Just saw the Steven Universe movie and my feelings about it are... very mixed.

At this point in the series, I can't exactly expect Steven to just pummel an enemy into submission, so converting YET ANOTHER villain is fine, I guess.

And I did like Spinel and how they set up and dealt with her trauma.

But man, it felt like they couldn't put her on a bus fast enough at the end. And Steven just kept LEAVING this poor traumatized thing at the margins. Rang so hollow. :(

It was hard not to identify with Spinel. She brought back a whole lot of bad feelings about Transliminal: feeling like I was expected to wait forever for anyone to notice or care about me, because people were too "polite" to just tell me outright they were done with me, then treated like a monster when I finally had enough of it. And... well... suspecting deep down that I was probably really annoying and everyone had good reason to be sick of me and my needs.

Ultimately, I enjoyed it and look forward to season six—but it all just reinforced my suspicion about "magic of friendship" shows, where every conflict can just be resolved by sitting down and opening your heart. I did. I bared myself and bled for that place, and so did they, and we all still ended up hating and mistrusting each other despite our best efforts. It just doesn't work, and I feel less and less good about teaching kids that it does.

@zebratron2084 but, uhhh, don’t we kinda have to because the biggest alternative out there is Boomer egomania?

@Leucrotta I don't think those are the only two options, though. The thing that bothers me most about these shows is the attitude that if you have an abusive person in your life, the problem is that you haven't Shown Them The Way and made nice to them hard enough. If anything, "you have to stick with your family, workmates, and culture even if they're hurting you, because blood is thicker than water" seems like a Boomer value to me.

@Leucrotta OTOH, I won't deny that "bombard them with love and understanding"—even when, as with the SU movie, I find that "understanding" to be rather superficial and insincere—is a far better principle than "demonize the shit out of them and smile them with the (curiously non-lethal) Swords And Blue Lasers Of Righteousness" that we got fed during the Rambo/GI Joe Era... Not treating antagonists as Pure Elemental Evil *is* a huge cultural advance—it's just not enough.

@zebratron2084 like how do we successfully communicate “you don’t need to understand everyone, but you don’t know the whole story so you might want to accept them” without going right over into “you need to *like* everyone”? And how do we phrase that at a kid level while still giving them a fun story (okay again that gets into storytelling as well as ethics)?

@Leucrotta Well... for example, I think Adventure Time successfully did exactly that. Have you seen much of the show? Did you see the bit where (SPOILER AHEAD)

Finn totally blows it with Flame Princess? And they never do fully reconcile, AFAIK. (I haven't finished the whole series, rewatch is up to S6) They give each other space. Finn ultimately sees that he fucked up, and no amount of making-nice is gonna undo it, or change their differences. And that was SO GOOD.

@Leucrotta Similarly, in SU, I would've liked something where White Diamond's reformation wasn't so *easy*—something where Steven didn't have to fight her, but she didn't just magically (and IMHO implausibly) cave in and see her own faults, either. Maybe just tell her "show me you're treating your gems better and you can have 'Pink'—me—back in your life." I don't see any reason Steven couldn't have set a condition and... you know... stood up a little.

@Leucrotta I was, OTOH, very pleased to see in the film that she *is* still prickly and judgmental and has a way to go still.

There was also one subtle theme in the movie I quite approved of: Steven couldn't negotiate with Spinel until he got out of his position of weakness. Once he got his powers back and was no longer at her mercies... he only then had the option to show her HIS mercies and actually make them matter.

I thought that was kind of an important lesson...

@Leucrotta And also, I do agree with you that a lot of it is probably "rush job syndrome." I have a LOT more sympathy for that problem now that I've banged out a chapter of Parallax and wondered every day if we didn't rush through our own key scenes. There's only so much time for a reform scene—just ask Jack Chick. O;>

@zebratron2084 coming up with interesting problems, and then stacking those problems to build tension, is way easier than resolving them, especially when building problems takes up time. I’m starting to think a lot more about stories these days, not that I know how to tell them yet.

@Leucrotta Adventure Time is still my Gold Standard, especially for YA stuff. The best thing about it is that it always _surprises_ me. There's no one way that character arcs get resolved. There are recurring themes, but everything feels so perfectly contextual and sincere and unformulaic to me. Just like in real life, "good" characters get angry and fuck up, "evil" characters get bored and go home... and sometimes you just fail and smash-cut to the closing credits. 🤷