grifalinas:

full-moon-phoenix:

discourseboyfriend:

At the risk of all my credibility as a person being thrown out the window because I genuinely enjoy Steven Universe, I need to say this.

The military in Steven universe doesn’t represent nazis. Genocide literally isn’t the theme of this children’s show. The only overarching theme related to actual militia is War Is Bad.

SU is about breaking cycles of abuse, not pulling yourself in a million directions to please those around you, and making your purpose in life to make yourself happy and surround yourself with supportive people who love you. It’s also about being critical of those you love, and sometimes supporting them while they actively try to change and grow from their pst mistakes.

Life on other planets being destroyed isn’t meant to represent some kind of active genocide. It’s individuality being stretched and worn out until only what the abuser (the diamonds, more specifically white diamond) wants to see and hear is left.

Steven isn’t some kid that wants to be buddy buddy with dictators, he’s a child that sees how his mother was beaten down and abused and wants to mend the bond with his family that couldn’t be fixed before new perspectives were brought into play.

Blue Diamond is a parent who swears she’s doing right by her child because tough love (emotional abuse) is necessary to protect them, Yellow Diamond is a parent who is afraid of anything out of the “ordinary” being a sign of her failure and so treats her child unjustly and gets physically abusive in order to “fix” the problem, White Diamond wants a clean slate, someone who will do and act as she says because of her own inferiority complex and the need for everything to always be perfect. These are all people that children & teens & adults have to deal with, and the biggest arc on the show being Steven demanding that everyone be treated as an individual deserving of love and growth is such a huge thing to show on television.

What widespread kids show have you ever seen so clearly outline abusive behaviors and the thoughts and feelings behind both victim and abuser? How many people do you think have been forced to realize they can and should be treated better, and maybe their own treatment of the people they love has been warped by their own abuse?

If you look at the show through this lense of healing and doing better by children, rather than the popular “Diamonds are Nazis” lense, the show is chock full of messages of self love, distancing your emotions not being a solution to every issue, and other related things.

THANK YOOOOUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!

One of the criticisms I often see thrown at Steven Universe is that it’s a narrative where abuse victims forgive their abusers and that’s unfair, but, like. From where I’m standing? A story where someone was able to stand up in front of the people who hurt (him, his mom, his caretakers, his friends, thousands and thousands and thousands of people he never met but who were connected to him in some way or another) and saying “You messed up, you hurt me, do better” and then having them fucking listen?

You know what happens if I try to talk to my parents about how fucked up I am as a direct result of my upbringing? If I try to make them see how badly they’ve hurt me? Not even through abuse, just really bad decision making and not realizing that they were hurting me in the long run?

I get told I don’t know how good I’ve got it

I get told it’s everyone else’s fault

I get told it’s my other parent’s fault

And I can’t even push because I haven’t yet saved up enough to move and am still dependent on them, I am literally making plans to move to the other side of the country because I can’t bear to be around them much longer.

So, like, Steven didn’t “forgive” his abusers, he stood up in front of them and demanded that they do better, to fix their mistakes, and then gave them a chance to, and they took it. They listened. And that was absurdly cathartic from where I was standing.

It’s not necessarily the narrative that a lot of people wanted, and that’s okay! Not every narrative is going to be the narrative someone wants. But god that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a powerful one.