#stuff that is scratching the SU brain itch (but not exactly) for me is uh

[peachie5000]

What I would give to be able to experience SU blind again-

Despite that, I wouldn’t give away the experience of being able to rewatch it from different points in its air-time - I honestly think the reason I love it so much is because I got to watch it evolve over years and see how my opinions on characters changed depending on how much we knew about them.

Certain scenes in the series don’t even rely on a big twist to be good - often it comes from a subversion of audience expectations that work because the characters are written to do unlikable things sometimes. Pearl is allowed to mess up and put Steven in danger because of her grief. Jasper is allowed a place to grow even when she rejects the help that is offered to her. Amethyst can be a loving sister and simultaneously be massively irresponsible around steven sometimes. Peridot learns to be well-meaning and kind but she still struggles with social awareness and often comes off as tone-deaf, to the point of hurting others feelings or making a situation worse. I could keep going, there’s so many examples.

I’m always surprised when I hear people talk about how they don’t like the rose/pink twist - That’s an example of subversion of expectations + a massive twist payoff that feels incredibly game-changing simultaneously - Getting rose and showing her to be responsible for really amazing, life changing events and also horrifically terrible ones is a great example of how SU believes in the flaws of its characters and trusts its audience to make their own opinion on them. I like that the show lets us try and piece together who she was, with the same amount of information that Steven has.

That isn’t even getting into how much of a surprise it’d be to tune in for a new episode and get hit by so much. queerness. Like. So many characters written in a way where even if they weren’t explicitly confirmed LGBT, there was an aspect to the way they were written that felt so inherent to the gay experience. I feel thats something thats often left out in talks about modern LGBT representation. SU isn’t just groundbreaking in its very obvious, flashy moments. Its subtle stuff like Greg, a massive loving heart within the cast, talking about freedom and expression and being like. somewhat bisexual coded? (I dont know how else to explain he just HAS the vibes). The way Peridot felt very aro-ace coded even before crew confirmation? Just. all of the gems having very interesting designs and presentation when compared to a lot of female/femme coded designs in media that have to look a certain way? Sections of Steven’s story being a trans allegory and also just super GNC?? Steven Universe is still operating on its own level in terms of representation as far as I’m concerned honestly.

The way SU was written makes it so hard for me to get into other media in that demographic too - I feel spoiled lmao. There are some anime/certain cartoons that are exceptions but a lot of the popular ones rn specifically aren’t really clicking for me :((