Today I had to explain to a guy at work why I could not print his file because it was a video

And then he still wanted me to somehow make it into a PDF for him

Eventually I found myself making screenshots of the video and making a PDF of that and somehow my life is a life that included this

Okay I went ahead and signed up to get one of these and I couldn't be happier. I was just hoping someone would sell one if they got to go to one of the events. I really don't go to events. So it means a lot that they're offering this!

Here is the tweet about it and here is the listing.

Hot Topic is still releasing new Steven Universe shirts and some of the designs could really be a lot better if they asked a fan or two.

Here are some references, quotes, or ideas I really want on shirts. (Obviously with, like, actual designs and not me just slapping text on screenshots.)

What phrases and moments from SU do you think should be on a shirt?

The first thing Steven wants when he discovers his mom's room grants wishes is a bed.

Interestingly, when he encounters Pink's room for the first time. . . .

He immediately wants a bed, and also gets one.

But it comes about in a very different way, doesn't it!

The version of Rose's Room in the Temple creates things on Steven's spoken command (mostly), but it does so out of clouds. He can see and interact with the items in the room, but they "aren't real." They can't provide sustenance.

Very interesting that both rooms belonging to Pink/Rose at different times in her life had the "immediate generation of what she says she wants" motif but in different ways. Pink's room was powered by Pebbles who listened for her commands and tried to create them as quickly as they could (in an albeit clunky way sometimes), but everything they built was real and solid and functional. Rose's Room was elegant and beautiful and fueled entirely by imagination . . . but ultimately wasn't real and could not be sustained in the real world.

An awful lot like some of the uncomfortable truths about Rose's real life.

Look closely! NOT an NFT figure!

My very sweet friend gave me this repainted Garnet for my birthday. I had told her the sad news that Funko was offering some very cool-looking NFT-associated figures (including Wedding Garnet, her wedding-clothing components, Blue Diamond, and a strange choice of Funko's mascot dressed as Steven). When I told her I was bummed that I would never own those since I don't do NFTs whatsoever, she made me this.

It's not the same but it's a different wonderful thing, of course. :)

As a pretty intense collector of SU merch (who incidentally most likely has the largest personal collection of SU merch in the world), sitting out the new Funkos was really frustrating for me, especially since Garnet's wedding was such a personally satisfying aspect of Steven Universe for me. As silly as it sounds for me to be moaning about not having some pieces of plastic, I really care about collecting and have taken it seriously for many years. I'm not going to be dramatic about it. I'm just disappointed in the merchandising choices that led to this situation, and I don't feel like I can participate.

I'm well aware I can buy directly on eBay but I am holding out against that temptation because I truly, truly detest NFTs and I don't want to send money to people who participated in this stuff either. If I thought there was still some way I could get these that didn't violate my principles, I'd love to do it, but I don't really see how. Too bad, so sad.

But I love my friend's rendition and I'd love you all to see her. :)

[Image ID: GIFs of Ruby and Sapphire from Steven Universe sitting in a fire-lit cave. Ruby says "I've never had a third eye before." Sapphire replies "I've never had more than one! It was nice." /.End ID]

A change of vision

This scene is more complicated than it looks at first glance.

Ruby and Sapphire have just fused for the first time and are awkwardly talking about their experience. Ruby says "I've never had a third eye before." On the surface, that's just a statement of fact, as is Sapphire's "I've never had more than one!" Ruby's only ever fused with other Rubies, and we saw that the Giant Ruby still had only two eyes. Sapphire's never fused at all, so of course she's only had one eye her whole life.

But we know from both the show's subtext and from Crewniverse statements that Sapphire's future vision is quite different from Garnet's. Sapphire sees one future, inevitable, unrelenting, separate from her involvement. She does not interfere; she describes what is. Ruby is the opposite; she is a Gem of action and emotion, impulsive, without much consideration. When they are combined as Garnet, Sapphire's future vision transmutes into something more dynamic. Garnet can see multiple futures, and she can get involved to choose the one she wants.

