One of the more transgressive messages in Steven Universe is… not obvious in its transgression, and it takes a little setup to explain what’s so important about it. But it’s the notion that got me watching the show in the first place, back when I read about a recent episode.
A thing that people who skirt the surface sometimes criticize about the show is its notion of redemption, and how dangerously simplistic it seems at a glance. But, it’s not actually as simple as all of that. And it’s part of a more complicated discussion.
The more obvious half of the discussion is the one embodied in the redemption narratives that the show often explores. Basically, a big part of the show’s philosophy is that there are no Bad Guys; there are people who think and do destructive things. Usually for a reason.
But the quieter side of that is that likewise, there are no Good Guys. Rather, there are people who you like and trust to behave in ways that help, or at least take effort to avoid hurting, others. This isn’t moral relativism; it’s a pragmatic stance that no one is a monolith.
We are what we feel and we think and we do, and we’re all a bundle of contradictions. Even if we try our best, we’re going to do awful things sometimes, either unintentionally or just because we can’t help ourselves, due to how we’re wired. So, judging people on that is dicey. And people who have a history of harmful actions, that pattern isn’t necessarily set in stone; our actions depend on our pattern of thinking, which is based to a large extent in how we feel and what we expect. It’s all very muddy, and the best we can do is the best we can do.
Most “crime,” if you subscribe to that as a broad social phenomenon, isn’t a matter of bogeymen, of Bad People With A Gun or whatever, out there, waiting to get you. It’s people who you know and generally trust, who feel a destructive impulse and so take advantage of that trust. This nonsense that politicians and pundits always go on about, talking about individual or whole categories of human beings like cartoon villains or saints, talking about “black-on-black” crime as if it meant anything other than everyone nearly always hurts those closest to them—whatever group one might belong to, the statistics are roughly the same, in that all they reflect is the people one tends to know. There are no Good Men with a Gun. Nobody is born with a facial tattoo like that. Every Bad Man with a Gun is a Good Man until he does something Bad.
You can look at patterns of behavior, sure! Gun violence nearly always has precedent. It’s nearly always people (men) who feel wronged by those close to them (women) and decide to get them back, and anyone else who stands in their way while they’re at it. It’s all the same phenomenon. But, the point is, life isn’t so simple that you can put people into these boxes. The best you can do is look at past behavior and its causes, and figure out the wisest form of engagement and the likelihood it may be predictive of future behavior or might be mutable to some extent.
The redemption narratives are the easy part. There’s lots of precedent for stories like that. Every facile action hero extends their (his) hand to the cackling villain at the end of the movie who has never shown an ounce of mercy, to illustrate their superior moral grounding. So many stories are filled with face-turn antiheroes, and rivals turned allies, and all of that. This is familiar ground, even if Steven Universe takes it to an extreme in terms of how committed it can be to the idea. What’s trickier and more upsetting is the opposite of this.
Again, nearly all violence, nearly all abuse, it is going to come from people you know. People you trust. Which the show plows right into, in the middle of season two. I’ve talked before about how, with media analysis of “Cry for Help,” you don’t need to glance at the byline to know the gender of the writer. Somehow, and beyond the obvious I can’t fathom how, cishet men just… don’t get what’s happening here:
I don’t know how you can overlook a line like “those weren’t victories,” or just see the nature of the relationship here and remain so totally oblivious to what this conflict is about. But, there you go, I guess. There are no good guys. There are no bad guys. There’s only what you do. And the people you choose to trust.
I don’t know that I’ve seen another long-form narrative really get in this deep, commit this strongly, to undermining our internal narratives about the Kind of People who hurt or help each other. It’s all of us. It’s every decision we make. And it’s not this gray-moral thing. Abusers are your spouse, your uncle, your babysitter, your sibling, your neighbor, that family friend. They’re the people you let into your life, and so have the opportunity to do damage and feel like they can get away with it. Not everyone, but anyone. Any single decision.
This isn’t a point of paranoia. It’s just, it’s puncturing the myth and the assumptions about who Bad People are; what abuse and violence actually look like, and where it nearly always really comes from—which goes so counter to our entire cultural narrative, and most of our personal expectations, wired as we are to contrast bubbles of in-groups and out-groups, that it’s hard to know where to begin.
It’s this very upsetting truth that drew me into the show, and made me think, basically: holy fuck. There’s a TV show actively talking about this as an ongoing thing. And, it’s a fantasy adventure aimed at kids? This is the thing people have been yammering about on my timeline, all these months?
We tell ourselves these simple fairy tales and we think we live in them. And so much of our cultural discourse is based around these dynamics, that don’t actually map to human reality. It’s revolutionary to stand opposed to such a fundamental and uncorrected error.
Though she developed some nuance and rethought a few assumptions as she went along, Rebecca Sugar originally planned the show as an exercise in reverse escapism: pitch a fantastical premise, but play it for mundane and instead spend all your energy talking about reality—which is basically what the series does: it uses its framework (and its glorious web of metaphor) as an excuse to explore social and psychological and interpersonal dynamics that are very hard to talk about judiciously, and that many shows would go to great lengths to avoid.
In a world built on wish and fantasy like our own, the truth is always a transgressive thing. And what it most often serves to violate is an order of injustice. This is what art can do. This is the goal in life. This is what makes a thing important. And this is what got me.
(Note that all of this also applies to one’s relationship with one’s self. Which is an angle the show also explores in extraordinary detail.)
A thing about this show is that it tends to be kind of half-hearted with action and fight sequences, because that’s not something it cares about all that much. It’s more this inevitability. But, horror? It’s so on top of it. This is an important subject.
The corruption
And again with the sound design. The music that plays as Garnet struggles with the forced fusion, it’s a chopped-up, corrupted version of… well, this.
The Purity
Nearly all the horror is existential, because of course it is. When it’s embodied in a tangible threat, the threat is a threat generally less for its immediate ability to harm than for its implication. For its threat to the very essence of a person, and everything they hold dear. Invalidating one’s existence is pretty much Horror Embodied, here.
The Mother, the Son, the Holy Light
You’re not a real person. You are a perversion. Nothing you care about matters. It must be cleansed.
Horror is a function of the core drama and themes that the show serves to discuss. It’s a natural consequence of friction within those concepts. Action, rather less so.
Every bit of adversity is underlined, and made awful, less by its physical threat (no matter how large that may be) than by its psychological, emotional weight—again, usually in the form of invalidation.
Not the last time they’ll be defined like this.
All the more reason why season four is so crucial in this show, it being about Steven’s downward spiral, basically causing him to give up on himself—and why people who dismiss it as lacking story because it’s relatively slim on action setpieces are just, um. Well, silly.
Different sort of horror going on here. It’s all central to the show’s sense of conflict. All basically the same, in different hues.
Everything is so off here, even before the clouds go dark.
As I say, soon I want to go in deep on Rose’s portrait how it’s used in the show. From the very first episodes it’s this uncertain, ambivalent presence. If pressed, Steven will say it’s inspiring, but… of what exactly? As the show goes on, it looms more ominously.
Most of the monsters in the show, they were turned into monsters by despair. Their minds were broken, and they devolved along with their concept of who they were. Which is kind of an unspoken threat to all the major characters, if they sink low enough.
Tonal whiplash is the standard here.
Later in the same season as the above clip, there was a moment with Amethyst when it really looked like she might be in danger of losing grip on who she was. That’s not the direction the show went. As it happened, Jasper was the one who lost herself. But, it seemed like a real possibility for a time.
The ideas at the core of Steven Universe are deeply existential. They’re about identity and lived experience and expectation and abuse and obligation. It’s a show about misfits—people who’ve been told they’re wrong, and broken, and perverse, for even existing—slowly trying to find a way to cope, through mutual unconditional love. That’s not a scenario that a fist or a beast can really threaten all that much. But words, and doubt? They can be the end of everything.
Jeremy Parish muses over the NES ports of SNK’s Athena and Taito’s Arkanoid
Watching Jeremy Parish doing his best to defend a game he clearly does not enjoy, a bunch of things are clicking into place for me, suddenly, about the role of performance and execution in the allistic mind, compared to theory and intent.
For most people, what you mean to do, have to say, is all well and good—but even at their most generous they have trouble caring all that much unless it’s presented to them on their own terms. They almost seem to take personal offense when someone doesn’t bend over backwards to predict what they want and have it all ready and waiting, fixed exactly the way they know they like it best, before they arrive.
