Blog Updates

Hello! As it has been a while, I think a quick FAQ is in order because I have 300 messages in my ask box. 

Will there still be SU analyses?

This is perhaps the most pertinent question I’ve been receiving. The short answer is, yes. There are still plenty of things I want to talk about, and SUF rekindled my interest in talking about them.

The long answer is, while there are still a bunch of things I want to talk about, SU has effectively ended. And in the wait for its ending, I’ve also come across other things I want to talk about too. 

It was difficult for me, receiving feedback on my SVTFOE analyses that people preferred this remained an SU-exclusive blog. And that made it difficult for me to keep writing here when I felt a pressure to focus only on SU. Now that it’s ended, though, I hope that while the SU content will keep coming out, it will definitely be peppered with other things as well.

Where have you been?/Are you okay?/Are you still alive?

Yes! Very much alive. As I mentioned in my Reviving the blog post, I’ve been working after college, and the adjustment to that kept me very busy the last two years. But the last few months, despite everything that’s going on, I think I’ve got the hang of this thing.

I currently work in health policy, and, well, given everything that’s going on, there are days when it’s been hard to want to stay in this line of work. I also teach in university part-time. Both haven’t been easy with the pandemic, especially since there’s a lockdown being implemented where I am, and just living in a developing country, where politically and economically, things have been on edge in normal times, now all the existing structural problems are exacerbated.

And after working my butt off for the last two years (or let’s all of them), I’ve been accepted into some Ivy League grad schools in the USA (future updates on that later), where I hope to start putting my over-analysis skills into even more practice this Fall.

So I’m alive. Like many, I’m fighting very hard to keep building the future with everyone else making their way through every day in these tough times.

Where is this blog going?

And that leads to this final question in the mini-FAQ. Aside from SU, I enjoy a lot of other media very much. Some of these are:

And I may or may not discuss these and others, especially if prompted by an ask or a comment about them. 

Also, the diversity of my interest has me reading constantly, and I’ve started GM-ing D&D, working on podcasts, and overall just writing more. And if y’all want to see that content, just let me know. 

Character Analysis: On Steven in SU Future Part 1

It’s been quite a while since the last SU analysis, but let’s get right back at it. In this post, I want to talk about how Steven was introduced in Steven Universe Future (SUF). I’ll be limiting the discussion of his character to the first 10 episodes, from Little Homeschool to Prickly Pair, because I feel like episode 10 serves as a really good act break for the series. Mainly, I’ll be focusing on the jarring introduction we have to Steven who, we see, struggles with peacetime. 

If any of you remember my reaction posts where I talk about how my kid cousin reacts to watching SU, well, she’s not such a kid anymore and found 16-year old Steven uncomfortable to watch at times. 

In SUF, Steven is 16. Mentally and emotionally, that's quite a ways away from where he started in Gem Glow, when he was only 13 years old. Saying he’s also been through a lot is an understatement. And if the answering back, general fatigue, and tough cynicism, surprises you, you’ll have to consider that:

1. We’ve seen this side of Steven since the SU Movie and even in the SU series

The SU movie began with Steven wanting his happily ever after. In the aftermath of Change Your Mind, Steven was slowly rebuilding his life back on Earth. After two years, he thinks he’s finally settled down. That’s when Spinel arrived. And quite a few times, he responds to the events going on around him with cynicism, frustration, and feeling as though he’s been cheated out of his peacetime and closure. 

Source: SU Wiki

And this thinking is probably true for a lot of us. We tend to view our life in chapters and neat boxes. We try to point to just one big thing that we’re chipping away at slowly, in the hopes that after that thing is solved, we’ll finally be happy. Whether that’s money, power, or a specific attainment, it’s easier to generalise one thing as the solution to our problems.

For Steven, it was dismantling the Great Diamond Authority and freeing the colonies. The GDA and especially White Diamond served as the embodiment of what he felt was his main obstacle.

When Spinel introduces a new problem, one left behind by his mother, he’s understandably frustrated, because Steven was born into a context he couldn’t control, and over and over again it feels as though Rose’s shadow continues to cast a darkness over his life that he cannot escape.

But life doesn’t resolve itself so neatly. For as long as we remain, there will always be new challenges to face and new opportunities to take what we can from them. Even in the movie, Bismuth tells him,

Source: SU Wiki

And in SUF, he once again feels that way. Supposedly, the past was supposed to be put behind him. That’s why calling it Steven Universe Future is so brilliant. The entire series, he’s trying to look to the future, but the past cannot so simply be erased.

There are other things, like Steven imposing his will (in ways he cannot control at times) over others. The way his bubble enclosed over everyone in Little Graduation is very similar to his trapping Lars and Sadie in Island Adventure. Steven is still Steven, and sometimes, Steven overzealously thinks he knows what’s best for people and wants to help them be happy. It’s just that Steven has powers that can literally force people together.

Snow Day is reminiscent of Steven’s Birthday when Steven is afraid Connie is going to outgrow him, and he tries very hard to act his age, even pushing the limits of his shapeshifting.

The difference is that the way he’s experiencing and processing these same feelings is more complex now. He isn’t insistent that Lars and Sadie should be together because he thinks they would be. Now he just feels like he’s being left behind while everyone else’s lives and decisions are going in their own directions. It wasn’t that Lars and Sadie decided they weren’t going to work out so much as he, as their friend, felt like all of this happened without his knowing. 

Similarly, Steven isn’t afraid of being outgrown or left behind now, but he does want to be acknowledged for the age and maturity he does have and how he wants to present himself. Because at the core of it...

2. SUF is about Growing into Adulthood