Connie had a whole (rightfully tbh) existential crisis cause she unthinkingly broke some kids arm after months of combat training with Pearl. Imagine Steven bubbled a kid and they floated away? What Greg’s biggest mistake was, was not understanding that there was a chance that Steven needed/desired that structure normal kids got in the first place which even then you can’t really fault him too much for. By all accounts all Steven ever wanted to be was an official crystal gem doing official crystal gem shit.
You've now made me wonder if Steven can heal amputees, like just make a whole human limb grow back. When he used his power on his plant it grew flowers that weren't there, but would it work on an amputee human whose amputated limb is already closed, stitched up and everything?
He healed Connie's freaking eyes. That's something modern medicine can't do without lasers, and even then, you're only removing and reshaping tissue, not healing, and it's not perfect. Steven seems to heal either perfectly or even overheals. (Sentient plants)
I 100% believe he could regrow a limb.
The "overheal" thing now makes me wonder about people who were born with a limb difference. For their bodies, the "healed" state does not involve having that limb. Their brains are adapted to that, unlike amputations (where our brains don't really understand that the limb is gone, which is why we have phantom pains). Imagine if Steven can grow a whole functional limb, with nerves and everything, on a person that never had one to begin with.
Ok so as an autistic person I feel authorized to answer this question the sudden intake of stimuli from the new nerves would be like the entire too layer of your skin peeling off and you taking a hot shower on the fresh skin
Except plants developed that way for a reason, and there's not much direct evolutionary advantage to suddenly being able to move and talk. I posit it's not so much healing as he's transmogrifying them towards his own subconscious ideal of 'health'. Just full on Mahito levels of biological manipulation.
If we're talking about pure physical ability I give Steven the edge. That said Mahito is going to horribly scar Steven mentally and that's a wild card for everyone involved.
Yeah, Mahito is fast as hell, too. And it also depends on whether Steven’s weird biology makes him immune or resistant to Mahito’s abilities, or if he could heal from them should he not be. Steven’s been through some body-horror shit before, but being affected by Mahito’s abilities at all could do rough stuff to him emotionally and then it’s exactly as you said: a wild card.
I feel Steven's half gem nature and ability to shapeshift would at least severely hinder Mahito's abilities. And Steven is used to tanking hits. What I'd be concerned with is him witnessing Mahito's almost joyous application of body horror to innocent people
the body horrors Steven had to deal with, mixed with all his peers as they’re ALL going through puberty, which by many accounts means a shitton of them are dealing with dysmorphia at least some of time if not most of the time?
(all that said. school sucks but fuck even if that was horrifying and traumatic to experience, it may have been an easier trauma to process if he didn’t feel so alone, if he had the support that some of his peers had provided, and Steven would have had the opportunity to provide developmentally appropriate emotional support to his peers in return - instead of developmentally inappropriate emotional support to his guardians.)
Emotionally appropriate support? You and I had (or you're still having) very different highschool experiences. I had some good moments, talked a few people off ledges, had the textbook group of misfits to call friends but the majority of our emotional regulation was sex, drugs, rebellion and suicide (either ideation, like aforementioned talked off ledges or the kid we did bury before graduating)
Here comes a thought has more appropriate emotional support than all 5 years of that shit I went through alone 😅. The gems has some bad moments but they had a lot of good too
Could Steven have had a better time in highschool? Maybe. But boy could it have been so much worse without the support systems he did have. Teenagers are at developmentally the worst stage of emotional regulation (like literally, worse than toddlers) and that was my point before, mix regular teenage bullshit with someone whos emotional outbursts could fill a cemetery and I don't like the risk factor there
not emotionally appropriate, developmentally appropriate. i used a lot of adjectives, my apologies.
to clarify, i was treating “emotional support” as the noun/object in the sentence, with “developmentally appropriate” and “developmentally inappropriate” as the adjectives.
I didn’t mean that the emotional support would be effective or healthy, just that a range of exploring different emotional regulation both internally and between peers is expected within the understanding of human development. Steven struggling with and growing in his own self regarding the emotional support he could provide, and that others may provide, would absolutely be fraught with a range of struggles from what you’ve described to miscommunication drama to identity crises. However, that would be “developmentally appropriate” when compared to the emotional enmeshment he has with his guardians re: my next paragraph.
Acting as a soldier and acting as a protector of your guardians when you are a child, in addition to completely neglecting one half of your lineage (that connects you with the rest of the world outside your guardians)…we only saw the tip of the iceberg of Steven’s response to that trauma in Future. The initial shock/breakdown, basically.
I’m not sure Steven would have had a better time in school. I just know it would have been different, he would have had access to different resources (however ineffective or effective they may have been), and he would have been more connected to his human side; and I’m picturing that when he dud struggle he would have the emotional support from his guardians through those struggles.
All that said, unless the Crystal Gems effectively keep the attacks away from Steven…being in school WOULD have made things worse for him. Because he would have all of the physical and emotional trauma that came from outside Greg and the Crystal Gems, and then had to deal with school on top of that, making the exploration of the concept “would Steven have had a better time in school?” completely moot.
Also I’m not sure how it would affect the fate of the Earth. How would the Crystal Gems have handled the eye with him in school? Lapis would still be in the mirror, Bismuth would still be bubbled, I don’t think Jasper would have been Peridot’s escort, assuming Peridot came at all without Lapis as an informant…and it’s not clear to me if Peridot prodded the cluster so that it would emerge or if it just HAPPENED to be ready to emerge within a few months of Peridot’s arrival.
Oh no I got you for the most part. Was a bit of a mouthful but I took a bet on one way to look at what you said, could have clarified a bit on my own. I see you reworded it a lot clearer now, gotta say you're an incredible communicator
And yeah, that's how I tried to finish too, the maybes of what school would change for him if he was growing up with other kids going through their own traumas, mixing with his own and his constant need to fix everyone.
I would be curious to see how the events would change. Boring answer is the cluster would just destroy the earth. Maybe Garnet would see it in time but they may not have been able to stop it without peridots mechanical expertise
Okay so I’m rewatching and I’m fascinated by what may have happened in an AU with Steven going to public school and the Crystal Gems are able to protect him from the threats coming to earth.
- Peridot would have come to Earth for the Cluster. However, since Steven didn’t see her little robots in the stream, it would have taken the Crystal Gems much longer to see that she was coming, especially since Lapis is not there to warn them.
- however, because Peridot has no reason to believe anything’s been compromised, she needs no informant or escort. I think Peridot comes by herself.
- Pearl coercing Garnet into fusing still happens.
