#going through it so bad rn my cause of death might just be yearning

[gojoest]

sigh cry slide down the wall why does my entire world revolve around a man who doesn’t exist

[redpandapanic8]

Steven Universe future

So some spoilers because like, I’m all caught up.

So I really hate it when people call Steven a hypocrite

Like yeah I get it. When he was younger he talked all the time about change and seeking help for your issues and now he’s having a hard time with that exact same thing.

And the reason why I hate that people are calling Steven a hypocrite is because when he gave all this wise and adult advice, Steven was a child. and like he still is!

And something that is a really common phenomena that no one really talks about is that

When a child is raised in a situation where they are forced to be way too mature for their age

when a child is forced to be the parent to younger siblings when their parents are absent

when they are forced to be self sufficient because of neglect

when abuse or neglect cause a 10-14 year child to make serious adult choices or face serious adult situations

that, when the child is finally safe, and as they start to grow up, they begin to struggle with how to function. They have spent their developing years being adults and now as they cross the physically threshold into adulthood, they begin to have a lot of issue.

Its actually really easy for these children, who spent their childhood acting as adults and fighting against certain behaviors, to fall easily into behaviors that mirror those same behaviors that they were forced against. maybe even in a way where they don’t entirely recognize at first that its the same thing their parents did to them.

this often even cause young adults, who were force to be adults as children, the behave in a way that would be considered immature in others their age. this is because they didn’t get to be kids when they are kids so once they are in a safe situation, they start to become the kids they never got to be. Its almost like their brains were like, “fuck it isn’t safe ti be a kid rn” and the once they were safe, “Their brains were like “kid mode activated”.

And I think this is the direction that the Crewniverse is going with Steven.

Steven never really got to be a kid. he grew up in a van, and like we can blame Greg for that partly but Greg did get a house built for him. The hospital thing could be partly that Greg was poor and couldn’t afford doctors visits and partly because a fear that the doctors might do something bad to Steven if they reported his gem shit to higher ups.

But Stevn still never got to be a kid. He never got to go to school, he never got to have kid friends. You realize his only friends until he was 14 was his 100 year old moms and his dad. he probs wasn’t even friend with Sadie and Larss until they started working at the big donut and if theyre 17-18 in the og show then thats maybe like a casual three years of friendship. But even then that means this child was virtually by himself and had no friend until he was 11!!!

And of course this was why he was so eager to start joining the Gems on missions. he was home alone when they were out and he was lonely. he became self sufficient because of this. So instead of encouraging him to stay a child, he was allowed to go on life and death missions. He just progressivley became more and more mature, forced into more and more serious situations. And yes most kids always want to be treated like grown ups, but the reason he was so hung up on it was because he was mentally more mature the his age.

I’ve met tons of people who had this same desire. That because they were the emotionally adult in their home, they wanted , the yearned, to be treated as one as well.

Then Steven, forced to grow up, is forced through all this trauma, forced to make these adult choices. choices like choosing to sacrifice himself to homeworld to save his friends. choosing to face the diamonds one on one, choosing to find a way to save the cluster. All of these things not only caused Steven Trauma, but they forced Steven into adulthood far too early.

Now, just as many children in his predicament do, no that he is safe, his brain if letting him feel all that shit he pushed back to deal with his trauma, and the worse part is that he know, he knows, that change is natural, that he is being selfish, that he is being a hypocrite. So he is beating himself up, and just as he was alone in his childhood, he feels alone as a teen. He is pushing others away because he has always been independent, he has always been able to handle things, so why is this different. And unfortunately his family has reinforced this by reacting unfavorably to him when he was a younger child.

And that’s why I hate when people call him a hypocrite and say this isn’t like him, but as a kid who was also forced to be an adult too early, I did some of the same shit. whe I was 16 and 17 i developed some of the same toxic habits that my shitty parents had put me through, just with a twist that made me not recognize them as the same. I grew out of it thanks to relying on my friends and shit. But like I made mistakes, i hurt people, things I’m not proud of, but they happened and I think it’s a really common thing. i’ve met other people who had similar childhoods giving similar accounts.