@realifezompire / realifezompire.tumblr.com
Steven Let’s play a fun game about adventure and mortal peril! What could possibly go wrong? Universe is playing a Warlock who thinks he’s a Sorcerer.
Why not Bard? you ask
Well…
There was another contender for the position.
Originals are 6000x3700
| Commission info |
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started October, 14
finished December, 24 (waaaaay too long, i know)
so tired, but happy!
Welcome to Earth 🌎
Artist is @steven_uni_only on Twitter
-- Rebecca Sugar, "Steven Universe: End of an Era"
Pearl making this face at Greg
"She looks like our dead wife what do we do?"
And Greg just
"Sometimes there is no shame in bailing"
Here it is! My late tribute to Steven Universe Future. I can’t believe its already been a year since the series ended
Pearl shatters Rose a second time.
Rose and I talked about tons of important stuff. Music, comic books, getting sand between your toes, y'know, feelings. We both made a lot of mistakes when we were young—I thought disco was coming back, she started a war. I think she felt like she needed to confess everything to me, but I told her, “The past is the past. All that matters to me is who you are now.”
STEVEN UNIVERSE FUTURE: MR. UNIVERSE SPOILERS
Something I just haven’t seen anyone point out yet so I guess I have to form words into coherent sentences myself:
Who says Greg didn’t want Steven to meet his grandparents?
I mean, just because they’re a few hours away and Greg didn’t say anything to Steven, doesn’t mean he didn’t want them all to have a relationship.
Greg wrote letters. He wrote a lot of letters. He even got a P.O. Box so his parents could reply.
They never did.
Who’s to say he didn’t try to tell them about Steven? How do we know none of these letters are asking for them to visit Beach City, or for permission for Steven and him to visit Showne?
When did Greg stop calling them Mom & Dad?
So if they refused to talk to him, refused to do more than the bare minimum of acknowledging he was still alive by not throwing away those letters completely, what was Greg supposed to do? Just show up with his young son and expose him to that kind of attitude? Steven could barely fathom people being jerks to each other – he considered Lars’s attitude as playful and thought his Tiger Millionaire heel persona was just a big joke that everyone was in on – how was Greg meant to justify introducing his son to the people who, it is implied, mentally and/or emotionally abused him without even the smallest hint that they were sorry for how they’d treated him growing up?
People seem to be focusing on how it’s a lovely house. They still have their old family photo up. Greg’s things aren’t all shoved into the attic or a closet. Steven wishes he had met them. They kept the letters. But there’s more to it than that.
Steven grew up very different. He had freedom to the point of recklessness and was given almost no structure, especially now when he really needs it, and we’re seeing this from his point of view, so of course we’re meant to be on his side, of course we’re meant to see how that was also a bad thing in a different way, but it’s not fair to look at this so black and white.
Greg was a first time father, a single parent, with a new species of baby. There had been no one like Steven, and no one knew what to expect. All Greg could do was his best based on the information he had from the gems and his own upbringing. He did what he could, and he did somethings wrong as literally all parents do. That doesn’t mean he was spitefully depriving Steven of his human relatives.
Greg wasn’t secretly a bad parent, he’s just more like Rose than anyone expected, and with the headspace Steven is in right now, it’s no wonder he reacted the way he did to that realization.
There’s so many people out there trying to give Greg’s parents the benefit of the doubt, saying they meant the best for him, or that Greg just didn’t do a good enough job explaining to them he was unhappy. That Greg and Steven just need to talk to them, to reach out to them, and hope is a great thing.
But I knew the second I saw this shot that they didn’t love him. They didn’t answer his letters. Never. Didn’t even read them. Don’t try and tell me Greg didn’t try. Don’t tell me he didn’t reach out.
Greg didn’t just say they just discouraged music or pushed him to do sports, this isn’t a Barbara kind of miscommunication. He clearly said they forced him to do sports and music was off limits. He tried. From the looks of it, he tried many years after he left too.
Don’t try and tell me that parents that saw their kid constantly frowning or looking like they were gonna cry in their photos and did nothing about it loved their kid.
The only picture we see Greg look happy in was his school photo. Not the one they liked enough to frame. It is possible there are happy pictures around here with him and his parents we just didn’t see, but I wouldn’t place any bets on it.
The only mistake Greg made in Mr. Universe was not being more tactful with how he explained all of this to Steven.
Greg never specified the lack of love, and therefore Steven just didn’t get it. He saw all these pictures and trophies and baby items and thought, that’s love, right? He doesn’t understand or know about the parents who obsess over nick knacks, doesn’t get that these weren’t treasured memories to them, they were collectibles. Anybody who’d still keep the letters, but not open them, was clearly after the status of being parents, not the actual time with their kid. They kept in view things from a time he was obedient. But all Steven sees is the image of a pretty, normal family house, the image Greg’s parents were more obsessed with maintaining than communications with their actual kid.