Whereas to my mind at least, polish is… fine? Like, it can be a nice last thing to help with clarity of vision. But what I’m most interested in is what the message is, what someone has to say. I don’t tend to assume that things are about me, for me, because nothing ever is.
The things that give me life are the most developed, interesting, original visions—which often are difficult to communicate and need some level of intent engagement. If that’s not there, and all I see is polish, it’s, there’s nothing to engage with. I don’t see the point at all.
Athena I find an endlessly fascinating game, in part because it’s so impenetrable. There’s so much going on here, so much I’ll maybe never fully understand, and that’s amazing to me. Arkanoid is also-good, but that’s almost entirely because of its vision. The clarity of its execution does little to improve communication of its vision, so it doesn’t really fuss me one way or another—except to make me nod and say, oh, yeah, I get it; interesting. I find myself thinking about it far less, ergo it occupies less space in my mind. With the game taking up less space, inspiring fewer synapses to take root, it gives me less fuel for general Understanding of Stuff. Less of a sense of wonder. Less of a sense of something bigger, even than the game’s own ideas. (Again, though, Arkanoid is pretty wonderful itself.)
And, you know. In the exceedingly rare instance when something does appear to cater to me, it rankles the heck out of my suspicions. And often with good reason. It’s almost always toying with me, and I almost always feel used at the end of the exchange.
The works that are all head-down and almost totally unconcerned with how they come off to other people because they’re so focused on exploring a notion that they’ve hit on, those are the most absolutely exciting things, and I just wanna be friends with them.
Granted, Micronics (the one-bedroom company that handled the notorious NES ports of several early Capcom and SNK titles) is awful. No way I’m gonna defend their coding. But I don’t see what that has to do with the ideas at play; it’s just another systemic barrier. Like, to me there’s a big difference between dismissing Athena, the game, and dismissing Micronics’ coding on Athena. Yeah, it’s an absolutely barfy port—but enough about that; what’s going on with the game is…
Anyway. This mode of engagement here, this allistic impatience with the strange and expectation for service, it ties into issues of abuse in past relationships, and into observations about privilege and expectations about media and shaping of information—like how white cishet men go apeshit when things aren’t specifically made for them. This all also further ties queerness to neurodivergence…
There are degrees to everything, of course. Parish is behaving entirely reasonable in this video, and makes some sincere effort to engage with the merits and ways-of-thought of even the more inscrutable of the two games. But I think in the clear effort that he shows to be fair, he kinda illustrates the issue.
Like, the dynamics become very clear: Athena is a strange game that doesn’t make much of an effort to explain itself, and it takes a supreme amount of patience for him to cut through that and engage with its perspective as well as he can. And he’s clearly not thrilled with the task.
To put maybe too fine a point on it, the attitude that Athena receives in this video, it’s sorta, well, it’s the best I feel I usually can hope for in treatment myself, from most people. And this level of patience is pretty uncommon, because of the effort it takes. Most people aren’t used to having to do this all the time.
Being autistic, of course, I am! It’s the only way I understand anyfuckingthing. And so if I’m gonna put the same effort into just comprehending-at-all a glossy surface with limbo behind it as I do a rusty shell filled with wonder and mystery, I’m gonna invest my energy where it’ll do me the most good.
(I’ve always been drawn to archaeology and lost information that has to be puzzled together. The thing that really got me into Doctor Who, after multiple efforts to engage me, was the return of “The Lion” in 1999 and stumbling into the whole missing episode situation.)
There’s a certain magic to puzzles. If by the act of engaging with a thing I understand it into existence, and am able to help communicate its ideas more widely, I feel like I’ve made the world a little better. Like all of the supreme effort it takes just to live has a purpose.
Which I guess also explains the kinds of writing I’ve done over the years…
“Tiger Philanthropist” is a weird one, in that it’s a direct sequel to “Tiger Millionaire”—an episode that everyone seems to adore yet leaves me cold outside some early character stuff for Amethyst. This one is basically the same episode, but With Meaning, and everybody hates it.
The idea here is, well, yet another part of Steven’s life is falling apart. Yet another relationship is sort of collapsing, another piece of what he considered stable just isn’t there anymore. As has been happening all season. It’s yet another window into his inability to cope.
I know many of the random characters who show up around town are based on production team members, but I wonder about Fanny Pack Grandpa down there in the corner. I mused about him elsewhere, but he’s in the show as early as “Bubble Buddies” and as late as “Change Your Mind.”
Part of the subtext of this episode is basically, yeah, the show has moved on now. The daft little things that used to merit whole episodes in the early seasons, they seem inconsequential compared to what’s been happening—yet for exactly that reason, Steven still clings to them.
He’s still a kid. He shouldn’t be dealing with the shit he’s going through. All he wants is to hang onto these little things to give him joy and a sense of purpose and normality. It’s not just that he’s growing up, losing innocence. It’s that, he wants things to still matter.
He feels like everything is slipping through his fingers and leaving him behind, grasping at air. Barely acknowledging him. Everyone’s moving on. This is going to continue for some while to come. It’s going to get really bad at the start of the next season.
The specific way that Amethyst gives up their shared thing, without consulting him, just typifies this. Just moments before he was soaking in the escapism of their little role play routine, forgetting all the garbage that’s been going on. Then she just quit on him, like that.
“What a sad and anticlimactic end to one of the greatest tag-team careers to ever grace the squared circle.”
“Ahhh! Got my Saturday nights back!” To do what, exactly, Amethyst? What defines Saturday for you? How do you even know what day it is?
And then we get into all this messiness, complicating Steven’s own ambivalence with his outsized sense of responsibility. This is just one little thing, that maybe he can kind of control, that maybe he can keep from going completely to shit and ruining things for everyone else?
He’s just, so desperate to make this work. To save this one dumb little thing, to make a few people happy. He does a face turn and just starts giving things away. Which only further irritates Lars (at least, and as proxy for the rest of Tiger Millionaire’s fans).
“It’s like… the sequel no one asked for.”
“What?! It’s the sequel YOU asked for!”
“You want him to lose, and… keep his money, right?” “No, I don’t want him to *lose*. It’s just…” “What do you want him to do?! Just tell me!”
“I don’t know! I don’t even know what I want for breakfast half the time!”
And, you know what Tiger Philanthropist does, right? He just… gives up. He doesn’t care anymore. He gives away the title belt to whoever can reach it first. Amethyst leaps in at the last minute to give some emotional closure, but. Yeah.
How can this be happening?! It was just getting good! You can’t quit now! Tiger!”
I’m just not sure that I see the value in an immediate reaction to a thing. Maybe it’s my autism, but I only tend to know what to think of anything in retrospect, and the more information I have, the better I can figure out what I think and feel. Surprises interfere with that.
Like, I don’t experience anything in the moment. Everything is posterity for me. And so, uh, things that are meant solely to trip people up in the moment tend to kind of irritate me as they get in the way of longer-term understanding of a thing.
I find any first experience with a thing to be sort of a first pass. A painful rough draft of understanding, where I expect I won’t pick up most of the important details that I need to actually understand what the fuck is happening. Which, yes, makes social situations difficult.
In the case of media, actually watching a thing, taking it in, it’s like research. The real experience happens later, inside my head, when I work through all of the stimulation that makes no sense to me when it’s in front of me. Holding important stuff back makes that harder.
Once I have sufficiently interpreted a work, what the words and actions and themes and idea actually mean, and why, and pertaining to what, then eventually I’m primed to be able to have something like a real-time emotional experience while taking it in. But it’s like practice.
The notion that I’m going to get anything like a useful reaction out of a thing the first time I see or hear it, it’s kinda absurd to me. It takes me weeks, months, years to understand simple conversations I’ve had.
(I’m able to run through ideas much more quickly and clearly in writing than otherwise. Again, that’s kinda how autism works. And that’s probably why I wound up spending so much time writing about media, for as long as that was tenable.)
Likewise, any event or work where the whole point is to elicit a cheap, immediate reaction… kind of falls completely flat with me? Like, it doesn’t work, except to the extent of puzzling me until I figure out why they did such a thing and figure out—oh, contrivance! Okay then.
I’m like. People who are extremely socially focused, they get angered by my lack of response to things, sometimes. I’ll just listen and nod, and they’ll read in all of this meaning to my apparent decision not to engage in banter or show an appropriate emotional reaction.
