#he became a character again instead of just the grumpy archetype

[hamliet]

Scrubs (yes the sitcom)

Seasons 1-8 since we’re not touching season 9 and its new cast. 

A sitcom that, by its fourth episode, showed (as it would continue to show) that it was at its best when it was at its most heartbreaking, because those were often the moments that it was also at its most heartwarming. The theme of “My Old Lady” (the fourth episode) is really that you can’t save everyone and death is indeed scary (a recurring theme in Scrubs), and you have to acknowledge that. But even in that fear, there are beautiful moments too, and taking the time to breathe and feel the sun and find something warm even in those moments can get you through them. 

Dr. Kelso, Dr. Cox, Jordan, Elliott, Turk, and Carla were my favorite characters, though everyone was well done, from JD to Laverne to the Janitor. Jordan was just... an enjoyable twist on the devil woman archetype. For that matter, almost every character was really a hyperbolic, exaggerated character for comedic effect. Elliott’s eccentricities, Kelso’s cruelty, Cox’s grumpiness, Ted’s cowardice and incompetence, Todd’s sexuality, JD’s need for approval--they were all exaggerated for comedic purposes (which ties into why things weren’t ruined for me with those characters, but they could be for other people and it’s legit if so). Elliott was relatable in her anxieties, her parental issues, her relationship struggles. Cox’s breakdown in season 5 really got me, and Laverne--along with Turk and Cox’s sister Paige--all had their faith treated as an important part of their character just as Cox’s atheism was an important part of his, which I appreciated. Everyone was respected. 

i also enjoyed how different seasons focused on slowly building up towards a breakdown of different characters. For example, Carla and Turk in season 4, JD and Cox in season 5 (kept focusing more than normal on his arrogance and that went places). The relationships were also really well written and enjoyable. From the Janitor and Lady, to Ted and Gooch, to Cox and Jordan, Elliott and JD, and of course Carla and Turk, each couple had their own unique foiling and unique strengths that made them appealing together. Their personalities always remained unique, but together they made something beautiful. And the friendships were just as powerful.

I appreciated that a main theme was that there are no easy answers. Be it professionally, relationally, grief, marriage, parenting--nothing is easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s miserable either. As Dr. Kelso says in season 4, “nothing worth having comes easy.” The nuance was great in this show. For me in particular, the episodes that focused on grief (and a LOT of them did) were incredibly cathartic and healing for me, as I’ve been working through my dad’s death over the past year. 

The show was really good. The soundtrack was always on point--music as a whole was brilliantly used in this series. I highly recommend it if you want a feel-good show that doesn’t avoid even the darker aspects of life, and if you’re wrangling with grief. 

Of course, it’s got its issues too. It hasn’t aged well, like at all, in how it portrays race and especially in its portrayal of sexual harassment. Todd Quinlan is basically Mineta from BNHA as a doctor--but somehow still likable/has redeeming qualities. STill, Todd’s actions are really despicable (as are Dr. Kelso’s towards his wife) even while played for comedy, and none of these things would fly today as funny, nor should they. But within the context of the series as a whole, in my personal opinion they didn’t ruin it for me even if I cringed. I still liked Todd and loved Dr. Kelso as characters. 

Season 8 in particular was weaker than the other seasons, and if it weren’t for the writer’s strike in season 7 which cut it very short, I kind of think season 7 would have wrapped the show up. Season 8 had less budget, so the main characters didn’t always appear in episodes, and the jokes were a bit more... insensitive/cheap rather than clever like in the past (it switched networks between seasons 7 and 8 too). That being said, Season 8 did magnificently conclude the characters’ arcs, with Kelso stepping into a mentor role and a new friendship with Cox, to Cox and Jordan’s relationship, Carla and Turk’s, Elliott finding her worth and feeling as if it was okay to chase her desires, Ted and the Janitor both finding love with Gooch and Lady respectively, and everyone passing the torch to the new interns, wherein our cast became the teachers. 

For my favorite episodes: 

My Old Lady (season 1 episode 4). This episode really set the whole theme and tone of the show, and deserved the award it won. 

My Own Personal Jesus (season 1 episode 11). A hilarious rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and the really cool theme of Christmas spirit made this great.

My Dream Job (season 2 episode 22). The last minutes of this episode were pure satisfactory gold that also marked a really important step in Dr. Cox’s, Elliott’s, and Dr. Kelso’s characters, and honestly JD’s as well. Also Ryan Reynolds guest-stars. 

