#it pulled a weird steven universe arc

[ssaltlicker]

I just dont get how aggretsukos original overarching theme was “it sucks being controlled by others” and somehow the end lesson was “actually being controlled by others is a good thing”.

It would have been so much more satisfying to get and end where retsuko gets to make her own decisions. To realize she has control over her life. But nah, her boss controlling her was bad, but the manager that held her hostage? Thats good actually. Random kidnapping? Cool. Manipulation? Awesome. Telling her what she thinks? Not letting her respond on her own, just telling her what she wants? Great! Its not like that was the whole fucking problem that the show introduced us to in the first episode!

If there had been a follow up. Of her being like oh shit. Im just repeating the same shitty patterns and falling for the same manipulation methods and its actively making me miserable. Her realizing that she needs to find another way of living. That her habits are hurting her and the people around her. That wouldve been better. But why do that when you can completely strip every other character of their own personalities and lives so they can worship the protagonist? Make retsuko an uwu do-no-wrong mary-sue! Who everyone elses lives revolves around. No one elses life means anything and she is perfect. No lessons learned, no theme, no anything. The show starts and ends the exact same way, with her being miserable and powerless because she has no control over her own life. Its just depressing

[tripleglitchwriting]

My earthspark Season 2a thoughts

Warning: SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE THING!!! And a lot of rambling. And negative thoughts.

As much as i hate to admit it, I was kind of disappointed. It’s not that it was bad, I did still enjoy it, but I feel like there was so much missed opportunity.

The show wasn’t well advertised for, especially season 2. I have a feeling Hazbro doesn’t really care much for it. I think the team that works on the show is great! They’re obviously very talented, passionate, and hardworking, but (so far) season 2 saw a definite downgrade from season 1.

The animation is the first thing that comes to mind. While it is still tv show quality, when compared to season 1 in some parts it feels clankier and less polished. Though I don’t know much about 3D animation other than it’s hard, so I suppose I can’t really critique something I have no practice in.

Then I come to the characters. Here I see the seasons biggest flaw. Starscream’s character arc got completely obliterated, (though they did at least mention his interaction with Hashtag) Nightshade got sidelined compared to the other terrans, and Breakdowns character arc also got the boot.

Breakdown interacted with Bumblebee once, and it was in the finale while they were fighting in the background. If it were just this plotline that got pushed off, I would be fine with it. It’s hard to fit in every single character thread in 9 episodes while also introducing new things. Except it wasn’t just this.

In season 1 they set up the perfect redemption arc for Starscream. Him finally meeting someone that actually listens to him, Megatron’s past abuse and Starscream feelings about his subsequent redemption, it was really interesting to see! But then he pulled a Steeljaw and decided to make New Cybertron. Character wise, sure, I can see why he would want to do that. However, it totally disregards his past interactions. We don’t even know how he found out about the titan, there are so many missing pieces.

Then there’s Cosmos. I think Cosmos is great! I think it’s cool that his voice is Weird Al! I was so excited to get to the next episode and see him take Robbie’s offer to join team Terran and the autobots… and then we don’t see him again. They even set up a potential conflict with Megatron being redeemed! And then nothing! My theory is they couldn’t afford weird al for another episode. Maybe he’ll be back in 2b?

Personally, I don’t like the chaos terrans. It’s an interesting concept, and it isn’t executed as poorly as it could’ve been, but they just fell below the bar for me.

Aftermath has one character trait and it’s hitting things. For the start of his character, that’s fine! Having him only see value in destruction is an interesting foil to Jawbreaker and the rest of the terrans. However, even after the episode with him and Jawbreaker, he doesn’t change. He steals the cave water (which, by the way, how do they get fuel now???? Does it come back???) and goes back to being terrible. I can see what they were trying to do with him, it’s cool having a character that was made to be evil go up against characters who try and Steven universe anybody that shows a hint of the possibility to change. But there’s just nothing interesting about Aftermath. They don’t even dive into his relationship with Breakdown that much after his debut episode.

And then there’s Spitfire. I have mixed feelings about her. On one hand, shes pretty much the shape the hedgehog of transformers. She’s the mean edgy version of an already established ‘good’ character who is designed to be better than said already established good character. On its own that’s pretty overdone, and so is the body switch troupe. It’s a good hook but super predictable. She’s more interesting than Aftermath, at least she has a reason to stay evil, but she just feels like a plot device to create conflict rather than an actual well-formed character. Maybe that’s what she is? On the other hand, her debut episode is really well directed! It was some fantastic shots and combat sequences! I absolutely love what they did with that! The fact she nearly killed Wheeljack was really surprising (in a good way) to me! It even played to Wheeljack character by having him be the first to figure her out!

A good amount of the episodes were as well directed as episode 6. They have a lot of good moments! Some I even laughed out loud at! It may just be the fact only half the season is out, but really 2a felt a bit empty. We got no new characters other than Cosmos (who had like 10 lines and then dipped) the chaos terrans, and the fairmiestero. There were a lot of missed opportunities in that department and in the department of pre existing characters.

Nothing new about Megatron (though I did enjoy the part we got to explore cybertronian culture with the polyhex tournament!) and no comebacks of older characters (where is prowl).

I thought the quintesson lore was pretty interesting though! They will probably be the villains of 2b. I still have hope for the series. They could right a lot of wrongs with the next part of season 2. I sincerely hope these loose ends get tied up.

I’m tired, I have more to say but the energy to type it all out is not there. I also didn’t proofread this so sorry if it’s just rambling and spelling mistakes haha.

[battersweet]

YİPPE

BBU OC!!!

Their name is Loki, they are a bat jester and they go by all pronouns!!!

They have Autism and ADHD

She's bigender, genderfluid, intersex and Pansexual!!!

They are actually blind from an accident happened years ago but they see and recognize people by their souls from their right eye, also their left eye is can see but very blurry so he's legally blind anyway

He's keeping the red gem, he can shapeshift and mimic voices that doesn't exist, and can possess other people's body!!! They also can see people's past with the red gem, the red gem basically about interacting with other people's bodies, control their emotions and memories etc(i dunno how to name it), their gem replacement is right on their suit's chest!

They don't really have an reason to be a Villain, yes they have a bad past but that's not really a reason to be make them a Villain, they are just wants to be a piece of shit and they are lol, they are also a c@Nñibal

They LOVE lizards, they also have a pet lizard

They have claustrophobia and a strong Aracnophobia, they are extremely terrified of spiders

They despise smoking and alcoholism

They are friendly at first, but manipulative, reckless, jokester, violent, Apathetic and selfish,

Their arc nemesis is Aristotle the Axolotl (strangers to enemies) Aristotle literally Despises Loki, she tried to manipulate Billie and managed to posess them, but Aristotle found it out by their weird behaviour, they also tried to eat Billie once but ended up just slightly injuring them.

they care very deeply about their partner and friend, Fenx, @whosralf 's oc!!! They likes to rant abt their interests to him!!

They stims by flapping her hands, shaking their head Side to Side, kicking their legs, flapping their wings, rocking back and forth at their place and opening their hands and covering them repeatedly

They are very touch with people(not that way you pervs), they don't if they're a stranger, an enemy, or a friend.

They loves to pull dangerous tricks, but they mostly loves to juggle knifes, doesn't even cares if they will hurt themself or not, gives Fenx a mini heart attack every time they do that

Their hug animation is Lifting Billie(or any Target) to their height and twirling them enough to make their head spin and nauseus and put them back to their feet again,(i dunno why i added this, i just saw other characters hug animations and i wanted to do too lol)

They smell like iron and old wooden(i dunno why it just fits them y'know?)

They are actually really great with kids, but he manages to scare the shit out of them everytime, both intentional or unintentional

Their favorite Singer is STOMACH BOOK, her fav song of them is "All you can hope for now are the scars to show it!!!"

They are 30 years old

Their voice claim is Spinel from Steven Universe!!!

[popculturebuffet]

Next up for Cartoon Network era of shows, who is your favorite character from each of the early 2010s Check It renaissance era shows you've seen like: Regular Show, Sym Bionic Titan, Robotomy, The Problem Solverz, The Amazing World of Gumball, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, Ben 10 Omniverse, Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe, and Clarence?

Regular Show: CJ... besides being cute she's a fun character and was a good match for Mordecai.. then he fucking blew it in an incident i've never quite gotten over and will cover at some point if anyone's intrested, though till I do Sarcastic Chorus has covered mordecai fumbling the ball well. Overall the show itself is great, aside from season 6. The Romance Stuff can be drawn out when your not talking about Rigleen, but it's got great comedy, good batshit insanity and ends on a high note. It's an all time classic and like adventure time left a mark on animation. It's succesor close enough was even better and go seek it out since it's hard to find offically because warner bros fucking blows.

Sym Bionic Titan: Octus, brian poshen's best role and one of the best designs i've seen. The show itself was treated oh so shittily and i'ts nice Gennendy now has more of a blank check over at cartoon network (Still need to watch more of Unicorn: Warriors Eternal) as they owe him after canceling this. Still a good show and I hope he can continue it someday.

The Problem Solverz: no faviorites, didn't like this one. Almost forgot to include it. Next.

Robotmy: Don't really have a faviorite character but I did last this one. Like Titan deserved better and that's a bit of a theme at times during this era: some shows got the runs they deserved, others died fast

Gumball; Penny. I liked her first design and her unshelled one was a nice twist. She also serves as a nice contrast to her boyfriends nonsense and i'm glad they pulled the trigger on that fast. Carie is a close second. As for this show I honestly need to see more as I simply lost touch when I stopped having cable and didn't catch up on streaming. But it's an excellent show. While I hated it's sticking to the status quo, in hindsight it dosen't: both the boys get girlfriends in stand out episodes, their grandma gets married, richard's dad comes back, change does happen it's just more on the simpsons scale of "it's gradual". I"m happy it's coming back and to see a movie eventually.

Secret Mountain Fort Awesome: I got nothing. I didn't really watch this one, wasn't intrested, what I saw wasn't good. Next.

Ben 10 Omniverse: Rook Mothefucking Blonko. For all the ups and down with the series, he was a worthy partner to ben, a fun character and a nice contrast being the more reserved by the book badass normal to Ben's empowered moron. One of the series best additions, bring him back whenever it returns. Have child him adventure with ben I don't care. As for the show as a whole.. it's a fucking mess. It has some really good stuff like the initial arc, Blox (My faviorite transformation of this era), and some good one off episodes... but also a lot of wacky nonsense. The show tried to restroe some of the og continuity the alien era ignored, which is good on paper but in practice left the franchise a spiraling mess, brought back some characters without properly reintroducing them (Though bringing lucy back was a good move and she was fantastic), and had a ton of ships for ben but settled on the worst option, making him a harem protaganist for no real reason. Some arcs were good, some eps were good, a lot of it is garbage, and the design work is excellent. It's not horrible but it is a hot mess of a show and a weird note to end the og continuity on.

Uncle Grandpa: Pizza Steve. This show was alright: Id idn't like it at first but it grew on me a little, though I just kinda drifted from it. As batshit insane as the idea was, I did like the steven universe crossover as it somehow worked and has some of the best pearl moments series wide. Otherwise the series is alright and probably worth another look.

Steven Universe: Garnet. The series has a LOT of great characters (Pearl and Greg are close seconds and thirds), but Garnet is a throughly intresting character, a kind leader and a good mom to steven with one of the most badass musical numbers in all of animation. Pearl again is a very close second being a nicely flawed character. The series as a whole.. is one of my faviorite cartoons of all time if not my faviorite. It's one I need to rewatch: beautifully animated, paced decently (Far from perfectly but looking at the bigger picture now it's over, not nearly as bad as it's rep was. It spaced out story moments with life just happening). The cast is memorable and charming as hell, the fight scenes some of the best in western animatoin and animation period, and the finale while rushed due to rebecca having to take a seasons worth of finale material and compress it into a few extra episodes she had to beg cartoon network for, is utterly satisfying. Steven Unvierse Future: While this one is a bit later might as well get it out of the way. I love this one. I get why some don't, it's divisive, to me it feels like a valid deconstruction of Steven's trauma, an epilogue that shows what having this savior complex thrust on him, this need to fix grown adults, would do to the poor boy and ends with him finding his own life. It's bleak as hell in places, but it ends on a note of hope and humanity that makes the jouney worht it.

Clarence: Sumo whose some classic tom kenny and usually pretty fun. A weird note to end on as while Steven Universe, like adventure time before, changed animation, where as CN kinda buried Clarence after it's creator's public breakdown and like Gumball I lost touch eventually. That being said.. Clarence is excellent. The crew rebounded well, the characters are charming and it's a nice slice of life show. I wish Jeff was less of a jerk, but otherwise it's a really fun show with a really kind protagonist.

[stevenblueniverse]

Steven BLUE-niverse chapters 25-30

This is the zoo arc and the first real arc in BLUE-niverse! This is when the fic starts getting good(?) These chapters are very old so I have added some new small things and fixed spellings (these where originally planned in about 2017 but published about a year ago so contain some weird stuff made by 10 year old me)

Chapter 25 the kindergarten

The crystal gems warped back to their headquarters in shock, "is homeworld going to try and attack earth again!? Is this another plan by the diamonds!?", the pearl said, panicking and pacing around. Amethyst stayed quiet, she saw Steven and blue diamond there, they seemed just as confused as they where, she wished she could speak with them but knew for sure something was up with them and the crystal gems, she knew nothing about homeworld but Pearl's mentioning of "the diamonds", confirmed her theory that this blue diamond must be someone special.

"I think I also heard that peridot or whatever she's called mention the kindergartens too!", rose said, sounding very serious, everyone turned to look at Amethyst when she said this, pearl looked disgusted, "we must never let a terrible mistake like that ever happen again!", she dramatically vowed to rose. Amethyst couldn't take how everyone was staring at her and stormed off to beach city, maybe eating some food would make her feel better, no one, not ever rose, who she felt very close with chased after her or asked if she was okay, they just kept theorising about what the peridot would be doing on earth.

"So, how are we going to fix this, my diamond?", lapis asked. Her and blue diamond stood in front of the destroyed barn. "I don't know", blue said, picking up a large chunk of what used to be the walls and throwing it, "let's just look around and see if there's anything we will like in here!".

They both surprisingly found a lot of interesting things in the barn, old tapes of TV shows, a guitar and one thing that blue really liked, white shorts with stereotypical green alien heads printed on it. "Look at this beautiful work of fashion", blue proclaimed, quickly putting on the shorts and pulling up her dress to show lapis. "My diamond you look beautiful!", lapis said, admiring blue's amazing fashion sense, "but may I ask, what is that on your legs.." She gestured down to blue's long white leg hair and strange plushie looking feet. "Oh I've been on this planet for so long I've started to grow hair!" Blue explained, lapis looked at blue with wonder in her eyes, "may I touch it" Lapis asked, "you may", blue replied.

As lapis was stroking the glorious leg hair of her diamond, the familar mr universe van pulled up right behind them, "Hey guys I'm just wondering if you want a ride home-", Greg stopped, in shock of what he was seeing, then noticed the barn, "what are you-THE BARN!", he yelled as lapis let go of blue and panicked, "IM SO SORRY IT WAS MY FAULT I DROPPED IT!!!", lapis apologised as Greg ran to the remains of the barn to see the damage. "You dropped it!?", Greg looked at lapis with shock and confusion "HOW!?". "Yeah she dropped it on me!" Blue joked, Greg looked at her horrified, "BLUE WHY DO YOU KEEP MEETING THESE CRAZY PEOPLE!".

During this, steven was walking around beach city with Connie, he was telling her about the recent events with peridot. "So, we don't know who she is but my mum said she works for yellow diamond, who is her mean sister" Steven said to Connie. suddenly, something grabbed Steven from behind and picked him up, it was amethyst! "Hey! Ste-man how ya doing?", she asked, putting him back on the ground and high fiving him. "Amethyst you scared me!", Steven said. "Who's this girl here? Is she your girlfriend??", amethyst joked, pointing to connie, both Steven and Connie blushed in unison.

"Are you another one of Steven's gem friends?", Connie asked amethyst, "I guess so, anyway it's great to see you ste-man, back with the other gems it hasn't been going so great", amethyst said, Steven wondered if the crystal gems had saw her looking at him back at the warps and she was yelled at for it. "Why? Is it because of peridot?", steven asked, his tone sympathetic. "Kinda", she replied, stuffing a hotdog in her mouth, "the rest of the gems where weird to me about it, they say peridot is trying to do something to my home", she said with food still in her mouth. "Your....home?", Steven asked, interested in what she meant.

The Mr universe van returned to the home in mostly awkward silence, lapis was terrified of Greg using his influence over her diamond to punish her for the barn, blue was scared Greg saw lapis touching her leg hair and Greg was just shocked at how blue's friends kept appearing and destroying stuff. As they got out they saw Steven, amethyst and Connie walking up to the house, blue quickly got out to greet them.

"Hey you three, perfect timing! We just got back from the barn, great to see you amethyst!", blue greeted them, she could see amethyst looked sad. "Mum, could you possibly bring us to amethyst's home?", Steven said, this peaked blue's interest, "She said the crystal gems where annoying her with questions about it and claiming peridot was going to do something with it". "Yes I could easily take you three there", blue said, making Steven and amethyst happy. "Oh mrs universe im so sorry but I gotta go soon I have violin class soon!", Connie said, checking the time on her phone and quickly leaving.