The real meaning is that I have no clue what is happening around me, and I’m just sponging up what I’m able to while carefully filtering the overstimulation that comes from things happening around me at all, so that I can lay it out in front of me later and start puzzling it out.
This doesn’t work too well with interpersonal relationships. People don’t like it much when I go back for clarification, especially for things they figure I should be able to figure out on my own (but can’t!). But media, it allows for repeat engagement and nuanced understanding.
And that’s where 100% of the value lies, from my personal experience: a work that supports revisiting, to understand more fully. Anything less is just… kind of, pain? Like, I wasted my life subjecting myself to something that wasn’t actually gonna be worth the long-term effort.
Any experience is a sort of pain to me, at least in the moment. It’s a thing I suffer through in order to grow retroactively.
I don’t expect the experience of my particular neurology applies to everyone (as a lifetime shows it clearly clearly doesn’t!), but, uh. It’s definitely a real thing.
There is a level of presumption that comes with the notion that a person’s immediate response to a thing is their most genuine and telling reaction, that doesn’t really map to my lived experience and actually has been the foundation of a lot of abuse that I’ve suffered.
And I think that, as people do, rejecting a different model of experiencing time and stimulation and processing of information as a lie, as something that doesn’t happen and is a mask for some kind of other underhanded business, it’s maybe not… an entirely good way to go about things?
The implication behind anti-spoiler rhetoric is that one’s first exposure to a work is a special experience to be treasured, that should not be tarnished by foreknowledge or else one’s appreciation for its impact will surely be diminished. My counter-argument: but, is it?
I’m saying that from another perspective, a first exposure to a thing is an awkward, obligatory draft round that you get out of the way in order to be able to appreciate a thing properly, and thereby “spoiling” that experience is arguably, well, at least in part a good thing?
I don’t know how many things I’ve thrown away because I couldn’t wrap my head around them and I didn’t immediately understand why I should devote the time to figure them out—only to have them explained to me later and realize how much I adored them. First impressions suck ass.
Like, I find them 100% useless in understanding anything. I’m getting old enough that before I devote my very scant energy to thinking about a thing, I like to research first; see what I’m getting into. Tell me the whole plot if you want. You know, it’s just stuff happening.
What matters to me about a work—and I grant this is not a universal perspective—is how it betters me through understanding of Stuff. This is a long-term process. And a first pass is just this disorienting familiarization to permit the important work to get started.
Again, the distinction here is that I can’t experience things in the moment, really. Not in the way a neurotypical person would (by most accounts!). So this special visceral thing that people describe from their immediate emotional responses, it’s this alien weirdness to me.
Much as I know my own perspective comes off that way to most people I encounter. Different brain shapes, you know. Point being, the suggested “lie” is in the notion that the first experience isn’t this special thing you can never get back, and that there’s nothing to spoil.
And, well. That’s not a lie. I don’t see it as special; I see it as a barrier of entry. I don’t see how one could describe an attempt to mitigate that barrier and actively appreciate a thing as in any sense spoiling that experience. Because that experience is worthless to me.
Or close enough to it, anyway. Because that’s the way I interact with things, the way my brain is wired. I’ll even counter that so many experiences for me have been spoiled by *not* knowing enough to be able to cope with them ahead of time. This is a much bigger problem to me.
Really super simple example: there’s no way in hell I’d have gotten interested in Steven Universe if I hadn’t read several articles about the arc where Pearl effectively rapes Garnet, and then gone back and watched “Stronger Than You.” I filtered the show out for ages until then.
Until I had a glimpse of something deeper, of what the show was actually doing and talking about, and how, I was unable to engage with it. It was just this visual noise. That’s not unusual, I know, needing a hook. But that need for a hook, it’s more of a fundamental thing here.
I don’t feel like I appreciate a thing well enough to respond to it on what I’m guessing is probably the level that a neurotypical person might do on a first pass until I know it backwards and front. Because my brain isn’t wired with those kinds of natural assumptions one makes.
There’s this thing with autism where, like, they’ll do studies of kids and they’ll have them sort things. A neurotypical person will quickly work out this shorthand, and breeze through. The kid with autism will take each instance individually, on its merits; make no assumptions.
This can be useful in some kinds of cases, approaching every fucking thing you meet as if you’re brand new. But in other cases where it’s expected you’re able to chew gum while riding a bicycle, so to speak—e.g., socially—it sets one up for huge, distressing levels of confusion.
A conversation with a piece of art, it’s basically a conversation with another mind. And I can’t do chit-chat. It is almost literally impossible. I sit there, waiting for them to finish speaking. If it’s just one line, I blink at them, wondering where the rest is. It gets weird.
I think in paragraphs. Which again is pretty common with this neurology I got here. And when I’m with other people with a similar neurology it works dandy; there is an intuition about when people are going to speak, and how much, and in what ways, and so on. It’s tailored.
Art, it’s another kind of discussion, because the statement is bottled. You engage with it by picking at it, stripping away the layers. And, it’s that process of understanding that happens after you already know the full boundaries of the discussion, that’s the real relationship.
Okay. If we can get over the experience of Ronaldo being insufferable and look at why we have an episode about Ronaldo being so insufferable, it gets a little more interesting.
What we’ve got here is a discussion of toxic allyship. Which is… it’s an unusual thing to talk about, but it’s relevant to a lot of stuff going on in leftie spheres. On the one hand, swell; good to have people theoretically on your side. But, none of this is really about them.
It’s not even all that subtle about what it’s doing, with this white dude who starts off passing out, er, Ronalphlets about these insidious figures infiltrating society who, among other things, “hate men.” When checked on his bullshit, he goes away to think then has a revelation.
And now he’s like Joss Whedon or some shit. Just creepily in there and making this whole discussion about someone else’s struggle all about him. Ultimately, after all the familiar fuckery of even accusing in-group members of not being in enough, he learns to be a better ally.
Like. Show your support, but give them breathing room. Don’t speak for them, but have discussions with other out-group members about who the group is and try to correct misconceptions. Help to spread acceptance. Keep your own ego out of it.
It’s, hm. Not sure exactly how to talk about this. But I think part of the long, long delay in my recognizing my gender diversity and accepting my sexuality for what they are was out of fear of co-opting someone else’s thing. Like, who am I to say that any of this applies to me?
I’ve co-opted things before, as I’m sure most people have. And I’m not entirely certain if I meant well or not; it’s hard to tell, you know? I don’t want to act like a dick. I don’t want to be like Ronaldo here, barging into a scene he doesn’t understand and making his groove.
Ronaldo is a fragile guy. He has a really poor sense of self. I don’t know what hole it is in his life, what he’s avoiding with all his conspiracy theories and everything else he does. I’m tempted to connect a few dots with his lack of a mother figure. He’s older than Peedie…
And, like, when is “Lion 4: Alternate Ending?” Soon, right? Three episodes from here. Which is where Steven goes all conspiracy crazy about his mother and his place in the world. Ronaldo is this lost figure, just trying to figure out where he belongs, what everything really means
At the end of the season, Steven of course figures he’ll rid everyone of the burden of himself and all the weight he carries as his mother’s son. When, uh, the Rock People do in fact come to town and… what is it Ronaldo says in this episode? Hang on.
Seriously, though, I want to feel free to walk around town like this.
Okay, not many details, but. Again, this is just a few episodes before this all… kinda actually becomes relevant, what with Aquamarine and Topaz. Could be a little more on-the-nose, but in retrospect, this absolutely serves as foreshadowing.
Point being, there are parallels in this episode between Ronaldo and Steven. It’s safe to say when Ronaldo shows up, he’s usually there for a reason actually. Sort of a canary thing. You don’t want to make the connections because he’s so friggin’ annoying, but that’s the point?
Ronaldo has no filter, and so he tends to play out things that other people choose not to say or haven’t fully processed yet, and serve as, um, a catalytic clown. Gosh, that’s a term, huh. He presages the development of important themes and concepts before they fully manifest.
And Ronaldo’s whole misadventure with the Crystal Gems… it’s not accurate, because when does Ronaldo ever really get the meaning right, but it kind of mirrors how Steven is starting to feel about himself at this point.
Which again the episode even makes explicit, during the scene where Ronaldo in his seventh day (or whatever) of sleep deprivation convinces Steven to walk out and question his own role in the team. Which is over almost immediately, because it’s a Bugs Bunny gag, but. You know.
Like. Ronaldo in this episode is who Steven is starting to get scared that he is. The way that everyone feels about Ronaldo is how Steven is becoming scared that everyone feels about him. Sorta kinda. Broadly. He’s not fully one of them. He’s a burden. He’s a liability.