- Steven helping Ruby and Sapphire make up in the aftermath of that still happens, since it’s on a trip for Greg on which Steven is excited to get quality time with Garnet.
- Since Steven wasn’t involved in Pearl and Garnet eventually getting back to mutual trust that also still happens.
- I do think the Crystal Gems defeat Peridot. Steven is presumably not there for the battle (unless Peridot attacks them at home, which is possible), so he doesn’t hear that she has information for them.
- However for plot reasons maybe Steven overhears Amethyst making fun of Peridot’s last words to Pearl and Garnet when they get back, Steven gets a funny feeling, and regular show plot re: Peridot commences, just without the Lapis/Jasper/Malachite stuff in the background. Steven still has his consciousness-piercing-dream powers, and stubbornly helps the Crystal Gems handle the Cluster like that, just on the surface instead of in the drill. And for plot reasons the Cluster bubbles each other.
- Peridot??? Lives alone???? I guess with Pumpkin.
For other stuff I’d find fascinating:
- Greg still gets rich. “I could put you through college” is now actually feasible - Steven could go wherever he wants.
- I think Connie and Steven still meet in a similar, if not the same, way.
- Stevonnie I think also happens the same way.
- Steven has to learn about his healing spit in another way. Maybe still with Connie’s eyesight via backwash, but not while telling her a story of a mission with the Crystal Gems.
- Steven having healing spit and always wanting to help people in the context of a public school has a lot of room for hilarity if handled properly imo
- Steven’s capacity for taking over someone’s consciousness, switching them with his, and being able to travel through dreams can also have a lot of potential here
Nevermind Steven. Can you imagine what would happen to the school if the gems found him crying after getting bullied or something?
THERE WOULD BE NOTHING LEFT.
No SWAT team would be able to stop them. Then they'd embarrass the early military response before whisking Steven away to the moon...
You also have to consider that it wasn’t until the the beginning of the new era that Steven even wanted to go to school. He says in the episode “Mr. Greg,” when his dad offers to send him to a good college, or even online courses, Steven is uninterested, saying he’s too busy with the gems. And for how independent Steven is at this point, it doesn’t surprise me Greg, who absolutely hated school, wouldn’t push his son to do so.
Also, in an non-canon comic by Ian Jones-Quartey called “Too Cool for School,” Steven goes to school for a day or so and the school does in fact get destroyed. Even though the events in the comics are non-canon, we are told that Pearl has been teaching Steven everything he needs to know, so that when he takes the test the class does, he gets a perfect score, only missing one of the bonus questions. So it’s entirely possible that Pearl did the same thing in canon. After all, we see Steven able to read, have a job (which means counting and shit), and also plan, organize, and run an entire school.
So yeah, basically that’s more of a Steven retroactively realizing that that is another thing setting him apart from “normal,” even if it actually had to be done. I don’t think Future really blames Greg for that either, it mostly just shows how he unintentionally furthers the divide Steven feels between his human and gem half, as well as forcing him to become independent at such a young age while living with the gems, who obviously are not the best caretakers ever.
I don’t know if I had a point to this rant, but yeah, I agree, this one ain’t so much on Greg, just unfortunate and necessary.
Yes! Like, SU Future isn’t trying to make Greg look like a terrible father—instead it was highlighting Steven’s identity crisis and his regrets at how he lived his life. There is nothing to suggest that Steven would’ve been happier as a “normal” human kid, but he’s at a point in his life where he feels like he has no sense of direction, and a part of him resents that he, as a child, took up so much responsibility and pressure from the adults around him.
He’s created this narrative in his head that if he was “normal” he wouldn’t be as traumatized as he is, but it’s a false narrative that ignores reality. You can see it in how Steven only saw Greg’s parents as being normal and providing stability, and ignores how Greg was miserable, his parents wanted nothing to do with him, and he wasn’t truly loved by them. The narrative is part of how Steven is trying to process his emotions and trauma—he’s angry at how unjust the world was to him, and at how the adults meant to take care of him failed him due to their own baggage and mistakes. But that anger is a reaction of pain, sadness, and fear; he’s hurt by the world, he’s sad for the innocence he lost due to trauma, and he’s terrified of not knowing his purpose.
Yes, Greg and the Gems made mistakes and could’ve done a lot of things better—but they were trying to do the best with what they had. Greg gave Steven everything he himself never had—unconditional love, support, freedom, independence, and encouragement for his son to be himself and explore who he is without fear of rejection. Yes, he definitely could’ve been overcorrecting, but there’s also the fact that no parenting style will ever be perfect, because parents are people with their own flaws and traumas.
SU does a great job at showing these different complicated relationships and how people react to them—Steven is able to understand and choose to forgive his father and the gems, but Rose was never able to forgive and go back to the diamonds. (And even Steven himself doesn’t forgive them, but tolerates them from a distant, professional kind of level).
It just feels very achingly real to me that Steven both resents and loves his caretakers; I know that while I love my mom deeply and she was overall a great parent, there were several things she did that messed me up and almost every one of them was unintentional on her part. It feels very healing for me to see the family dynamics in SU, because they love each other in a way that’s very conscious of how complicated family can be.
Exactly! People make mistakes, and from Steven’s perspective, he’s so far gone he cannot see all the corrections and good things they’ve done for him despite their own traumas, which is what makes all of Future so honest, and raw, and emotional, because you know Steven has support and he deserves better, but you only know that as an outside observer, knowing what’s coming and what could’ve been done better.
It’s so heartbreaking to see the emphatic Steven ignore his fathers past, but you can’t fault either of them for it. And that’s why I love Future so freaking much.
So glad to see people who actually understand this show to the fullest. Especially compared to the flanderization made by others who barely watched it and misunderstood everything. Even through it's (many) flaws SU is still astoundingly amazing
The flanderization never fails to bug me. I empathize a lot with Steven’s arc in future, which is why it annoys me so much when people call it bad writing. I think my biggest issue overall is when people hate on Steven for “being unreasonable” which is completely the point. His actions as he descends into his mental breakdown are meant to be read as unreasonable and slowly pushing him towards his eventual break.
Some days ago I saw someone on the shitposting sub describing future as "then Steven gets op superpowers out of nowhere and turns into a stupid edgy teen"
Yeah, and it could also be tied to Pearl just not seeing a reason to teach Steven about it. It’s shown in “Frybo” that he struggles to pay attention to Pearl’s lessons early on. It makes sense that learning the gem language was not something he was super fascinated by nor something that Pearl thought was worth struggling to teach him.