Steven blue and amethyst quickly went to the warp in the house,lapis went back to bed and Greg went to work, pearl watched them as they walked in, especially amethyst and lapis. "I can't wait to show you guys around!", Amethyst excitedly said as they got on the warp, Steven smiled at her and replied, "I'm excited too, I hope i can really learn a lot about gems there".

The three of them warped on top of some sort of hill and where surrounded by large dark mountains and old broken black injector looking things hanging off the hills and on the floor. "welcome to the kindergarten!", Amethyst said, jumping off the warp, "I can't wait to show you around!", she held Steven's hand and guided him around while laughing. It was very foggy and abandoned looking, the hills and mountains where Littered with holes, holes shaped like people.

"Steven! B.D! check it out!", Amethyst excitedly showed them a smaller hole, much closer to the ground than any of the other ones. "This is where I came out of, pretty cool right!". Steven looked into the hole and back at her, "you came out of this?", he asked confused. "Yeah it's me-sized!", she said, sliding perfectly into the hole and to the back as Steven looked in. Blue was mostly looking around at the old once grand kindergarten but then finally approached amethyst.

"Amethyst....wasn't it empty when you came out of this hole?", blue diamond asked, "yeah, I spent all my time here before rose quartz found me", she replied, sitting down in the hole. Steven looked at his mother and thought, "she was alone before rose found her! I feel so bad!", blue read his thought and just nodded, she needed to really think about what she was going to say. "So...you don't know what the other amethysts look like", blue said. Amethyst got out the hole and looked at all the other ones, "probably like me...right?", she turned to blue, who was struggling with what she was about to say.

"Not just like you.. you have the hair.. the personality....but not the tall size", she nervously said, not wanting to offend the amethyst. "Not the size? What am I supposed to look like?", she asked blue, more intrigued than offended. To show her in the least bad way she could think of, blue diamond quickly shape-shifted into the average amethyst soldier who was much taller than amethyst and towered over her, then quickly returned to her normal form. Amethyst was shocked, "I'm not right?", she asked, sounding upset, blue was scared and tried to reassure her, "no no its ok, you still seem to have the same powers and the other amethysts will love you! I know they will! They'll accept you unlike those crystal gems! They are your family!", these words stuck with amethyst, she was right, the crystal gems hated the fact she was made on earth, they saw her as a immature child, even rose, who bascially raised her was no longer treating her as kindly.

"Hey its okay", Steven said, hugging amethyst, both he and blue read all her thoughts, they knew she wasn't some kind of crystal gem spy or any potential threat, they wanted to help her. Suddenly, the warp went off, blue panicked and amethyst sighed, "here comes the fun police".

"Amethyst!, where are you! I know you're here!", a voice echoed across the kindergarten, blue recognised that voice, it was the crystal gem's pearl. She quickly grabbed Steven and flew to the top to watch, as the pearl got closer blue hid Steven in one of the old gem holes and shapeshifted to be much smaller to hide in the hole next to him.

"What are you doing in this...horrible place!", the pearl said in disgust, kicking some rocks away from her. "It's my home pearl", amethyst mumbled under her breath. "How cruel of her!", Steven said to blue as they where hiding, "she's the one I fought as frybo", blue said, "she was so dramatic and annoying". "This place is one big, horrible mistake, get back to the temple, rose has been looking for you!", pearl commanded, cornering amethyst. "We need to do something!", Steven yelled, jumping out the hole and landing on his face, landing right in front of the pearl.

"Hey you! stop that! leave My friend alone!", Steven said, getting up from the ground, he was now covered in dirt, blue just rolled her eyes and continued watching, preparing herself to kill this pearl if she ever touched steven. "Steven! There you are!" Amethyst said, pearl looked at Steven horrified, "you brought a HUMAN to this horrendous site!" She shrieked, this really offended Steven, he wasn't just some human he was basically a prince! The son of the great blue diamond! He was keeping cover right now but he really wanted to show this crystal gem rebel who's boss!

"Human, please get out of here, this place is truly terrible" pearl gestured her hand to steven but amethyst smacked it away, "LEAVE HIM ALONE!", she yelled, summoning her whip and hitting pearl away, pearl hit one of the injectors and fell to the ground. Pearl quickly got up and summoned her spear, "you leave me no choice amethyst!", she shouted as she rushed to the purple gem, they both where now putting Steven at risk as they started to fight eachother, making blue ready to jump in and destroy that pearl until....

As the pearl rushed to amethyst, Steven jumped in front of her and summoned his scythe, quickly knocking away pearl and her spear. "I knew it, I knew I saw you before BLUE DIAMOND!!!", pearl yelled at steven who was holding his scythe in front of him.As she tried to run to him again, amethyst's whip wrapped around her legs and tripped her up, "leave Steven alone!", Amethyst yelled at pearl.

Blue diamond finally flew down from the hills, clapping and congratulating her son and mocking the pearl. "Well done, you two are an amazing duo together" both steven and amethyst smiled at each other. "I'm very sorry you had to deal with that thing for so long!", she joked, amethyst and steven both laughed at this as pearl tried to plead with them, "amethyst please! You dont know who that is!", but no one listened. "Now, amethyst I'm going to be taking you to see your family, the crystal gems would definitely be mad if you came  back to them after this", blue flew amethyst and steven to the warp and waved to pearl, then summoned a large ball of energy and shot it to her before leaving.

Not long after, rose quartz warped to the kindergarten, to see how pearl was. The kindergarten was now in ruins and somehow pearl hadn't lost her physical form from blues final attack but her gem was badly cracked from it. Rose ran to her, "did amethyst do this!?", she asked pearl, sounding very shocked. "It was b-blue d-diamond..." pearl said, struggling through the pain, "I can't believe it!", rose cried, "ill try and heal you! Quickly!".

Chapter 26 meeting the others

Steven, amethyst and blue diamond warped back home, Steven felt so proud of himself, he really showed that traitorous crystal gem who's boss! Amethyst on the other hand was having some doubts and guilt, Steven read her mind and saw those worries and went to comfort her. "Don't worry, my mum didn't damage your kindergarten or kill pearl", he told her, putting his hand on Amethyst's shoulder "it was mostly a fake attack to only slightly hurt her and we promise we won't lie to you and will show you all the other Amethysts"

To congratulate Steven and amethyst blue ordered them some food. Steven had never had fast food delivered and was very excited, Amethyst was too, it quickly put her mind off how worried she was and now only thought of all the food she was going to be eating. They ordered a lot of food, Greg was rich from his music career so they where able to without spending an amount that would effect them, and Greg never spent too much anyway, preferring to live a life far away from luxury.

Amethyst and steven quickly ate the food and discussed their plan to take her to see the other amethysts with blue. "The other ones are in space quite far from here but I could easily take you there in my ship", blue said, amethyst stopped eating and now dedicated all her time to listening to blue carefully, "that place where they are is also a place where humans live but also quite a sad place for me, I used to go there to mourn a lot", this peaked Steven's interest and he nearly dropped his fries when listening.

"Humans!? Living with gems!?", Steven exclaimed, nearly spitting out his fries. "Not really like that...erm the name of this place is awfully misleading they call it a human zoo but its nothing like that...", blue became quite nervous, the name and the idea of the zoo must sound terrifying to humans. "Pink diamond, really liked humans so she took them to live there in space, they just live there they're not watched and mocked like what humans do in animal zoos", she tried to explain, fearing Steven would think gems are now crazy and kidnap humans.

"Pink diamond liked humans?", Steven asked, he regretted it after as mentioning pink diamond usually really upset blue and his father always warned him to never mention her. Amethyst looked at the both of them confused, "pink diamond? Who's that?", she asked, this shocked blue, those crystal gems really sheltered her from everything to do with her true homeworld. "you'll learn at the zoo, it's a very long....and sad story", blue said, becoming quieter and sounding sadder.

Greg finally got home from work and was surprised to see amethyst still there, "what are you guys talking about?", he asked them in a friendly voice, waving to amethyst who excitedly waved back. "Greg, I need you for something", blue suddenly said, her tone serious, "what is it?", Greg asked, sounding concerned. "Amethyst spent her whole life away from her family, her fellow gems, ones who are just like her and spent her entire life with the crystal gems", blue said in a sad voice, gesturing to amethyst who was still smiling at greg "I know where her fellow amethysts are but you and steven will need to come with me", this confused Greg why would he need to come to space for gem things?

"Where would you be taking me and steven?", he asked, quite protective of his son and fearing blue would take them somewhere very dangerous. "It sounds bad but the name is a lie, it's called the zoo, the human zoo, it was a creation of pink diamond", blue knew he'd react to this badly so nudged Steven to get him to explain for her as she was known to be awful at explaining things in a good way. "NO! BLUE WE ARE NOT GOING TO SOME ZOO FOR HUMANS! ARE YOU CRAZY!?" Greg yelled, this upset amethyst and she looked away from him and crossed her arms. "DAD PLEASE!" Steven pleaded, "we need to do this for amethyst, she's my friend and she really looks up to you too! and my mum could weaken the crystal gems by doing this!", Greg rolled his eyes, "fine but I'm not becoming some attraction for aliens!" He told blue.

Blue woke up lapis and got everyone on the warp-pad, this will be a very important moment for Steven, his first time in space, his first time in the diamond ship that will one day become his. They warped to korea, where blue and Greg met. Blue diamond stood atop a mountain and raised her left arm, suddenly a giant blue ship shaped like a left arm appeared from the ground and flew into the air. "Wow mum, I can't believe I finally get to see your ship!", Steven said as he looked up in wonder. Blue summoned her wings and grabbed Steven and Greg, lapis also summoned her wings and grabbed pearl and amethyst and flew them into the palm of the hand, a small circle opened up in the very middle and they entered it, then the hand closed.

Steven looked around, amazed at all the rooms and high tech machines used to power the ship, amethyst looked out the windows of the main control room and saw that they where just above earth, she couldn't believe this was actually happening, she was finally having her dream come true!

Blue returned to her true gigantic form and sat on her throne and placed her left arm on a control panel, light covered her arm, now she could move and control the ship properly. "It's been a while since I've been here", Greg said, sitting on blue's shoulder, "I remember when you and my diamond used to have what you called make out sessions in front of the windows looking down earth", pearl wispered, this made blue blush purple and quickly tell her to go away and instead show steven and amethyst around.

Pearl went to see Steven and amethyst who where just outside the main control room. "Welcome to my diamond's ship", pearl formally said, bowing to them both, "Hey there! You're nothing like the pearl I know", amethyst loudly greeted, slightly angering pearl,"I will show you around the many rooms here and afterwards take you back to the main control room", pearl continued, in her most polite voice.

Chapter 27 Steven's first space adventure

Pearl guided amethyst to a small room where gems besides blue and her pearl stayed, it was small and cramped and felt almost like a prison cell, it had a small tablet you could use to message blue, see a map and look at other rooms. amethyst didn't care about the conditions of this small room she was just happy she'd be seeing her family soon, she could see a estimated time at the top of the tablet too, in 3 hours they'd be there.

Now that pearl only had Steven she guided him to more, "private" places like blue's music collection. It was mostly a very impressive amount of anything lana del rey themed, she had all the vinyls, put all her rarest unreleased songs on c.ds or saved them onto the ship and had every imaginable piece of merchandise. "My diamond got really into earth music because of you father", pearl said, picking up blue's favourite album, an album named paradise and showing it to Steven, "my diamond will probably start to play these songs soon, she always does when she's on this ship", pearl said under her breath, her dislike for her diamond's music taste being very clear by her tone of voice.

The arm ship formed into a fist and flew into space extremely quickly, pushing the clouds out its way. Blue pushed a button with her free hand and suddenly a large, white, diamond shaped portal opened and the hand flew in, the diamond quickly closed after they went it and they flew through space quickly in seconds, bringing them closer to the zoo and lightyears away from earth. Greg looked through the windows amazed as he saw them zoom through the portal and emerge so far away, "I have so many new song ideas now", he wispered, wishing he'd brought a notepad with him.

"So my diamond, what will we be doing at the zoo? Just dropping off the amethyst?", lapis lazuli asked, she was working with blue in the main control room, looking at maps and seeing where about in space they are. Blue's mood had changed, as they got closer and closer, painful memories started to reappear in her mind, memories of pink. Blue became quiet and covered her head with her hood, "I want to stay there for maybe some time for....personal reasons ", she said under her breath, lapis didn't ask for a explanation she understood and went back to work.

"And this is My diamond's room", pearl said, opening a huge door. Steven walked into the room amazed, "woah...this is where mum sleeps?", he asked pearl."my diamond mostly relaxes and draws here, your father stayed in here a lot with her too, she even made it accessible for humans", pearl said, touching the wall, leading to a bathroom and then touching another hidden button leading to a fridge. Steven quickly got a sandwich from the fridge and walked to the ginormous bed, "how will I get on here?", Steven asked pearl, looking up, as he looked up he noticed the entire ceiling was decorated with posters of his father.

"AAAAAH MY STEVEN DONT LOOK UP!", pearl shrieked, covering Steven's eyes, the posters of Greg where drew by blue herself and portrayed Greg as Young and very muscular."ow! Hey! Pearl! Get off me!", Steven cried as pearl covered his eyes and pulled him out the room, only taking her hands off his face when they had got out. "you did not see what you just saw my Steven! Do not tell a soul!", pearl warned him, quickly moving him away from the room and back to where amethyst was so she could take them both back to blue.

The screen now read that they'll be at the zoo in less than 30 minutes, amethyst gulped, she didn't know what the other amethysts would be like, blue did say they where like her but she also said she didn't look like them. "Hey! Amethyst!", Steven said, scaring her as he knocked on the transparent door, amethyst touched a switch making the glass door disappear and walked out to see Steven. "Hey ste-man we are gonna be here soon!", she excitedly told him, pointing to the screen. "Yes that's why we are here, you two are going back to my diamond", pearl said, quickly walking off with Steven as amethyst followed after.

"My diamond, we are nearly here", lapis said, showing blue the maps and estimated time on the screen, "oh my stars...I didn't even get a chance to play a song", blue huffed, getting out her chair and preparing herself, she moved Greg off her shoulder and held him in her hand, "it's weird seeing you big like this, it brings back so many memories", Greg said, looking up at her. As blue and Greg went to go find Steven and pearl the door opened.

"Hey b.d or.....my diamond? We are back!" Amethyst greeted blue, slightly freaked out about how tall she actually was. "Hello....amethyst", blue quietly replied, Greg looked up at her, he could tell she was upset. "Hey mum, when we get to the zoo, will the gems think me and dad are here to be kept in the zoo?", Steven sheepishly asked, pearl looked back at him like he was a idiot. "I- I don't know", blue huffed, placing greg back on the ground and going back to sit down on the ship.

"What's up with mum?", Steven asked Greg, pearl watched them as she went to stand near blue, giving them both angry looks. "She's thinking of pink diamond, I'm sure of it", Greg whispered. "Who is that again?" Amethyst asked them both quite loudly. Greg whispered in amethyst's ear, "pink diamond was a very close family member to blue who was killed and she has been mourning her death ever since", amethyst looked back at greg and nodded, realising she really shouldn't ask anything else in case blue heard and gets very sad.

"We are here", pearl said, loudly enough to get everyone to notice. Steven looked up through the window and saw it, the zoo, it was shaped almost like a pink sword and one of those eyes he saw in the sky not that long ago was floating near it. "I forgot this even was a thing" Lapis whispered as she looked out the window in wonder. "We are here", blue said, standing up and grabbing both steven and Greg in her hands and starting to walk to the exit with amethyst and pearl quickly following after her. while they did this lapis moved the ship into a opening in the zoo and landed them.

Chapter 28 welcome to the zoo

As the ship opened, blue diamond stepped out in her ginormous form, pearl stood next to her with lapis behind her and amethyst also behind, slightly scared of what she was going to see. Blue held Greg and steven tightly in her hands as she walked into the zoo's landing place for ships, the first thing they where met by was 2 harsh looking, amethyst guards standing by the door.

Amethyst gulped as she looked at her "family", they quickly saluted blue as they saw her, and then they noticed amethyst. She could see the two amethysts speaking about her as they passed by, blue told her she'll be able to speak to them later. As they where speaking with eachother a loud voice interrupted the amethysts. "What are you doing?", the voice said, it belonged to a blue skinned gem, with strange white horns that connected to her white hair, long, white, knee high boots, black pants and a sleevless black shirt, a blue shawl covering the shirt with a blue diamond in the middle and her gem on the back of her head.

"We are sorry Holly blue agate!", the two amethysts said in unison, saluting her, the agate quickly changed mood as she saw blue diamond and saluted her. "Oh my stars! My diamond! It is great to see you here!", she said, bowing to blue, Steven was going to say something but blue lightly squeezed him to keep him quiet. Holly blue kicked one of the amethysts, "why didn't anyone of you tell me blue diamond was here!", she quietly hissed to them.

"Hello there...Holly blue", blue said, greeting the gem quietly. "My diamond you haven't been here in a while, are those two humans for the zoo?", holly blue agate asked,looking at steven and greg in her hands. Lapis and pearl looked at eachother shocked, amethyst looked up at steven and was about to say something but noticed holly blue giving her an angry look. Blue diamond looked down at greg and steven who where now very scared, "yes, this one will go in first, I'll hold the smaller one for some time", blue said, handing Greg to some amethyst guards who took him away. "MUM! MUM! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!?", Steven yelled but was squeezed after. "Those humans truly make such hideous sounds don't they my diamond", Holly blue said, mocking Steven.