And at the same time we get an episode about how absolutely not to support a marginalized group of people.
You can get a lot more out of a story if you’re not all caught up in this notion of being entertained.
All of this hit me about two minutes into the episode. I’ve not actually watched this full thing get. Possibly because of my hang-ups about being entertained. Hang on, let me get some cola and see this through in full before I say anything else.
It’s some character trait to be able to yell an ellipsis.
Yeah, Steven leaps right in by comparing himself to Ronaldo. The CGs tell him his body is organic and he doesn’t have a gem.
“M-my body’s organic, and I’m a Crystal Gem!”
“You’re going to entertain this?”
This whole conversation, yeah, hits both of the above points square-on.
It both goes on about how isn’t it good that someone’s taking an interest, and shouldn’t we accept allies where they come—and also shows how much Steven is projecting his own insecurities onto Ronaldo. Like, accepting Ronaldo into the group is proxy or test for accepting himself.
Here I am Ronaldoing my own self. This isn’t the end of the episode. This is, like, twenty seconds after I said I wouldn’t post anymore.
Well, whatever. The episode also kind of deals with Ronaldo, um, fetishizing, for lack of a better way to put it, the CGs and their identities and ways of life. He’s role-playing with stuff he bought at anime conventions. Already getting close to the line with this nonsense.
The fetish thing often being a big element of toxic allyship. Again, look at the Joss Whedons of the world. They downplay the creep factor here, but they get the psychology down hard.
As a long-time aficionado of James “Kibo” Parry, I have to once again commend the writers and storyboarders for their commitment to the inexplicable ubiquity of durian juice.
As a character note, I absolutely have to underline that Ronaldo wears khaki cargo shorts.
I don’t think I need to say much more about that.
Hell. Yeah. So. When Ronaldo doesn’t get to go with them on the next mission that comes up, again here’s Steven projecting himself onto him: “I didn’t get to come along at first either!” (All of which we thematically revisit, of course, a season later…)
Oh fuck. And what does Ronaldo say as they warp away?
“But… I’m a Crystal Gem too… “
In terms of Steven’s mental breakdown, I think it’s actually kind of relevant to have an episode that establishes he’s afraid on at least some level that he’s just another Ronaldo.
Ronaldo, actively undercutting Steven’s already-shaky confidence in his identity at every step. Even in the dumbest fucking ways. “Funny that you… sleep, when Gems don’t need sleep. Why is that?” “I—I don’t know?”
A very relevant time for a callback, actually.
Steven doesn’t get outwardly angry all that often, but his annoyed face always kills me.
What the—they actually fucking redrew the whole background for a very slightly closer-up shot in the same scene?
Again, Ronaldo saying what nobody wants to address.
Notably, it’s not until Ronaldo picks on Connie that Steven gets his ire up.
And as I’ve commented before, this episode probably has the single best line in the whole show.
The signs… don’t quite say what they seem to say.
NOW WITH 100% EEEL POTATO
YES, LAE’RE OPEN
It’s not ambiguous. They’re just… intentionally misprinted for some reason. Which just adds another level to the strangeness.
About five seconds later, drawn even smaller, we get REAL POTATO. It could have looked like this in the other one, but it doesn’t. On purpose. Just… because?
I mean. Ronaldo is Ronaldo, and this show isn’t about him. Really, none of this is about him. But the growth that he demonstrates, tortured and minor as it may be, it’s not unimportant for the things the show has to say.
Right, and the very last note of the episode is Ronaldo asking Steven why he never uses his Gem name. To which he responds that it’s his mom’s name, and nobody ever calls him that unless they’re about to kidnap him or beat him up.
Going to go light on “Storm in the Room” because I’ve unraveled that one so heavily elsewhere. And, uh, I can’t quite figure out where that was at the moment. I did track this down, though:
A thing that particularly baffles me is when people dismiss “Storm in the Room,” which for my money is close to my favorite episode of the entire show. It’s the apotheosis of the show’s themes to that point, and basically the crux for the show’s entire third act. And, it’s such an unnerving piece of drama. The whole pacing of it is unlike anything else in the show. I’m almost not sure if I’m more impressed with the quiet first half, in which Steven sweats and tries to avoid his mother’s portrait, or the stormy climax to the second half.
His rage against Rose’s figure, it may be his most upsetting character moment. There’s a little Wizard of Oz moment in the resolution (oh, that Sugar) to cheer the audience up a bit, but this is, I think, the moment that finally breaks him, allowing the finale to happen; allowing Lars to die; allowing all of the relationship upset in early season five to occur; allowing him to finish his journey that ends on the beach with that little song about self-love.
Season four is when the show finally breaks Steven. And it does so in such a heartrending way. The show had been unavoidably building to this point ever since “Full Disclosure,” but in reality since its earliest episodes, with the Gems consciously protecting Steven from a reality they knew he couldn’t yet handle. It’s a thing that had to happen, dramatically, to produce the consequences that would permit a resolution of the show’s overarching conflicts—all of which is what season five serves to fuss over. But, season four—this is what the show has been preparing us for the whole time. This is what the rest of the show serves to clean up. This is the centerpiece, in dramatic terms.
And, personally, I think it pretty well nails it.
I’ve written so much about this episode. It’s galling that I can’t find more. But, it’s just one of the very best things the show has done as of early 2019. I’ll probably come back to it in later thought-chunks.
Likewise if I can locate my notes or other material, I may well return to update this entry.
So, yeah. I keep rehashing this stuff in writing, because this is the way that I think. But, the way this all is panning out is, I don’t fully respond to either binary gender and I never have—but where I do fall, it’s not ambiguous. It’s clearly much closer to female than male. And the more I respond to this, and realign my thinking and conscious sense of self to what’s always been steering this thing underneath though I’ve been told never to look, the less constantly-awful I feel. This base level of garbage I’m used to feeling, it just goes away.
Again I’m cautious not to be performative or reactive, and for it to come from a place of truth—and earnestly, it’s just such a weight off, every small step toward femininity I take. At least, a sort of dorky, passive femininity. My brain, I’m wired to be girly on balance.
This is the me whom I love. And so many prickles fall away when I’m allowed to drop the awful mask and just… be this person. This big part of me, I do see as female. Yes, in sum I can’t deal with the binary thing—but for this aspect, it helps to think of her as a her.
Again with the containing multitudes; the truth in the singular “they.” I imagine it’s easy to misread or pathologize what I’m saying here. It’s just hard to explain neurology except in metaphors to concrete external things with existing nouns and verbs, like relationships. Different parts of me guide different parts of my day. Domestically, moment to moment, just in terms of keeping myself company, she’s the part who tends to take over and feel most comfortable. When pondering, I tend to go to this gender-blank space tied to the other person I’ve learned to be all these years. The one I use to face the world.
Whenever there’s a danger of encountering other people, I’m… not sure what to do. Azure’s sure as heck not confident enough to take the lead at the moment. My usual face has always been useless for that. That leave me with this awful mask I’ve been forced to hew out over the years. And I just hold it up, show people something along the lines of what they may well expect or want to see, and hope no one looks closely enough to notice all the cracks as I scuttle out and do as I need, then retreat. At which point I toss the mask aside, breathe, and decompress.
Building this relationship with myself—that’s one thing. Building it to a point where I can show my real self in public, that’s something else. Something I’ve never figured out, but I now better understand why not. We’ll figure this out together, eventually, I think. Maybe. Again it would help to live almost anywhere else, but… I’m starting to get a hang of my situation enough that maybe I’ll be able to do something about this in the next year or so.
If you know me, you know about my sensitivity to sound. Much of that’s an autism sensory thing, but also it just slots into my memory centers better than most things. I don’t remember names or faces, really, but I remember voices very well. And melodies and rhythms and so on. That sensitivity plays into one of the bigger elements of dysphoria in this whole process, and one that’s taking a bit more effort.
I’ve had years of voice training—albeit decades ago, while working on my music degree—so it’s not alien territory, finding new shapes for things. But I’m awful with practice, and discipline, and my muscles are weak from lack of regular use. So that’s this ongoing project, finding my literal actual voice as sort of a conduit and icon of finding my more metaphorical one. It’s hard. Like, really hard. But I’m getting somewhere.