When Ruby states that she's "never had a third eye before," she's subtly making reference to the experience of seeing in a way that's new to her--not just a simplistic statement of physically having a different number of eyes than she's used to. Through being part of Garnet, she had a new experience of perception. She saw outside of the right now. She saw beyond a life of taking orders and carrying them out without any thought of what's next, any shred of judgment, any expectation of consideration. Even though it was just for a moment, her world opened up in a tantalizing way.

And when Sapphire said she's "never had more than one," she was describing a transformative experience as well. There was always one way before. One future. Vision, but no complexity. No consideration for emotion, for desire, for passion. With Ruby's impulsivity, her chaos, her ability to make destiny change, Sapphire's future vision became multifaceted when she was part of Garnet. She, too, saw beyond in a way she never had before. Suddenly, futures could involve choices SHE could make, and though that was scary enough to freeze her temporarily, she knew she wanted to have an opportunity to take leave of her tunnel vision and see in three dimensions (and beyond). "It was nice."

[Image ID: GIF of Garnet from Steven Universe in her early pink and blue form, looking at the camera with three wide eyes. /.End ID]

had to buy a whole garment rack to hold all my Steven Universe shirts

WHAT WAS THIS SHOW ABOUT?

One thing I really love about Steven Universe is that each of the four major characters kind of got a chance to be What The Show Was About. I would have LOVED spending more time with all of them and delving into who they were and who they became beyond what we got, but what we got was . . . actually pretty special.

STEVEN

As the ACTUAL main character and the show's literal namesake, it's obvious he's the protagonist. Our man has been through a lot and I don't suppose anyone would say he never got his moment considering he was there for the whole show. But except for some pretty important identity stuff that depended on his choices in the last episode of the OG show, a LOT of Steven Universe is stuff that happened to and around Steven. There was so much history and so much baggage that a lot of the story was about how he fended it off, dealt with it, fought it, reasoned with it, and managed everyone's emotions in the process.

Steven is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: being half human, being extremely young, being Rose Quartz's son, and having Diamond-level powers and a claim to the Pink Diamond throne.

We had to wait for Steven Universe Future before the show was entirely focused on him, his development, his trauma, and his healing.

Some episodes from the original show focused on Steven's mental health and growth as a person--most notably "Mindful Education"--but we just didn't get to linger very long with his development until the epilogue show because plot stuff was always happening, other people's feelings were taking center stage, and worlds needed saving. I'm really glad we got Steven Universe Future for that reason. Some people disagreed, but I felt like it was a long overdue look into the soul of who he is--how his central defining character trait was his selflessness, and how desperately he needed to address that without having it manifest in a toxic way in the tradition of Jasper, White Diamond, or Pink Diamond.

AMETHYST

It could be argued that Amethyst had the most careful, nuanced, significant character growth of the three supporting Gems in the show. And it started immediately in the first season, when she constantly squabbled with Pearl and revealed that she felt judged and stifled and treated like a misbehaving child as early as "Tiger Millionaire."

Amethyst is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: She's the clear outsider as the one who didn't fight in the war, the only full Gem from Earth in the group, the only Gem who grew up with no Homeworld dogma but also no roots, the only Gem who'd never met another one of her own and longed on some level for that connection.

The show continues to check in with Amethyst's self-worth issues throughout, giving us "An Indirect Kiss," "On the Run," "Maximum Capacity," "Reformed," and even "Cry For Help" (which seemed like an Amethyst episode until Pearl did her thing). We get "Onion Friend" when Amethyst shows us she thinks she's boring and that nobody values her. And we get "Too Far" when Amethyst really starts to internalize her inferiority based on Peridot's assessment of her and revelations of her origin.

With her cooking on that, we end up spending a string of episodes with Amethyst as the focus character. She's still shaking off dust about not doing what she's supposedly made for when a fight with Jasper twists the knife. She's beaten and insulted and almost physically destroyed, having to be rescued by Stevonnie. Steven misguidedly tries to cheer her up by letting her win at video games and she reveals that she thinks she's "the worst Crystal Gem." She finds an ally in him but still wrestles with her inferiority to Jasper. And when she still can't beat her in a rematch, she breaks down and realizes her strength is in togetherness. From there, she begins the process of healing, helped along by additional support from her family and finding some connection with meeting the Famethyst. When "Tiger Philanthropist" comes along and reveals that Amethyst doesn't need the outlet of wrestling anymore because she DOES feel she's good enough, we can reflect on what she's been through and how far she's come, and how that leads to her being the one who doesn't fall apart on Steven in the face of huge revelations about his mother.