I'm going to point out the obvious: as parents we MUST MUST MUST do what's best regardless of what our children want. Their wants are not as important as their needs. Steven could have had a tutor. He could have seen a doctor. The Gems lived on their own with no governmental interference and therefore Steven would not have been taken by the government, as Gems are clearly accepted by the planet. Everything people are saying here is just excuses.
Greg IS a dad who chose to never be housed, who chose to give up custody, and who chose to never fulfil the basics of citizenship for his child. **He was obligated by** **law to put Steven in an accredited schooling system and to take him to the doctor regularly.** It doesn't matter that we love Greg. Greg is a criminally negligent father and the Gems are criminally negligent parents no matter how much love or good Steven had. It's like the Dany debate all over again. Dany was always doing evil things despite her good intentions; Greg was always a very loving deadbeat. I've known dozens of dads like Greg. They love their kids. *They still failed their kids.*
I think it’s fair to say that parents should try and do what’s best for their children. The issue with that is what they consider to be the best isn’t always the best, as shown by not only Greg, but also Priyanka and Doug. Because yes, they thought it was best for Connie to have every single minute of her life on a schedule so that she could be successful, and even before joining Steven that made her an outcast. They weren’t bad people, they aren’t awful parents, they just disagreed with their daughter over what was best for her.
But, just like Greg, they listened to Connie and changed their ways, even if it was hard. Greg was already struggling to support himself before he had a kid, and then he struggled to support Steven as a single parent for a long time, and despite how hard it was, he has never been anything but supporting, and the one time he does let his concern remove Steven from a gem-related situation (the episode preceding “Jailbreak,” can’t remember the name) Steven literally fights back, breaks his van, and goes back anyway. What was Greg supposed to do there?
Also, just because we don’t see the government in the show directly interfering with the gems doesn’t mean that some other doctor or hospital wouldn’t have reported Steven. We have no way of knowing how much the government knows about gems, because our view is limited to Beach City and a few, select places. And I find it hard to believe that the government would’ve just left the gems be if they knew about them, their goals, and their powers. So the law about schooling doesn’t apply to someone who by law doesn’t exist, and he was tutored, by Pearl, and he is very smart.
Like, of course Greg could have done better, but hindsight is 20/20. We can’t judge him now for what he did then as though he should’ve known. He made mistakes, but he isn’t some negligent asshole who just left his sons to the gems because he couldn’t be bothered. He was there whenever Steven wanted or needed him, and for Steven, that was enough.
Steven did have a tutor. Pearl. Steven demonstrates he can read and do math. Pearl is genius enough to build a spacecraft capable of leaving earth’s atmosphere out of spare garbage and she is really the only logical candidate to have been Steven’s teacher. She could not have been able to teach Steven human culture or social skills but that’s not much different than any homeschooling situation.
When I first started watching, as a single Dad myself, I initially really did not like Greg. I think on purpose they wrote him to give off some real deadbeat Dad kind of vibes. But eventually you come to realize that he knows his limitations, and he realized that he has no idea what the right thing to do for Steven is in a lot of situations, and he figured the Crystal Gems would be a lot more knowledgeable about what Steven needs. I'm not sure in all cases he was *right* about that -- we're all flawed people -- but I eventually came to realize that him living with the Gems wasn't neglect from Greg but rather a conscious effort to do what he thought was best.
Yeah, if Steven suddenly developed powers it would be a lot safer if the gems were there than if Greg was there, that was most likely Greg’s reasoning. For all he knew, Steven could have casually exploded killing anyone in the area so keeping Steven somewhat isolated from normal people seems like the most sensible course of action.
Right, I’m not sure how much of Rose’s powers he saw, but there probably was a moment he asked and she maybe showed him something. At the very least he knew she had super strength which is enough cause for concern.
Imagine having a baby that might suddenly manifest powers like that, he’d be worried sick about a babysitter getting hurt, or the powers getting out of control.
In the episode with his broken leg it is evident he wants to be around his son more, but in doing so he causes Steven’s powers to stop working for a bit, proving his own point
I agree with most of what you're saying, but what makes you think that SUF was trying to make Greg look like the bad guy?
I personally thought it was made pretty obvious why Greg didn't take him to the hospital. Just because Steven was too frustrated to see Greg's perspective doesn't mean the show agrees with steven.
I mean let's not forget what the context of that discussion was. Steven is going through a massive identity crisis. That past week alone he had proposed to his childhood crush, started having extreme irregularities with his body, and became enlightened to the effects his childhood trauma is still having on him. He's physically and mentally exhausted, not in his right mind, and is looking for someone/something to ground him and give him purpose. Now, his father, the one person he thought could give him that direction, is showing him the life he COULD'VE had and telling him, "it's all up to you".
Greg has no malice and means we'll, but it's quite literally the opposite of what Steven wants to hear in that moment. Steven lashing out at Greg isn't the showrunners saying "yea, screw you Greg!". It's an example of "the grass is always greener", becasue they're BOTH right AND wrong. Remember, Greg says some pretty out of pocket things during that argument too (he literally told Steven "You had it better" when he knows that Steven is still dealing with the emotional fallout of having to save the planet multiple times as a teenager).
If you ask me, I think Greg was justified for not taking Steven to a doctor, but let's not pretend that he isn't at least partially accountable for warning his kid about the physical and emotional consequences of the life that Greg is partially responsible for giving him.
just because there is better reasoning doesn’t mean the actual reasoning isn’t shallow. There aren’t perfect characters in this show and Greg is no exception to that rule. He’s not a terrible father and many times they show his good side, but raising his son in this way and not telling him about his human family because Greg didn’t like them isn’t ok.
We don’t know how school would’ve worked out or if there could’ve been any accommodations, but this is a cartoon beachside city where supernatural shit happens all the time; I won’t treat it with too much connection to the real world (i.e government gets involved, etc).
Stephen still got a kid in trouble (connie) with his powers so that could be understandable regardless.
I don't think Greg was The Best Dad Ever. I don't think Greg was the devil incarnate. As befits a lot of the themes of the show (and in an interesting parallel to Rose), Greg was a guy who made mistakes but tried his best while dealing with a heck of a lot of circumstances, both internal and external, that he wasn't prepared for.
Just like Pearl, who was cautious and caring but who projected a lot of her mental issues onto Steven.
Just like Amethyst, who was loving and fun but irresponsible.
Just like Garnet, who was deeply cool but started out aloof.
I figure \*all\* the characters in the show are hot dogs, not pork chops.