This is a major thing for me. There’s this switch in my brain, where I feel like when I get this down, I’ll have my larger sense of self pretty well nailed. I’m not in a rush; like anything, I’m trying to be earnest here and to get this right. It’ll happen if I keep chipping away
So there are two things, really. There’s the voice, which I’m slowly working on, and there’s the facial hair situation—which was never tenable, even when I was masking as male. It’s thin, it’s patchy, it’s slow, and it’s prone to ingrowing. I’ve never wanted it, but now I’m done.
That at least has more concrete solutions, whenever I’m financially able to pursue them. It’s a tangible thing I can point at and say, yeah, I can take care of that eventually, when the resources are together. It’s quantifiable; so fine. The voice is more of a personal struggle.
In the short term, as far as tangible reflections of my inner life… well, frankly I’m kind of girly anyway, which has always been part of the struggle with others trying to box me into a shape that physically and mentally doesn’t fit. But I’m maintaining my body okay, for once. I’m taking time to actually just pay attention to myself. And it’s making a big difference, emotionally. As well as helping to dissuade the impression that I just climbed out of a gutter. I also have been mending key clothing articles, and have bought some small basic items.
Nothing extravagant. A couple of cami tops. My old underwear was all falling apart, so good time as any to replace it. Everything on sale. But, just a simple swap of a few elements makes a huge difference in impression—illustrating how fucking arbitrary gender is as a construct. People are all basically the same, underneath all the mental and emotional and physical and social decorations we lace onto them.
Then I’ve got my eye makeup coming on Friday. (Again, cheap as I could find. Gotta eat and maintain a place to live, but also gotta start somewhere with emotional needs.) Super oblivious here, but also curious enough that I know I’m gonna go in deep in figuring this out.
I feel like if I were still in New York I could just go outside like whatever, and nobody would give half a shit if they happened to notice at all. But, I’m not in New York! So I still feel a bit under siege. Still, hey.
Just, to compile a couple of previous comments: yeah, as scrawny (even malnourished!) as I may be, I do have noticeable fatty tissue to my breasts—as people close to me have on occasion made, well, an occasion. This often contributed to my body issues when trying to mask as male. It’s not even to the level of an A-cup, I don’t think. Not that I’m an expert. But it’s there-enough to be a talking point. And it’s interesting how the “shelf” in a cami affects this. I’m so goddamned—I need to eat more, right. I could use some fat on me. But even without HRT, I like the shape things are taking.
The more I conform my handling of my body to its actual shape, and my real sentiments, the more comical it feels that anyone ever tried to paint something else over this. Like, really? I’ve had so many body issues in my life, precisely because it’s failed in all these attempts. But taken away from these external influences, and just attended as its own thing, I’m… I kinda like it, actually? I’ve always been made to feel… gross, and misshapen, and like a lost cause. But I can work with this.
Nearly every part of my body has caused me to feel ashamed at some point, either for going against what I was told I must be or for supporting that mold so ineffectively that I was made to feel broken. But flip the tune, and it’s really just the voice and whiskers that need work. After that, it’s little things. Maybe HRT could help fill out my face a bit, pad some areas better. I’m sure it would help my brain! This is all subtle stuff, though. Polish. Which… I don’t know. Again, no rush. But it’s a consideration, once some other stuff is settled better.
Also, I’m at the elevation of Big Bird. So I’m never going to not stand out. But, whatever.
But anyway, I notice just the way I move and hold myself, and respond to things, it’s changing so much. I’m not accustomed to smiling, at all. Or feeling allowed to gesture or use my hands. And all of this stuff, there’s this level of freedom. Like a real person is forming now.
I’ve never felt entirely real, you know. I’m sure I’ve talked about this extensively over the years.
I don’t actually know the deal with my hormones, but amongst my total lack of a sex drive, my retention of scalp hair, my total lack of body hair (except sparsely on the limbs) and my pathetic facial hair situation, I suspect that I’m not quite bursting with testosterone. I don’t know that I have a lot of estrogen going on either. But proportionally… well, again with my body’s features. I think I may just be low on both, considering how frickin’ long it took for me to develop at all, and how slowly it did once it started. Which may in turn have something to do with why I tend to look… quite annoyingly young, actually.
And also, potentially, have to do with the autism thing. Maybe.
If I were a mouse.
Estrogen reverses autism-like features in mice | Spectrum | Autism Research News Two new studies provide clues that may explain sex differences in autism prevalence. Italian researchers have found that injecting estrogen into the brains of young male mice reverses some of the… spectrumnews.org
There’s a lot going on here that as yet is poorly understood on an academic level. Anecdotally and experientially, though, it’s clear that LGBTQIA+ and neurodiversity are kinda all aspects of the same thing. It’s all overlapping alternative mind models.
And a lot of it, a lot of the brain-shaping that results in these different neurologies and thereby mind experiences, it seems to be linked to developmental hormones. Not always in ways that make a clear linear sense. Like, why the deep association between autism and transness? It totally makes sense on a lived experience level. Like, yeah, of course. Obviously. But logistically, it’s a bit of a “Huh?”—brain not getting enough estrogen, so it settles into this other shape that… not infrequently makes one feel detached from assigned gender? Huh?
I can’t speak for the AFAB camp, but on this side of things, estrogen deprivation means… what, hunger for more estrogen or something? Is that what’s happening? Is autism happening in part because the way it’s developing, the brain knows it wants more than the body’s giving it?
The logic would make a little more linear sense for AFAB transness, inasmuch as, oh, brain not absorbing much estrogen. So, that means a more male-ish brain, right? Maybe? Kinda? Again the research isn’t particularly established on this as yet. As it wouldn’t be, right? But a thing I find kind of interesting, is that my experience with autism is, uh, much more like autism in women. Which adds another dimension to the whole mess.
My autism, my asexuality, and my gender issues, they’re three angles of basically the same discussion, all about neutral acceptance of the shape of my mind. Of those three, by far gender is the most interesting, in part because it’s the most confusing for me, and most rewarding.
Like, the autism I kinda… I knew it was there, and how it basically worked. The main issue has been accepting it as valid rather than something offensive and wrong. The asexuality, sorta similar. Just, accept that I don’t care about this thing and that this is perfectly fine. They’re both important to nail down, but they’re pretty straightforward once you get to the point of acknowledging them. Everything about gender is so much more complicated, and it goes so much deeper. There’s so much I’ve not really, well, dared explore, by comparison.
I feel like I haven’t even come close to the core on this. There’s so much I’m just… it’s like magnetic barriers, you know. I know there’s something there, but the pain and avoidance are so thick and repulsive. Ergo, I guess, the elation with every nudge I make in this area.
I’ve always been so scared of myself. And I’m only starting to face why any of that might be.
All of which serves to unfold what I said earlier, about surveys. If I have to tick a binary box, it’s going to be female at this point. Not because that’s accurate, but because the question itself is inaccurate. And one wrong option is nevertheless less wrong than the other.
Working outside the gender binary sure is a thing, as far as figuring out how this space maps to what feels natural and true to who I am. It’s mostly about embracing femininity without overcompensating, since I’m okay leaving masculinity in the dumpster almost wholesale.
I’ve spent decades lying to myself in order to make other people feel comfortable, so I don’t want to start a new series of lies as this knee-jerk response. What this is all about is figuring out what’s real. So I’m really cautious of anything that approaches performance.
To that end, I’m slowly looking for where I’d probably be sat if I were assigned differently at birth, rather than manifesting and aiming for some kind of idealized end goal. And I think this is helping somewhat, reassuring me I’m making the right choices.
Which is steering me toward sort of a casual librarian lounge mess mode, rather than something, you know, fancy.
I am a piece of work. So that’s reality. Modulate the disaster; don’t pretend it doesn’t exist, or that I’m a different person. Just figure out the new key signature.
Connie asking the real questions in here. Did the zoo machines pierce Steven’s ears, or are those some kind of magnetic clip-on?
Also, this is Connie’s best shirt. It’s the same one she wears back in “Love Letters,” and probably some other places. I’ve always loved teal and turquoise—that whole range. Connie’s outfits, though they change frequently, usually incorporate some version of the color.
Dialogue thing: apparently despite there being, like, a few dozen people in Beach City, never mind wherever Connie lives (which isn’t Beach City), apparently it’s enough for a bus system, with a fairly regular schedule. One that connects neighboring towns, even.
Judging by the sound outside her house—in the daytime, compared to last time I had headphones on for this location—her house must be near a freeway. The sound is muffled, insulated, to the point nearby bird chirps are more prominent, but it’s persistent. Those cars sound fast.
