#and the NUANCE

[thisbuildinghasfeelings]

One thing I was so sure I did not want from this show was for there to ever be a situation where it seemed like TK and Carlos separating was even a possibility. They're soulmates! I wanted that to be unthinkable. Something that was never even on the table.

Then, in this episode, we're presented with this conflict that is a potentially relationship-breaking conflict. TK is not going to let his brother get sent to boarding school. That is very clear! He isn't going to force Carlos into this, but if Carlos ultimately does not want to take Jonah in, I don't think TK would be choosing his husband over his brother here. It would DESTROY TK. It would ruin his life! But he's not going to be able to abandon his brother.

So the show did the exact thing I thought I never wanted to see. And you know what? I LOVED IT. I loved every second of it!! I think it was so incredibly well done.

And I think the reason it didn't bother me when previously I thought I would never want something like this is that, while this situation could be relationship breaking, I know it isn't going to be. Not just because we've been assured time and time again that Tarlos is endgame and they're getting a happily ever after, but because JUST LOOK AT CARLOS' FACE when he talks about Jonah and when he looks at pictures of TK and Jonah 😭 Carlos already loves that little boy and he loves his husband so much!! He wants this. He just needs a little time to work through it, particularly given the extreme situation and immense grief and trauma he's going through.

It's VALID of Carlos to need a minute here. And I think it's VALID of TK to be committed to helping his brother and unwilling to back down from that. The conflict between them hurts, but that's just going to make the resolution that much more beautiful! It's SO BEAUTIFUL 😭

[gayvampyr]

no offense but you guys need to learn the difference between someone implying their experience is universal and a post simply just not being about you

[asturlavi]

a hell of your own making

[sarafroot]

[wizardnuke]

"i hate microlabels" yeah i also kind of dislike the idea of putting ourselves and our identities into very specific boxes, i think it can be really isolating- ohh wait you mean you think they're invalid. ohh no that's not the way to look at it. killing you

[trans-pickles]

you don't need to write a dark deconstruction of Peter Pan where he's willing to kill people and his state of eternal childhood makes him morally ambiguous, JM Barrie already wrote one and it's called Peter Pan

[justicewasserved]

tma is a show which spends the first 100 episodes going "look at these monsters. aren't they fucked up. yeah and they're all so happy being monsters who hurt people monstrously" and then the protagonist who you've spent hours listening to at this point becomes one of those fucked up monsters, forcing you to either dismiss him as evil or you have to fully change how you view all the previous monsters. and then they spend the next 100 episodes dealing with that

[mwagneto]

aint no WAYYY THEY JUST TRIED TO SAY THAT. not even "the doctor's" but doctor who's in general 💀💀 so now that they have a disney contract every single gay thing (which they've had for fucking decades) is gonna be a huge big huge first gay thing ever!!1!1!1!! event??? like yeah there's a very specific significance to it i get it but what the fuck do you mean😭 jamie pull up the files

[valtsv]

are we still doing this because i have a late submission

[lgbtlunaverse]

Obsessed with characters who portray themselves as worse than they are. Who are lying to everyone including themselves about it. People generally assume if someone's lying about themselves they're trying to look better but sometimes they're trying to look worse. They attribute agency to where they had none, add intent to accidents, try to convince everyone that this is something they did instead of something that happened to them.

[achamocha]

english is not my first language please have mercy

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[meticulousmaker]

another random thing that stands out to me rewatching Steven Universe as an adult:

throughout the show there's this clear Vibe that Steven has inherited some big magical destiny, right? and it makes sense narratively: he's the son of Rose Quartz, leader of the rebellion, now being raised by her friends who were the last remaining survivors of an interstellar war. he's like a human child in most ways, except he has magical powers that start to become more obvious as he's getting older. no one like him has ever existed before. it's a big deal. raising him and figuring out how he's going to grow is its own unique challenge, because nobody knows what to expect. so of course there's this magical destiny vibe, given all that.

What's interesting to me, though, is that this magical destiny is in no way literally, physically present in the story, it's just something everyone kinda feels. Like, there's not some ancient prophecy about a half-gem, half-human savior. He's not the Chosen One in any literal sense, he just happens to give off Chosen One vibes. And I say that's interesting because it means that the fact he was kinda raised with this Chosen One vibe is completely a decision everyone around him made, for better or for worse. And the show is aware of this, because the weight of Rose's legacy and everyone's expectations of him is a constant theme, and as Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all grow and develop, they also realize the downsides of them putting those expectations on a child. Like, Steven spends his whole childhood being told about how great Rose was, and how because he's inherited her gem he will probably inherit her powers - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine how awful things could have been if Steven had no exposure to the Gems and no knowledge of what they were or how they worked, and then his powers started coming in? It was hard enough even when he was surrounded by the most qualified Gem Experts on Earth. But being primed for all of this "you're going to have your mother's magical powers" stuff put a heavy weight on his shoulders, and then the fact that nobody else quite knew how his abilities worked meant he was constantly faced with the adults in his life looking to him with concern because they didn't know what was happening with him. That's gotta leave an impression on a kid - and, well, throughout the show and especially in SU Future we definitely see that it does.

I like the way the show handles the pressure that's put on him, and the fact that everyone is just... trying their best in a completely unprecedented situation. Nobody knows what to do or how to raise this kid, and that inevitably causes problems but everyone is trying. And Steven can feel that everyone is trying without knowing what to do and he just wants to help and not be a burden and none of his caretakers have said that he's a burden but he can feel everyone's confusion and concern and the expectations he's not living up to and he cares so much, about everyone, about everything. He's in an extremely unique position that grants him opportunities to help that nobody else has, and he feels like he's failing everyone if he can't fulfill that, and in the end it never should have been his job to fix things but somebody had to try. Somebody had to try, and he was one of the only people with the ability to stop the Diamonds, stop the war, stop the lies, stop his world and everyone on it from being destroyed... and he was just a kid.

[i-eat-mass-blog]

people are mad at chappell roan because she pointed that the "lesser than too evils" party and still in fact very evil and we shouldn't let them continue to be evil just because of the other party is more evil