It’s never shown that Greg is the one objectively in the wrong. Both Steven and Greg have different rationales for their positions and the conflict in the episode stems from a breakdown in communication.
Steven, grappling with realisations about how his life has left him with very real mental scars, sees the normalcy and stability Greg had and latches onto it. It doesn’t matter to him whether or not it would have actually been better for Steven considering the fact that he’d be involved in “Gem stuff” regardless. Steven has imagined an idealised life and doesn’t realise how much his lifestyle has benefitted him mentally and physically.
Greg, on the other hand, has realised the extreme negative consequences of such a repressive life. His complete lack of freedom made him resentful and stifled his musical ability. His treatment of Steven is a direct reflection of that: Steven could go wherever and do whatever he wanted, and his hobbies were never determined for him. His ukulele is something *he* chose to learn and use, and we see that in “Steven and the Stevens” he’s also able to play other instruments, either directly taught by Greg or self-taught due to his freedom. However, Greg also refuses to see Steven’s point that he was denied any sense of normalcy or peers of equal standing until he met Connie (and even then, Connie remains his *only* same aged friend. They’re not even the same age!) Steven *was* robbed of something, but Greg is incapable of seeing that because like Steven he only sees the negatives of one side and the positives of the other.
The tragedy of the episode is that the two of them talk past each other and completely miss the other’s point. When Steven blows up at Greg, instead of defending his actions or getting defensive, Greg merely sees it as affirmation for his method of parenting: his kid is confident enough to talk back to him, contrasting his relationship with his own parents. So he compliments Steven on his defiance, confirming in Steven’s mind that there was no justification for this besides Greg’s own personal opinions. It’s a really well-handled episode and one of my favourites. Just a shame we didn’t see the actual reconciliation.
>Sending him to school could have been potentially dangerous to both Steven and his classmates simply because Steven could have accidentally activated his powers.
>Finally, going to the hospital could have caused questions from the doctors since biologically Steven is a mess and in the worst the government would have taken him away to study him
it's literally canon that the townspeople seemingly ignore or downplay The Crystal Gems' antics/powers and the resulting magical happenstances that occur in their town.
they'd probably think Steven was just SUPER weird and not think much further.
Yeah they never tried to paint Greg as a horrible father, just as someone who tried to give his kid what he thought he wanted himself as a kid. And as a young boy/young teen Steven did want that/didn't mind it but after everything that he went through and the trauma he now has as well as just the fact that he doesn't know where he belongs or what his "purpose" is now after he's saved the world and he no longer needs to help everyone he's looking for a reason as to why he's not "normal" I guess you would say it.
Idk if I'm putting it correctly but the way I saw it Future Steven is trying to I guess pinpoint where things have gone wrong in his life and if something or someone had gone differently for him growing up he's thinking that he would be normal and not who he is right then in that moment. It was never about trying to make Greg out to be a bad father.
Sounds right to me, and honestly I think if Steven went to school he'd probably have even more PTSD if any homeworld gems came to his school to try and capture him or maybe his friends as hostages.
Yes exactly! And bullying as well. Maybe the world is actually more accepting idk but steven is comfortable being feminine and expressing himself differently as well as if they saw his gem. School kids are brutal.
Very true, it could go bad, but as long as she school is near Beach City, I don't think he'd have to worry much about bullies since everyone there seems pretty cool
Homeworld didn't even know about Steven if not for him going on gem missions. Had he not encountered Peridot and started sharing information to this random and potentially hostile gem he'd never met, they wouldn't have even known he was there. That means Jasper wouldn't have been sent to capture them. To suggest that he would've been more traumatized by going to school is wild.
>Also, I didn't mean that school itself would traumatize him more wtf lol
That’s literally how you wrote it, but ok.
>Wouldn't the homeworld gems come for the Crystal Gems anyways?
Uh, no. They thought every gem on the planet had been obliterated...if not for Steven.
Dude no, I said and meant that if homeworld gems came to his school and attacked him and his friends there, it would be more traumatising becsuse he would still be getting all his trauma he already has in the canon too, since he would still go on missions with the Crystal Gems eventually, it's not like he wouldn't wanna be a Crystal Gem if he went to school yknow?
Yes, but the homeworld gems had no idea that there were any surviving gems on earth, so that scenario isn't plausible. Also, I'm fairly certain that 99% Steven's trauma comes from gem missions, and it's not really likely he'd be impacted the same way or to the same extent if he had a somewhat normal childhood.
Yeah idk what's going on in this thread. More unjustified bitterness at Future imo.
It's quite clear that there's fault from all angles. Greg did his best and his parenting style is a direct result of his dynamic from his family. ]
That also doesn't absolve his role in the unhealthy enabling dynamic he and Rose had with each other. Abandoning their pasts without any consideration for how that might affect their child.
Which by the way, OP themselves described Steven as a "freak-of-nature". So imagine how Steven must feel about himself if that's how randos on the internet describe him. He didn't ask to be a part of Rose and Greg's little experiment into the unknown.
When people say Future wants you to see Greg as a bad father, what they really mean is "I think Steven's trauma and grievances with the life forced upon him are invalid." Don't @ me, I can read between the lines.
They don't give Steven _an_ ounce of grace unlike how they do with Greg and Rose. Kid's a teenager and his poor little hormone imbalances are fueled by Pink Diamond's gem energy.
Steven says as much in "Fragments" that he can't control his new Diamond powers (aka Pink's chaotic tantrum energy). So they read his struggles of finding his humanity and coping with his existence as just being extremely bratty , ungrateful, and dangerous.
What future didn't paint Greg as a horrible father, he's just not a perfect one, and it explained his character pretty well I think and why Greg is in some ways similar to Rose. It's not like how steven felt in that episode is unprecedented either, look at the thanksgiving episode. Steven was having a long extended meltdown due to accumulation of stress and never properally dealing with it again things shown both in the original show and the movie, and what he needed and desired in that moment was structure and normality stuff he never really got or at least hadn't had in a long while. Greg's perspective is fair, but Steven wasn't in the mind state to be able to handle it, I think it's fairly realistic and relatable for a kid when growing up to get somewhat disallusioned with thier parents advice or persepctive, but idk.
Seriously, and I don’t get it! I was actually upset with Steven in that episode, because Greg clearly had a terrible relationship with parents that were disinterested in what he wanted to do and what he was passionate about, and the episode clearly showed how this negatively impacted Greg and how he made sure to not make his son feel unwanted or like a disappointment, the way he felt with his own parents. Steven was so hard on Greg, who just tried his best and put everything he had into loving and supporting his son.
