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Steven Universe Ep 1: Steven eats his favorite frozen treat with the crystal gems

Steven universe ep 180: Steven eats his favorite frozen treat with the crystal gems

It all came full circle

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You guys really need to read this interview Rebecca Sugar did with EW.

https://ew.com/tv/2018/08/13/steven-universe-rebecca-sugar-lgbtq-cartoons/

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Dumb question but how do you feel about Bellow Diamond? (Blue x Yellow diamond) I know you've reblogged some shippy stuff before but I was just curious with the whole "They're like sisters!" thing going on

I’m mostly just casually interested in it, not super invested like I am with some ships. Generally I just like seeing cute art of it.

Re: the sisters thing, I assume you mean how some folks in the fandom read them as sisters? I’m not going to judge or critique people’s personal readings. While I personally don’t read them as sisters (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t ship them at all!), I can understand why someone might read them that way. I feel like while they’re contradictory, both readings of the relationship are valid because they’re based on the individual worldview and experience of each person.

Here’s the thing about sibling relationships - there’s no one archetype to how siblings interact. This is true for all relationships, of course, but with siblings it’s even more variable than, say, a parental one. I personally have four siblings and my relationship with each of them is very different and I know plenty of other people with siblings who have relationships that are wildly different than any of my sibling relationships. So when interpreting the relationship between characters who are not actually related, you’re going to get wildly different readings based on what that specific person thinks a sibling relationship is like and what constitutes one in the absence of the source material making the relationship explicitly familial.

My criteria for what makes a character relationship explicitly familial:

Explicit blood relation

Explicit adoption or similar incorporation within a family structure

Referring to one another as “like a brother/sister” within the source material

After that, it has more to do with one’s own personal interpretation of a relationship and it really isn’t for one person to decide which is the right reading of it (but, of course, it’s within everyone’s right to avoid content that bothers them). Sometimes people are just going to have contradictory views on things.

Regarding Blue and Yellow Diamond, Gems do not have blood relations since they’re not organic, Gems don’t have family structures (that’s an Earth concept), and they’ve never been referred to within the show as “like sisters,” so now we’re down to personal interpretation. 

My personal interpretation reads them more as a couple, they just don’t feel like siblings to me, based on my personal life experience of what a sibling relationship is. The way the show portrays their relationship with Pink reads more of a parental one to me, especially since “Jungle Moon” portrays Yellow’s interaction with Pink through the lens of Stevonnie with Connie’s mom, an explicitly parental relationship. Blue and Yellow’s interactions in “Legs from Here to Homeworld” also read more as two parents with differing parenting styles to me.

Another thing to remember in terms of fan readings is that same gender relationships are overwhelmingly read as familial by many people, particularly those who aren’t LGBT. This is often because a lot of people do not have a frame of reference for a close relationship between two people of the same gender other than familial, so the closeness of two people of the same gender inherently feels familial if there isn’t overt romantic closeness like kissing (and sometimes even when there is). 

By contrast, you rarely ever see people get aggressive about people interpreting a het relationship as romantic while others view it as “like brother and sister!” because most people have more of a frame of reference for various romantic relationships between a man and a woman, often even more than they have a frame of reference of a close brother and sister relationship. Often, the only frame of reference people have of a brother and sister relationship is a contentious one, so it’s easier to view a relationship between a man and a woman as romantic (whether it textually is) than familial. 

All things being equal, if you have a man and a woman character being close, it will most readily be read as romantic but if you just swap it for being two woman with everything else being exactly the same it will be most readily read as either “like sisters” or “best friends!” And most people don’t even mean it, it’s just, again, the lack of or abundance of a particular frame of reference colors people’s ability to interpret relationships

I shipped Pearlrose pretty early on (around ”An Indirect Kiss”) and even once the show started to make the romantic aspect of the relationship more obvious, it took a long, long time before people stopped insisting that the relationship was familial and anyone who didn’t read it as such as a Very Awful Person. I had someone come after me after “We Need to Talk” aggressively accusing me of condoning incest because “obviously Pearl was jealous in the way a child is jealous when their mother starts dating.” And pretty much every Gem ship has a group of people who read the relationship as familial (even Ruby and Sapphire were read as siblings by some people back in “Jailbreak”)

If gay people had to stop shipping something because someone, somewhere reads the relationship as familial, we wouldn’t be able to ship anything. And yes, even if the person who reads it as familial is also gay. Again, sometimes people just have contradictory views on things.