My Own American Girl (season 3 episode 1). This is one of the few ones on here for mostly comedy. “My machines!” is one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen. 

My Brother Where Art Thou (Season 3 episode 5). Scrubs has a habit of doing excellent mini, cross-season arcs with its minor characters, and JD’s brother Dan had a great arc that continued in every episode he appeared in over the seasons. But his moment with Dr. Cox at the end makes this my favorite of the Dan episodes. 

My Friend, the Doctor (season 3 episode 8). I loved the development for the Janitor. 

My Screw-Up (season 3 episode 14). Like with Dan, Ben’s episodes as the brother of Jordan and best friend of Dr. Cox all really stood out, and this one’s twist at the end, plus expert foreshadowing, made it fantastic viewing. 

My Boss’ Free Haircut (season 4 episode 20). Dr. Kelso’s humanity begins to emerge more, and his speech to his patient and to Turk is what I referenced above. It also deals with Carla and Turk’s marital issues in an empathetic way, and Carla is given room to grieve for her mom in a way that really resonated with me. 

My New God (season 5 episode 5). Cox’s reveal of his childhood and interactions with Paige--a character who easily could have been played for ridicule but was instead given empathy for her beliefs just as Cox was--resonated with me. 

My Bright Idea (season 5 episode 16). From JD’s hilarious slip-up in front of the priest to Carla and Turk’s pregnancy reveal in the episode’s final episodes, it was golden all the way through. I cried from happiness in this episode. 

My Lunch & My Fallen Idol (season 5 episodes 20-21). I don’t remember the last time I cried so hard at a show/movie since Hodor died in Game of Thrones. It was based on a real case, and helped me cope with my own grief, in addition to giving a powerful development to Cox and JD’s relationship. I think these are the two best episodes. 

My Musical (season 6 episode 6). Despite the idea of making an episode a musical, the premise for why it was a musical was clever, and the songs (”Guy Love” in particular) were hilarious. 

My Long Goodbye (season 6 episode 15). Within a week of watching “My Lunch,” I watched this one and cried just as hard. This episode and the one that comes before it are really powerful, but they hurt. 

My Cold Shower (Season 6 episode 19). Despite Elliott making a mistake, the way her friends are all genuinely happy for her and JD’s realization in the end that he loves her were... moving. 

My Dumb Luck (season 7 episode 9). The episode that shows you just how much Dr. Kelso developed, from character you loved because you hated him to character you saw how much he cared. It was the perfect development for him.

My Princess (season 7 episode 11). A really clever use of a fairy-tale AU, and a powerful story too that allowed for Jordan and Cox to have one of their more humanizing, tender moments. Yet again, in the end though, the implications aren’t that you can save everyone, but even in failure, there’s something to believe in. 

My Full Moon (season 8, episode 13) On the whole I think season 8 is the weakest of the acknowledged seasons (I’ve no interest in season 9) but it does have some really lovely conclusions, like I said, and this one concluded Elliott’s arc in a satisfying way. As she’s one of my faves, and as it has a really well-acted scene where she tells a patient they are HIV positive (as HIV awareness and decreasing the stigma are very important to me), it’s one of my favorites.

My Finale (Part 2) (season 8, episode 19) A really excellent final scene and a powerful series message. 

[tumblunni]

Random list of still WIP npc charries I need to make for this game, yo

* Mayor Grandma The Ultimate

Not actually anyone’s grandma but like... Everyone’s Grandma. That whole ‘village elder as a goddamn force of nature’ kind of character. She’s the Big Good. She’s this tiny unassuming gran who had a history as a legendary hero and is now the super amazing mayor who can solve goddamn anything and defeat any threat against the village and just... HOLDS US ALL WITH HER GRUMPY LOVE I’m imagining her like the protagonist’s gran in The Wee Free Men, or Granny Weatherwax from other discworld books, or the grandma from Summer Wars, or the grandma from Jade Cocoon 1 who even turned out to be literally the deity of badass grandmas who came down into mortal form to slap the shit out of some fools. (The “grim midwife of life and death” is a really fucking badass title)

