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Hi Abe! Contrary to everything I’ve come to stand for, I would really appreciate it if you scrolled my feed in chronological order (oldest to most recent posts). Thank You !

otherwise the character analysis of Garnet won’t make sense

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Garnet’s identity formation literally takes place on a different planet in a different galaxy than that of Sapphire and Ruby’s origins. Is this not exactly the definition we were given for Afro-Futurism? “A cutting out of space for life” “A trans*phenomenological becoming”. Garnet cannot live within the constraints of Home World. She instead handmakes new ways of being and knowing in a place that has not been colonized by Home World. Sapphire and Ruby say that Garnet is something entirely new, and she is.

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Black Gender is Political

Reading Sapphire and Ruby as butch or femme or lesbian or same sex is not helpful to a critical analysis of the show. I think about Trans*, Paris is Burning, and our discussions on Black Gender.

Because all biopolitical categorization and regulation is ultimately in the service of Whiteness (which is dependant on the dehumanization and disenfranchisement of Blackness) gender as a concept does not account for black embodiments. Black Gender as told by Sojourner Truth and Laverne Cox operates separately if not in opposition to colonial notions of gender. Black Women is a political category because neither blackness nor womeness were ever rewarded viability in the same way as whiteness or maleness. The intersection that black women embody is particularly vulnerable as they are unable to access privilege or “protection” from whiteness or maleness. “Black Women” is political because it reveals the necropolitical agenda of the white-cis-heteropatriarchy. Calling attention to the fabricated reality dominant forces depend on to sustain themselves is fucking dangerous because ultimately Neoliberal Society depends on naive complacency with hierarchy, power, and violence.

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While all of the Gems use feminine pronouns, it’s unclear how they identify since they are not necessarily bound to Earthly categories of gender or sex. Yet, from the perspective of a general “human” audience, Ruby and Sapphire tend to be read as the same gender and their fusion is presented as an intimate (and romantic) partnership. Fun fact, when Steven Universe airs in Russia, they edit a mustache on to Ruby (who’s presentation is less “femmey” than Sapphire) so that the two gems can appear “heterosexual”.

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If we think about the way Black Life is entirely unfounded by dominant narratives and conceptualizations, we can understand the ways blackness can trans*. A “remaking of man and knowledge”. But more than a remaking, an undoing, a radical line of flight (Felix Guattari)

In the context of Sapphire, Ruby, and Garnet, funking the erotic comes to mean a sensuous and loving fusion that is a line of flight that cuts across biopolitical regulation. Audre Lorde would perhaps frame this as “the power of the erotic”. An entirely unfounded and non-violent form of power or perhaps potentiality and viability.

Block Quote From L.H. Stalling’s Funk The Erotic

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Fusion is Funky. 

Fusion as done by Sapphire and Ruby undoes gem categorizations by breaking from class designations and expectations. Funk as a lense enables us to read their becoming Garnet as a funky force that evades subjugation by Home World’s master-subject modality. They trans*gress not only class lines, but also break homogenized ideals with Garnet’s heterozygous embodiment.

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The conversation ends with Rose Quartz responding to Garnet’s identic dysphoria, “No more questions. Don't ever question this. (Rose holds Garnet's hands.) You already are the answer.”

Steven interjects to ask Garnet what the answer is.

In one of the few scenes where Garnet is not wearing her glasses, she looks at Steven with all three of her eyes and replies, “Love.”

#CENTERPLEASUREANDJOY

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Garnet continues her story by describe her next encounter with Rose Quartz (founder of the Rebellion).

Garnet asks Rose Quartz, “I don’t upset you?”

Rose Quartz (who we initially know as Steven’s deceased mother) tells Garnet, “Who cares how I feel. How you feel is bound to be more interesting!”

Garnet says, “How I feel? I feel... uh, lost... and scared... and happy. W-why am I so sure that I'd rather be this than everything I was supposed to be, and that I'd rather do this than anything I was supposed to do?”

Rose Quartz: “WELCOME TO EARTH!”

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Sapphire and Ruby perform a duet that ends with them becoming Garnet again, an action they describe in the song as “not me, not you, but something entirely new”. Garnet pauses her story to tell Steven (who is himself, half Human and half Gem): “I was back; I was someone and I didn't know who. But I felt I was getting the hang of my strange new form…”

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Ruby has experienced fusion but only with other rubies in times of combat. She blushes when Sapphire tells her she enjoyed their joint embodiment.

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Sapphire’s power to view the future is disrupted by the queer fusion and (literal) banishment (from hegemonic society). This trans*phenomenological happening, of Ruby and Sapphire fusing, disrupts the chrononormative apparatus that informed Sapphire’s ability to see time in linear sequences and chronological orderings. She is overwhelmed by the initial ambiguity and literally freezes.

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Their first fusing happens on accident, but in full view of Blue Diamond and her court. Everyone is outraged by Garnet’s initial manifestation.

Members of the court cry, “Unbelievable!” “Disgusting!” “This is unheard of!”

Their fusion breaks from Sapphire’s initial vision of the future, and Blue Diamond banishes both of them to wander Earth.

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Garnet begins her reflection 5000 years in the past when Earth was one of the newest planets undergoing colonization by The Diamonds (specifically Blue Diamond). She refers to the Crystal Gems (our protagonists) as a “rebel force”. She then introduces the two gems who become herself: Ruby and Sapphire.

Sapphire is a diplomat to the Earth territory and belongs to an aristocratic class of gems. She is also capable of foresight, a power harnessed by Blue Diamond to predict the movements of Rebel forces. Ruby is a “common soldier” (part of a homogenized lower, working class) whose singular purpose is to protect higher class gems, like Sapphire.

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In season 2 episode 21 “The Answer”, Garnet reflects back on her own trans* becoming and provides Steven with a testimonio about her queer identity formation.

I highly recommend watching the entire 11 minutes of “The Answer” because it contextualizes much of what the show’s plot line is premised upon. I will post a link to the episode as well as a link to the transcript. 

episode: 

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4cf7qf

transcript:

https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/The_Answer/Transcript

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In a similar vein as Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” Garnet is a fusion and she is a gem but because her intersectional identities do not aid the hierarchical and colonial projects of Home World’s society, she is marked as deviant, dangerous, and ultimately sanctioned to death.

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Garnet’s identity as a consensual, loving, and non-militarized fusion is political because the conceptualization of “Fusions” on her home planet do not acknowledge her within the category of “fusion” or “gem”.

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With this in mind, I’m more interested in thinking through Fusion as a political category in the same way we have thought through Black Women in America as a political category.