curlicuecal:

on Steven Universe and how to love

Thinking about that SU episode where Jamie got a crush on Garnet and she wound up giving the speech about how love at first sight isn’t a thing, love takes time and work and you can’t really love someone you don’t even know.

I remember there was a subset of the fandom who got really sarcastic about Garnet, aka Ruby and Sapphire, lecturing anyone about love at first sight. Because they fell into a perfect relationship the first time they met, right?

Except, no. Further episodes exploring their history and relationship have made it clear that their relationship *has* taken time and hard work, and has been far from a ‘everything worked perfectly at first sight’ fairy tale. Garnet’s relationship was deeper and more complex than it appeared, except we didn’t know because we didn’t really know Garnet yet. We’d barely met her.

And I think this is fascinating as an overall theme of the series:

People are universally more complicated than you can work out without getting to know them, and anytime we’ve assumed we understood everything about a character and their motivations from our first impressions we’ve always been proven wrong.

Literally every character.

Do you remember when Greg Universe seemed like a slacker hands-off dad? When Peridot was a cruel torturer certain to betray the gems at first opportunity? When Lars’ and Sadie’s dynamic was obviously one-sided and toxic rather than a complicated but sincere long-standing friendship? When we thought we understood Yellow Diamond’s motivations? When Rose’s history was the clearcut story of the peasant hero who loved everyone, rather than a runaway royal trying to learn how to love anyone?

You have to get to know people before you can honestly love them. Or hate them. You don’t know who someone is from a glance.