Anyway she isn’t actually technically the ‘mayor’, she’s just like.. village elder under old country rules, but Regis is the duke that was sent down to Officially be ruler of this province. Officially. It’s just that absolutely everyone knows that the duke is just a figurehead and Ancient Powerful Gran Of The Old Ways is the real power behind this well-oiled machine of a town. Even Regis knows, lol! The previous duke was a total asshole that got served a slice of humble pie by gran and they were fighting at every turn, but now Regis and Mortimer are the Comparatively Less Stuck Up Noblefolks and the town is better off for it. Still, even if Regis isn’t evil like his brother, he’s still a bit foppish and occasionally stupid about what it actually takes to run a town. So they do come into conflict sometimes, but mostly its like BFFs quarrelling instead of the old Shephard Grandma Brings The Wrath of The Heavens Upon Rich Man No Matter How Many Rich Man Guards He Has, Seriously We Found One Of Them Upside Down On Top Of The Roof How Did That Even Happen

And then also i think that she might have a larger role in Blair’s plot cos Blair is kinda like the new Village Hero In Training. But she’s INTENSELY reluctant about it! Not cos she doesn’t like being buff as fuck and punching through walls, but because she doesn’t think she could ever be better than supergran. Cos like.. “yeah I’ve got the muscles but I don’t have the brains, how could I ever cope without you?” She gets really fucking sad at the very idea that supergran might be retiring, and like.. might die someday. So it’s someone who’s clearly qualified for the role repeatedly rejecting it and bringing up more and more perfectionist excuses why she isn’t ready yet, just because she cares so much for her mentor figure and wishes she could fight the tide of time. And that’s how Blair became the Miss Perfect rival type character, and why she’s so humble and oblivious of her own strengths. Also I think this same plot would have links to mortimer and sorrel too, because there was An Event that happened 15 years ago that was what caused mayorgran to start feeling as if she’d hit her limits and the town needs a new Hero. Apparantly ~something~ happened that was like.. the one time mayorgran ever found a problem she couldn’t solve. And also at that time mortimer and sorrel used to be childhood friends, since they’re cousins, but suddenly sorrel’s mum fell in status amoung the noble family and there was a huge upheaval of the town’s status quo. What exactly is this mystery...?

ALSO! she must have a big hat i just want her to have a really big hat (mayorgran, not sorrel, she’s fine with her medium hat)

* Sorrel’s mum

(and Regis’s sister and Morty’s aunt. It IS cousins when someone’s the son of your mum’s sibling, right? I can’t remember all the rules for first removed and stuff...)

Generic Mom. She’s just so NICE! Isn’t she nice? Don’t you agree? For some reason she had a falling out with Duke Regis in the past, and now she lives in comparative poverty and like.. no press statement has ever been released on WHY this happened, and everyone’s become rather distrustful of Regis because of it. What exactly is going on?

I kinda wanted to leave it vague at just this, cos you can’t exactly talk about her at all without spoiers. So yeah the next paragraph is gonna not reveal exactly what happened in that backstory, but it’ll talk about this character’s personality and what it.. actually is, I guess..??

SO...

...

...

A kind of over the top cloyingly “nice” person who really isn’t. A bit of Umbridge and a bit of an overbearing soccer mom. Like.. at first you’ll be wondering ‘why is Sorrel so self hatey when her mom is so nice to her’ but then it becomes clear that’s not what’s really happening. Mom only supports when you act how she wants you to, its a classic ‘living through your children’ situation where she pushes her kid way too far to achieve some goals they never wanted in the first place. And she’s a bit of a moral crusader, like she’s just.. SO convinced that she is ‘nice’, and that if she just acts ‘polite’ and ‘mumsy’ and cute and harmless and follows all the feminine stereotypes it balances out any horribly not nice things she does. Because she’s ‘not that kind of person’. Anything she does is good because she’s good, yknow? And anything Sorrel does is bad if it shows any sort of personality outside of what her mum has so kindly picked out for her, I mean why would you be so selfish, seriously! She kinda always lives like that, seething with resentment and selfish desire and looking for excuses she can use to paint someone as Bad so she is Justified in feeling superior to them and/or ruining their life. And her Nice facade covers up a lot of rather bigoted attitudes she holds, in addition to all the abusiveness. Ones that can be far more insidious cos she delivers them in such a Nice way and appeals to Logic and Compromise and oh but You Know, Everyone Knows, Isn’t It Just Natural And Biological, look at them getting Emotional. She’s very much the archetypical horrid nobleman that we were all so grateful that Regis wasn’t. Except she’s also way more devious and able to hide it beneath a relateable facade, so she can get these stupid naive townsfolk to do stuff that only makes life harder for themselves for the sake of like.. mythical trickle-down benefits that don’t actually exist. And oh, Sorrel, you know you could pass so well for a good Narcian lady if you dyed your hair, you know? Not like Regis’s filthy child. (She says, even though she also married a foreigner, just one from a majority white country...)