My point is that people often have different interpretations of things, especially of relationships, and it’s okay. In the absence of explicit definition within the source material, it’s not the place of one person to aggressively assert their own personal interpretation on everyone.

tl;dr - While I think the interpretation of Blue and Yellow as sisters is certainly a valid one, it’s by no means the only valid interpretation of their relationship and I do not personally view them as siblings, which is why I’m okay with shipping them.

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“I’ve wanted to tell you for so long.”

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Oh god this really gives context to Pearl’s outburst back in Rose’s Scabbard.

“I was the one she told everything”

“None of you had what we had”

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Brand new episodes this friday everybody! Happy new year! 

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There’s a petition out to get rid of the Best Stuff First option on Tumblr in order to defend the artists out there who have dropped in notes/exposure.

Guys.

Sign it.

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@ all of my followers who use the mobile tumblr app!!!

please go to “General Settings” then to “Dashboard Preferences” and turn off “Best Stuff First”. This is killing artist exposure! Please, please, PLEASE, turn it off if you really do love the artists you follow! You’d be helping us so much! Please reblog this so that more people may know!

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Here it is: Best stuff first

Extremely handy if you follow a lot of people and hate missing anything good. 

Best Stuff First moves the best stuff on your dashboard—mhm!—right up to the top. 

It’s rolling out this week on iOS and Android, and comes with this Help Center article.  

Thanks! ✌️

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these two are,,so disgustingly in love is2g

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Happy anniversary.

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the diamonds are giraffe centaurs right? what about pearls being deer centaurs.

Well I’m sure as heck not gonna say no 

Live your dreams and enjoy your taurs, whichever taurs you like best

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My piece for the Gem Dreams Zine back in January! ★

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concrete

As I check tumblr after being away from it all weekend it feels like issue of Concrete as been made clear. However, it’s personally important to me that I express my apologies as I am the one who responsible for the text written next to her.

I do not associate illiteracy with people of color. That’s just not where my mind goes. Had Concrete been under consideration for an episode, she, like all of the ideas for SU, would have been scrutinized carefully to prevent any careless mistakes like this. It’s a constant consideration to champion love and acceptance in all the episodes we make. But saying this now is meaningless to anyone who was hurt by my words. It’s too late. People make mistakes and I am currently one of those people. 

I can’t undo what I’ve done but I can offer you my sincere apology. I can let you know that I make it a point to learn from my errors even when accidental. And it is my hope that any mistakes I make in the future always end with a step forward in a positive direction. That’s how I can be better. That’s how we can be better.

Thank you,

H

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Jasper vs. Pearl!

Still trying to learn how to animate fights. Obvious artistic license in the end. 

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Reach for the sky.

Since someone reposted my art, I guess it’s better to just put them all in one post and share it from the original source with you guys. Thanks for everyone who’s kind enough to tell me about this!

Everyone is here except Mr.Doomfist.

Prints and other products(shirts, totes, notebooks, cards) are now moved to my society6 store:https://society6.com/elapuse/prints?show=new

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TONIGHT! My last episode of Steven Universe boarded with the wonderful @jeffliujeffliu! Hope you enjoy and thanks for all the support! It’s been a huge honor to be able to board on the show and I hope you look forward to all the great episodes yet to come!  For the episode I made an ube roll from scratch with Christy Cohen, our amazing production coordinator and resident sugar witch. Ours wasn’t quite as good as a real Filipino ube roll (my fault) but we did pretty good for our first time I think!  <3 you all, hope you enjoy!