Hello again, blogosphere, this is Neil Rush. There are many different shows I have liked and have gotten into, but with no new Gravity Falls episodes until the series finale in February, I've decided to talk about one of those other shows, a show that has many shared fans with Gravity Falls- a show on Cartoon Network called Steven Universe.
Created by Rebecca Sugar, a woman known for her work on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time shortly before going off to make her own show in a similar style and make Steven Universe the first Cartoon Network Original Animated Series to be created by a woman (but not the first animated series ever to be created, developed, or creatively controlled by one, as many fine cartoons on Cartoon Network and other channels in the past have had women in all of the important creative positions), Steven Universe has a pretty layered story. It follows its title character Steven Quartz Universe (voiced by Zach Callison), a happy, friendly, and somewhat effeminate thirteen-year-old boy loosely based on Steven Sugar, Rebecca Sugar's younger brother, living in the fictional town of Beach City, Maryland with his single dad Greg Universe (voiced by comedian Tom Scharpling), who is a former traveling rock star, and three millennia-old aliens named the Crystal Gems- Garnet (voiced by R&B artist Estelle), Amethyst (voiced by Michaela Dietz), and Pearl (voiced by Deedee Magno Hall). The three of them are old friends of Rose-Quartz (voiced by Susan Egan, known for voicing Megara in Disney's Hercules from 1997), a Gem that was a general of the Homeworld Gems' armies until she and the other three defected due to disagreeing with the rest of the species' desire to reap the Earth of its resources. She later met Greg, and while she initially saw humans as more of a novelty than as her equals, she later grew to fall in love with Greg, and later sacrificed her form into that of a half-human, half-Gem child, that child being Steven. Steven and the Gems use their Gem powers to fight evil around the universe, and while Steven is still developing his powers, he usually knows how to use them effectively.
The other Crystal Gems manage to have their own distinct personalities, all meant to serve as motherly figures to Steven. Garnet is calm and collected, but also noble and courageous, blending traits from the two other Gems she is made from, Ruby (voiced by Charlene Yi) and Sapphire (voiced by Erica Luttrell). Gems have the ability to fuse with one another as long as they trust each other to form larger Gems featuring characteristics of both and/or all of the Gems that fused to make them yet still identifying as their own Gem. Ruby and Sapphire are two Gems that are madly in love with one another and spend most of their time fused as Garnet as a result. Amethyst is more of a big sister figure than a motherly figure to Steven because despite being a few thousand years old like Garnet and Pearl, she is the youngest of the Gems, and was born in a cave network on Earth referred to as the Kindergarten rather than on the Gem Homeworld. This also explains her more naturally crass personality than Garnet and Pearl, though she also feels insecure about herself at times due to her "messier" upbringing than the other Gems. Pearl is probably the most confusing of the main characters. She is the most motherly of the three Gems, often reprimanding Steven when he acts careless while also trying to show up to almost everything he does around town, protect him from anything she can, and convey that she loves him as a mother does, yet also has a tendency to describe humans as lesser to Gems in nearly every way and act extremely awkward at times and highly self-centered at other times. Much of this is because of how, while this will never be stated outright in the show yet the creators have said as much on social media, Pearl was in love with Rose, but to a somewhat possessive level, and believed that she was inferior to Rose in every way and could only be something useful when Rose was by her side. This may extend from the fact that other members of the Pearl Gem sub-race were designed to be servants to other Gems, and while Rose never treated Pearl like one, it was in Pearl's instincts to act as a servant, even if that meant being an emotional slave. She resented Greg for the longest time for his relationship with Rose, and to an extent resents Steven for being the very reason Rose is no longer alive. Because Rose is gone, Pearl doesn't understand her purpose, which is the crux of her character development arc- outgrowing her crush on Rose and becoming her own Gem-person.
The show has received significant praise for its animation style, largely inspired by anime and 80s/90s video games; its music, with many episodes featuring musical numbers that expand on certain characters' emotions, with the most iconic example being the song sung by Garnet in the episode "Jail Break", the song being called "Stronger Than You" which is what she sings while fighting the Homeworld Gem Jasper as the other Crystal Gems take control of a Homeworld Gem Prison Spaceship; its mature characterization; and its willingness to play with gender roles. Its protagonist is a boy with many traits more commonly associated with female characters, such as strongly showing his emotions and having more defensive abilities than offensive ones, yet is still meant to be a clear boy. Connie Maheswaren (voiced by Grace Rolek), Steven's best human friend and almost-love-interest (despite enjoying snuggling and dancing with one another, the terms they use when talking with each other seem to keep them in the friend-zone), despite being a girl, has a few more masculine traits than Steven, such as being skilled with sword-fighting thanks to Pearl, and is the bigger bookworm than Steven, yet also has her fair share of feminine traits, such as usually wearing dresses. The Gem species is meant to be genderless yet predominantly consist of beings with female characteristics and use female pronouns. Ruby and Sapphire, for example, are a unique way of zigzagging with a chaste depiction of an LGBT relationship in a work meant for a shared audience of kids and adults. Despite both using female pronouns and being voiced by women, the fact that the two of them are technically genderless brings it simply to the realm of "two beings in love", with gender not being a part of it, and Ruby's androgynous appearance also adds another layer to the storytelling. Sometimes, the writing isn't as strong as I would like it to be, often falling into traps of being too hammy and/or sentimental. The general concept and themes discussed keep me from disliking the show, however. Greg and Ruby are probably my two favorite characters, and some of Steven and Connie's interactions fall into guilty pleasure territory. I'm even inspired to write my own fan fiction series called Steven Multiverse, in which Steven, Greg, Connie, and the Gems team up with both versions of them from a gender-bender universe of their own universe (a gender-bender universe, or Rule 63 universe, is a universe in which all characters from one work of fiction are reimagined as the opposite gender of what they are in their main in-canon universe) and versions of them from a partial gender-bender universe, in which some but not all characters have their gender swapped from what it is in the canon universe (basically something resembling what I would do if I had thought of something like Steven Universe) and try to stop a threat to different versions of the Universe family across the multiverse.
The most recent developments in the story occurred in a week of new episodes at the beginning of January, with episodes such as one in which Garnet tells Steven the story of how Ruby and Sapphire met and, by proxy, how she came into being; one in which Steven turns fourteen years old; and a few showing how Peridot (voiced by Shelby Rabara), a former enemy of the Crystal Gems, became a member of them after growing to trust them while in what was supposed to be a temporary alliance. These developments have made the show more interesting than ever before, and I hope that the show finds a positive new direction from here on out. Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week.
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