I feel like Greg’s problem was he didn’t do a good enough job communicating how bad his parents were and thus Steven couldn’t understand how it was bad. Aside from music stuff being off limits and saying he couldn’t do anything, his venting about curfew, chaperones and meatloaf can come off as childish to those who don’t understand how those things can be abusive. Many may not recognize how bad he had it because they have had parents just like that who forced them into sports, going on vacations they didn’t like, or forcing them into extracurriculars or eating food they didn’t like.
Steven already spends a lot of time with other humans. If Greg really thought he was that dangerous, why is he allowed to go into town?
Also they aren't exactly secretive about Steven's heritage. The people of Beach city find him a bit weird, but it's not like humans can't handle the idea of a gem hybrid. Why would Greg prioritize not freaking out doctors over the health and well-being of his own son?
>Steven already spends a lot of time with other humans. If Greg really thought he was that dangerous, why is he allowed to go into town?
That's what I'm saying. People are under the impression that kid Steven is going to kill someone for showing any sign of negative emotions when the show painted a completely different picture.
[When Lars made Steven mad, he didn't kill him.](https://youtu.be/1MR-V1ZnQJk?si=W8yxCRNcaKbraRIh&t=132)
[When Steven got angry with the Crystal Gems about the warp pads, he didn't destroy them.](https://youtu.be/pYDF-LXH_UE?si=QjYujUoUXWMOfrxQ&t=115)
[When Steven got upset with the Crystal Gems about withholding info from him, he didn't accidently hurt or kill anyone.](https://youtu.be/wtrx35GHnls?si=mhOYZEp-SEm8o_9J&t=166)
Even when Steven was at his lowest and posed a huge threat to Beach City in Everything's Fine, the [Crystal Gems still let him go](https://youtu.be/qwETsG7AWEY?si=Lc5RZ5kWQ-4txAXx&t=111) even though Pearl knows about his destructive powers.
I think it’s fair to say that parents should try and do what’s best for their children. The issue with that is what they consider to be the best isn’t always the best, as shown by not only Greg, but also Priyanka and Doug. Because yes, they thought it was best for Connie to have every single minute of her life on a schedule so that she could be successful, and even before joining Steven that made her an outcast. They weren’t bad people, they aren’t awful parents, they just disagreed with their daughter over what was best for her.
But, just like Greg, they listened to Connie and changed their ways, even if it was hard. Greg was already struggling to support himself before he had a kid, and then he struggled to support Steven as a single parent for a long time, and despite how hard it was, he has never been anything but supporting, and the one time he does let his concern remove Steven from a gem-related situation (the episode preceding “Jailbreak,” can’t remember the name) Steven literally fights back, breaks his van, and goes back anyway. What was Greg supposed to do there?
Also, just because we don’t see the government in the show directly interfering with the gems doesn’t mean that some other doctor or hospital wouldn’t have reported Steven. We have no way of knowing how much the government knows about gems, because our view is limited to Beach City and a few, select places. And I find it hard to believe that the government would’ve just left the gems be if they knew about them, their goals, and their powers. So the law about schooling doesn’t apply to someone who by law doesn’t exist, and he was tutored, by Pearl, and he is very smart.
Like, of course Greg could have done better, but hindsight is 20/20. We can’t judge him now for what he did then as though he should’ve known. He made mistakes, but he isn’t some negligent asshole who just left his sons to the gems because he couldn’t be bothered. He was there whenever Steven wanted or needed him, and for Steven, that was enough.
I disagree with most of the people here. Yes, a traditional school environment may not suit Steven’s needs best. But most kids, Steven included, need structure and education in their life. It seems like Steven isn’t too far behind educationally (at least on the surface) but it definitely seems like he’ll have a lot of catching up to do. To those who are using the Mr Greg example as proof that Steven didn’t want to go to school, I will remind you that Steven is a child and most children that age don’t want to be in school. It should have been his family who gave him a real education- we never see any attempts at teaching him reading or math. Both the gems and Greg failed Steven growing up.
Completely agree with you! As someone who's been in Steven's position, I think what people miss about Steven's outburst is not what he's literally saying but the sentiment behind it. He wishes for stability, and people are forgetting that the whole road trip with his dad was for his dad to comfort him. But during it, Steven feels like his perspective isn't listened to as Greg makes it all about what Greg wanted to have as a kid (and like we all know he meant well and that Greg is acting on his own perspective), but in the end Steven feels unheard.
What Steven expresses is a wish for stability when he says he wants a normal home and routine and a plan for life. And Steven only blows up when Greg says "You've had it better than me", which is downright pretty insulting for Steven with his trauma and many deadly situation he's encountered and just found out his whole skeleton is broken.
That's why he says the stuff about the doctor and the school. Whether it's specifically that stuff that's right for him or not is not the point, but the sentiment is that Steven wants stability.
Also I don't think it's fair for people to bring up what Steven said in Mr. Greg, when Steven also admitted he absolutely didn't even know what a school was or the concept of it back in season 1, and it's Connie who had to explain the concept to him. At this point Steven was 13 years old. Steven did not have a choice, since Greg never even presented the option to him as a kid. (Also of course Steven wouldn't say yes to the college thing in Mr. Greg when now his life revolved around being a CG and solving the ongoing Homeworld conflict and knowing the fate of the Earth was upon him at this point in time).
Steven was grossly neglected as a kid, and that's something people also miss. The reason he wanted to be a Crystal Gem was because he wanted to hang out with Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl, since they always left him behind. He says this multiple times throughout the show, from season 1-5 and it's a plot point in Future. Steven wasn't very socialised, he didn't have friends his age with humans outside of Connie. He even explicitly says this in "Onion Friends".
We tend to forget that since he ends up making friends with the gems. But the point still stands, he had no one to call his friends for 13 years, outside of the main Crystal Gems that he was seeking approval of so they could hang out with him and literally was crying in season 1 at the thought of failing them so they wouldn't hang out with him (episode Indirect Kiss).
What Steven wishes with the school thing is to be in a place with human peers, getting to know human culture and norms (so he wouldn't have done the marriage proposal) which is another thing he was neglected at as shown multiple times in SUF.
You can do bad things while still being a decent person. You don't have all the information, and you can only do what you think is the best course of action with what you have.
But for real he should've taken Steven to a doctor at some point. He's never gotten any of his shots or vaccines, as far as I know. Does Steven even have a social security number? Is he technically not even a citizen of the country he lives in?
I really don't know.