Basically she’s just gonna be a detestable monster, and the only pure evil person in the plot. And even more evil because she does such a good job hiding it, and has been able to spread her toxic influence to so many victims undetected for so long. Cos seriously, the story starts off with her being treated as a martyr and people clamouring to replace Regis with her, and it’s just gonna be So Damn Uncomfortable in retrospect when you do a second playthrough and see even Sorrel’s friends completely oblivious to her mum’s evilness. (″Friends? Honey, you don’t HAVE friends. Well, who do you need except little old me?”)

Also I was thinking randomly as a subplot there could be a thing that her mum was in charge of the town library once, and her planned renovations fell through and now the town doesn’t have a library at all, just this big abandoned building and The Enduring Shame. It’d be a good example of how she handles things, cos this is an Enduring Shame for Sorrel and not her. from Sorrel’s perspective she thinks that her mother trusted her with a big responsibility and she fucked it up and thus deserves the scorn. But really her mum just threw a sinking ship at her so she could take the blame, and then was all like “OH THE POOR GIRL IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY, PLEASE DON’T BLAME HER”. Spreading all these negative rumours to encourage Sorrel to never try and be independant ever again, but in a sneaky reverse psychology way so she could still look like a loving mother. But anyway this is how Sorrel ended up running a Secret Underground Library, her one form of rebellion against her mother’s control. She rescued as many books as she could when the library went under, and now she keeps them all crammed in her room and tries to spread them around without leaving any threads back to her. Cos she knows that her mum is super trusted, and that even good people can’t be trusted to keep secrets from her, and nobody would believe her if she tried to explain why it needs to be secret. So instead she just plays it off as if she’s just another person receiving books from the ghost library, and she’s totally searching for an answer to this mystery too, honest! It’d be a sign that you reached high friendship level with her when she’s like.. able to believe that you’d believe her if she told you her mum abuses her. And the first step of that is ‘hey remember that library we were questing for? its literally under my bed.’ Welcomes you to the secret trapdoor book heaven and you have a strangely romantic evening going OOOOMG FIRST EDITION TOLKEINS (or whatever the equivelant is in this universe XD) But it probably still takes her a while after that to open up about exactly why the library has to be secret, and to come to terms with the fact that she really doesn’t deserve how her mother treats her. So I’d definately give you an opportunity here to Fuck Up Massively by telling the mum about the library, yup. Gotta torment the player every now and again! XD ...but I mean if you’re reading this you know all the spoilrs so you’ll be fine, lol

* Quincy’s grandma (or possibly grand aunt?)

A stern and super professional businesswoman who has a bit of a quarrel with him over how exactly to balance profit vs like.. morality. She’s not a BAD person, her business isn’t so profit-heavy that its like all the actual atrocities you see in mega corporations nowadays. But she’s very distant from her customer base and also from what it’s even like to be poor. And she doesn’t believe that such minor things to improve the shopping experience would like.. actually change anything. What is ‘brand loyalty’?! What is this principle that if people are able to live more comfortably they’ll be able to spend more money on luxuries?? She used to be less greedygrump once, but she gets more jaded every year and keeps bumping money higher and higher up her priority list, abandoning things that used to seem important. And similarly she’s become super ‘I don’t need anyone, I’m better off being alone’, and developed this strained relationship with her grand-nephew. I think maybe I could add another layer of sad to this, woo! I think she raised Quincy alone after his parents were Giant Assholes and ran off. Probably stole a bunch of the family money, probably left her with a failing business that they’d ruined with all their selfish decisions over the years, and an angry mob out for blood against the brand name. And Quincy was very sickly as a kid, so she had to work a lot, leading to the distant relationship and obsession with profit. But she’s become so obsessed and paranoid of losing her money even after it became less of a death sentence, and she just keeps working super hard even though now she has time to spend with her family. And she gets scared seeing Quincy grow up cos she remembers how his parents turned into absolute monsters when she used to trust them so much. Being distant is better than getting hurt again... and god damn why does he have his mother’s eyes...