"Agate can you not understand all languages like me?", blue asked, looking down at Holly, the agate started to become worried, maybe she showed off her hatred for those organics too much. "My diamond...I couldn't make out what it said besides its wailing", she studdered, blue raised an eyebrow and looked back to steven, "I could understand him perfectly", blue said, her voice sounding offended that holly would speak about her son like that.

"Agate, we are also here for another reason" blue shuffled to the side to fully reveal amethyst to her, "as you saw I found an amethyst on earth, she never knew of her kind before now so I took her here to be with her family, may her fellow amethysts guide her around", blue commanded. The agate quickly called on two other amethysts to take her and guide her away, before she left with them,amethyst looked back and gave blue a smile and thumbs up, blue did the same back and Holly looked at them both shocked."I'm suprised someone like you has such respect for such gems, especially ones from earth, you're so merciful and beautiful my diamond, you truly love everything!", Holly blue dramatically said, praising blue very loudly.

"Since we are here I think it will be good if I take lapis lazuli and pearl on a tour around this zoo", blue said, holly blue agate quickly agreed and took them around the pink building. as this happened Greg was dragged across the corridors by the amethysts and thrown into a small opening in the wall. Lapis stood next to holly blue as she went on a long explanation about the zoo, begging for her to be quiet, "this zoo was once operated by pink diamond, but because of the terrible short ending of her life", she loudly proclaimed, her voice echoing through the corridors "my diamond and her trusted agate, that's me! Preserved this place in pink diamond's memory".

Steven wanted to ask many questions but that agate really didn't seem to respect him, or even understand what he was saying eventhough he was the son of her diamond. "How do you get in the zoo?", he asked, struggling as blue held onto him tightly, blue looked down to him, enraged and hushed him. The agate turned around, looking up at steven disgusted, "why is that one so loud My diamond?", she complained.

"how do you get in the zoo?" Lapis asked, asking the question for Steven. "Oh I'm so glad you asked! There's many different important doors that allow us into the zoo, like here", holly pointed to some bigger pink doors, that looked different and had a much more intricate design than most of the other doors in the zoo "but we can also look down to watch them while still staying here", she pressed a button making the floor under them become transparent, Steven squirmed in his mother's hands to look down but couldn't, holly quickly pressed the button again turning it off and continued the tour.

"Interesting, you're keeping the zoo in great condition", blue congratulated holly, who saluted her and bowed, "now I think we should take this human and put him in the zoo now", she passed Steven to some amethyst guards who quickly grabbed him and marched off with him. "WAIT! MUM! STOP!", Steven yelled, trying to fight the strong amethyst's grip, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM! I AM THE SON OF BLUE DIAMOND! OBEY ME!!", he cried as they threw him into the same small opening in the wall, "my stars this one is so loud", the amethyst guards joked to one another as he was thrown in.

As Steven went through the small hole, the floor became a ramp and moved him through a small pipe, strange blue fingers, that looked like peridot's started to pull on him and scan him. "MUM!!!!", Steven yelled, still trying to get his mother's attention but the fingers quickly distracted him as they tried to pull his clothes off, first his Mr universe shirt, then they tried to pull of his pants, Steven slapped the fingers and tried to run away but in the end was powerless and let them take the pants.

Now Steven was embarrassed, and nearly naked, then he started to approach a terrifying looking machine, it was slamming up and down, Steven tried to out run it but couldn't, as it slammed down on him it gave him new, odd clothes. "Ew what is this...loin cloth!?", Steven huffed, he was now wearing a white cloth and a blue sleeveless jacket. then, the machine gave him pink earrings, "ouch!", Steven yelped, snacking the fingers. Suddenly water fell from the sky and covered Steven, he swam up the water and came up from the surface. As he looked above the surface he realised where he was, the human zoo.

Blue diamond told holly to keep guiding around lapis but she and pearl stayed in the corner, planning something. Blue followed where the amethysts took Steven and found the place where humans where put in the zoo. "Alright pearl, after I do this, you go back to holly and lapis", blue told pearl, preparing herself for the plan she had just created. "Are you sure this will go well?", pearl said to blue, quite scared of even asking her diamond such a question. "I don't know but I'll try!" Blue said, shape-shifting into her smaller form she used on earth and taking off her dress and giving it to pearl. she was wearing those alien shorts underneath and a white shirt she stole from Greg. "Alright, here it goes!", blue said, jumping into the hole and shape-shifting her colours to be more human like, pearl hid blue's clothes in her gem and quickly left the scene to find lapis and Holly blue.

"And this place was specially designed by pink diamond", Holly blue explained, showing lapis around, lapis really didn't want to be here and didn't really understand why she was even here. Pearl quickly found them and ran to them, "I'm sorry, my diamond had to go somewhere", she apologised. "She has probably gone to pink diamond's old room, oh my diamond is still in such a upsetting state because of pink's tragic demise!", holly dramatically proclaimed. Suddenly two nervous looking amethysts ran to holly blue.

"Holly blue agate! We have important news for you!", they frantically told her, "WE DO NOT RUN OR SHOUT IN THESE HALLWAYS!", holly yelled at them, her voice echoing across the whole zoo."it's just we-" the amethysts tried to explain but holly interrupted them again, "How can I tell what you're saying when you're MUMBLING!" She loudly lectured them. "It's just-YELLOW DIAMOND IS ON HER WAY TO THE ZOO!", the two amethysts finally where able to speak.

"Oh my stars! Two diamonds in one day!", holly blue gasped, "we must prepare ourselves!", she quickly ran to every amethyst she could find, making sure they where standing straight and not doing anything that wasn't their job. "Where is blue diamond?", lapis wispered to pearl, "she has gone into the zoo undercover to see Steven and greg", pearl explained.

Chapter 29 gareg, stayvaan and laysuh

Steven looked at his surroundings in shock, this was it, the human zoo. As he stood in the fake water that took him here, three people caught his attention. It was his father, sitting by the fake water with two other people who where braiding his hair, all of them where wearing the exact same clothes Steven was also wearing.

"DAD!", Steven yelled, running to his father to hug him, "Steven!? She put you in here too!?", Greg exclaimed, running to his son and hugging him tightly. "Yeah! But I don't know why!? Is she trying to hide us!?", Steven asked his father, he felt so hurt that his mother was treating him, the son of a diamond in such a way.

"Gareg! Is this your friend!", one of the humans who was with Greg said, this human was a tall, dark skinned man with brown hair and the other one was a pale woman with blond hair and green eyes. "Wy-6, this is my son Steven!", Greg replied, Greg had already found friends in the zoo and had become a known name across all the other humans here. "Greetings stayvaan!", wy-6 said, "Hello there stayvaan! I am jay-10", the blond human also said.

As they where speaking, another person shot out the water, this time a woman. "Did mum bring another person here!?", Steven said, looking back at the person, "wait a minute...", Greg said, looking closer and realising how familiar that person looked as they got up, "blue-blue!? What are you doing here!?", Greg gasped and ran to see her.

"Hey Greg!", blue said, in her human disguise, "they took my shorts", she huffed. "You're also here?", Steven asked, raising an eyebrow. "Oh my! you also know this new girl?", wy-6 asked Steven. "Erm yeah...me and her are family", he replied, weirded out by how these humans acted and spoke, they sounded so fake and happy all the time. "Why did you put us in here!", Greg said to blue, he was mad but tried to keep calm. "Erm...", blue looked at the floor embarrassed, "ok...this is really stupid but I kinda got too scared to explain to the gems that you and steven are special", she studdered, trying to make eye contact with greg, "soo....I had a bit of a brain fart and just put you guys here and was planning to get you back when we're about to go home but then I felt bad right after so I came here in My disguise to save you!". Greg face palmed at this, he knew blue could be quite stupid but this was next level, "well at least you're here now", he mumbled under his breath.

Jay-10 and wy-6 quickly ran to blue to greet her and ask her name, Steven followed after them and looked at blue as they spoke to her, he was also very angry at her. "What is your name miss!", jay-10 asked blue diamond, this made her think for a while, going through all the fake human names she used over the years to find a good one. "I am.... Lisa hannigan!", blue proudly told them, Greg face palmed again and wispered "oh my god" to himself as Steven cringed. "Oh hello there laysuh welcome to our home!", wy-6 said.

Suddenly, while where all speaking, the matching pink earrings that everyone wore started to light up and a voice came from them. "Good morning everyone, you must be very hungry right now", the voice said, all the humans in the zoo quickly agreed with this and went to plants where purple fruits appeared. "What is this...", blue said, playing with her earrings. "You don't know? Don't you run this place!?", Steven questioned her as he ate the very fake looking fruit. "Gareg today the fruit is purple!" Wy-6 exclaimed to Greg, the people of the zoo really seemed to love him. "Honestly...I barely looked into this place, its my first time actually looking at the people here", blue whispered to steven.

"Laysuh! Here you go!", jay-10 said, suddenly appearing from behind Steven and giving blue one of the purple fruits, blue looked down at it and gave it to Steven when no one looked. As everyone ate the fruits the voice appeared again, "are you enjoying the fruit?", it asked, all the humans said they loved the food right after in unison, it creeped blue out. "What a strange place you made...pink" she whispered to herself, thinking back to all the memories she had of pink diamond talking about the zoo and people.

"Now it is time to play!" The voice said, all the humans started to roll down hills and laugh, Greg joined in but Steven and blue just looked at eachother. "Mum, get me out of here!", Steven complained, blue just looked at the humans and gulped, thinking about how weird this place this, "I'll try", she said to steven. "Come on you two, play along!", Greg said, coming up to see them after he saw they didn't follow him to "play". Blue reluctantly agreed and rolled down a hill, "maybe this isn't as bad as I thought", she said to Greg, Steven followed after, but he was having no fun at all.

Now everyone was laying on the floor after rolling around and the voice appeared and spoke to them again, "now raise your hands like you're going to touch outer space", all the humans once again obeyed and raised their arms to the ceiling, it was glass and revealed all the stars of space around the zoo. As everyone had their hands in the air Steven attempted to send a thought to blue, "Mum! Get us out now! You are a diamond! You can command the gems to save us!", but blue wasn't listening, she was just following the commands the earrings told her and had her hands in the air. "Mum please", Steven said out loud, shuffling towards blue, "I don't wanna wear these weird costumes anymore", he wispered to her. Blue looked down at him and sighed, putting her arms down, "I'll find a way soon OK? It's just, I want to see what this place is really like, this place....she made". "Pink diamond?", Steven asked, blue, ignored this and just turned around and went to speak with wy-6 about something.

"Now it's time to smell the flowers", the voice commanded (albeit still in a friendly soft voice), blue and Greg had their long hair braided by the humans during this. "Isn't this so fun stayvaan?", jay-10 asked Steven, he just rolled his eyes and said, what if I don't want to smell the flowers?", this seemed to have shocked jay-10 as she thought for a second and asked "why wouldn't you!?", she put one of the flowers in his hair. Steven stormed off to blue and Greg and knocked the flower off his hair, blue grabbed it and put it in her's. "Steven, come on, we will get out here soon", Greg said, trying to cheer up his son. "It better be soon, I can't take this crazy place anymore", steven said under his breath.

"Now it is time to take a relaxing bath", after all the "fun" it was cleaning time for the people of the zoo. Everyone flocked to an oasis and bathed or played in it. "Watch My splash gareg!", jay-10 said, jumping from a small hill and into the water, the splash was very small and barely made a sound. "You wanna see a real splash? Watch this! CANNONBALL!", Greg yelled as he dived into the water, making all the humans laugh, blue quickly copied him and did a much more dramatic dive, this time Steven actually joined in and jumped into the water to play with his family, using some of his water powers to splash his dad. "It seems you're having some fun now, right schtu-ball?", Greg joked to steven. "Laysuh, gareg! Your splash was amazing!", wy-6 said, as the other humans congratulated them on their splashes.

The sun in the sky was now covered by a dark sheet to represent night on earth and the entire zoo went dark, "it is now time for bed everyone" the voice said and everyone got out the pool and went to sleep. Greg sat on a Bush and quickly fell asleep with everyone else but blue and steven stayed awake. "Now is our chance to get out!", Steven said, pulling his dad awake and making him and blue look for any door. In less than a minute they easily found a pink door badly hidden by some fake plants. "mum how do you open this", Steven asked her, "there's no lock on this side, only on the other side it can be opened", she said, moving some of the plants covering it to look for a lock. "Then I guess I've got no choice!", Steven said, taking a running start and slamming on the door as hard as he could, the slamming was very loud and echoed throughout the entire zoo.

"Gareg!", wy-6 said, suddenly appearing from a Bush, "stayvaan!", jay-10 said, also appearing from a Bush, "and laysuh you're here!" They both said. Greg, Steven and blue looked back embarrassed and in fear that they got caught. "So you three where the ones making all that noise!", wy-6 said, the tones of their voices were so happy and friendly sounding all the time it sounded fake, it felt unsettling almost. "What are you three doing?" Jay-10 asked, "is it a game? If so can we play". "No we are trying to open this door!", Steven told them.

"What is....a door?" Jay-10 asked completely clueless, blue nearly yelled "what!?" Out loud but stopped herself in time. "It's like...a wall that opens!" Steven said, trying his best to explain something he never knew would even need to be explained. "Walls don't open!", wy-6 joked but jay-10 quickly responded, "I do remember hearing a story about a opening wall once!", this quickly got everyone's attention. "I remember hearing that a very long time ago a gem came through a wall to help someone who was......hurt".

"Hurt? What is this hurt?" Wy-6 asked, "I don't know", jay-10 replied, blue and Greg looked at eachother in shock, blue was shocked pink diamond was able to make such a place and Greg was shocked blue diamond was able to allow such a thing to exist and be so stupid about it! "I know what hurt is!", Steven suddenly proclaimed, jay-10 and wy-6 looked at him, fascinated. "Hurt is...like the opposite of good, its a bad feeling, like you're upset", but Steven's explanation didn't work, they where still completely clueless about any of these "bad" feelings.

"Everyone it is time for the choosening", the voice suddenly said, Jay-10 and wy-6 quickly became very exited and changed the subject. "Gareg! laysuh! The choosening is about to happen!" They proclaimed, taking ahold of Greg's hans and guiding him through the fake bushes as Steven followed after them. They lead him to a circle where everyone was standing around, Steven wasn't allowed to stand with everyone, only to watch outside. "The choosening Is a very special occasion we are so glad you are here", wy-6 told Greg as he stood next to him.

Somehow, without anyone noticing blue diamond didnt go to the circle Steven noticed this and was able to spot her through the bushes, he watched her, closely. She was going back to the walls and constantly looking around making sure no one had followed after her. She stood by one of the walls then a door opened, revealing pearl! Steven was about to run after and follow her but the door closed right after in an instant.

Chapter 30 face to face with yellow diamond

Blue diamond had now mysteriously disappeared and Greg was now stuck with all these people during some sort of ritual with Steven watching on the outside. now it was time for this "choosening". The voice in the earrings said then called the names of 2 humans to step in the circle and when they both stepped in they started to kiss and hold hands, now it became obvious to Greg and steven was this thing was. "IS THIS SOME KINDA MATCHMAKING THING!?", Greg exclaimed, steven just watched on in horror fearing his father may be next.

"Jay-10 please step into the center of the circle", the voice commanded, before walking into the circle she looked back to greg and said, "who ever is choosened to be with you will be very special, gareg!". Greg looked back to his son, terrified, "steven help me", he wispered, but Steven was powerless they could only hope he won't be chosen. "Gareg please step into the center of the circle", their hopes where sadly useless.

The humans clapped and congratulated Greg as he was chosen but he stayed still he didnt walk into the circle. "gareg! Jay-10 is waiting for you!", wy-6 said, pushing Greg towards her, Steven knew that if his mother was here she'd be literally foaming at the mouth and fighting people for Greg so maybe it's a good thing she ran away at this time. As greg was pushed further and further to jay-10 by wy-6 he yelled, "HOLD ON! This isn't how we do this!", silencing everyone who was cheering for him just moments ago.

"Back on earth we 'choosened' who ever we wanted! We fell in love on our own!" Greg attempted to explain to the humans, Steven joined in, "my parents weren't told by a voice to choosen eachother they did it by themselves!", he said. The humans all whispered among eachother, taking in what they have been told, greg took a deep breath, "good now can i-", "well them....I CHOOSE GAREG!" Wy-6 proclaimed, grabbing Greg's hand, soon after every other human ran to Greg proclaiming that they have choosened him. "NOOOOO! STOP! I CHOOSEN NONE OF YOU", Greg screamed, the humans all froze then, started to cry, some falling to the floor, some tearing their clothes in anguish and most running away. "Wait, don't cry", Greg said, trying to stop literally every other human besides himself and his son hysterically crying and throwing themselves around. Steven pulled him away, "dad what do we do", he said, looking up to his dad scared as everyone around them shrieked and rolled around on the floor. "Is this hurt???", wy-6 said, tears and snow all over his face, "Gareg has hurt us!????", "Why has gareg hurt us???", jay-10 cried, "Take this hurt away!!!" The humans sobbed and reached their hands up to space.

The doors suddenly opened and many amethyst guards ran into the zoo, trying their best to calm the crying humans down, "let's get out of here!", Steven yelled, pointing his dad to the now open door and running to it as fast as they could. "Where do you two think you're going!", an amethyst guard yelled, picking them both up and taking them away. They where taken to a room filled with all sorts of other amethysts and similar looking red and orange skinned gems, in the middle stood the amethyst Steven knew, she looked scared. "Steven! Greg!, these new amethysts they are....they are", she studdered as they all laughed. "THEY'RE ALL SO GREAT!" She yelled, laughing at how she scared Steven and Greg. "These guys are just like me! Blue was right!". Amethyst ran to steven and greg hugging them "And what are you guys wearing!?", she laughed, poking their zoo clothes.