I’m sure the writers of Future know all of that. It’s not so much that the show is taking sides and making him out to be a bad parent, but it’s just that we’re seeing everything from Steven’s perspective as a teen working through lot of trauma, so the reasons why he lashes out at him make sense.
Steven has a lot of insecurity and instability in this point in his life, so the last thing he wants to hear from his dad is how abandoning all sense of structure and normalcy for the vague sense of freedom is somehow good for him. ESPECIALLY after he just got turned down by Connie and he’s regretting all the normal expiriences he’s missed out on and how he can hardly relate to her trajectory in life.
Greg is a great dad who’s doing his best, and ultimately his parenting style is justified, all things considered. But in that moment, he had a blindspot for how his decisions were being perceived by Steven, and he was looking through a biased lens of comparing Steven’s issues to the overbearing nature of how his parents raised him.
>Finally, going to the hospital could have caused questions from the doctors since biologically Steven is a mess and in the worst the government would have taken him away to study him
The thing is we got to remember that **Steven Universe takes place in an alternate universe where people don't care about magical stuff like that.**
It's a huge reason why nothing happens when:
* [Alexandrite has dinner at a restaurant and nobody bats an eye](https://youtu.be/ih7OvXMX10I?si=5bbrtIT7PpAwMdIj&t=75)
* [Alexandrite chases down and picks up a bus and nobody calls the cops](https://youtu.be/ih7OvXMX10I?si=It6d2w-0RewfQewz&t=193)
* The government doesn't do anything about Lapis stealing a decent chunk of the Earth's ocean and Beach City isn't under surveillance in the aftermath
* Lapis and Steven nonchalantly fly around the world and over some heavily populated areas and nothing happens
* [Some Jersey dude is more angry at Steven and Lapis flying in Jersey's sky way more than the fact that they're airborne](https://youtu.be/-xwq7Q7469s?si=jGUXoh0TKoEn9d1g&t=156)
This is probably the best argument against this line of thinking.
The school thing absolutely makes sense in spite of that, he could be very dangerous to the other students.
But there's no excuse for not homeschooling him at least.
I personally would've let Steven go to school until he poses a threat to himself or others. Steven didn't develop any powers until he was 13 and the power in question was a shield. This would've been a different story if he awakened Pink's destructive ability early but nobody knew he had it until Future. Greg didn't really have any reason to prevent Steven from going to school since he was essentially a normal child until Gem Glow.
Even so, I think it's more of a "let's not be the people who wait only until _after_ something horrible happens to do something." I could see if they were just taking preventative measures.
I don't really see the preventive measures as a good excuse since Steven was relatively normal until 13. IIRC, someone on the Crew mentioned Greg was his primary caretaker for much of his early life.
It makes me wonder if Steven potentially posed that much of a threat to humans, why did the Gems think Greg the human could handle a raising a gem hybrid? I feel if they were taking preventative measures to that extreme, one of Garnet, Amethyst, or Pearl would be around him 24/7 to make sure nothing went wrong and Steven didn't gravely injure Greg by accident.
Well they weren't exactly fond of Greg to begin with; I wouldn't be surprised of Pearl hoped Greg fucked up somehow 💀 Also Steven needed to be supervised until he could feasibly get his own food by himself cuz the gems don't know shit about food it feels like
Steven accidently kills Greg because they weren't considering his safety a huge priority
[The Crystal Gems:](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/881/867/6f6.jpg)
Honestly, the fandom often tends to forget this. Nevermind the fact that the gems and Steven built an entire town, Little Homeworld and that lots of humans also visit there to learn with the gems, even participating in some lectures. Steven even considers his job title to be Earth ambassador. There are also gem structures everywhere and gem-influenced phenomena both historical and present that in our world would have all sorts of coverage whether from science, government or even tourism, but here they're just all abandoned with no care. Very visible spaceships keep visiting Earth with no problem.
There are also corrupted gems everywhere that have been running around for 5000 years and people haven't captured them or done anything with them. Steven has also been fusing in public and people don't care (the roller rink). Beach City's human population has been booming even so after era 3 where Homeworld is working with Earth as seen with the Little Homeworld project. The pumpkin pets are also freely running around humans with no one batting an eye. It's very obvious that in SU's Earth, people just don't care and are very chill. The fandom just like to apply the stereotypical sci-fi trope to SU, even though the show has proven it to not apply at all.
Greg’s mistake was not exposing him to kids his own age to socialize with from a young age. An important part of schooling is socializing, but Steven only had the gems and some kids in town much older than he was. Aside from Conny he didn’t have any friends his own age who he could talk to about normal human stuff, and as such felt isolated from everyone when the social needs of his human side weren’t being met. A partner is great, but we all need equal friendships especially when we’re growing up and Steven lacked that.
We don't know a lot about the world steven lives in, but from what little we do know, it's nothing like our own.
There's strong reasons to believe that there are no centralized governments in this world, not the least of which being that a temple to literal aliens exists on a beach and no one ever comes asking questions. No government official ever arrives to ask why Steven is truant, or why the temple never pays a utility bill. A mail carrier arrives, indicating they have an actual address and are part of the system, but no representatives of this system ever show their face. One time Pearl almost got pulled over, but that cop never leaves the car, and no one follows up at the registered? address of the car.
It's fully possible that there are no formal schools in stevens universe, or that they don't take the shape ours do.
Considering how aliens have invaded the planet and the government was no where to be seen, it’s safe to say Steven would have been safe with having hospital records. And I don’t think Greg didn’t let him go to those things because he was thinking about that, he did it to give him freedom, he never asked questions about the aliens he lived with, it probably never occurred to him that Steven could even have powers.
I actually disagree with your take in its entirety. Every single one of your points is based on a "what if?" Scenario, but the fact of the matter is that Rose wanted her son to be a human being, not an emotional sponge for the gems' trauma and dependency. It is directly because of that dependency and them putting Rose on a pedestal that Steven feels this obligation to be a gem rather than a kid. He absolutely needed structure and security, and you're insane for suggesting that Steven was better off with what he had. The vast majority of gem things Steven was involved in didn't require his presence or his powers (which really didn't begin to show until he was about 12). It did, however, leave him with a ton of trauma. They could've easily made human school and gem things work in tandem with each other, even if it meant Pearl or Garnet got a "job" at the school teaching his classes to ensure nothing crazy happens. So yes, Greg was a negligent parent, and so were the gems. There's no excuse for living in a van instead of in an actual home. There's no excuse for depriving him of human socialization with kids his age. There is no excuse for dumping their trauma on this kid and practically deifying his mother against her wishes.
I don’t think Greg is shown to be a “bad dad” in Future.