So yeah, they’re a bit estranged, and you can potentially help with that, woo! But mostly during the main game you’ll just hear about her cos everyone is like ‘oh, are you from [grauntie’s brand name]? why don’t you have this thing, she always has it’ and Quincy is like ‘no, this is my own store.. we’re a small business.. but umm, we’re cheaper..’ He’s trying to step out from under her shadow and prove that her philosophy is wrong, so maybe he can bring back the loving grauntie that he remembers from his childhood. i think maybe the ending could be that she turns up to inspect his new shop and they have some sort of merchant showdown and like... even if Quincy loses he still ends up proving her wrong because she sees just how much everyone in this town cares about him and how he’s improved various parts of their life by bringing access to these imported goods and just generally being a supportive community member. Maybe there are some things more important than profit...

Oh and also I think she was the one responsible for helping out Blair and Dionne when they were running from their abusive parents, and that’s why the two of them are the most friendly with Quincy at the start of the game. They hadn’t seen each other since they were kids, and Blair is kinda like I Owe You A Blood Debt, Is There Anyone You Need Me To Stab Grauntie looks back on this as a moment of weakness tho, and that’s why she stopped keeping in touch with them, she’s embarassed she used to be so sentimental. Cos like.. she spent so much money helping set up these girls with their own house and she lost out on a business opportunity (it was a property she originally purchased to turn into a franchise store) She can’t stop thinking about how tight the funds were around that time and how if she messed up she could have lost her own kid for the sake of helping some other kids... But then she turns up in town and its like Oh No I Walked Down The Street By Accident *gets buried in blair hugs* And she can’t stop crying seeing how much they grew up, and then they’re all like “we’ve been trying to send you a cut of the cafe profits for the last seven years!” and she’s like “NOOOOO, KEEP IT” *even more embarassed at doing even more irrational sympathetic actions*

Also possibly she could get a crush on mayor grandma cos they are both grumpy badasses of opposite? Strength gran vs wisdom gran!

+++

so yeh i made a bunch of grans/demigrans of various kinds, and now I am thankfully satisfied with this story’s gremp quotient

[maneaterwithtail]

Warning depressed overindulgent rant about kids cartoon incoming

I’m cross-posting that’s from spacebattles. You know I really need to start posting some positive s*** about Steven Universe. There’s a reason why it keeps getting my attention. I really love the setup, there are wonderful events, I love that its Aim so well. It’s managed to assemble a number of things as well as had a way of interacting with fans that encourages creativity and a community that produces so much that can be loved and expresses Joy. 

I guess I’m just a natural Grump and I can only talk about things when I’m pissed off or think I’m being smart by dissecting it. Which in my mind means needlessly ranting about every silly little thing that I observe about a work or feel about a work or I feel about the people that I’m watching the work alongside. I understand if this is not the kind of thing that you like. I can also understand if you want to be defensive of the show. Just respect the fact that I’m a person who has watched the show for a bit or just a person at all. But I do want to have some sort of discussion. It is why I am posting this out loud. It’s just with the ramp up for more speculation and another interview I just feel like we’ve been at this dance so many damn times and we’re just being jerked around here. Which of course is the purpose of any work of art. At least serial media. You constantly give just enough so that people feel inclined to come back for more. But I guess well read the rant

Whiteeyes, post: 36894166, member: 314250

No mo, it felt much much worse. See Lost had no answers when it was written. It was created to pile up mysteries for a season or so and then get cancled like Twin Peams and every ither wekrd mystery show so they never had to answer any. It became too popular to cancel and they had to scramble to invent answers. SU has had dorwshadowing and setup as warly as season 1. It knows what it is doing.

 .... I personally think that Steven Universe's character development and pacing is hampered by the fact that it wants to make everything a f****** mystery. This was a characteristic of Lost in a way that it got ridiculous. To the point where things like what's on Jack's tattoo or who is married or who was not or who had a terminal illness that they had known publicly forever and so on and so forth.  

  I think Steven Universe suffers from the same problem. Basic character development, interaction, or what-have-you tends to be put in a mystery box just so that that way we can create drama and then have it emerge later to create a resolution without progress. 

The problem is that while mystery is their main tool in this endeavor to set up interest it's not the only way in which they do this and then be annoying. Now some of this is the fans frothing themselves up.

 relevant example, when we see a title and then flip out about major speculation for a major plot point and then get disappointed when it's basically not so. 

 However I think this is in a part with all of their setup plot developments. As an example the return of Marty.  