I need to go back and pinpoint when Pumpkin’s pronouns changed.
Also, the bathroom scene: it’s interesting, as the dialogue bounces around, how the soundtrack mirrors, zorping back and forth between Lapis’ celesta and Peri’s… eerie… synth-celesta (?) thing, that she’s had since her first appearance on the warp pad, way back.
This is all especially curious as one of Connie’s key instruments (she has a couple) is celesta. Normally the show differentiates pretty well, but putting the three in a room together… I guess aivi and surasshu had fun with what that meant on their end.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
How is Connie seeing all this? The magic of artistic license, I guess.
This episode, it kinda… I understand its role as a cool-down after an intense multi-part plot arc, but I feel disappointed it doesn’t do more with the premise. It kinda just takes the idea of a B-team and shrugs it away. The best thing here is Lapis’ usual horrible attitude.
Seriously, this is some prime Lapis in here.
It’s just, you know. Three of the best characters in the show, teamed up for the first time as a backup for the Crystal Gems. You’d think this episode would write itself. … And as it happens, it kind of feels like it did?
It’s not awful by any means. It’s just weirdly slight. Like, really, argue over a car wash? That’s where we’re going to spend these eleven minutes? And not just that. The character points the episode hits, they’re not, um. It doesn’t cut very deeply, shall we say. Rather obvious.
It’s also curious, in that it’s Molisee and Villeco, who tend to be pretty solid. But as I mused before, they’re better with the slowly boiling tension. Their comedy, it’s… it works great as asides amidst awful happenings, yet feels directionless and without purpose on its own.
I’m assuming this is the first time Connie’s slept in Steven’s bed? She seems to have gone right for it.
Not sure what GameCube (er, that is, Dolphin) game is on the end there, but I’m sure it’s something. I like the one randomly upside-down, because, Steven.
The mystery of who knows whom on this show and why or why not is always a big head-scratcher, given, again, how few people live in the area. Like, nobody seems to know who anyone else in town is until we see them meet on-screen. But it makes sense Connie wouldn’t know Yellowtail.
Got to say this is a bit of a mood as well.
Lapis looks curiously like Jamie Lee Curtis there.
Just me? Okay.
Yellowtail doesn’t have the best experiences at Greg’s car wash, does he.
It’s also, I’m…
Okay, these two, their art style works when there’s a ton going on and their sketchy off-model boards make for constant expressive cutaways, conveying extra emotional information on top of the story beats. For flat sitcom staging? It doesn’t work so well.
Connie ranting about the two “super-powered children.”
“We’re both thousands of years older than you,” Lapis Darias back.
“Then act like it!”
Man, why wouldn’t you get the 10 x SUPER?
See, there’s always some kind of teal going on.
How many pairs of red shoes did Connie bring on this trip?
I’m struggling to grasp what larger role the episode serves in terms of anchoring or presaging or supplementing the larger concepts going on around it. Maybe I’ll have an epiphany somewhere down the line. Right now, it’s just… yeah, it’s there. It pads us out before “Storm in the Room.”
Any time Amethyst spots someone in a strange outfit, she fatuously comments on how it’s “a good look for you.” In this case, Greg… Ah, Greg.
Most of this discussion, it originates on Twitter, and my tweets from March 2019 have mostly vanished for some reason. Don’t know if the pertinent tweet survives, but when I was musing a while back on Jasper’s gem placement (i.e., in the middle of her face) and how it was probably chosen to obscure how much Jasper would otherwise look like Rose, in particular with that upturned Universe style nose? Well, here’s Skinny, with her nose.
There’s this whole theory out there that’s almost become an accepted truism, that surely all these Rose Quartz gems are fakes that Pink created to throw people off her trail, and there never was any real Rose Quartz. Reminds me a bit of how 1980s Who fans grew weird about Susan.
Surely she can’t be the Doctor’s REAL granddaughter, because (we’ve decided) the Doctor doesn’t fuck! So many elaborate lattices were erected to prevent the Doctor himself from ever having to have been.
I mean, maybe. It’s a theory. Who knows. It’s got that kind of fan funk to it, though: a thing that maybe would be structurally clever, but that feels like it overlooks the show’s themes and emotional logic.
I love the lighting in this show. Every environment, every time of day has its own palette for every character. Ergo Stevonnie having a different skin tone in almost every episode; they never seem to appear twice at the same time of day. Also, Gem tech tends toward gel lighting.
I mean. The reason Pink would have had to have bubbled every Rose Quartz she could find… it’s obvious, right? Especially in light of everything I’ve been saying about drawing comparisons. Jasper’s nose and all, for our benefit. CG Rose ain’t no normal Quartz soldier.
She’s this mythic figure with powers and properties that no normal Gem should have. And the strangeness would be so much more obvious if there were other Roses walking around, who didn’t exhibit any of those things. It would raise so many awkward questions.
It’s bad enough to wind up in a room with one Diamond. Worse enough with two. Then they have to reignite this strange domestic conflict partway through, and sing the most melodically and rhythmically awkward, off-putting song in the show. (Also the most difficult and best.)
Seems like every time Steven meets a Diamond, he’s wearing something peculiar.
But the best thing about this scene, that makes it one of the best scenes in the show, I think, is that sense of “Oh fuck, what did I just walk into?” that just keeps getting heightened. We’re not supposed to be seeing this. It’s uncomfortable, erratic, and none of our business.
Which makes it scarier. Like, I don’t know, you happen to be hiding in your parents’ closet as part of a game and then they go in there and start shouting at each other right in front of you about something you can’t begin to understand, and you don’t even dare to breathe.
At this point in the show, the Diamonds are a scarce commodity, and portrayed as immense, detached figures, scary in the way of an indifferent Greek god; beyond good and evil, as it were. Everything is just less significant than they are. And, they’re doing this.
Their most common view is still a profile; just barely deigning to taking notice, if at all.
Which is for the best, as if you happened to see them dead-on, happened to earn their full attention… that might not be a desirable turn of events.
There’s really a sense of, Christ, what is going on here? We didn’t ask for this, and they keep getting more and more worked up. If that rising emotional energy were to find a too-convenient outlet… well, uh. Best to get out of here, huh.
This would be a best-case scenario.
God, Blue is so fucking 1970s, it kills me.
Neither the Amethysts nor the Rubies seem to make particularly good guards. Like, as general categories of Gem, they’re all a bit… uh, erratic? Yet they seem to be among the most common types.
I wonder what’ll become of these guys.
It’s interesting that Holly Blue (with her Rose nose) has Amethyst’s kind of whip. Which suggests it’s sorta a Quartz thing. If that’s true, it raises questions about Jasper’s helmet. I mean, it might be individual to the particular Gem, but this is so specifically Amethyst-ish.
With all the hexagons, it’s hard to avoid lots of Homeworld architecture feeling Gallifreyan.
It’s funny to me, kind of, how much work other people have had to do over the years to paper over my physical appearance, to edge me into looking at all masculine. I have, like no body hair (except thinly on the limbs). Bad at facial hair. Delicate features. Thin at the waist. Even as scrawny as I am, I have, uh, noticeable fat deposits in my breast area. When I shave regularly and let my hair grow to a comfortable length, and stop repressing my facial expressions and body language and posture, and dress a little differently, all that work vanishes. Like, just allow me to relax and flex and stop trying to manipulate me, and without any makeup or medical transition or anything, I… kind of default to a feminine shape. More so than clearly masculine, anyway.
Except the height. Which is absurd, and awkward no matter what.
There’s so much self-consciousness I need to deprogram; all these years of people shouting at me to correct my posture, correct my walk, correct the way I use my hands, correct my actual facial expressions. And it’s gotten so jammed up I can’t walk without thinking of every step.
The mind isn’t just a brain thing, and the brain doesn’t exist in isolation. There’s a level of physical comfort that has to go along with mental health. And it just feels so much more natural to embrace what’s here, rather than fight against it. I am essentially more feminine. This is the better part of me, and the part of me I like more. I don’t like what’s been imposed on me, most of my life. It hurts. It feels dehumanizing; like I’ve always just been someone else’s property. I don’t care about that person, either how they’re expected to act or look. Which is a big factor in why I’ve never felt compelled to take care of them, taken much of an interest in them, and—as long as I associated them with who I am, or am supposed to be—was consequently so full of self-loathing. They were never real. Just an automaton for others’ use.