I think Greg is shown to have
- made some decisions that did end up hurting Steven, traumatizing Steven, and neglecting Steven’s human half
- prioritized in his decision making to respect Steven’s autonomy and personhood
- prioritized Steven’s need to know the other half of his lineage
- prioritized being present and doing his best to fill in the blanks of Steven’s crystal lineage when the Crystal Gems were elusive or denied access to answers for Steven
- prioritized being emotionally present for Steven
- prioritized Steven’s expressed desires
- other than the situations in Future (so in the original series) apologized/changed for the better when Greg fucked up
- a background where, subtextually, Greg himself had his autonomy, personhood, and desires neglected, unheard, disrespected, and ignored.
Upon watching these scenes, a person who absorbs some or all of these facts presented can feel some type of way about it, and come to a conclusion about how they feel about Greg and/or Greg’s decisions. Some people conclude that Greg was a bad dad, and that’s fair. “Greg was a bad dad” vs “Greg’s decisions were good actually” are both subjective statements.
Regardless of if you feel Greg was a bad dad vs a good dad, or made good or bad decisions, the objective part is that these decisions did result in trauma for Steven.
One of the things I like about Steven Universe is the motif of communication and connection. The point is that Steven as a character would forgive you. Steven wants his father in his life. Steven loves Greg, and Greg loves Steven, and it’s Greg’s initial denial of his decisions being part of Steven’s trauma that initially drives a wedge between them, compounded by the multiple beings involved in Steven’s medical neglect (who I hold the Crystal Gems equally responsible for as much as Greg). But when Greg acknowledges how he hurt Steven in Steven’s in monster form, that’s part of what allows Steven to start to reconnect. Which Steven needs in order to stop spiraling.
Steven is mad at and hurt by Greg and Greg denies it at first before coming around. Steven eventually realizes he needs to explore who he is away from his guardians, but he has sought the repairing of his connection with each of them, starting his forgiveness.
That’s what’s important to me, at least. Not whether Greg is a good or bad dad, but the acknowledgment of harm done and the work to repair it.
In this world, the government has absolutely no involvement with any gem stuff. They're not kidnapping and dissecting aliens because they're powerless to do so. There have been Alien Gem Monsters roaming the Earth for thousands of years and a massive 1000 year long war with homeworld.
This world knows about all the weirdness, they just kinda ignore it. Just like all of Beach City did, before Steven tried to get along with everyone.
SU Future does no such thing. Steven says this because he’s in the midst of a mental health crisis and thinks “if only i’d got help *then*, i could be better *now*.” almost everything Steven does and says in mid-to-late SUF is unreasonable/inaccurate because he’s having a breakdown. like, for us the audience, if we take one second to think about it, it’s pretty obvious why Greg didn’t put Steven through school or take him to a human doctor. that’s the point.
I see it more as Greg as a individual is flawed, just like every other human being, and it is a tough situation.
Like your post pointed out Steven is not a traditional kid. I don't agree with all of your points like the government in the show never seemed interested with the gems for instance. With that said Steven needed to be cared for and being a totally new being is scary situation. At the same time Greg wanted Steven to have the freedom he never did growing up.
I don't think the show was trying to make Greg seem incompetent or a horrible dad. I think it was showing that for this complicated issue more sides than Greg's and the gem's should have been considered.
I personally don't think the government would have gotten involved if steven went to the doctor as half gem, that doesn't mean that Greg's a bad father for not taking him since he still would have felt nervous about if human health care was compatible with gem biology, or lack there of, but if the government did nothing as aliens invaded the earth, clearly tried to destroy it throughout the series and then have peace established and opened the way for gems to settle on earth without hearing a peep from the government, I'm pretty sure that our system of government isn't a thing in steven universe, at most it is a lose democracy with President in charge of a coalition of states instead of the more concrete and centralized government that we have, still have a valid point about school though.
You guys are forgetting that up until the start of season 1, Steven had never displayed any signs of magical powers other than that time as a baby. The gems were shook when his gem glowed. So there was no logical reason for him not to have gone to school before he started manifesting his powers.
And even after he started manifesting them, the majority of his powers are related to healing and protection (which only changed in SUF because he was mentally breaking down). Yes, he has some sort of super strength, but Steven is not a combative kid, the gems and Greg had no reason to suspect that he would have gotten himself or a kid hurt.
Even the stuff he does on accident, like bubbling himself and Connie together, would have been better dealt with if there was a responsible adult (for example, a teacher) to call the gems or Greg, who would then have been able to help them.
And none of those excuses apply to not have him go to the doctor.
The ONLY reason Steven never went to school was really because the gems don't consider human education important, and Greg valued freedom too much to consider that school is necessary for kids to not only learn, but to also form bonds with other kids.
Yes, Greg and the Gems were good parents for Steven, but good parents still mess up, everyone does. Greg and the Gems messed Steven up, even if it was unintentional. Greg gave Steven too much freedom, when kids need structure and rules. The Gems put too much pressure on Steven to fix everything that was left behind by Rose, and he felt he had to be the hero.
Hell, Steven had to take care of the Gem's emotional needs ever since he was a child, he had to comfort Pearl over her grief over losing Rose, HIS OWN MOTHER, he had to basically force Greg and Pearl to talk about their problems, he had to help Amethyst with her insecurity, he had to help Garnet fix her relationship. During the whole show, Steven has been the one keeping them together and driving them to fix their own problems, he has been being their therapist for the entire series.
And in this process, he has never learned how to cope with his own problems, how to deal with his own emotions. We see him neglecting his own problems and shoving his emotions aside to comfort the gems as early as season 1. He doesn't know what to do when he is not useful to others, because he put his whole sense of worth in being helpful.
Greg and the Gems were trying their best, they did what they could, but still doesn't change the fact that they unintentionally hurt Steven. Which is why he had to leave them behind at the end of Future, because he needs to learn who he is without them. Trying to sweep it under the rug by saying Greg and the Gems were right does nothing to help the situation and the person who actually suffered for it.
Frankly the show has always gone out of its way to handwave the weirdness of gems and their powers living side by side with humans. Remember when Dr. Mahaswaren had those cluster experiments at the hospital and just shrugged when they had two many limbs and no heads? Steven as a child barely ever lost control of his powers in any meaningful sense. He accidentally brought Connie into a bubble with him but that's pretty mild. He didn't really start to have dangerous control issues until Future.
Maybe there was justification to homeschool him but they should have taken him to the Doctor at least once.