But their reunion was cut short as the door behind them opened revealing holly blue agate. "WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING! GET TO WORK!" She shrieked, pulling the amethysts around and pushing all sitting gems too the ground, "NOT ONLY IS BLUE DIAMOND HERE, BUT YELLOW IS! AND YOU ACT LIKE THIS!? GET TO WORK NOW!, all the Amethysts stood up and quickly ran out, saluting her, Steven and greg followed after, hiding amongst them, "get out of here now, just go through that door!", Amethyst told them, pushing them to a random door that lead to a very pink corridor.

As they opened the door they where met by a large pink room with pillows on the floor, and large pillars. the door closed as soon as they stepped in and steven wasn't able to open it anymore, they were locked in. In this room where many bubbles, with gems in them, pink gems, Steven looked up wondering what they where. "Are those gems in there?", Greg asked his son, "it seems so", Steven replied. Their conversation was suddenly cut short as Steven randomly burst into tears and fell to the floor this also triggered his powers and made Greg start to cry too.

"Schu-ball what's happening!?", Greg said, helping his son up, "These tears they must be....mum's!? She must be here!", he yelled, but Greg quickly covered his mouth and hid them both behind a pillar. Another giant door on the other side of the room opened, revealing blue diamond, she was back in her original size and was covering her eyes with her hood, pearl was also there and closed the door after she came in with blue. Blue diamond knelt down and took of her hood, looking up as tears ran down her eyes. "This must be pink diamond's room", Greg wispered as he watched blue crying, Steven tried to turn away, he couldn't bare seeing his mother in such a awful state, but Greg made him keep looking, he kept him in place behind that pillar.

Then the door opened again, revealing an equally as giant woman, standing with her arms crossed and looking annoyed, it was yellow diamond. "Please tell me you're joking", she sighed as she rolled her eyes. Blue flinched seeing yellow and quickly wiped away her tears, "yellow!?...what are you doing here", she squeaked, "I'm here to bring you back to reality blue", yellow said, walking around blue to face her. "I honestly thought you where getting better, last call I saw genuine improvement but what is this!?", she complained, blue just looked away, she didn't want to deal with this right now. Along with yellow diamond, her pearl also came with them, her pearl was dressed very similar to blue's pearl, just with high socks and large flowing fabric on her shoulders. Yellow's pearl, smirked at blue's pearl and she just looked away, similar to how their diamonds where acting. "So this is how mum's sisters treat her!?" Steven wispered to his father but Greg just hushed him.

"You said you where working but you're here at this stupid zoo, looking at these things of the past that should he destroyed", yellow said, moving around some of the bubbles with her hands. "What's next you're telling me you've been to earth? you're not that pathetic right? but then again you keep these things in bubbles", yellow said under her breath, this angered blue as she stood up and was now face to face with yellow. "They where HER gems yellow! This zoo! Her planet! All HER'S!", blue yelled, fighting back tears. Yellow just laughed, she laughed in blue's face and blue wasn't having it. "Oh my stars blue! you're such a fool sometimes, she was shattered by a rose quartz yet you keep the rose quartz gems alive in bubbles!", yellow laughed as she grabbed one of the gems in the bubbles and casually crushed it with her hands without a second thought, blue just looked down in horror, "but they where hers....", she wispered, looking at the shards in yellow's hand.

Both steven and Greg had to stop eachother from yelling or gasping at what they just saw, yellow diamond just shattered a gem right in front of blue, to prove a point too! "Now shouldn't we do this to the rest?", yellow asked blue, wrapping her arms around her and stroking her hair, "NO!", blue yelled, smacking yellow's arms off her. "WHY DO YOU THINK JUST DESTROYING EVERYTHING WILL MAKE IT BETTER!?", the pearls both flinched and looked at eachother, they haven't seen blue like this in a while, well yellow's pearl hasn't. "YES PINK IS DEAD BUT MAKING IT OUT LIKE SHE NEVER EXISTED JUST MAKES IT WORSE!". Yellow sighed again, "I guess you'll never learn", she said under her breath, "what?", blue asked, sounding furious, her eyes wide and making her look unhinged.

"Earth will be gone soon, thanks to my cluster, this zoo and those gems will be gone soon as well", yellow said before leaving, her pearl followed after too. Blue just broke down crying again, covering her face and rolling into a ball onto the floor. "Mum?", Steven asked, scaring blue, who looked back at him shocked. "Steven!? How did you get out!? I was going to get you two I just had to go here for a while....for the memories", she said, picking up Greg and steven and hiding them in her hair loop. "Let's get out of here", Greg said, smiling up at blue.

The giant door opened once again, this time revealing holly blue and a very annoyed lapis lazuli. "My 2 great diamonds! It is great to see you- oh I mean my 1 great diamond!...Only you blue are my diamond....", Holly blue studdered, shocked yellow wasn't there and sad she couldn't use her planned greetings she made just for this occasion. "You just missed her", blue said, her voice still sounding quite sad, "we will be going now, lapis will be going in my ship again, thank you for the tour", blue returned to her commanding voice, walking out to see lapis and wave to the amethysts who where thanking her for bringing over a new member of the family.

Blue took Steven and greg out her hair and let them walk alongside her as holly blue walked them back, going on one of her dramatic long monologues about how much she loves blue diamond. "How did you handle her alone?", pearl quietly asked lapis, "barely!", lapis said, laughing loudly enough to get the agate's attention, "what are you saying pearl?", she said, turning to look at the pearl. "She said nothing", blue snapped, this quickly made holly stop looking at her and go completely silent.

Now they where right in front of the ship, about to leave, the amethysts all stood behind holly blue and waved them off, the amethyst Steven and blue met on earth came up to them and thanked them, much to holly blue's, annoyance. "Thank you so much blue- or my diamond!" She said, blue smiled and gifted amethyst a diamond-line, "use this if you need me, just connect the two blue sides to call me", she said, as all the Amethysts cheered. Holly blue looked at this in horror, "my diamond!? How do you think such a disgusting chunk of earth could operate such a thing!" She yelled. Blue just glared at her, she was mad and all the Amethysts knew it, they laughed at Holly and made her blush and yell at them.

To make holly blue's day worse, she also saw that two humans where getting on her diamond's ship. "MY DIAMOND LOOK BEHIND YOU!", she screeched, "THERE'S TWO ESCAPED HUMANS AND THEYRE GETTING ON YOUR SHIP", holly blue summoned her weapon, an electric whip and attempted to grab steven and greg with it but was quickly stopped by blue grabbing the whip. "They're coming with me!", blue said, breaking the whip and making holly blue fall to the floor, embarrassed and shocked. "and I was also at the zoo, does this make me escaped too?", she joked, revealing she was still wearing the zoo clothes under her robes. Blue jumped into the ship and waved off the amethysts as they all laughed and mocked holly blue, who lay there in shock, "bye bye agate!" Blue said, taking off her earrings from the zoo and throwing them right into holly blue's face .

"So let's go back home! I hope Connie hasn't missed us!", blue said, stretching and getting ready to control the ship. Steven stood by his mother and stroked her long white hair, "mum? Is yellow diamond always like that?", he asked, blue looked back to him, his question had taken away her happy tone so suddenly, "you shouldn't have seen that, I'll tell you it all when we get home, this time I won't be too emotional", she said, she could see how much yellow had scared him, she felt awful.

"Thank the stars that's over!" Lapis said, recovering from the nightmare that was holly blue, "she's always like that, I don't understand how My diamond does it!", pearl joked, they both stood by the windows and waved off the zoo, "well they do call blue merciful for a reason!", lapis laughed, all throughout their journey home lapis and pearl spoke to eachother none stop, they joked about their time with blue and how they where much more in common than they thought, all of Pearl's suspicions about lapis had disappeared in an instant.

[kinghijinx22]

Top 5 Canonical Pansexual Characters

So I recently made a post about why one of my all time favourite characters Mae Borowski from Night in the Woods is amazing pansexual representation and how the way her feelings are portrayed felt very accurate to my own. In that post I also said that there isn't enough pan rep, which is true and to prove my point I made a list of the only 5 undeniably canon pansexual characters I know of also 2 of them are from Steven Universe which is almost cheating to pull examples from. This is my ranking of all 5 of those characters based on how good they are as rep because I thought this would be a fun list to make and it's still Pride Month so yeah.

5. Willow Park (the Owl House)

So the Owl House is my favourite thing out of all the things mentioned on this list and Willow is my second favourite character here overall, but the way her being pan is handled is non existent in the show. There is nothing that even hints at it and Dana Terrace only announcing after the show seems disingenuous. I'm not too mad because the show already has plenty of queer rep that is fleshed out and sincere, but in the case of Willow it feels like Dana trying to retroactively cover all her basis. Besides this Willow is still a great character though, very likable, plant magic is cool and she has a great arc of finding her confidence and following her passion for sports.

4. Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)

An incredibly complex character that people with no media literacy love to hate. The idea that you witness her redemption character arc in reverse and how you only have word of mouth and flashbacks to go off of because she's actually dead throughout the whole show is kind of genius. As pan rep though, her orientation is left pretty vague. Like we know that she loved Greg and that Pearl loved her but whether Rose reciprocated Pearl's feelings is never answered. It's implied that she might have been polyamorous with a bunch of people and that it included Pearl but then Rose decided that she want a monogamous relationship with Greg and that's why Pearly became jealous of him. But again this is never explored beyond very vague hints.

3. Sadie Miller (Steven Universe)

Most likeable human character from Steven Universe and easily one of the best side characters. I like her arc of really finding herself throughout the show like when she quits her excruciating job at the Big Doughnut and discovers her passion for singing. She also discovers who she likes throughout the show when she is shown crushing on guys, gals and nonbinary pals throughout the show, eventually settling down with her enby partner Shep. While Shep is only in one episode near the end of the show they are pretty cool and they are really cute with Sadie as a couple.

2. Finn McNamara (Life is Strange 2)

This one is kind of weird to me because while I do like Finn overall and can sympathise with his backstory, the fact that they lock his romance with Sean behind making some morally bad decisions does have some pretty messed up implications behind it. Because there are 2 romance options in Life is Strange 2 between a girl named Cassidy and a guy name Finn and they make the Cassidy romance the one that's easier to get because it just shows up when you choose not to rob the weed farm guys, meanwhile you have to choose to go with Finn to use Daniel's powers to help them with the heist. Now the weed farm guys are assholes and you do need the money and Finn does have some good motivations, but he's also thinking selfishly and putting Sean's brother Daniel in danger and teaching him to use his telekinesis powers to get what he wants. By locking the same sex romance option behind the morally bad decision you are tying queerness to inherent deviance which sucks. Having said that, Finn does have a sympathetic backstory of being homeless after being used and betrayed by his father in his own drug business and I do believe he does want to make life better for his friends. Also the way that him being pansexual specifically is explained in the game is a very accurate portrayal. When Sean asks him who he likes Finn replies with "I don't see gender, I see people", which shows that Finn is genderblind when it comes to his orientation which has always been a pretty good way of explaining what being pan is like. I appreciate Finn for being overt Pansexual rep, the only dude pansexual rep as well and he is a likeable character overall even if his romance path carries some problematic implications when you compare it to the same sex option with Cassidy.

1. Mae Borowski (Night in the Woods)

One of the best protagonists from one of my favourite games. I love how nonconforming Mae is in every sense of the word. She's openly queer and refuses to conform to societies gender expectations. She's a cool cat person who plays bass in a band with her friends. Always speaks her mind, does what she wants and is unapologetically herself. Also an incredibly nice person at heart even if her bluntness and inability to read the room sometimes leads to some not great situations. A heavily flawed but still amazing character. She also happens to be pan which is very accurately portrayed throughout the story which I wrote a post about. To summarize, she explicitly states in one scene that she doesn't care about the gender of a person but she just wants to date someone that is tough and cool and "GRRR." There's a bunch of other stuff that she says throughout the game but it's also revealed that she has an ex who is a guy named Cole and she develops intimate feelings for a girl she meets at a party known as "Bombshell." Mae is an amazing character who I deeply relate to on a lot of levels and also admire for her ability to be herself and not care what other people think.

Picture sources

Mae Borowski - yorunowaltz on Tumblr

Finn McNamara - all ya faves are gay, matey on Tumblr

Sadie Miller - editsteven on Tumblr

Rose Quartz - Your Fave Loves And Supports LGBT+ People on Tumblr

Willow Park - (1) Daily LGBTQ+ Characters on Tumblr

[bullfrawgs]

Steven Universe Season 4 Update, Episodes 11-24: In which Kino recognizes they’re hyperfixating on a children’s cartoon, before a rude awakening. (Certain Episode counts list Gem Harvest as either 2 episodes or 1, I already called it a single episode in the previous post and I’m keeping up with that plan).

Goal is to keep this under 1000 words. Wish me luck. (P.S. this was 1200 words on the dot)

Adventures in Light Distortion, Gem Heist, The Zoo, and That Will Be All (which constitute 4 of the episodes from Steven Bomb 5) feel like they should be talked about as a grouping. I don’t think those episodes ever reach the heights of the previous episode, but they still go a long way in pushing Steven toward his theoretical breaking point. Adventures in Light Distortion especially, those 30 seconds where he’s reconciling with the possibility that they are in fact all about to die are heartbreaking yet exceptional. The rest of the story has some nice moments (Blue Diamond has some exceptional characterization, really like that character) like all of the amethysts trying to act as emotional support to the Zoo Humans, but in the end I think the arc kinda peaked early, not that the remaining episodes were bad or anything.

The New Crystal Gems: I love this basic setup of the side characters all trying to fill the shoes of the main cast for a short period of time. Reminds me a lot of the Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes episode with Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and War Machine as the Avengers. Or the Loadingreadyrun internet Sitcom CommodoreHustle, with its episode The Bee Team (which is unfortunately just shy of becoming lost media but I digress). I love these side characters’ dynamics, especially since I like all 3 of Connie Peridot and Lapis more than Pearl or Amethyst. One does wonder why Peridot needs to lift the cars in order for them to get washed but hey it’s a visual spectacle and she is imitating the always stylish Garnet. (P.S. Lapis’ Hair covering one of her eyes to mimic Amethyst looked super hot and she should have kept it)

Storm in the Room: Jeeze, this episode. I’ve been waiting for this episode. Steven is right and he should say it. I especially love the contrast of him being there to keep Connie from having a panic attack to the immediate cut to the cold depressed atmosphere of Steven alone. This boy needs hugs and a better family. Impeccable directing on this episode. Maybe the most important episode of the batch but I don’t really have much to add to the episode itself. (The Lucy and Charlie Brown football thing was really funny, and a great metaphor for how Steven has felt every step of the way of trying to uncover the past of his family and of the gems. The football constantly pulled away.)

Rocknaldo: This feels like a pointed attack on appropriation of culture and/or insincere apologies by online figures that feels too specific to not have been targeted at some specific instance. I have no idea what that instance is, so it’s just kinda… weird. “Weird” is becoming the word of choice to describe an ever-increasing slate of the townie episodes. I miss the Bee and Puppycat vibes of season 1, the Townie episodes feel like they’re getting constantly weaker even as the main plot is constantly improving.

Tiger Philanthropist: Speaking of the decreasing quality of the townie eps. This one is almost certainly better than Tiger Millionaire (which for my money is maybe the worst episode of season 1) but it’s still not even hitting the same highs as some of the mid-tier season 1 townie eps. I do enjoy wrestling more than I did 4 years ago when I watched season 1, so maybe I’m getting hit by a mixture of nostalgia and finally getting the joke. Either way it’s just kinda forgettable.

Room for Ruby: Navel was always my favorite of the Rubies, and I was so excited for her to join the B Team! Which, I think, made the end of the episode hit even harder. She was so clever with that plan, and her deviousness coming through only now after being genuinely the nicest of the rubies throughout her last several appearances was quite clever. Also a great Lapis episode. “I knew it! Nobody could possibly be that well adjusted” indeed.

Lion 4 Alternate Ending: Tbh it’s kinda more of a sequel to Storm in the Room than to Lion 3 Straight to Video. In any respect, Steven keeps getting stymied every step of the way with the potential for answers that never fully give him resolution. Structurally, the whole thing is a shaggy dog story. A key that he wasn’t supposed to get, a travel he didn’t have to take (he asks himself why Lion walked through the desert) to open a locked door guarding nothing (both in the sense that the back of the building was blown off and he could have just walked around the door and that the contents of the room were junk not worth finding). Again I want to call back the Charlie Brown and Lucy football gag from Storm in the Room. He is so so willing to believe he has some destiny, and that his mother had some sort of grand plan and that she was some master manipulator leaving clues… because the alternative is the knowledge that, even if he was loved by a mother he never knew, he’s just a scared child who has been abused by the authority figures in his life, groomed for a fight that he technically never had to fight. The episode is pretty explicitly unclear about what message Steven is going to take away from the video. I think that that is only to its benefit.