  I actually want to be very fair-minded here. The Sour Cream situation identity and everything about him was very carefully set up over the course of a year and it actually made sense for once that he was a relatively new char in Stevens life. He's apparently older, runs with a different crowd, all that stuff. 

Marty comes back for one episode 

Not only do they run the most cliched plot imaginable about a deadbeat father and artsy dreamer son and the man who doesn’t get their passion but they do this basically to setup a virtue signal and reconcile sour cream and yellowtail in perhaps the worst way imaginable. In the first episode they actually share a scene.

But they don't share a scene in anyway proceeding to their actual reconciliation. All of that is cut aside just so that we can get to our cute little happy ending. This kind of ran things into the ground for me in some ways. Everybody defends moves of aborted long-term plot like this by saying that Steven Universe is more about people and characters and it is not about big plot twists and Sci-Fi Action. 

That might be true but they're doing that character and living the life stuff in a bad way as well. By not having the family reconcile but by having Yellowtail basically come around and agree because Sour Cream suddenly has a villain for Yellowtail to prove immediately better than.

  For a show that's often praised for its diversity and lack of stock archetypes this was too cliche    You see this time and again with long setup plot points whether it's the eventual return and revelation of the backstory of lapis Lazuli, the face off with the cluster, and others- That isn't to say all long-term plot points have fallen on their face but a lot of them have and it seems as if what succeeds or what gets the necessary follow-up is arbitrary and random

This isn't the usual complaint of "this is filler! where is the plot?" This happens whether it's character Focus-interaction that often feels as if it's taking forever to happen or gets bogged down in Mindless drama such as the entire relationship between Sadie and Lars to the point that Lars doesn't feel as if he has a real character until these last 7 or so episodes. 

He was basically the Grump. A cartoon stock archetype, a television stock archetype, a place talk archetype. 

You didn't have to think about why he was grumpy because there was no reason other than to make him and grumpy.  And remember this is the longest term character that's been on the show (was in the pilot) and he had a ridiculously thin characterization.

 All of this would still be bad even if he didn't have a plot line that made me cringe 

mackon, post: 36912103, member: 9256

Sure there are a lot of scenarios where the Zoo could be where it is and Pinks holdings only cover the solar system but just looking at what we have seen so far it looks like Pink administrated space covers more -shrug- How the Gempire is governed is sure to be more complex than X diamond runs this area and Y diamond runs that area anyway.

 And this just all ties it together. We get all of this stuff that's supposed to matter then push it all to the side and then come up with confrontation that's in many ways not satisfying because there's no build-up or it's just confusing or inevitably leads to more stupid questions that aren't even asked in the show.    I guess what makes this so frustrating is that the show has great set up. it does set up very well. But every time, or at least many times, when it's time for the payoff for those Domino's to go it always goes off like a bad fart. 

All of these are pointing to the same issue. . .

For some people this is the climax of The Cluster. For others It's the Return of Marty. For others it's The Search For Answers.  Some others feel disappointed because they think that there hasn't been enough queer text in the show. Others feel like characters are often push the Wayside and not given enough time to interact with the world shaking plot.  All of these are pointing to the same issue, broadly speaking. Crewniverse throws something in the air but they don't follow through. Or they passport or just suddenly resolve something with another IOU. 

The weird part is when they do this with a plot point they say that it's about the people. But Fusion Cuisine (wryyyyy) I think keeps hurting me because it's the episode that proves they don't respect people and character interaction.   

 Character interaction has to have consequences. Those consequences can be negative.  It can be positive but it has to arise and seem to follow from each other. Subtle or flagrant but the consequences of character interaction, if having dramatic focus, have to be observable and meaningful. Instead, all too often, we see artificial ways in order to create drama and then arbitrarily end or ignore it. For some people this is Stevens disturbing naivete childish behavior when he supposed to be a mid teenager. The lack of follow-up questions or the way that plot points will conveniently go off screen for months at a time only to then pop up in order to keep up interest and tease us and then come off with a lack of resolution despite lots of build up to no change or wasted opportunity.  

I think one thing that's bothering me is the reintroduction of there being some mystery to the death of Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz's crime against her. We've been here. already.  we know what the answer is supposed to be. And yet apparently there's a new mystery. 

Only I bet this new mystery is going to end up just as dissatisfying as “What is Lapis’s backstory?” or “How are we going to find Malachite?” or “How are we going to resolve The Cluster?” or “How will Beach City recover and her people deal with overwhelming change and trauma of an unnatural disaster?”