GARNET

Garnet kind of peaked early, which is not to say it wasn't great. The final episode of Season 1 revealed her identity as a Fusion and further that she was "made of love," and then everyone was on the "Garnet is awesome" train.

Garnet is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: being a Fusion all the time, leading the team and generally holding the others at an emotional distance, never asking questions, offering resources to the others for stability and balance, being the only Gem with Future Vision and a massive responsibility to use it well.

"Jailbreak" was a huge defining moment for Garnet, and as the "stable" character whose worst problems were mostly other people's problems, she did not seem to need a character arc. She was the culmination of a love story, always awesome and strong and dependable and everyone leaned on her, and in "Jailbreak" we found out why she has such an amazing foundation. But the show was not done with Garnet. Not by a long shot.

Pearl hurt her badly in "Cry For Help." Garnet's breakdown and subsequent focus on building Pearl back up was a significant look into how Ruby and Sapphire operate as a couple. Garnet is amazing partly because she is the result of all that work, but who is she as a person? As an individual who isn't an individual?

We see some of her struggle with leadership as the show moves on--most notably "Pool Hopping," and some of the last episodes when she can't make decisions in the Diamonds' shadow because everything's become about Steven's choices. But Garnet gets a spotlight again when Ruby and Sapphire feel differently about the Pink Diamond revelations and they worry Garnet only exists because of a lie. Digging into the real answers of who they are together through finally asking "The Question," and defining their fusion in their own image, was a move toward more authentic stability for Garnet. Her wedding made headlines, and watching her spearhead the immediate fight against the Diamonds on the beach was awe-inspiring.

PEARL

Pearl is initially presented as "the perfect one"--she's persnickety, she's organized, she's hyper-competent, and she's all about rules. But something else is going on with her not far beneath the surface. The first Gem to die onscreen--because of overconfidence and a silly mistake. The first (full) Gem to cry onscreen (and then over and over and over), the first to have a breakdown (and then over and over and over), the only one of the four to have faced an impossible choice, a relationship that nearly destroyed her, and a secret that ate her up from the inside. She was the only one who had (nearly) the whole story. All along.

Pearl is set apart from the others in extraordinary ways: the oldest Gem of the group by far, the one who served a Diamond and kept Rose Quartz's secret against her own will, the one who doesn't eat, sleep, or shapeshift. The one who both sat at royalty's right hand and existed as the lowest form of Gem life--created to be a servant, with programming no other type of Gem must live with. Her anxiety, grief, and desperate loneliness makes her one of the most multifaceted and interesting characters in animation history.

We see some minor wigging out from Pearl in "An Indirect Kiss" and a more intense version of it in "Space Race," but we get a much clearer picture that Pearl is Not Okay in "Rose's Scabbard." At that point we assume she thought she was closer to Rose than she really was--that she thought herself special and partial to secrets no one else knew, but that it wasn't true. "Rose's Scabbard" is a different episode on rewatch. Pearl is right that she alone was the one Rose "told everything." She did have a special relationship with her that the others did not.

Pearl's insecurity continues to bite us in the face as the show goes on. She tries to mold Connie into a self-sacrificial super-soldier after her own image in "Sworn to the Sword." Her deep need for someone strong to tell her what to do leads her to betray Garnet in "Cry For Help." Her inability to appropriately make it up to Garnet further complicates our understanding of how she can be so lost. Her jealousy, inertia, and angst frustrate her relationships, with some nice resolution in "Mr. Greg." Peridot's lore drop about Pearls' slave status sheds light on this, and seeing her get underestimated and bossed around by other Homeworld Gems is disheartening as we move on, but when we finally find out that she was Rose's secret accomplice in a false murder that poisoned thousands of their own citizens and led to massive waves of death, and that Pearl's free will to speak about it was also ripped away from her, we finally know, we know why she's been so brittle she could snap all along. She's been trapped inside herself all this time--in an almost literal way--and it's a wonder she's managed to carry on. Pearl's arcs have often been deemed the most emotionally fraught and tinged with gray morality.