They wanted him in their life at first, sure, but only back when they still thought there was hope that he’s end up just like them. Back when he would still go to the island, back when he couldn’t fight his hair getting cut, back when they thought he could be the cookie cutter clone of them that looked neat in family photos and would prevent them from having to explain to people what he did for a living or why he wasn’t going on vacation for them, yet again, using him as a part of their image, not their son.
Greg wouldn’t have called all of that junk, when he’s been shown to love collecting and having random junk, failed to emotionally connect or get nostalgic about a single item there, if there had been any love or bonding attached to any of them.
Greg is a loving, loving, forgiving man. If there had been any good memories in that house,
he wouldn’t have constantly looked miserable in it except when he was talking about when he escaped it.
Greg, unknowingly, and only trying to help, bless his heart, made a huge mistake with a single sentence.
“Trust me, your better off than I was!” OUch.
He pushed Steven away the second he made a comparison between their lives. You just can’t play the comparison game with people who were traumatized.
Was he right that Steven got to grow up with love Greg didn’t? Well, yes, but Steven doesn’t realize that. All he hears is the man who grew up in a nice, warm, not corrupted gem attacked house, with a nice, normal, not training just in case someone was on their way to murder you education, in a calm, relaxed, not born a war criminal childhood. And complaining about it!
Of course he got mad!! Even if Greg had specified he wasn’t loved, how could he dare use the word better to describe Steven’s life? Greg meant nothing bad by it, but as far as Steven was concerned, Greg was telling him he had a wonderful childhood, a wonderful future ahead of him, “just like mom” did.
Greg couldn’t have just brought up a half alien baby wanted dead in a normal community, training with the gems, unstable parents or not, was necessary for his survival. But in the heat of the moment, Steven doesn’t think of that, the way he talks in this scene, he really thinks he could’ve had that, that a normal childhood could’ve “fixed” him, and that his dad’s choice was the only thing that stopped him from having that.
And between that and the crash, that was the trigger needed for Steven to push his dad away. The guilt for yet another person he thinks he’s a danger to, and the huge feelings of jealousy he was too ashamed yet still too angry to voice over his dad getting to grow up human. Steven saw his yearbook pictures and nearly got choked up saying the words “more human” pausing with a frown he quickly gets rid of, yearning to be the human in Greg’s pictures.
So many out here are trying to take sides, either saying Greg was wrong and Steven was right, or Greg was right and Steven was wrong, but in the end both are true. Both had the right to be unhappy with what they were given, and both should have done a better job trying to understand and listen to the others plight.
While Greg should have worded things much, much more tactfully, and definitely, even if accidentally, hurt his kid with his words, he meant no more harm than any of the other people who’ve tried to cheer him up, and was right about all he said.
Yet you can’t get mad at Steven either, because as far as he’s concerned, all he learned today is that his dad had it so much easier, less terrifying, and found an identity in a way that Steven couldn’t relate to, couldn’t use.
That his dad can’t help him anymore.
Edit: I’m not saying redemption is impossible for his parents,(Steven Universe is all about second chances), I’m saying that I can’t see it happening. If you wanna be technical about it, anyone can be redeemed. But that’s the point isn’t it? Anyone can change, but they have to want to. The only person I could see being less likely to want to change is Marty.
While possibilities are endless, the people who can not love their own child while raising them don’t tend to be the kinds of people to have a turnaround. Not saying it hasn’t happened before, just that it’s so very, very rare.
These two made it very clear they didn’t want to, that they don’t want to. It would be different If the letters were opened. For a redemption/family reunion to work with these two, they’d have to make the first step. Perhaps they’d get wind of Steven’s existence, and in a change of heart that came in old age, they’d get motivated to try getting back in touch even though they thought at this point it was too late. Perhaps we’d get a shot of opened letters falling down not neat and tidy on the dresser.
For it to work for me, Greg would have to receive a letter.
But i’m not holding my breath.
That moment when you’re a little mad at Greg at first for never taking Steven to a doctor but then realizing it’s most likely because he didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford to.
Priyanka on her way to kick Greg’s ass
man this part of the episode is the only part in SUF that has really made me like, cry. the part with greg. I’ve been struggling still with missing my dad after he passed, so I had to draw this to sort of comfort myself I guess. Greg is amazing…
Here it is!! Finally! Would you consider this angsty?? I do..
might do a different version w more angst ;)))
Steven seems to like being carried so I drew this
(Lmk if u want me to do this again but with suf steven!!)