This shows up in other ways such as the not taking care of the Rubies when they have a ship. Or the fact that Homeworld keeps taking its sweet damn time in order to take care of the Crystal Gems and Earth even when it keeps on being a hostile instigator in the lives of the gems.    

And I think Fusion Cuisine is emblematic of this fault with regards to character stories and showing that statement about character over grand plots as a poor excuse. They will create a situation that literally doesn't require any crisis which won’t be treated or result as one. The family just needed basic common sense or respect, even between strangers, and then they won't follow through on the natural consequences of the family’s disrespectful lies or dangerous actions. 

And underlying this is a sense of- I don't know-  condescension or virtue signaling? On one level the Crewmiverse really do follow through on the implication that yes Steven has a queer family. On the other it feels as if they've set up the Maheshwarens as strawman that they've spent the rest of their appearance just being someone in order to goof with. I still claim this due to the fact that Dr. Maheshwaren is treated as if she's overprotective or crazy because controls her daughter media consumption; when connie lied to her (twice) regarding her experiences and activities with STeven and his family.  She lies about taking dangerous lessons from a person who partook in an assault of her daughter and has expressed bigoted opinions of her race -as in the human race- for months. This disobedience, to make Connie a fighter, is Justified because the story made Dr. Maheshwaren too damn stupid to notice not only does her daughter not wear her glasses anymore but that the three limbed candy colored being with no heartbeat is a gem Fusion and Connie saves her from it.   So the resolution is Connie NEEDS to be a sword fighter for the growing dangers of the Cluster.

 only we remove that as a valid point 

 For a show that keeps purporting being about togetherness, the cast herding and other things kind of put that as a lie. And Fusion Cuisine is an exemplary of this. It exists for a lot of reasons, but the number one thing it ends up doing is helping justify this sense of distance between humanity and the gems and completely ignoring ways in which they can come together and be understood.  Or conflict and come to resolution and understanding. So the character conflicts and development feel artificial or low stakes or superfluous and the plot and combat and Magic feels as if its always being sandbagged for these meaningless character beats.

 I think the show is going to lose me.    And I don't think there's any big thing that it can do now to convince me. It's spent so much of the goodwill and belief from its initial run and set up.  It has undermined all of it set up when it's actually gotten anywhere. I no longer trust the show to turn out to be well. At least in a way that I think will be satisfying for when they pull another “wait until you see the payoff for this” move AGAIN. And I suspect it's going to keep misfiring in ways while implying that it's so damn clever. 

There's just something incredibly artificial about Lars being captured with Steven and effectively telling all of his emotional issues that I feel like they have not been appropriately Illustrated despite multiple character Focus episodes.    And given the track record on how long it takes to actually engage with plot points or how they can be unsatisfying-ly resolved and then put out the way until they are unsatisfying-ly resolved is also bothersome. 

I was kind of okay with the end of The Cluster but I also understand how that could frustrate some. But one way that I can agree it was bad is we effectively spend all this time setting up the end of the world and the resolution of The Cluster basically put it out of mind and hasn't been Revisited or had any further effect.  The only lasting consequence has been the Turning of Peridot.[and according to some that’s been flattened to irrelevance too] 

So that meant that The Cluster basically existed so that that way we would have something in order for Peridot to oppose to justify her becoming a good person. Which reminds me of how they handled Marty and Sour Cream and Yellowtail and so I'm really really uncomfortable about them trying to go “oh, we're going to be all about character don't be all about the magical Destiny b*******.” only characters remain thin and ignorant and nothing but potential fodder

  Maybe I'm just in a really nasty mood[edit- looking back I was]. But I will say this; I think after this much time the show has set up its relationship with the audience and I think it's made me distrustful and doubtful of its reliability. I don't want any more promotional material. I don't want any more interviews covering for stuff not in the show. I don't want any more teases. I want an actual story executed on the screen in a satisfying manner.    And honestly I think what with the relative Circle walking season 4 and the reintroduction of more complications about mysteries about Rose and more drama about Steven feeling sad and more “Steven is going to have to introduce Humanity to this alien-person” as his own life seems as divorced from Human Experience as possible. 

The artifice of the show is coming out. It's much like how some can't take Game of Thrones seriously anymore. It makes sense to kill off the characters that they have killed off but there's no more emotional investment and we’re getting more and more sense that all of this is a bunch of Sensational nonsense.