Doug Out, The Good Lars, Are You My Dad, I Am My Mom: The last 4 episodes also feel like they belong clumped together like this. I like Doug Maheswaran, he seems like a cool guy (clearly grown since season 1) and I like Lars’ character dev (I choose to believe he was all ready to come inside when he was kidnapped) and I love Sadie’s stuff. The Pizza Potluck song is a low key banger. But the townie eps both get overshadowed (literally) by their final shots and Are You My Dad is all setup with no payoff. I Am My Mom is an insane 11 minutes. Lars kidnapped, Steven sacrificing himself to save the remainder of his friends… it feels like a betrayal in some respect for him to call himself Rose Quartz. He has spent his whole life trying to differentiate himself as his own person, but now he gives all that up for the sake of his loved ones. It’s a strong moment.

Anyway idk when the next recap will be. Hulu doesn't have season 5 and the local library only has seasons 1 and 2 so I'll need to trek out to a different library system an hour out to pick up the season 5 DVDs. Hopefully my hyperfixation will survive this setback.

[novantinuum]

top 5 side characters (from anything at all)

Oooooh side characters... that's a good question... I think I'll pick my fav side character from my most recent fandoms, one from each.

5) (Doctor Who) Missy- This incarnation of the Master is always very fun to watch, because her actress Michelle Gomez absolutely spends every second chewing the scenery clear off the walls. I also always enjoyed how they gave her a clear character arc in the seasons she appeared in- plus, it was lovely to see an incarnation of the Master who wasn't clear-cut "evil" as past ones have been, but rather Chaotic Neutral, and just in the game for the benefit of herself.

4) (The Legend of Zelda) Revali. A lot of the gaming community drags on this one, but I think there's a ton of interesting threads one can pull from what little we get of him in BotW canon that lend towards a fascinating picture of an incredibly insecure young warrior who's lashing out against someone (Link) who he sees as gaining everything he ever wanted but never working a second for it, as opposed to his hard, years-long struggle in perfecting his special flying ability. It's sad, in the end- because had he realized that Link was burdened by his own destiny and worked just as hard as he had to himself feel "deserving" of it, I bet they might've been able to find something to connect over, and became friends.

3) (The Adventure Zone) Barry Bluejeans- Goddammnit, FUCK YOU BARRY BLUEJEANS for having such a stupid ass name and making me CRY over you in just one 5 minute prologue! I really, really love this NPC... there's such a deep tragedy to his story- losing his wife and his whole found family and not even being able to remember that they're gone while in human form- and yet, every time he dies and goes back into lich form and remembers it all, still he manages to pick himself up and try again. Work harder. Work smarter. Set himself up for success each time he clones himself and returns to his human form to make his plan work. He fights tirelessly for YEARS without an ounce of thanks just because he loves his family and the world they've entered so much that he wants to make sure they'll all be safe, in the end. What a man.

2) (Gravity Falls) Fiddleford McGucket- For such an otherwise funny but unremarkable joke character back in season 1, it was amazing how the writers were ultimately able to transform him into such a tragic figure, and utilize him to give context to why the whole town literally pays no heed to any of the weirdness going on all around them. He's the sort of character who gives the show amazing re-watch energy- at this point, when I go back through the show, every single appearance he has just makes me feel incredibly sad- AND a lot of his otherwise "random" or "quirky" characteristics start to make a lot more sense. He's a man who lives in the dump, but is capable of building incredibly complex machines?" He's a literal genius mechanic who's simply gone through severe memory slippage. Said memory slippage? Self-inflicted by a memory erasing device he invented himself. Said memory erasing device? Has been used in the years since to purge the town of their memories of the supernatural. His backstory blasts open a whole new door of lore possibilities in this show. Love him.

1) (Steven Universe) Connie Connie Connie Connie Connie- Connie, my LOVE- I feel like by the end of the show she's grown into more of a main character than just a side, but that shows perhaps just HOW much wonderful development she gets throughout her journey. She grew from a timid young girl unsure of herself and her place in the world around her, to a fierce teen who has purpose, ambitions, and has a whole constellation of connections and confidants ready to cheer her on. I'm really proud of her <3

Every single time she showed up on screen for a new episode I got like, indescribably happy and went "damn this is going to be a good one," and basically every single SU reactor I've seen has had the same experience, so I think that alone shows how beloved Connie is, and how well written a character she is too. It's always great to have such a grounded presence amidst characters living in a world of fantasy.

[8-evil-annoying-catboys]

also, i don’t think a lot of young queers saying this could even handle queer MAINSTREAM (usamerican corporate) stories, even being super super sanitised. a major reason why i think this is because of the reaction to the end of steven universe. the ending was certainly rushed, most people agree on this, and because it was rushed, it didn’t have room for the amount of nuance the crewniverse had planned for the last several arcs they had intended to put into the show.

but wait, if the crewniverse had so much nuance and several arcs planned out, then why was the ending rushed? well… because of ruby and sapphire’s wedding. specifically, because they showed a lesbian wedding happen on screen, and they said “fuck you” to the censors to boot, by putting ruby in a dress (because many censored versions of steven universe would add facial hair to ruby and give her a male VA to turn her into a male character). they knew that it was likely that CN would pull the plug after this, and decided it was more important to show ruby and sapphire’s wedding.

you can argue about whether or not this was the right choice until you’re blue in the face, but my point in bringing this up is that they should have NEVER had to choose between explicitly representing and celebrating queer joy, and getting to tell the story they wanted to tell, all the way through. and this is NOT uncommon when it comes to queer stories produced by major film and tv studios. this is why a lot of queer representation has had to be coded to fly under the radar, and even then, frequently would be shot down by censors—unless the character in question was a villain, of course. this is why the legend of korra faced such numerous and intense production and distribution problems, despite being relatively popular and a pretty good followup to one of the best and most popular cartoons nickelodeon ever had. this is why so many disney villains are so fruity, why HIM in the powerpuff girls exists (bc no way would a character like HIM have flown if he was a hero instead of a villain). i could go on, but i think you should get the point.

so… basically, if you WANT queer stories that aren’t super sanitised, and don’t end up having the plug pulled on them by corporate bigwigs leading to the storytellers fumbling to write an ending that somewhat resembles the ending they’d had planned… you HAVE GOT TO get into weird, independent queer artwork. watch some indie films, play indie video games, watch webseries on youtube and read webcomics. don’t go asking corporations for scraps and then being mad when you get only scraps. you’ll find a healthier, more balanced diet elsewhere. if you’re not actively seeking that out, then i doubt you actually want authentic queer stories that haven’t been run through the Safe For (Sheltered By Conservative Parents) Children machine 50 times over, bc you have to actually seek that stuff out. mickey mouse ain’t gonna hand it to you on a silver platter, OK?

"we need less sanitized queer stories" yall keep saying fucking she-ra romanticizes abuse. you couldnt possibly handle less sanitized queer stories

[love-takes-work]

Notes on SU Commentary Tracks

I watched the commentary tracks on the Complete Steven Universe DVD Set and I took some nerd notes.

The episodes with commentary tracks are “Reunited,” “Change Your Mind,” and “The Future.”

I’ll bold stuff that was maybe bigger news or more surprising for easier reading. And yes, some of this was already known from podcasts, other Q&As, or interviews, but I listed it if they said it again here.

Read on after the jump to read these and other highlights:

Steven’s original wedding speech

Older ideas on dialogue for Lapis when she came back to the beach

Scrapped concepts for the scene that ultimately included Steven communicating with the others in a mindscape

Discussions of earlier concepts for White Diamond having a power to “freeze” Gems into statues to make them perfect and having a gallery of them on Homeworld

Pink Pearl’s original fate

The translation of the writing on Obsidian’s sword

The origin of Pink Steven’s design

What Rebecca did to pitch the “SHE’S GONE” scene

Earlier plans to include Shep in “Change Your Mind”

An unused concept of how Steven feels about Biggs

The inspiration for the Heaven and Earth Beetles’ healed design

How Volleyball/Pink Pearl was almost a mini-villain

Discussion of how they did not get to share the origin of the Diamonds

Jasper’s scrapped participation in the movie

“Reunited” - 

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

In 2015, an episode idea called “If You Love Yourself So Much” was discussed but rejected. It included some early ideas that ended up getting incorporated into “Reunited,” most notably Garnet marrying herself and putting rings on both hands.

The idea of the Cluster arm wrestling was planned for a long time. A scrapped idea of Steven banging his fist on a vending machine to get some Chaaaaps was supposed to visually parallel some of that scene, but it was axed.

When they got pushback on the wedding idea, they kept adding more and more “high entertainment value” items like a big musical number so the episode would be absolutely unmissable and appealing to everyone.

The song at the beginning of the episode was meant to check in with the entire cast and sort of remind you they exist and what their state of mind is going into the wedding.

Ian made a comment joking about “All 15 people in Beach City” being in the audience.

Just about everyone on the Crew touched this episode, despite that there are four main storyboarders credited for “Reunited.”

In 2016 Ian Jones-Quartey proposed marriage to Rebecca Sugar. They felt like the characters based on them (Sapphire and Ruby) HAD to get married in the show now because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. But then their characters got married before they did.

They really love the idea of having characters get married who have known each other for a really long time, versus the fairy tale trope of movies ending with weddings between people who have met very recently.

Steven’s speech as officiator at the wedding used to be longer in its first draft--it was described as being weird and full of jokes, and there would have been a scene with Pearl getting weepy and pulling tissues out of her pearl.

Ian mentions loving a joke Jeff came up with having Greg play one chord to make Steven fall asleep--it’s sort of a “dream” chord you hear in cartoons a lot before a dream sequence.

The Crew discussed what it might be like if someone had never seen the show before and started with this episode.

Ian really wanted Steven’s psychic powers to figure into the episode.

Blue using a sadness wave to attack the Gems was a very old idea they’d planned for a long time. So was Lapis’s arrival.

There was a discussion of having Lisa Hannigan performing her lines as Blue VERY early in the morning.

Ian was happy the sword got broken because it was so momentous but it was just a sword. And later appeared on a shelf in the house as an artifact.

Miki had drawn a torn dress for Garnet at one point so she could be shown fighting and moving around more accurately, and this led to a long discussion of whether Gem clothing can even actually get torn the way human clothes can. They concluded that no, it shouldn’t be torn, so they backed up and gave Garnet an open-front dress from the beginning so the fighting version would make more sense.

Lapis originally might have had a longer speech upon arriving back on the beach. They eventually decided to just have her say “Hey.”

The barn falling on Blue Diamond was an intentional Wizard of Oz reference.

They point out that Steven even once said “drop the barn on the beach” (in a previous episode, “Can’t Go Back,” which was also a Miki episode).

Destroying the house was a big deal, and they always thought they’d end up doing it but backed away from it until “Reunited.” They almost even did it back in “Coach Steven”! But it just ended up with a little damage to the porch.

The Crew thinks Miki is really good at drawing ensemble shots.

Rebecca was always overwhelmed whenever she got to have Patti LuPone record for Yellow.

Originally the giant figures of everyone’s statue bodies in the mindscape were too dark and had to be revamped so they could be seen.

An earlier idea of Steven’s “psychic-ghost-situation” had him as a ghost actually trying to interact with the other characters during fighting action, but it was pulled back to this mindscape so there wouldn’t be as much confusing action to keep track of and more focus on what Steven was doing to encourage his teammates and contact the Diamonds.

Hilary was glad not to have to block out a fight.

Ian mentions loving having Bismuth back in the group.

They originally wanted the “Diamonds sensing Pink’s energy” plot to happen when Steven was in the palace somehow, but everything got moved to this scene--which the Crew all agrees turned out incredible, like how cool it was to have Steven essentially reminding each character why they fight and summing up their whole arc in a sentence.

“Change Your Mind”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

They like to refer to this episode as “The movie before the movie.”

They loved incorporating “princess tropes” into Steven’s time on Homeworld, which is why there were so many references to “mice” (well, Pebbles) making clothes, being locked in a tower, being reminded of his manners, loving animals and freeing imprisoned pets, etc. 

Deedee did the voice of the rainbow worm pet. She apparently didn’t find it memorable and was surprised when she was reminded she did the voice.

Rebecca was super excited for the confrontation with Blue.

There was some discussion of how Steven would have died of starvation if he didn’t have someone practical like Connie to remember to bring food.

They love working with the huge scale the Diamonds present.

The Crew always wanted to put someone in Blue’s hair loop. Originally they wanted Blue to tuck Greg in there when she kidnapped him, but they didn’t end up being able to do any hair-loop-carrying until this episode.

The Crew bantered back and forth about what the heck those Pebbles’ names were and how hard it was to track them.

They agreed that Paul draws the best Yellow Diamond, which makes sense since he also drew the first episode with Yellow (and her stink face). 

The scene where Yellow asks Blue to stop using her powers on her and then realizing she’s crying on her own was one of Rebecca’s favorite scenes to get to finally.

Steven Sugar thought Gems would spend a lot of time in their own chambers/rooms just not really doing much of anything unless they had to fulfill their purpose.

Some of the Homeworld ideas were based on a Soviet artist’s concepts, Boris Artzybasheff, and also many ideas were inspired by Busby Berkeley regarding how people were objects and furniture.

The mech was an old idea. Once they had the hand ship from “Jailbreak,” they knew there had to be bodies somewhere.

They focused a lot about what could be the coolest and funniest way for something to happen. The concept of the yellow and blue spaceship arms appearing out of the sky to smack the White Diamond mech around was one of those.

Rebecca really wanted things to look more and more cartoony and bizarre as you get deeper into Homeworld.

They spent a very long time trying to decide on characters’ new outfits.

The trash can lid is said to be a reference to “a flying bear cartoon” and they dance around speaking a direct reference because they’re not sure they’re allowed to say its name.

In discussing the powers of the Diamonds, there were debates on what White’s power would be; with Yellow being physicality-based and Blue being emotion-based, they thought White as identity-based made the most sense.

Different ways to express this were played with before settling on the idea that she thinks she’s perfect and others’ colors make them less like her and less perfect. But then she becomes a hostage to her own beliefs about herself because if she does anything that reflects on everyone else, so it’s best to do nothing.

They had some cool earlier ideas of White’s powers making statues out of other Gems and having a gallery full of frozen Gems, frozen by White to make them perfect.

They also weren’t sure what fate befell the original Pink Pearl and discussed whether she might have been destroyed. 

Rebecca discussed how creepy it was to have White Pearl speaking in Christine’s voice and not Deedee’s--that we should find it fundamentally disturbing at this point.

Tom Herpich came up with the crack on White Pearl’s face.

In real life, pink diamonds aren’t understood as well as yellows and blues. It’s more known what makes a diamond yellow or blue, and some of those facts Rebecca researched were originally woven into the speech White gave about their “impurities.” But it turned out to be too dry and most of it got cut.

Rebecca loves having Lapis with pants and sandals for easier cosplay.

Ian had to draw the scene where Steven is falling and fusing with inert characters--he wasn’t able to properly explain it to Rebecca so she had him draw it.

They really wanted Rainbow Quartz 2.0 to have a scarf, but they couldn’t figure out how to get that into Pearl’s design. They miss the scarf.

It was really important to have these Fusions display call-forwards of the Gems’ new outfits which we hadn’t yet seen.

Rebecca points out that Sunstone’s design breaks a design rule and she feels like Sunstone should have Garnet’s pant leg colors on their legs, but at the same time she understands the rule of cool and likes it like this.

It’s discussed how none of Steven’s fusion weapons are exclusively offensive weapons either.

Rebecca still really wants a suction cup Sunstone toy.

Sunstone’s ability to transcend reality and break the fourth wall was a joke that exploded in the discussion room among the Crew. As soon as the idea was pitched everyone kept coming up with ideas. Sardonyx’s fourth-wall-breaking is more snarky, but Sunstone’s is helpful.

Rebecca was disappointed that the rule about Steven’s clothes wasn’t always followed with having his clothes appear on Obsidian’s hand, but she was delighted that you could see them in one scene.

They spent a lot of discussion time on making sure Steven-Obsidian was different somehow from Rose-Obsidian. The hair is different.

Old versions of Obsidian were drawn with wrapped-together Twizzlers legs, which sort of is reflected in the present design.

The sword had been planned forever--and it first appeared in “Bubble Buddies.”

Miki worked on the Ninja Turtles show so Rebecca was really excited to see her depictions of Bismuth and Sunstone.

An early plan to have Obsidian draw the sword from their mouth was complicated because fusion weapons should be combinations, so they finally reached the solution of having them combine to make the hilt, then get the blade out of Obsidian’s mouth.

The blade of the sword is thought to say “We’ll always save the day,” but you’d have to ask Steven Sugar.

Another really old idea was climbing into the White Diamond mech eye.

Rebecca was disappointed that some of the merch made of White Diamond did not feature her cape sparkles.

There were many debates early on about where Rose might “actually” be. There were tons of references to this fundamental question throughout the show--introducing Lapis as a Gem trapped in an object, having Pearl ponder pulling Steven’s Gem out as a baby, straight-up wondering what would happen to him in “Bubbled” when Eyeball was trying to take his Gem, etc. They all decided Rose was definitely gone but that the idea of her possibly being inside him should be on his mind a lot, leading to disturbing images like dreaming about coughing up her hair.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond both challenged Steven about things he was very confident about, but White’s question of his identity got to him because he in fact is not confident about that.

The black and white eeriness of the fuzzy background and the other characters having their colors washed out helped make the scene in White Diamond’s head so disturbing and creepy.

The split screen showing Steven’s two perspectives was exciting to Rebecca, and was a pretty old idea. And she points out it sort of “breaks the show.”

The Gem Steven, Pink Steven, was represented by a slightly modified version of his model sheet. Everyone laughed when they saw what was getting used.

