It makes me feel kind of fucked up, like am I really having such a hard time watching a character so competently work through their shit with their loved ones’ help and all I can think about is that nobody has ever shown me this amount of love and understanding when I was that age? I’m very glad this piece of art exists, I can’t imagine what it would be like seeing these stories as a child, but watching it now…? Almost each episode cuts so deep and just makes me want to wallow in self pity. And because I feel like I can’t enjoy it properly, it makes me afraid I’m one of those bitter people who will justify other people’s suffering just because they had to go through it (“I had to pay off my student loans, so why should they be cancelled for others?” type of thing).

There were a couple of things that were a little disappointing about it even with all the good stuff it does.

I didn’t really like that the royalty of the empire in the show (the diamonds) actually are materially superior lifeforms compared to their subordinates; the crystal gems were only able to bring back all their corrupted friends via the royal powers of the diamonds.

Another disappointing part was when Steven traveled to the imperial core, after some earlier revelations, it quickly just devolved into the super common TV trope of “super important and powerful people are working through their family drama”. Meanwhile one of the characters (Lapis) who has gone through more than any of the other crystal gems (as suggested by one scene) and would have been a great stand in for a much more oppressed person’s experience, spent the majority of the season hiding away on the moon.

Finally I was quite sceptical when Steven was able to talk each of the gems over to his side one by one including the incredibly fashy white diamond without having to use any direct violence against them. Me and my partner were talking through this particular aspect of it and they did remind me that bloodless revolutions have happened. Vietnam is the example they mentioned, where the monarch, after exchanging multiple letters with the leader of the communist movement, stepped down and gave his power to the people of his own accord. That made me feel even more like I’m super doomer-pilled about things. We did agree that there would have had to have been a lot more in depth discussion between the parties in a real life showdown with similar dynamics, but it’s not something I should expect from a kids show with a 10 min episode runtime.