they can even get a second chance at raising a member of the family, having failed pink so many years ago.
Having spent probably way too much time analyzing Pink’s character, I think her leaving Spinel probably came down to three things:
- Spinel was, as you say, never really her “friend”. Spinel was a toy that the other diamonds probably made to try to placate Pink as she became more and more unhappy. As usual, they didn’t really understand what was actually making her unhappy in the first place, so it didn’t work, akin to parents that buy their child expensive new toys to try to make up for a lack of emotional support.
- Pink thought that having Spinel around would jeopardize her new colony at best, or actually endanger the both of them at worst. We have to remember that the Pink we see here isn’t the one that’s ready to become Rose Quartz; it’s the Pink that did THIS:
At this moment, Pink is full of anger - anger about Pink Pearl being taken, angry that she was helpless to do anything about it, angry that she just can’t seem to FUNCTION as a Diamond no matter how hard she tries. This is Pink right when she’s starting to understand that she can’t carry on like this, and is actively trying to suppress her childishness and “shape up” so that she can finally, hopefully, be treated like an equal to the others. Spinel, unfortunately, becomes a problem here: for one, she’s a reminder of how the other Diamonds see Pink, and she’s also a DISTRACTION. Pink now knows what happens when she gets distracted. In Pink’s mind, if she wants to move on, she has to leave Spinel behind. Unfortunately, Pink is absolutely shit at confrontation, so instead of just telling Spinel this, she....well, she did that.
- And finally, Pink is just....honestly really really short-sighted. I’ve talked in a few places about how Pink is ADHD-coded, and the #1 reason I have for thinking that is the fact that she displays the classic ADHD time-blindness: she can only ever see what’s in front of her RIGHT NOW. If we want to be honest about what she was thinking would happen here, the answer is probably that she wasn’t thinking anything. She certainly didn’t think Spinel was going to stand there forever and be traumatized. She was solving what she thought was the problem in that exact moment, and very likely didn’t give much thought to how it was going to effect the future at all. If anything, she probably thought she could come back and get Spinel, and maybe everyone else (coughPinkPearlcough) after she’d become a Real Good Diamond and was respected. It’s not like she KNEW that she’d be launching herself headfirst into a rebellion as soon as she stepped foot on her new planet.
As for why she never came back for Spinel during the rebellion...well, Rose never came back for ANYBODY. Not Spinel, not Pink Pearl, not even the Pebbles. There’s no clear-cut reason why, but probably because she didn’t believe that she could. Rose always seemed to think that Homeworld was untouchable - she could fight for the Earth and the gems on it, but anything that was back home? It was too risky to try to save.
Rose was a fearful, self-centered, deeply flawed person. She hurt Spinel and nothing is going to change that. But that’s the tragedy of life: it’s so, so easy to hurt someone if you aren’t careful and don’t communicate. I’d say that’s probably one of the overarching themes of the show.