These characters all got some very important story arcs focused on them in the midst of moving the plot along. I think the show did a phenomenal job with not only emotional development but with fallout for the other characters. We got to see the Gems' (and other loved ones') reactions when Steven's mental health took a nosedive, and watched them learn more about how to be there for him. We got to see Steven's initially misguided attempts to hype Amethyst up when she was spiraling, leading to him offering her what she actually did need, along with Garnet and Pearl (as Sardonyx) misfiring a bit when they wanted to celebrate Smoky Quartz. We got to see Steven's curiosities and misgivings about Garnet's life as a Fusion, and how Garnet affects others when she does crack under the strain, and how Steven must step up to leadership when Ruby and Sapphire are separated and how Amethyst tries to take care of him while Pearl has a guilt spiral. And we see how Pearl's choices led to Garnet's silent treatment, Amethyst's sulky helplessness, and Steven's attempt to hold the family together; we see how Pearl's confession reformats everyone's understanding of who the Crystal Gems are and why they're even here.

And even when the show is taking careful turns with each character to paint their nuanced feelings and troubles on the screen, it still managed to give us such a worthwhile overall story, with action and backstory and worldbuilding and everything. What's different about it is that the center was always its people--their relationships, their psyches, their evolution and education. I truly love the balance these creators chose, and I remain grateful that we got to experience this story.

Yep, I bought some. :)

Hot Topic is selling Ruby and Sapphire pendant necklaces!

. . . Unfortunately they're also calling them "best friend" necklaces.

(And the description even sort of indicates that they understand the context of Ruby and Sapphire's relationship while still saying it's a "bestie thing.")

Last time I complained about a description I got people sending me weird messages about OH MY GOD STOP TRYING TO MAKE IT A HATE CRIME and OK BUT THAT'S WHAT THIS KIND OF "ONE FOR YOU, ONE FOR SOMEONE ELSE" JEWELRY IS *CALLED*, IT'S *NOT* ACTUALLY AN ISSUE etc. And yeah. Sometimes even with straight characters you'll see them marketed this way (I found something similar with "Bestie Promise Rings" with designs of Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.) But especially when it comes to same-sex relationships, I'm bothered seeing them presented as exclusively for you and your bestie. Like, if you don't know about the nature of the relationship or you just want plausible deniability because people above you are being jerks about Teh Ghey, you could always just write "give it to the one who's Ruby to your Sapphire!" or something, c'mon.

Storytime! This was my mom's Victrola. It's an old-timey record player. She died recently and I decided I wanted to keep this. Recently I found a place for it in my house.

This old thing belonged to my uncle, my mother's eldest brother, before he passed away in the 1990s. My mom claimed it and I used to listen to old records on it when I was a teenager. There are heaps of records my uncle collected--primarily orchestral pieces, big band, swing, and of course polka. My favorite EXTREMELY CREEPY polka record was called the "Open the Door Polka." I listened to it multiple times with family and friends and wtf-ed over its weirdness. I even made a cassette-tape recording of it by holding my boom box up to the record. Because, ya know, we were very technologically advanced in those days.

I was just going through the records, finally incorporating them into storage spaces in my house (even bought a new shelf to put some of them on). As I leafed through them to try to find any order and find homes for orphaned records, I was hoping to come across my old fave "Open the Door Polka." Well, I found it.

IT'S BROKEN.

The record is cracked!!

I'm so disappointed. I wanted to listen to my old fave and be creeped out all over again.

Feel free to listen to it as there are certainly surviving recordings. CW: Creepy man harassing and pressuring a woman to open her door to him.

I recently got some new socks from there too! here are the newest Hot Topic socks I'd gotten.