They decided that an earlier idea of Pink Steven looking angry should be replaced by an emotionless version of him. All the emotion should be with Organic Steven.

In the pitch meeting for this episode, Rebecca herself screamed “SHE’S GONE!!” and shocked the hell out of everyone. She pointed out how no one expected this of her because she’s pretty quiet, but she just wanted to shock everyone the way Steven would in the show.

They point out this is the first appearance of the geometric shield that got so much use in Future.

The fact that Steven is Steven is the ultimate reveal of the show. Usually in fantasy shows there’s some other kind of revelation, but Steven just being amazingly human and amazingly Gem and amazingly himself is wonderful here.

They like having the pilot reference with “What’s your excuse?”

If Rose had somehow still been alive in him, all of this would have been cheapened.

Ian loves that you can faintly hear Sadie’s concert from way out in space as the camera approaches Earth.

They got a lot more use out of the Beach-A-Palooza stage than they thought they would when it had to be designed for “Steven and the Stevens.” There was a joke about how at one of the conventions a real Beach-A-Palooza stage was constructed and they had a thought about how oh good, it’s getting reused.

Sadie having green hair in the finale was a late change but they liked showing her progression. 

They had originally kicked around the idea of Sadie already having her new partner Shep at this point, but decided to develop that in Future instead.

They compare White Diamond’s stepping gingerly into the fountain to skeptically getting into a public pool.

Some silliness they didn’t get to use was that Biggs would be “beloved by everyone” except Steven. They never got to cover it, but originally Steven was just going to not really understand why everyone loves her so much and doesn’t personally much care for her.

The Heaven and Earth Beetles are based on the Mothra Ladies.

The healed Gems’ horns are supposed to be side effects of the corruption that they continue to bear in the present.

Larimar and Orange Spodumene ended up different in the ending scene than they became in Future. Many of the designs were retroactively pulled into this scene after being designed for the movie.

Rebecca wrote “Change Your Mind” as a personal song to express her feelings surrounding her fight for the wedding.

“The Future”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

The animatic for this episode ran SO long--they’re supposed to be just over 11 minutes but this one was 17 minutes.

Steven’s calisthenics routine, a callback to “Future Vision,” was on the chopping block to make the episode shorter but Rebecca wouldn’t allow it to be cut because she wanted to show that Steven’s been taking care of himself.

They were very excited to get a chance to cover some of the things in Future that they couldn’t squeeze into the original show, like the unbubbled Rose Quartzes, Volleyball, etc.

The new writers on the show also helped bring forward the idea of Steven finally making some of his OWN mistakes to fix.

This also helped construct the idea of Steven essentially being the “final boss” of his own battle.

Usually stories that involve someone being in a fight and winning don’t explore the effect just being in a fight has on a person, regardless of whether you won. 

Rebecca really wanted to play Ocarina of Time after beating it so she could go back to all the places and see how people were doing. She wanted this epilogue series to explore that a little too.

Little Homeschool is sort of a Tiny Toons reference--older cartoons teach younger cartoons how to be cartoons, and this is Gems teaching other Gems how to be Gems on Earth. 

Lamar came up with the silly joke about receiving that art set with all the different media types in it--the one artists are always getting from a well-meaning relative at holiday time.

A scrapped plot idea involved Volleyball/Pink Pearl as a sort of “mini-villain,” with a focus on her activating the un-activated Pearls.

There’s discussion of how victimization turns people into villains sometimes. But since showing that happening with Volleyball wouldn’t have served the interests of Steven’s arc, they couldn’t fit it in.

There was also a “very specific” Gem origin and Diamond origin story that’s quasi-religious in nature--it’s very cool and complicated. But they do not tell us what it is.

Ian and Joe both really wanted to have Jasper living alone in the woods and stacking rocks. They’re glad they got this series to do that with her.

There was originally an idea for a B-plot involving Jasper in the movie. They don’t discuss the specifics.

There were many ideas they didn’t get to work on because they would have started new arcs and Future was not about kicking new plots into gear.

“Mr. Universe” was the last episode they wrote/finished.

Miki really wanted to include a kiss between Connie and Steven to show their relationship was okay. Among the Crew everyone knew their relationship was basically eternal but Miki wanted to make sure WE knew that.

Steven driving conveyed momentum for Future; in the original show, we always came back to the laundry hand, back to home, but in Future that’s changed and home isn’t what it was. 

They were really excited that a gourd family made it to the crowd scene in Future.

Thanks for reading!

Note: The movie had some commentary tracks too, but the one on this DVD set is the same as the one released on the original standalone movie DVD, so I did not outline it here. Here is my post about the DVD commentary from the movie.

[picturejasper20]

So what your your views on people defending Anne not bringing up Sasha and Marcy aside from New Normal and Christmas episode as her repressing and being in denial about things? Granted as hughjidiot has said, there is a difference between denial and the show flat out not addressing things.

There is clearly some problem with production there because, like i said in my post, non-disney shows like Steven Universe and Adventure Time allowed their main characters to grief and be confused after complicated events.

And it's also very weird considering in that "The First Temple" Anne was still very upset for Hop Pop lying to her and she said that she couldn't bring herself to forgive him that easily. I still don't get why Anne is allowed to be upset after a close one lied to her but not dealing with grief after TC events.

Unless they pull an uno reverse card and show that Anne has been in denial this whole time there is a big issue here of the show not letting their characters react properly to said events.

It is not because i want Amphibia "to be edgy". What i want is the main characters having an appropiate reaction to know that they care about what happened to them. If they don't care, why should the audience care too?

In Steven Universe, after Wanted events in season 5, there was an entire arc of Steven dealing with how terrible everything was and him being in denial of the events to the point it he had a fight with Connie. The rest of the episodes were about him realizing that things were not fine and apologizing to Connie for ignoring the problem. This arc lasts around 5-6 11 minutes episodes, which is around 3 half hour episodes.

Adventure Time has a few arcs that show the impact that some terrible events have on Finn's character. Finn gets depressed and the writing doesn't hide that he is feeling that really bad.

Maybe Disney doesn't like having young characters dealing with grief in their animated shows. That could explain this issue that Amphibia has.

[countrymusiclover]

15 - Fate of the Universe

Part 16

Iron Stone masterlist

"She's an angel, Y/n." Pepper talks about baby Morgan in my arms as the three of us including Tony stroll through the park. He's now wearing a fake devotion arc reactor saying it's just in case of something going wrong. "Again thank you Pep. For dealing with her during all our save the world stuff." I smile, rocking the girl in my arms as I wear a thin red jacket from the store Pink, light blue tea shirt with blue jeans and brown boots. My hair is loose with some of it braided. Tony shoves his hands in his pockets smiling. "Yeah Pep. I promise Y/n and I'll take you out to a fancy dinner as a thank-you." I nod leaning up and kissing him softly, he kisses back before an orange portal opens for us to a weird guy who announces. "Tony and Y/n Stark. I'm Doctor Steven Strange. I need you to come with me. Oh, uh, congratulations on the wedding and baby, by the way." Tony tilts his head resting his hands on mine and Pepper's shoulders. "I'm sorry, you giving out tickets or something?"

Strange spoke again. "We need your help. It's not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake." I pull Morgan who is asleep close to my chest. "I'm sorry but who's we?" I gasped to see Dr. Banner approaching. "Hey, Tony. Y/n." He's alive.

Thanos, an alien guy is after these six Infinity Stones that basically could destroy the universe if they're united as one. A spaceship is once again in New York. Luckily Tony and I gave Morgan to Pepper - seriously we can never catch a break. Tony accessed his suit through the chest piece and I tornado my suit from my bracelet he gave me. Peter showed up from a field trip to help us. The spaceship beamed up Peter and Strange. Tony and I give everything we have in the foot thrusters to get on the ship to save Peter. Entering the ship I drop my iron mask. "So...we're heading into space, that's cool." Tony spun around to see someone wearing Strange's cloak, pulling it off I see Peter. "I know what you're gonna say-" Tony cuts him off groaning. "You should not be here."

"I was gonna go home." Peter and Tony go back and forth. "I don't wanna hear it." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "But it was such a long way down and I just about you on the way...and this suit is ridiculously intuitive, by the way. So, if anything, it's kinda your fault that I'm here." Oh good god Peter. Tony aims his finger at the kid. "What did you just say?" Peter stuttered out. "I take that back. And now, I'm here in space." Tony walks up closer to him explaining in frustration. "Yeah, right where I didn't want you to be. This isn't Coney Island. This isn't a field trip. This is a one-way ticket. You hear me. Don't pretend you thought this through. You could have not possibly thought this through."

Spinning on my feet I watch Peter mention the reason he became a super hero in the first place. "You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man...if there's no neighborhood." It had been a couple months since we'd recruited him for the Avengers and he messed up a lot.

Tony and I sit in the backseat of the car as Peter fiddles around with a phone. I'm wearing a simple dress with Tony in a light blue suit because we're heading for date night after we drop him off at home. Pepper is home with 1 year old Morgan. Peter was allowed to stay in a hotel we payed for the whole fight between Captain America that broke the Avengers apart three months ago.

"What is it a little video diary?" Tony asks as I hear Happy grumble from the drivers seat. "I told him not to do it. Filming everything." I smile as Peter aims it at me having me give a wave to the camera. "You know what we should actually do. Make a alibi video for your aunt anywhere. Here get in the frame."

Tony holds the camera up, pulling me into the frame with him and the kid. "Hey May. How ya doing, what you wearing...something skimpy I hope." Peter and I both made a gross out face. "I'm sorry. Let's start over. Make an edit." He laughs squeezing my hand in his freehand.

"3. 2. 1. Hey May. My gosh uh wanted to tell ya..what an incredible job your nephew did this weekend at the Stark Internship retreat. Everyone was impressed-" A random driver honked making me squirm hearing Happy shout at said driver. "Come on! This is a freaking merger zone" Tony said back. "This is cause you're not on Queen's Bullavard."

"Let's leave Happy to deal with his frustrations on driving." I take Peter's phone aiming it at myself changing the conversation. "So Peter, you have any questions you want answered on your little video here?" Turning the phone his direction he stuttered out in nervousness. "Oh uh - how did you meet a Mr. Stark?"

I tilted my head down chuckling at the memory of first meeting the man who is the husband and father of my child. "Well I met Tony through my friend Pepper Potts, his assistant. She offered me a job as her backup assistant over him when she was gone. First day into my job I entered the house to see him blast through the roof of his house down to his lab in the basement." I started laughing really hard at the memory now and Tony blushed at the mention. "It was the time he was creating the first Iron Man suit... But he crashed destroying one of his cars in the process. Long story short I knew I was in for a wild ride after that."

Peter nods his head asking another question as Happy honks the horn aggressively at dumb people driving. "Did want to become an Avenger? Mrs. Stark do you and - um Mr. Stark have a kid?" I smile patting him on his shoulder with a big grin. "First off Peter you don't have to be so formal with me, call me Y/n. Second yes I so wanted to become an Avenger. I didn't want to do the whole boring normal life thing. Third Tony and I have a daughter. Her name's Morgan." He smiles brightly as I show him a picture on my phone of the three of us chilling on the couch on a lazy Sunday. "I'll bring her over sometime to show you and your aunt after one of our retreats." I do the quation sign with my hands explaining the code word.

"Learn to drive people!" Happy's screams making all three of us turn our heads to the front of the car. Tony gives the kid his phone turning it back our direction. "See Happy is - is hoping to get bumped up to Asset Management. Before that he was head of security. Before that he was just a driver." Happy turned his head to us at a stoplight facing the camera. "Private conversation. I don't like joking about this. It was hard for me to talk to you about it." Tony started talking again and the camera moves as I shook my head at his statement. "No. Seriously. Was he snoring a bunch in the-" Happy hits the brake having us reach Peter's apartment.

"Alright here we are." He grumbled as I'm laying across Tony's lap eyeing Peter who stumbles with his phone. "I guess he's not in the joking mood tonight, Ton." Tony chuckled at my reply, asking. "Why don't you grab Peter's case out of the trunk?" He helped me sit up so I can lay my head on his shoulder looking at a stunned Peter Parker who lowers his phone that's still recording. "I can keep the suit?"

Tony pulls out his black sunglasses sternly explaining. "Yes. That's what we were just talking about. Do me a favor though. Happy is kinda your point guy on this. Don't stress him out, don't do anything stupid. Alright?" Peter jumped excitedly. "Yes." Tony still lists off the do's and don'ts. "Don't do anything I would do. And definitely don't do anything I wouldn't do. There's a little gray area and that's where you operate."

"Does that mean I'm an Avenger?" Peter grins at me hoping for a yes, but he's not ready for all the danger just yet." Sorry Peter. Not yet. Baby steps." Happy taped the car window of the backseat. "You gonna take it up?" Tony shouted. "7th floor!" But Peter is nice in saying. "I can take that up. You don't have to take it." Happy sat it down getting back in the driver's seat.

Peter spun around in his seat still excited. "So when's our next retreat?" doing the quation thing I did earlier. "What next mission?" Tony clearly doesn't get it. Peter and I both nod our heads yes. "We'll call you. Like someone will call you." Tony finishes reaching across Peter to fumble with the car door handle. Peter tried to hug him. "That's not a hug. I'm just grabbing the door for you. We're - we're not there yet." Peter gets out of the car waving to me. I waved to him as Tony called out to him. "Bye!"

He closed the door shifting to have me sit on his lap. "So we're gonna let him meet our princess?"

I rest my hands on his shoulders leaning up to kiss him softly. "Yes, we are. He's a good kid Tony. And I bet he'll make a good Avenger in the future too."

"I'll believe it when I see. You're usually right though, honey." He kisses me softly and I smile into the kiss. "You're darn right I am, Stark."

"Admit it, you should've ducked out when I told you to. I tried to bench you. You refused." Tony and Strange are arguing as Peter and I stand on the side. "Unlike everyone else in your life, I don't work for you." Tony cuts him off no longer wearing his Iron Man suit, pacing in front of a wall that moves like a display of space. "And due to that fact, we're now in a flying doughnut...billions of miles from Earth with no backup."

"I'm backup-" Peter raises a hand but Tony snaps back crossing his arms over his chest. "No, you're a stowaway. The adults are talking." Strange turns his head to the boys confused. "I'm sorry, I'm confused as to the relationship here. What is he, your ward?" I step past Strange explaining simply. "Father-son thing, they're not related...it's a long story."

Peter smiled to the Dr. "I'm Peter." Strange said. "Doctor Strange." Peter retracts his early statement. "Oh, you're using our made-up names. Um...then, I'm Spider-Man." Tony clears his throat as I swipe my hand over my bracelet having my iron suit return to the storage unit on my left wrist. "This ship is self-correcting its course. Things on auto-piolt." Strange steps his cap moving with him. "Can we control it. Fly us home. Stark, can you get us home?" Tony steps around not answering him immediately. "Yeah, I heard you. I'm thinking I'm not so sure we should." Tony what are you thinking.

"Under no circumstances can we bring the Time Stone to Thanos. I don't think you quite understand what's at stake here." Tony gets up in Dr. Strange's face growling in frustration of what we're dealt with since New York. "No. It's you who doesn't understand...that Thanos has been inside my head for six years. Since he sent an army to New York and now he's back. And I don't know what to do. So I'm not so sure if it's a better plan to fight him on our turf or his...but you saw what they did, what they can do. At least on his turf, he's not expecting it. So I say we take the fight to him. Doctor. Do you concur?"

"All right, Stark. We go to him. But you have to understand...if it comes to saving you or your wife or the kid or the Time Stone...I will not hesitate to let either of you die. I can't, because the universe depends on it." Strange said with no emotion. "Nice. Good, moral compass. We're straight." Tony pat's his arm stepping beside Peter as I followed after him. "All right, kid. You're an Avenger now." He rests a hand on his shoulder softly quickly walking away.

My boots bang on the metal floor of the space ship before I caught up to him, grabbing his forearm making him stop. "Tony, go to his turf. Are you nuts. We have no idea what these space universes look like." He sighs turning to fully face me. "Y/n, we can't let this guy get away. He won't stop from what the Doctor in the red cap told us, you know that."

"Yes I know that the Avengers are supposed to save the universe and everything but...what if one of us gets hurt, or we both do and Morgan loses her parents. She's just a baby I - I love you two 3000. I don't want my last memory of her being me walking with her in the park this morning." I groan letting tears fall down my face, letting fear take over my emotions.

Tony runs his hands up and down my arms pulling me in for a needed hug. "It won't be, alright. You and I have always kicked ass to get back to each other in the end. And Thanos won't stop that now. I love you, 3000 Y/n...and I'll always be by your side." That was always true in the past, but there's still the fear that one day he might not be.

Peter had messed up endangering people's lives trying to be a full on superhero. Tony had to help him out while I spent some time showing Morgan around the remodeled Avengers compound, he's supposed to escorted here by Happy. I'm wearing a simple light pink dress with tan wedge sandles with Tony wearing a black dress suit and tie with his light orange glasses.

"Hey, honey. You look great." His arms wrapped around my waist from behind kissing my neck.

I lean into him looking up from Morgan asleep to the private jet blasting off out the huge glass windows. "Thank you, baby. Peter here yet, because Pepper is freaking out about this whole press conference of the newest Avenger thing."