Building this relationship with myself, talking with myself, tending to what this person wants and needs, it’s so novel. And it feels so amazing. I really like this person, who I’ve been forced to ignore for so long. And the more I bond with them, the easier things become. It’s—not only did people have to fight constantly to box me into that shape, that I was so bad at holding, but the amount of strain it put me under, trying and largely failing to hold it together for all those years. It’s comical how long it took for me to understand why that was, given that the moment even the slightest pressure is released, sproing. Revert to my natural self.
I guess the main thing is I was never once in my life told it was okay to just be that person. So many of my health problems, down to the physical manifestations of stress, come from trying to accommodate people who don’t care about me. Well. Now I’m starting to fall in love with me—the event it seems like everything in my life has been engineered to prevent. So it’s all over for that nonsense. And I’m just… at fucking last, you know?
A thing I haven’t seen discussed, and maybe I’ve just been in the wrong places, is how accurate to experience the singular “they” feels as a pronoun. Interrogating, accepting, befriending these aspects of one’s self—one feels like one contains multitudes under the banner of “I.” That is to say, as pertaining to a gender-diverse experience. The only sensible way to discuss it is to split and anthropomorphize different parts of one’s self, which isn’t quite accurate, but there’s an active internal relationship going on, different elements rising at times.
I remember “The Zoo” as my least favorite part of the whole zoo arc. The first two episodes, and the final one, are all great. “Gem Heist” is functional bridge material. “The Zoo”… I don’t even know why my brain swerves with this one. I guess I’ll have to interrogate that, huh.
I bet it has to do with the zoomans, though.
I think the whole 1960s sci-fi story here is kind of… you know, I’m. My brain has been here before? So many times? Hang on, though. Just strikes me, Greg is kinda living out Passions of Xandor here, isn’t he. In a different sense from, you know, the overall Rose thing.
I guess Steven’s revolt here among the zoomans, suggesting they just do whatever they want, sort of serves as foreshadowing for his later misadventures on Homeworld. Start with the human Gem experiment; move on to actual Gem society.
Yeah, it’s the zoomans. It’s their whole Star Trek Planet of Single Metaphor schtick. I’ll go full-force with allegories if they work. This feels more like dancing with paper plates; having fun with pastiche of an old sci-fi trope. There’s probably more here that I’m not engaging
I do enjoy every time the show remembers how strong Steven is, though. All twelve times ever. In almost every case it comes off as an incidental “OH YEAH” sort of gag.
Here, though, with Steven consciously holding back at first, it plays into his degrading confidence this season. It’s a microscopic moment, but he sweats and consciously holds back, knowing how badly he could hurt Greg if he allowed himself to. There’s stuff going on in his head that he’s not saying, because he isn’t usually this aware of what he’s doing.
It’s the simplemindedness. The zoomans, I mean. It’s, you know. I get it. Don’t @ me. I understand the storytelling here. But it gets old within about twelve seconds, and we’ve got eleven minutes of this. It’s not even cute, like Padparadscha. It’s just, WHEE! WE’RE NAIVE!
(If they were New Yorkers (Er, in-universe, would that be Empiricists?), they would be naïve.)
It feels like from beat to beat we’re going through the motions of a predictable story, based on old, well-trod ideas, decorated with people who understand nothing and state the obvious. And it’s… you know. Normally the show works on more levels than this? It’s so dull, to me.
The mass freak-out at Greg rejecting the choosening is also kinda not my party. Though I do love how the Amethyst guards handle it. Whenever we get away from the frickin’ zoomans, even for a second, it gets so much more interesting.
Oh well. It’s eleven minutes.
As for what’s playing on repeat in Steven’s head, that he’s not saying? Well.
Listening to Steven Universe in headphones, you really appreciate all the work that goes into the overall sound design. The light environmental sounds —crash of the surf, wind—the tangible Foley, how sounds get muffled or reflected. Tinnitus ring. All about Steven’s bubble.
I get confused about the geography sometimes, though, especially during season one. Where is this, for instance?
It’s not the cliff with the Crystal Temple. Is it on the other side of the bay, by Brooding Hill and the warehouse? If so, Stevonnie seems to drift pretty far…
It’s interesting also that for the expressive purposes of this episode, twilight seems to last for hours on end.
One of many things that makes this story so heightened and uncanny.
I think the twilight palette here also affects my idea of Stevonnie’s coloring. Considering Connie’s and Steven’s relative skin tones, their medium tone here seems about right. But in other episodes, in the daylight, they’re way more pink than it feels like they should be.
But seriously, yikes: the sound design. Every little thing a character touches, there’s Foley, appropriate to the material and the properties of the room or environment. Everything is directional. There’s always appropriate spatial resonance. So present. And the music floats above.
And, here: when Stevonnie exits the shop, the sound of external crickets and surf, cut off by the slamming door…
I’m not understanding the level of detail here. What’s the process for mapping out how this works, and doing it?
(By the way, if we’re going to focus on deliberate expressive choices like Stevonnie proffering a $3 bill (ahem), their selection of doughnuts seems… potentially significant. Particularly in the context of the moment they’re having. )
(You can pick apart their anatomy yourself. )
(Come to it, there are an awful lot of deep, blank stare reaction shots in this show. Prime example, from another episode by this storyboard team.)
It’s easy to assume Beach City is just those few blocks on the peninsula, between the temple mount and the mainland, but there’s stuff all over the area. The warehouse is part of this industrial zone, across the bay by Brooding Hill.
And it’s clearly still in Beach City.
Stevonnie should pull out the sparkle powers more often.
Okay, right. So, sound design. Bopping on back to the next season’s first Florido/Mitroff/Sugar jam—here when the two of them spin in their little world, the Philosophy Majors recording goes from crackly record on tinny diegetic open-air speakers to full-on direct-line soundtrack, filling the stage…
… and when we pull out, it’s back to the tinny speakers.
The “What Can I Do For You” sequence (referenced previously, in the open-eyed gawp tangent) isn’t mixed like an album recording; it’s mixed like a slightly off live performance, with people not-close enough to mikes, the guitar too prominent, weird environmental acoustics, and so on. The reverb to the temple entrance, before the house is there to soak up sound…
I feel like I’ve been missing out on a whole dimension, here. There’s such a tangible sense of place, simply from the sound mix. I could close my eyes and know exactly what was going on, where, in relation to what or whom, at all times.
Same goes for the rinky-dink record Greg puts on for Rose. As they dance, it swells from diegetic crackle tin to full-stage direct-line cinema swoop mix, reflecting the emotional focus of the moment. And tying in the story with Connie and Steven’s moment at the start.
And again it pulls back out to the record player, after Greg disengages and realizes things didn’t quite go as he hoped.
I don’t think the parallel is lost on the two of them.
Retreating into Connie’s less-spectacular world, the Maheswarans’ house is quiet to the point it dulls all sound—as a wooden house full of furniture would, one supposes—but there’s still a barely perceptible fizz of street noise, as if heard through the windows.
As one might expect at this point, the soundscape of the hospital is every bit as uncomfortable as if one were there: hard surfaces; gross, persistent fluorescent hum.
I love how the sound completely changes inside the bubble, versus outside.
It’s stark, in headphones. Barely perceptible on speakers.
This effect isn’t unique to “Nightmare Hospital;” it’s been there since the bubble’s first appearance alongside Connie.
Again, inside, outside the bubble. When we go to an interior shot, all the subtle sounds of the shore, they’re distorted—not just muffled, but the curvature seems to phase the sound as much as the material blocks certain frequencies. It all depends on “camera” placement.
The audio impression is significant in this case, with Steven and Connie trapped in their protective bubble. The whole audio environment is different in there. Resonance. Presence. Which adds to the separation between the literal bubble the two of them are in, relative to world.
Also nothing new here, but that’s our first glimpse of Obsidian’s sword.
And the incidental music — when the headphones pull it out in the mix, and cinematically wrap it around the reality of the scene, it stands out all the more how beautiful it all is. And there’s so goddamned much of it in this show.
Connie has lived in a bubble her whole life. In meeting her, Steven’s first impulse was to literally put her in another protective bubble. It’s not until they reach an understanding, she stops being so scared, and he stops trying to be so cool, that the bubble pops. Both bubbles.
(On the topic of protective bubbles, in the early days every time Garnet bubbles a gem it’s when Steven is distracted or has his back turned. He literally has no idea what’s going on most of the time, and nobody takes the time to explain it to him or the audience.)
The bubble typifies the best environmental effect in the show: transitional atmospherics. A subtler example is when Steven and Connie are up by the laundry, and all the wind and surf are around them—then the scene cuts to the beach house, and the same sound is muffled by the thin walls.
(So many of the backgrounds contain things like this. A STORE or A GAME.)
The musical number that follows demonstrates a thing the show does more regularly than is obvious. Here, Pearl’s part is diegetic—which is to say it sounds like she’s in the place, just singing there alongside Connie—but the piano is… there needs to be another term, but it’s floaty. It’s superimposed in that ethereal way.
So Pearl’s really there, singing, for whatever reason, in the reality of the show, but the accompaniment is clearly there just for our benefit, like any other soundtrack element.
Another good example comes a season on, with “Mr. Greg.” Get past a bunch of really nice lobby sounds, and when Pearl’s song comes in, just as in “Sworn to the Sword” she’s mixed so that her singing is contextual, in real-space as far as the narrative, but the overlaid piano is coming from that phantom soundtrack zone.
To contrast, this piano is mixed in differently, because it physically exists in the scene.
Though predictably, if we’re studying the way the show handles these things, when we get to the Expressive Zone, it expands out and becomes full, all-absorbing soundtrack material.
This tendency dates back to the show’s earliest song cues. In the case of “Giant Woman,” Steven starts off singing diegetically, with the ukulele strumming in on the cinema stage. Through this first shot the atmospheric wind continues, albeit higher and lower in the mix according to music volume. But then it expands, as it becomes a montage.
For just a beat here until the singing comes in and it’s clear that it’s an overdub rather than happening in the minute, we continue to hear the Andes wind whirl through the frame. But then it quickly pulls out, and we’re on full OST mode…
… until Steven Junior chimes in at the end.
(Or, I should say, until that shot, which is where we transition back to Steven’s diegesis, and so start to hear a few subtle environmental noises buried in the mix—insects and birds, mostly.)
Back at the beach house, one notes that the ocean becomes an almost constant presence in the show once you can hear all the sound design. It gives the whole show this undercurrent (if you will) of melancholy, grounding every scene in and around Steven’s home in a sort of baseline of unsteadiness.
And it’s not just Beach City. Everywhere they go (e.g., the sky arena), there’s some kind of mournful environmental noise, just low enough that maybe you pick it up in your muscles, but you don’t quite hear it without headphones. Combine that with the complexity and detail of the incidental and contact sounds, and the environments practically become characters.
Cute incidental, on the topic of sound design: the three words Connie speaks through her hands, someone muffled in the mix. You can tell Rolek didn’t record the lines that way, but whoever’s doing this apparently thought this was an important detail.
And whoa, fusion-space has… interesting acoustical properties. Like a closet made of Plexiglas.
Also I don’t think I’d clocked just how much bass there is in this song. Which there would be, considering Garnet’s role. It’s just so low, it doesn’t come across in the white-people speakers I have.
Seriously, though, the atmosphere in the beach house is one of my new favorite things about the show. It’s like some quiet purgatory, technically safe but not quite… secure.
That turmoil of the constant surf and wind, it accentuates the way Rose looms over everything, her eyes often as not dramatically blocked by the rafters, depending on what’s happening in the story.
Here we’re right about to see Steven’s freak-out in which he envisions Rose’s face glaring down at him from the sky—and look how we’re introduced to that sequence.
I need to document how that portrait is used through the course of the show. It’s some Hitchcockian shit, I tell you. Every time it comes into frame, it’s… there’s a reason for it. Even for all my tangents, this topic is way outside the remit of our discourse here—but worth a deep spelunk at another time.
Anyway, the grinding, phasing bass tones here…
Golly, I’ve never had a 5.1 sound system. But I guess this show would be something with one of those, huh.
Speaking of which, “Storm in the Room” is certainly a go-to episode for unsettling beach house atmosphere.
In the room, it’s another level of purgatory: all distant wind, and the rustle of Rose’s dress.
Even as they play the weird Lonely Blade arm wrestling foreshadowing simulator, the wind continues to roil, preventing anything from feeling quite secure.
Then when this happens, there’s this deep grinding noise, similar to Stevonnie’s panic attack zone in the Sky Arena.
Curiously, the atmospherics on the jungle moon aren’t… quite as alien as one might expect. It sounds like a plausible Earth rainforest, including what sounds suspiciously like Earth crickets. It’s not even all that all-encompassing.
The hum and thrum of the failing radio is something, though.
Though the outside surprises me with how underwhelming it sounds, considering how engrossing it looks, the interior of the overgrown moonbase is another story. Here’s where the sound design finally wakes up.
Thing that always gets me about this picture, the way it’s re-staged with Stevonnie, it almost makes Priyanka and Doug look like an older Connie and Steven. I don’t think it’s an accident they gave Doug Steven’s nose and hair type, or general head shape. Because, Freud and all.
Actually, to build on the whole Doug/Steven parallel (I guess as parallel to the Pearl/Connie parallel):
“I’m a member of the Crystal Gems! We fight monsters and protect humanity and stuff.”
“Oh! That’s kinda like my dad. He’s a cop. W-well, more like a private security guard.”
I think I mentioned this before, but the Pearl/Connie thing is extra complicated in that—uh. So, okay. Steven’s the reincarnation of Rose, right. So it makes sense on that level he’d find his own “Pearl.” But also, Pearl’s as close to an actual mother figure as Steven’s known.
So, there are a couple of levels of “Hm” to his immediate fixation with her, depending on how you want to come at the situation.
Another aspect to the Connie/Pearl thing is their role as catalyst to their respective Diamonds’ (well, technically the same Diamond) stories. Rose would never have been Rose without Pearl’s imaginings and motivating influence. Until he met Connie, Steven had no in to his world.
It’s largely through Connie’s enthusiasm for his whole situation and his motivation to (at first) impress her, then just spend time with her, that he was shaken out of… what, four years of taking things for granted, doing what exactly, and began to question and learn and grow.
Without Connie to push him and take an active interest, Steven might never have gotten much further than Cookie Cats until the Cluster emerged and the Earth exploded.
Also on the topic of portraits, in that same episode (“Jungle Moon”)—I, uh.
I don’t know that there’s a deeper reading here exactly, but this can’t be an accident.
Back on topic, though—best piece of sound design in the episode: when our friend climbs up on the dome. Every click-thunk of its claws resonates convincingly through the structure. It’s really satisfying.
Continuing this Stevonnie theme, because why wouldn’t we—the thrum from Kevin’s speakers is overwhelming. He’s one of those people, where you can feel the bass down the block before you even see the car coming.
Kevin’s and Stevonnie’s cars have very different idle sounds. The Dondai is… uh, let’s say rickety by comparison.
Panic attacks are a good excuse for the sound design to go nuts. Here it more goes for a deranged detachment. Which fits well.
Toodling right along to wrap up the pre-Homeworld Stevonnie material, weirdly there’s next to zero environmental noise in “Crack the Whip,” once you get past the point where Amethyst refuses to actively watch them train.
Well, a little really low-in-the-mix white noise at the very end, but. Actually, the mix seems really weird in season 3.
Though I’ve covered the episodes I most wanted to discuss, I’ve got lots more to say on this topic. Hang tight. There shall be more.
Keep in mind, Sapphire isn’t fused here. So she’s only able to see one future probability. It’s Ruby’s spontaneity that gives Garnet the ability to churn through multiple branching points and pick the one she wants to follow.
Amethyst’s revisitation of the Jasper masquerade feels significant, thematically. Not sure how, yet. Even uses the same Ruby ship to do it.
Worth noting though, that this is Michaela Dietz’s chance to go nuts with slightly different readings for the Famethyst, much as Charlyne Yi has done with the Ruby squad. I think Estelle is the only major or recurring Gem actor not to voice multiple characters at this point?
(“This point” being 2019; not midway through season 4. We don’t get another Sapphire variant for a while yet. And I guess we technically have a couple episodes before we meet another Jasper. Squaridot is exclusive to the game, but that’s deuterocanonical.)
(Okay, we also have only met the one Lapis, and Bismuth.)
So, curious thing. Amethysts and Jaspers are Quartz soldiers, just like Rose. Accordingly, they all look similar aside from coloration and a minor details like hair texture. Agates are also Quartzes, though, and Holly Blue sure as heck does look different. Similar build, but.