Tony walks around to stand in front of me, kissing Morgan's head. "Pep will be fine as will the kid. Once I get better at this whole mentor's thing. Nothing to worry about...there here let's go." He gently looped my arm through his as we descend the stairs to see Happy and Peter. "Oh, there they are. How was the ride up?" Happy replied before he followed the three of us closely. "Good." I smile carrying our daughter in my arms as Tony puts an arm around Peter. "I'm sorry I took your suit, you had it coming. Actually it was the perfect story felt moment that you needed, right to urge you on. Wouldn't you think, don't you think?" Peter nods yes in agreement.

"Mr. Stark I uh-" But Tony cut him off. "You screwed the pooch hard, big time. But then you did the right thing. Took the dog to the free clinic, you raised the hybrid puppies.." I jab him in the side raising an eyebrow at his words. "Alright not my best analogy. I was wrong about you. Think with a little mentoring, you'll be a real asset to the team." Peter glanced my way. "The - the team?"

I smile at him once he saw Morgan. "Yep. Peter I'd like you to officially meet Morgan Stark." He smiles taking her baby hand in his big one, grinning from ear to ear. "She's adorable. Y/n."

Tony grinned at me before clearing his getting the kid to focus on what is behind the large door. "There's about 50 reporters behind that door. Real ones, not bloggers." He taps a few things on his wrist watch, unlocking the door holding Spider-Man's new suit. "When you're ready. Why don't you try that on. And Y/n and I will introduce the world to newest official member of the Avengers, Spider-Man."

Peter takes a deep breath completely baffled "I - uh - haha" he chuckles. I smirked at Tony eyeing the upgraded suit. "So after the press conference Happy will show you to your room, your quarters. Where's he in between Vision?" Happy and I lightly laugh at how Vision lives here. "Vision's not big on doors...or walls."

"Thank you Mr. Stark, you to Y/n. But I'm - uh good." Peter said turning to face the two of us. Tony is confused. "You're good. How are you good?" Peter glanced from Tony to me explaining what he thinks is best. "I'd rather just stay on the ground for a little while. A friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Somebody's gotta look out for the little guy, right."

Tony swiped his sunglasses off his face. "You're turning me down. You gotta think about it. Look at that. Look at me. Last chance yes or no?" Peter simply replied. "No. Uh - thank you Mr. Stark" Tony shakes his hand, taking Morgan from my arms. "Yes, Mr. Parker. Very well done." Peter pulls me in for a friendly hug and I squeeze him back gently. "See ya around, Y/n." We broke apart and I pat his arms smiling. "See ya Peter Parker."

Tony closed the door having Peter spin on his feet. "That was a test right. There's a nobody back there?" Tony and I share a look. "Yes, you passed." The large door opened for Pepper to walk out confused. "Where's the kid?" Happy answers her. "He left."

Tony bounced Morgan in his arms telling her. "You know he actually made a really mature choice. Just suprised the heck out of us." Pepper glares at the boys then at me. "Y/n, did you let them screw this up?" I pointed my index finger at Happy not liking my friend mad at me. "He told the kid to go wait in the chair, Pep."

"Are you kidding me. I have a room full of people waiting for some big announcement. What am I gonna tell them!" Pepper stomps up to the man who holds his mouth open. "Think of something. How about uh-"

Tony trailed off before Morgan tugs at his tie looking up at him. "Dada."

Everyone whipped their heads to the tiny infant in pure suprise. "That's an announcement...You said dada. Can you say-" I pick up Morgan from her father's arms, bopping noses. "Mana."

She giggles as Tony wraps his arms around me kissing me deeply. "Brilliant. Just like her parents." I kissed him back softly smiling. "That she is."

All of us got thrown around when we crash landed the ship onto a weird looking planet. "So much for an easy landing, boys." I groan holding myself up by the palms of my hands, seeing Peter hanging upside down by his webbing. "Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something...and I eat one of you, I'm sorry." Tony helped me to my feet aiming a finger at him. "I do not want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip, you understand." Peter replied. "I'm trying to say that something is coming."

People come out from a ship and started attacking us. I aim my hand blasters at someone wearing an helmet with red eyes. Tony aims his blaster at a gray alien guy, Strange times up a girl with alien antennas and Peter has a gun pressed to his head by the gut in the weird looking helmet that shouts to everyone. "Everybody stay where you are. Chill the F out!" He clicks the side of his helmet making it disappear for me to see a guy with dirty blonde hair and green eyes. "I'm gonna ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?"

"Yeah. I'll do you one better. Who's Gamora?" Tony flips his iron mask down after I do mine. "I'll do you one better. Why is Gamora?" The grey alien spoke. "Tell me where the girl is or I swear to you I'm gonna French fry this little freak." The human looking dude said. He's attractive. Uh Y/n! "Let's do it. You shoot my guy and I'll blast him. Let's go!" Tony aims his blaster at the grey alien dude who said. "Do it, Quill! I can take it." The alien girl cries. "No, he can't take it!"

Whipping my head around I locked gaze with the handsome Quill guy who presses his gun against Peter's head once more. "Oh, yeah. You don't wanna tell me where she is. That's fine. I'll kill all four of you and I'll beat it out of Thanos myself. Starting with you." Strange holds a orange looking space shield in front of him confused. "All right, let me ask you this one time. What master do you serve?" Quill scoffs in annoyance of the question. "What master do I serve. What am I supposed to say, Jesus?" Lowering my orange hand blaster I ask blushing when Quill and I share a glance. "You're from Earth."

"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri." Quill voices making me roll my eyes. Idiot. He's an attractive idiot. "Yeah, that's on Earth, dipshit. What are you hassling us for?" Peter finally spoke in a question. "So you're not with Thanos?" Quill lowers his gun from his head. "With Thanos. No, I'm here to kill Thanos. He took my girl. Wait, who are you?" Peter dropped his Spider-Man mask. "We're the Avengers, man."

"Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?" Tony asks as we're all trying to come up with a plan to get the stone from Thanos. "Mr. Lord. Star-Lord is fine." Quill corrects as the others come closer. "We gotta coalesce. Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude..." Quill cut Tony off. "Dude, don't call us plucky. We don't know what it means. All right, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plan...and that way it might be really good." The grey guy whose name I learned was Drax spoke up. "Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe."

I take a step towards Quill asking. "Dance off?" He shakes his head. "It's nothing." His eyes trail up and down me smirking. "What's your name, beautiful." A blush rises to my cheeks. "Y/n Stark...and you?" He smiles shaking my hand that I'd stuck out for him. "Peter Quill but you can call me Star-Lord." Tony tugs at my forearm pulling me away from him. "Don't encourage him!"

"Don't forget, I'm half human. So that 50% of me that's stupid...that's a 100% you." Quill makes a circle to us with his index finger. Tony shakes his head at the stupid statement. "Your math is blowing my mind." The alien girl pointed to Strange who has the green stone in his chest glowing as he shakes harshly. "Excuse me. But does your friend often do that?" Strange drops to the ground gasping in heavy pants.

"I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict." Quill steps closer to my back as I'm bent on one knee beside my husband. "How many did you see?" Strange trails off a number. "14,000,605." Tony leans forward to question concerned. "How many did we win?" Strange holds a terrified look of fear with me, making me gulp in terror. "One."

One chance to save the universe. Wonderful odds.

Thanos appeared on this planet standing in front of Dr. Strange. Swiping my hand over my grey bracelet I made my iron suit connect over my body. Everyone tried to get the large hand Gotnlet off of him. But as we have him held down Quill asks him about his girlfriend. His girlfriends sister said she didn't come back from another planet but he did with one of the stones. I groan using my magic to help Tony and Peter pry the gantlet off him but I'm getting tired at how strong it's secured on this guy. "Okay, Quill, you gotta cool it right now. You understand. Don't, don't. Don't engage. We almost got this off!" Tony begs harshly pulling on the device with Peter. But he doesn't listen getting in Thanos's purple face. "Asshole, tell me you didn't do it!"

Quill punched him making Tony try and stop him. Peter lost his grip on the device and I'm blasted to the ground hard making my vision blur. Thanos raised his glove hand as he harnessed the power from the planet using it against us. Thanos failed to grab the Time Stone from Dr. Strange. I held myself up by my left elbow seeing Tony blast Thanos. "You throw another moon at me and I'm gonna lose it." Thanos breathed out. "Stark." Tony asked. "You know me?" I force myself up and on my feet, activating my flight thrusters. "You're not the only one cursed with knowledge." The purple man said before Tony shot him with large rockets. "My only curse is you."

Tony tried to beat Thanos but he's too strong with that gantlet, stabbing Tony with a large piece of metal breaking his iron suit. I conjure all my powers onto Thanos who gets knocked backwards with tears falling down my face in anger of hurting the man I love. "You think wiping out half the universe is a good thing, well I say the universe will be better with you gone Thanos!" He grunts getting to his feet he uses the gantlet on me, drawing me into his face. His hand around my neck as I gasped for breath feeling the powerful gantlet drawing out my powers my body. "You're strong Y/n, you're powers match no one. I like your fire, but I believe I'm doing good." He aggressively throws my body into Tony's making us both groan in heavy pants as he bends down on a knee to us. "You have my respect, Stark. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive. I hope they remember you."

"Spare their lives...and I will give you the stone." Dr. Strange pants crawling from large pieces of rubble. Tears fall from my eyes as I reached out towards him begging. "Strange...you can't." Thanos secures the Time Stone from him, the large gantlet with all the stones glows bright as he disappears off the planet. Tony looks to Strange who stated. "We're in the Endgame now."

Tony moans getting to his feet as I sense a dark presence fall over. Drax, the alien girl and Quill faded away into dust particles. I spin on my feet hearing Strange who fades away as well not before saying. "Tony. Y/n, there was no other way." I gasped worried I'm about to never see Morgan again because of Thanos, but Peter's voice broke me from my trance.

"Mr. Stark. Y/n." Whipped our heads in his direction I swear racing towards him. "Oh hell no, Peter. Not you, I'm begging it not be you too." He grips my suit breathing picking up. "I don't feel so good." Thanos please not this kid.

Tony steps forward no longer wearing his destroyed Iron Man suit, catching the both of us with a grunt as I hugged both boys tight in my arms. "You're all right." Peter stuttered out in pure panic and terror. "I don't...I don't know what's happening. I don't know...I don't want to go. I don't want to go, sir. Please." Tony slowly lowers him to the ground with us hovering over him. "I don't want to go. I don't want to go."

Tony breathes heavily in tears as we watch Peter's body disappear into dust. Tears cloud my vision as I cupped his face in my hands terrified. "Tony...are we gonna disappear too! I don't want to die...I love you, I love you 3000."

He pulls me into his sweatshirt, seeing the glow from his chest piece. "Shhhhh baby I'm here, you're here with me. I love you 3000 too...I promise I will never leave your side, I'll always be right here."

Thanos succeeded in destroying the universe.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[fairydust-stuff]

Oh no, you are completely fine. I wanted a discussion on this. Thank you for being polite and restateing your points.

"But for example, with the steven universe reference, I didn't mean to compare utena to it or anything."

I know you didn't but you were still comparing Utena & Steven universe and seemed to be saying because SU did this Utena must mean the same thing. And they have very different demographics. I know SU has some vague Utena references. But They would have different contexts alone based on a lot of factors.

"What I'm getting at is that swords are like,, a form of projection for the wielder. It doesn't just mean one thing exactly, which is why I say "desire" so loosely, and why I applied it to different situations and contexts. Swords and duels are generally a way to push an idea, or get what you want. Its a tool and a battle over an idea, and whoever gets the rose torn off their chest, loses whats dear to them or gets proven wrong."

I don't completely disagree with you on that front honestly.

"And I don't recall implying that Utena is still using patriarchy when she uses the sword powerup with Anthy? Nor did I deny that what Anthy is doing when she gave Touga the powerup is definitely sexual? Did I misread what you said?"

Got to be honest with you what you said for very unclear. The thoughts were a little bit all over the place.

"But from a writing perspective, making your child character whos just morally gray become a full on rapist undeniably feels wrong."

But that's the thing your interpreting the show in a way that feels morally right to you and ignoring a bit of context in the process. I'm not arguing from the point of morals but what's on screen and what the show could be trying to say in that context.

"But to make your morally gray character whos only a young teenager do something so unforgivable, is just a writing choice I refuse to believe is intentional."

Oh boy, you might not want to watch other works by the same director like Pengriundrum then. I'm also coming from the context of viewing some of his other bodies of work.

"Especially with the way that the black rose duelists forget everything and the way the black rose sheaths are never at the very least conflicted about them in terms of the sword-pulling event. Yes, it was their first sexual encounter, and they could enjoy it even if it was forced."

Oh no, I agree with you the way the BR arc is brushed under the rug. Isn't great it's one of my criticisms of Utena. But that doesn't make it not a thing like I said above. I could talk about how I do think the staff could have handled it better.

"And thats why I say that it doesn't match well with the way rgu writes rape. Theres always something pointing to how a character feels, to something as bizarre as Nanamis facial expressions, to the way the camera pans to Anthy while someone is speaking, to the way Akio places his hand on Utena while Chu Chu messes with something, and she goes "Stop that."

I think its more of a side character vs main character thing.

Utena & Anthy & Nanami get more time for their rape & Trauma because their the big focus. (Originally Touga was also supposed to get more focus but his voice actor got sick.) While a lot of characters like Juri, Miki, and Saionji get their trauma less well handled. Especially with the whole repeated victimization thing. (Touga is a huge elephant in the room due to them not doing his episode).

RGU actually does fumble the ball with rape that goes ignored/ unexplored a few more times outside of the BR arc honestly.

Kouze rapes Anthy in front of Miki during his bride duel. It is never touched on again and their just happily spending time together at the end.

(I don't know if the writers just missed it.) But it is weird to see Touga & Saionji so chill considering Touga spends the last episode inviting him to take inappropriate photos with Akio. ( Their whole relationship is not dealt with well in my opinion. anthyutena is dealt with so much better.)

Juri is thankful to Ruka at the end despite him forcing himself on her.

Bayo's Black Rose Arc Analysis

Some notes before I begin:

-This ramble/essay contains heavy discussions of CSA, general sexual themes, and incest. Also, keep in mind that the characters discussed here are 12-17. While I will be looking into how sex affects them mentally and such, I will not tolerate child sexualization here. I will block anyone who makes a single weird comment or make me uncomfortable. We'll be talking about this from a pure psychological standpoint.

-This is a thought dump rather than anything formal, so I won't be dropping episode titles or numbers. I'm also going purely off of memory, and things I said in group chats. So if things lack clarity, this is why.

-I'm not saying I "cracked the black rose arc code" or anything, this is purely my interpretation that I wish to share, due to not seeing many black rose analysis', and being displeased with what some people have said and concluded. I just want to put what I think out there for others to enjoy :3.

-To avoid being repetitive and cluttered, I'll be generally referring to any character who pulls swords out as "wielders", and any character who has had a sword pulled out of them as "sheaths". Any scene where this transpires will be called a "sheathing scene."

-Once again, due to the material of this analysis, I will be blocking anyone who sexualizes the characters in notes, or anyone who I see as creepy.

With that out of the way, let us begin :3!

So I was watching rgu video essays one day, and I stumbled across one about Miki. About halfway or late into the video, they begin talking about how Miki and Kozue had sex in the black rose arc, due to the way she touched him before the sheathing scene, and the way he turned beet red when Nanami asked how it felt for the sword to be taken out. And I thought it made sense at the time, as I was still new to utena, and I only watched it once. And the allegory is clearly there in other black rose sheathing scenes (besides with utenanthy), right?

But then I thought about it more when I rewatched the juriori black rose episode a year or so later, and caught Juri blushing when Nanami asked her the same question. And...wait. Because doesn't all of the black rose sheathing scenes look..uncomfortable? The sheath cries in pain as the sword comes out of their chest, and Wakaba even forced it out of Saionji. And this weirded me out, because why would a show thats so clearly against rape of any kind go on to write something like this? Why did Miki and Juri blush about something that was so forceful? And even if they were under a mind controlled like state, why would they write the wielders to be rapists? With the way rgu writes sex and rape, it didn't seem right, y'know?

So a few months later, when I decided to continue my rewatch and reached the Wakaba black rose arc episode, thats when I truly started to think about it more. And thats when I reached a conclusion: Miki and Juri are more influenced by Touga and Saionji than they realize. And by extension, they're all influenced by Akio.

You see, Touga and Saionji clearly view Anthy as someone to be sexualized. Shes their wife, who would fulfill their every request. Even though they might not know Anthys and Akios relationship, and/or how the latter treats her, this is an undeniable shared mindset.

Even though the boys and Utena uses Anthy as a sheath in the exact same ways on the outside, you know that when its with Touga and Saionji, its sexualized. They own her. When Touga demands Anthy to kiss his sword, it feels so off that Utena couldn't bare to watch. You could argue that its because it would hurt Anthys lips, but in later episodes its clear that it isn't the issue, as Utena uses the same powerup but in a more supportive fashion rather than sexual. So whats up with that?

I say; in (most of) the wielders view, the sword is like a penis.

I know, a very silly thing to say. But I don't mean exactly. And I, of course, don't mean literally.

Do you know that scene from the scream movie, where the two guys are stabbing each other, begging for it and all? It definitely has sexual undertones, because of the mood set by the characters, and heres where I'm getting at; the idea of a long pointed object being thrusted in you.

What I think is that Anthy is so sexualized by the student council, that the idea of a simple sword being pulled out of her 14 year old south asian brown girl chest, is arousing.

So when each of the student council members become sheaths themselves, of course they think that its one of the most sexually intimate things to experience. And its so stupid, right? Its just a sword. a SWORD.

And I shouldn't be referring to the student council so generally, because Nanami is the only one who sees through this. As far as I remember, she wasn't weird in the slightest when she was Tsuwabukis sheath. And even in the apocalypse arc, shes uncomfortable when Touga kisses her, and disturbed when walking in on Akio and Anthy (but then again I haven't rewatched that episode yet, so I could be wrong). She purely meant to ask how the sword felt, with no sexual intent. Miki and Juri were just pure idiots on that part.

So then, wait, if the sword pulling in the black rose arc wasn't a metaphor for rape, then what is it?

Well, I argue that it black rose wielders follow the same mindset as some sexual assaulters when they're under the effects of Mikages reverse therapy, in a way. Its the strong feeling of thinking the sheath owes the wielder something, and that the wielder deserves it no matter what they say.

Another reference to a different piece of media, but remember when its revealed that Pearl continued to fuse with Garnet for her own personal wants, which crossed Garnets boundaries? People interpreted that scene as Pearl raping Garnet, when....no. What? Of course she isn't. Its just the general idea of your wishes being disrespected, and boundaries ignored. Do you see where I'm going with this?

The black rose wielders see something in the sheaths that they want for themselves, whether it be their love, their attention, or some secret third thing. So with nothing but entitlement and desperation in their heart, they force the sword out of their hearts, where their desires lie.

But, wait. How about other scenes with swords? Like when Anthy is Utenas sheath, and when Anthy has a thousand swords stabbed into her? Do swords still represent desire?

Well, yes! Very easily. Utena fights for the pure sake of love and friendship. She fights Saionji when hes cruel to Wakaba, and she swears to protect Anthy with all her heart. She duels with the strongest ounce of care in her soul. Thats the desire to keep her loved ones happy.

What about when Anthy what continuously impaled? Well, that was the villages desire to get to the prince. And it was Akios desire to finally revolutionize the world after so long.

I may be missing a few scenes, but this is the general idea, and I hope I got the idea across. Thats the end of my little ramble :3. As an acespec hypersexual, I already spend a lot of time deconstructing the truth behind sexual things and feelings. So this was fun to think about. I hope y'all liked this, and understood it most importantly. Toodleeess

[artbyblastweave]

Thoughts on the Invincible Show

Episode 8 is fantastically visceral, but I feel like the increased focus on the human carnage is going to make Omni-Man’s inevitable redemption arc a much harder sell around here. I mean jesus fuck, Steven Universe makes people foam at the mouth, Omni-Man’s redemption arc is going to be like a mustard-gas bath bomb.

I did not anticipate everybody on this Hellsite thirsting after Cecil. I probably should have. Cecil-Thirsting aside, they seem to be whitewashing him a bit from the comics (morally, I mean) by making a point of how much he hates sinclair on a personal level, and introducing the reanimen during the no-holds-barred desperate last stand instead of during a time of relative peace. The comics questioned the ethics of things like the GDA and shadow-governments pretty extensively, so I’m curious to see where they’re going with it.

I love most of the cast changes from the comic! Amber has a personality beyond acting as a case study in why it would suck to try and date a normal person as a superhero. William is a funny douchebag instead of a genuine douchebag.   I do feel like they’re riding for a fall, in that a lot of the characters they’ve diversied also eventually either fell out of focus or got killed horribly for tragic effect in the comics, in a way that could read poorly now that they’re no longer all white. On the other hand, having a character in animation is significantly more of an investment than in a comic book.

I also like Debbie’s boosted agency! Her sequences felt like a Hitchcock thing. Damian Darkblood is much more interesting in this as well.

I’m curious what they’re going to do with Shrinking Rae. Her comic’ counterpart was pretty one-note; he was a fairly competent superhero who was constantly undercut by the powerhouses, which in turn lead him to have a suicidal inferiority complex (IIRC he ultimately got eaten alive trying to pull off a thanus maneuver on a supervillian.) Rae has demonstrated in passing at least three times as much personality as he did, and they’re going out of their way to demonstrate that the guardians actually like each other on a personal level in this, as opposed to in the comics where they were all kind of just vaguely putting up with each other. So I’m interested to see what that arc is gonna look like.

No Bulletproof this season! I like him, I hope they bring his fucked up backstory in earlier when he makes his debut, his fucked up family dynamic makes him an excellent foil to Mark.

No Magnattack in the Machine-head sequence. I guess he’d probably be a bitch to animate, so it makes sense. 

Doc Seismic is funny! He was funny in the comics as well. I’ve already seen a lot of the standard issue “why-are-you-booing-he’s-right” discourse surrounding his Mount Rushmore rant, and, like, fair, but sometimes you just need to accept that’s it’s really fucking funny for the tiny wizened mad scientist to be the one spouting off contemporary social justice discourse. And given how much the comics ultimately went into the question of whether Superheroes are just propping up an ecologically untenable status quo, and whether the world shaking supervillians ought to be cooperated with and given a voice rather than pounded into the ground, I think they’re entitled to one joke on this point.

I’m glad that everyone was more expressly weirded out by Robot! It’s not the writers dropping the ball, the clone thing was always intended as a massive red flag about the guy’s sense of boundries in the comic, but everyone sort of shrugged it off in the comics (where Rex is, on the whole, also much more self-aware and pleasant, and was like, “dude, just ask next time.”)

[robotnuts]

i stayed up for 26 hours and wrote some ideas for an rvb season here it is. it’s a s14 they stay on chorus au

-epsilon is recursed and all the fragments are split but theyre shoved back into an orb because i ! miss orbsilon. so it’s basically all the fragments copiloting the orb body with the orb glowing the color of whoever is speaking. ep2ilon is his own dude who is heavily influenced by the fact that all of the fragments were put in caboose’s head immediately after the charon battle because he was the only person with a head empty enough to Handle It so he still has the caboosification which is so important to orbsilon, but he also doesnt view himself as the old epsilon with amnesia but like the steven universe to original epsilon’s rose quartz

-caboose goes through his teen angst phase because epsilon doesnt remember who he is and wont go by church anymore and he backtalks wash like a teenager saying i hate you dad!! while wash is scandalized 

-wash in general is just desperately trying to make the blues and the reevbs in general... not morally better people, because he doesn’t know how to do that himself, but more competent and functional adults who don’t have a youtube channel where they review how different metal spoons blow up in the microwave. 

-simmons gets tucker’s s16 arc where he goes mad with the power hes gotten from being a war hero but in a disctinctively simmons way where he doesnt like his description given in a newspaper that calls him lanky and describes him as like somehow an overgrown bird was given all the properties of a chihuahua being held at gunpoint so he doxxes the reporter, dylan, on twitter

-the mercs show up at one point because i miss the mercs. in this season anyone i want to bring back from the dead can come back because the philosophy is 100% whatever is funny to me and not thematic coherence with the rest of the show. i still think it would be a better sequel to chorus than shisno

-felix shows up trying to break up grocus because grif has become too friendly with locus and he’s Mad about it and so is Simmons because simmons is an awful freak with many flaws, which is the best part about his character. he like thinks grif is cheating because grif keeps talking about how great locus is but he doesn’t realize that’s because grif is imagining locus’ backstory as like, the ideal Hot Guy riding a motorcycle dean winchester archetype that he thought was the coolest someone could be. this is fueled by locus’ blatant autism which let him adapt to talking like an edgy batman villain for so long because the only person he was friends one ups him by being essentially an edgy joker motivational instagrammer who microdoses LSD to make himself more productive and read somewhere that “macrodosing” was the new hot trend, so he gets tricked into having a horrible trip. so felix is much worse and have allowed locus to put up this act for so long

-aforementioned unbearable narcissist teams up with simmons in order to bring down grif and locus because neither of them have a healthy or normal approach to relationships and think this is an acceptable reaction, and anyone who knows better is too busy doing other shit to notice. they mostly ineffectively try to sow discord between the two but it keeps failing due to both grif and locus’ ambivalence to their respective partner’s antics at this point, along with the fact that locus often just doesnt understand what the fuck felix is talking about. grif just thinks simmons is being neurotic as usual until they pull a tatami galaxy and send the both of them obviously fake letters from the other being rude and trying to get the two of them to fight, but it’s immediately seen through and grif is like, god DAMMIT simmons you’ve been off lately but this is so obvious i actually have to address your weird behavior instead of continuing to let it slide in favor of doing literally anything else

-the literally anything else is grif’s arc with sister where he has to learn that she’s grown up and doesn’t need to be protected from herself as much anymore because hes so used to being her Big Brother,  but also she has to learn that he wasnt just being annoying like mom and dad but he was protecting her from real shit that she had no idea about. this isnt funny i just want more grif siblings okay

-locus somehow manages to make himself a dependent of washington and place wash under community service arrest which wash, after being unable to remedy this, forces tucker and caboose to come along with to help Build character or something but it really ends with all of them bitching about how bored they are and pinching each other with the grabbers theyre supposed to be using to clean up litter in symphonia’s long abandoned shopping center so it can start being used again. as people move in bitters can achieve his all time intended character role: snarky store employee at the asexual tech repair store

-they keep matthews in a sealed box in to fix the laptops and make palomo hold everything wearing oven mitts

-the lieutenants were promoted to the same rank as the reevbs because the pelicans got to charons ship extremely quickly and the reevbs’ role in the battle was pretty much the same as the other soldiers in the end, the reevbs just got the cool gear out of it, so now the lieutenants are on the same leeel and want the bgc to admit that they suck and the fednews rule. palomo especially has gotten way too big for his britches and now thinks tucker is lame and hes the new hot shit in town. sarge was very angry about this but kimball isnt easily bullied like doyle was and he couldnt get a promotion above grif and simmons. it really eats away at him so he diverts effort into trying to get new recruits lower on the food chain to join the red army because hes getting empty nest syndrome.

-sarge is also upset that red and blue team both have equal representation by having one seat in the new chorus government, so he demands that chorus recognize a new robot faction run by lopez and FILSS to try to get another red team vote in chorus parliment. church has been tormented by emily grey since shes in charge of rebuilding the new goverment’s infastructure and she registered ep2ilon as 0 years old so he joins the movement. and since FILSS is always loyal to the director lopez actually gets outvoted by the blue team 2-1. sarge is devastated. 

-they tried to veto ep2ilon joining the robot union but hes the one in charge of doing calculations for like their supply runs and agriculturral seectors to make sure food doesnt run out (because it turns out that the sangheli were really into redbull, which is disgusting, and thats all they left behind in the temple of bountiful harvest) so he has enough leverage to protest the robophobia in the capital

-doc and donut take pity on how pathetic wash’s attempts to improve the blue team are so they try to get wash to come with them to their open-polyamorous morning routine and juice cleanse which is where you go like a spa or a massage to clear your mind once a week and do yoga and other homoerotic slash homeopathic related shenanigans. donut swears it’s not like, actually gay it’s just like a new high tech way that people who make startups and spend all of their time trying to emulate billionaire’s routines for maximum productivity do now according to a ted talk donut found, and is totally normal, he promises. doc is doing it just because he does all sorts of new age medicine or treatments and donut because he’s working really hard on his pyramid scheme idea startup that everyone keeps telling him is a pyramid scheme but he refuses to admit to. anyways wash says yes and when he gets there during their warm up stretches as he’s helping donut stretch his leg even higher in the air donut says “so... why did you shoot me in the chest wash!” and he instantly realizes this was a bad, bad idea.

-doc also takes carolina to a pottery class because he thought she needed a more active relaxation strategy and it ended with carolina being dragged out of the building by caboose and wash because she smashed clay in the instructor’s hair in a public meltdown. emily grey was the instructor and it was because she had keept making passive aggressively rude suggestions in an overly cheery voice and she just snapped. carolina is forced to go to court ordered therapy but the thing is emily is also the only licensed therapist on chorus because doctors registration paperwork hasnt been overhauled for the new government yet. there are other therapists still operating but none of them are “licensed” yet so wouldnt you know it, it seems like carolina is gonna be seeing emily every week from now on :)

-wash is still trying to strike the balance between blue team leader who barely keeps all of them from cutting their fingers off while cooking and overly regretful overcome with guilt for his past actions so he like, organizes everyones sock and underwear drawers by like size and color because he thinks this is like, a normal Good Deed to show appreciation on the level of doing everyones dishes in the sink instead of something extremely creepy that tucker tells him he needs to stop doing immediately

[kinghijinx22]

Top 5 Canonical Pansexual Characters

So I recently made a post about why one of my all time favourite characters Mae Borowski from Night in the Woods is amazing pansexual representation and how the way her feelings are portrayed felt very accurate to my own. In that post I also said that there isn't enough pan rep, which is true and to prove my point I made a list of the only 5 undeniably canon pansexual characters I know of also 2 of them are from Steven Universe which is almost cheating to pull examples from. This is my ranking of all 5 of those characters based on how good they are as rep because I thought this would be a fun list to make and it's still Pride Month so yeah.

5. Willow Park (the Owl House)

So the Owl House is my favourite thing out of all the things mentioned on this list and Willow is my second favourite character here overall, but the way her being pan is handled is non existent in the show. There is nothing that even hints at it and Dana Terrace only announcing after the show seems disingenuous. I'm not too mad because the show already has plenty of queer rep that is fleshed out and sincere, but in the case of Willow it feels like Dana trying to retroactively cover all her basis. Besides this Willow is still a great character though, very likable, plant magic is cool and she has a great arc of finding her confidence and following her passion for sports.

4. Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)

An incredibly complex character that people with no media literacy love to hate. The idea that you witness her redemption character arc in reverse and how you only have word of mouth and flashbacks to go off of because she's actually dead throughout the whole show is kind of genius. As pan rep though, her orientation is left pretty vague. Like we know that she loved Greg and that Pearl loved her but whether Rose reciprocated Pearl's feelings is never answered. It's implied that she might have been polyamorous with a bunch of people and that it included Pearl but then Rose decided that she want a monogamous relationship with Greg and that's why Pearly became jealous of him. But again this is never explored beyond very vague hints.

3. Sadie Miller (Steven Universe)

Most likeable human character from Steven Universe and easily one of the best side characters. I like her arc of really finding herself throughout the show like when she quits her excruciating job at the Big Doughnut and discovers her passion for singing. She also discovers who she likes throughout the show when she is shown crushing on guys, gals and nonbinary pals throughout the show, eventually settling down with her enby partner Shep. While Shep is only in one episode near the end of the show they are pretty cool and they are really cute with Sadie as a couple.

2. Finn McNamara (Life is Strange 2)

This one is kind of weird to me because while I do like Finn overall and can sympathise with his backstory, the fact that they lock his romance with Sean behind making some morally bad decisions does have some pretty messed up implications behind it. Because there are 2 romance options in Life is Strange 2 between a girl named Cassidy and a guy name Finn and they make the Cassidy romance the one that's easier to get because it just shows up when you choose not to rob the weed farm guys, meanwhile you have to choose to go with Finn to use Daniel's powers to help them with the heist. Now the weed farm guys are assholes and you do need the money and Finn does have some good motivations, but he's also thinking selfishly and putting Sean's brother Daniel in danger and teaching him to use his telekinesis powers to get what he wants. By locking the same sex romance option behind the morally bad decision you are tying queerness to inherent deviance which sucks. Having said that, Finn does have a sympathetic backstory of being homeless after being used and betrayed by his father in his own drug business and I do believe he does want to make life better for his friends. Also the way that him being pansexual specifically is explained in the game is a very accurate portrayal. When Sean asks him who he likes Finn replies with "I don't see gender, I see people", which shows that Finn is genderblind when it comes to his orientation which has always been a pretty good way of explaining what being pan is like. I appreciate Finn for being overt Pansexual rep, the only dude pansexual rep as well and he is a likeable character overall even if his romance path carries some problematic implications when you compare it to the same sex option with Cassidy.

Mae Borowski (Night in the Woods)

One of the best protagonists from one of my favourite games. I love how nonconforming Mae is in every sense of the word. She's openly queer and refuses to conform to societies gender expectations. She's a cool cat person who plays bass in a band with her friends. Always speaks her mind, does what she wants and is unapologetically herself. Also an incredibly nice person at heart even if her bluntness and inability to read the room sometimes leads to some not great situations. A heavily flawed but still amazing character. She also happens to be pan which is very accurately portrayed throughout the story which I wrote a post about. To summarize, she explicitly states in one scene that she doesn't care about the gender of a person but she just wants to date someone that is tough and cool and "GRRR." There's a bunch of other stuff that she says throughout the game but it's also revealed that she has an ex who is a guy named Cole and she develops intimate feelings for a girl she meets at a party known as "Bombshell." Mae is an amazing character who I deeply relate to on a lot of levels and also admire for her ability to be herself and not care what other people think.

Reposting this to fight back against Tumblr's homophobic attack on my account that got my last post labelled as "mature." You are not going to outlaw my existence. Pansexual people exist, we derserve to exist just as much as the straights and we will fight back against your fascist regime. I will repost this as many times as I need to show them that their genocide tactics will not succeed.

21/07/2023 edit: Tumblr finally did the right thing and removed the Mature label from the original post but I'm still keeping this up as a reminder that they did it in the first place and that even this site has issues with trying to erase the existence of queer people. We don't deserve to be hidden and labelled as not safe for public eyes.

Picture sources

Mae Borowski - yorunowaltz on Tumblr

Finn McNamara - all ya faves are gay, matey on Tumblr

Sadie Miller - editsteven on Tumblr

Rose Quartz - Your Fave Loves And Supports LGBT+ People on Tumblr

Willow Park - (1) Daily LGBTQ+ Characters on Tumblr