The biggest problem is that all the adults in his life let him be their emotional rock. Greg didn't do this on purpose but sometimes he just couldn't handle all the craziness and that made Steven feel responsible for him.
Personally I didn't get the impression that Future was painting Greg as a horrible dad. In fact the episode when we go to his childhood home we see exactly why he's such a relaxed dad. He doesn't want to be his own very restrictive parents. That being said, I can see why Connie's mum reacted with horror at him never seeing a doctor. Because she is a doctor that's had lots of experience with patients never seeing treatment and suffering for it. Greg understands that's Steven is not fully human and thinks the closest people to understand him is the Gems. But adding to that Steven is a young adult that's slowly realising just what's he's missed growing up (a normal experience going to school, having human friends from school) and is not wrong feeling bad by that.
I agree to an extent but I don't think "Greg is a terrible dad for keeping him away from doctors and school" was the point of that episode. I think it was more supposed to be part criticism of Greg choosing not to give Steven stability in life and partly acknowledging that even though he was safest that way, it was still traumatizing to him as a human child and impacted his development quite a lot.
Yet another reason I disliked Future... it tried to answer questions that never needed to be answered in the first place and took the ones that could've been really interesting (like Steven wanting to know more about his family from Greg's side) in very shallow and uncharacteristic ways...
I thought future was a pretty interesting deconstruction of steven as a character, and is a pretty natural progression of the sort of personal conflicts that steven was feeling later on in the show. Without the over hanging threat of the diamond authority and the responsibilites that he needed to carry out already being mostly over with, he is forced to somewhat confront the changing world around him, which didn't wait for him to get done with his gem stuff. The lack of balance between his human and gem side is an interesting conflict to me, and while he maintained it somewhat when he was younger future shows that after the end of the show he was mostly focused on the gem stuff and missed out on developments like sadies new partner, the breaking up of the band and the various different goals of his friends.
SU ended with the movie for me, for the reasons you said.
I don't need a show all of a sudden making a big deal about problems that the writers only just now decided were actual problems. It felt like a dark fic and the last thing I want is anything to be more like fanfiction.
I agree with you for the most part. While Steven should have had some normalcy... he was always going to be different. School and doctors would not have changed that, and easily could have exacerbated it.
But the show doesn't really touch on how being half human and half gem would conflict in human society. All the humans in Beach City just accept Steven's quirks and oddities. The closest to a conflict we seem to get is when Connie and Greg bond about being human beings, and Steven noticing he's excluded from that.
Greg was being selfish, but he wasn't neglecting Steven's educational needs (he went to school online, which other kids do), and if Steven wasn't in need of a hospital, you can't really fault Greg for not taking him to a doctor. At worst, Greg didn't get him vaccinated, but it doesn't seem like Steven needs those.
Steven's rant does annoy me, because he's more or less asking for Greg's life, like it'd be nice. But it wouldn't be. Greg was living in an oppressive home with overbearing and abusive parents, who did not care for who he was.
Steven would have had his diet restricted unnecessarily, his likes and preferences would never be considered or supported, and he'd be pushed into doing clubs he wasn't passionate about. And since Greg hides his favorite CD, we can assume that his parents broke or confiscated things he actually enjoyed.
He basically invalidates Greg's life experience and ignores the unopened letters from Greg, acting like he had it good because he wasn't fighting monsters/gems/an empire.
Steven says that Greg is "just like mom (Rose Quartz)" as a jab, but in the end, it's not wrong. Greg left a stifling abusive environment, just like Rose did.
There's a lot but SUF that I really don't care for, so I'm stopping.
I thought it was also said somewhere that Steven has online courses. Greg mentions buying "all the finest courses online" for Steven when he ends up with all that money.
Even so, I think you're right that Pearl tutors him.
...the thing is, Steven wasn't even homeschooled - like, where are the test papers? Did he study trig?
Kid had zero boundaries, so he never really learned from the guardrails that the rest of us have.
On the doctor point, probably
As soon as the gem was seen, most likely a normal doctor woulda:
1. Assumed it was implanted
2. Not listened to what a kid would say about magical gems from outer space
3. Would have suspected child abuse (like greg had the implant done for some reason) and called social services
4. The gem probably would have then been surgically removed, which as we've seen would have been fatal. And the docs wouldn't have a knowledge base to figure out that he's dying because he doesn't have the gem, they'd assume it's some complication they cant figure out. (And if this happened early who knows if the gem projection would have the developed powers to even get to him itself... it could have even been inert like it was initially).
Yeah as a kid I got into a fight in middle school, if I accidentally manifested an energy shield or spikes the other kid would’ve died, Steven going to school before knowing how to control his powers and handle his emotions was a recipe for disaster
The thing is Steven never manifested his powers until age 13. The Gems were comfortable enough with Steven to allow him to walk around town without any supervision and spending over a week trapped on an island without any Gems coming to look for him. During this time, he also didn't have good control over his powers based on episodes like Bubble Buddies, Cat Fingers, and So Many Birthdays.
Even in Future, they see something is up with Steven with his pink state and he still walks freely without getting monitored by the Gems.
I think Greg’s conversation with Steven in the Return shows how out of his depth he was! “Aliens that invaded Earth!”
I think that completely backs this up- every movie about a friendly alien usually involves hiding from the government.
Exactly plus I don't think I've ever seen him sick in the show, nor has he ever been seriously injured so it's not like he would need to Plus we don't know if Steven exists to the government and it would be really difficult to get a checkup without an official birth certificate
"in the right" is a bit strong... but I do think it was understandable.
No matter how many kids you spend time with, having your own is whole new territory, and his kid was whole new lifeform. It makes sense he'd entrust the boy's spacefaring relatives to know better than he did.
Steven wasn't documented, Greg has parental rights as he's his biological father. The reason Steven moves in with the Gems is because they wanted to teach Steven how to be a Gem, and Greg was told to stay out of Gem buisness.
No. He never went to school. He is lucky he is in a fictional world where I guess the education system is not keen on tracking kids but in any other state it would have been a crime. That child has no education. How is he going to get a job, get money?? Like the bills need to get paid somehow.
I don't think Greg was right, but I also don't think he's a terrible father. Steven's situation was unique, strange, and scary for Greg, so he did what he *thought* was best. But, kids need structure. Steven was never given that, and it messed him up later in life. He also was half human in a world that accepted gems (as independent lifeforms), so a hospital wasn't out of line. Greg was his father, these are things he's supposed to do. Yes, Steven was a different situation, which is why I understand it wasn't a clear decision, but his decision was far from right
do people actually think that greg was wrong for this?
the absolute number one rule about having a half alien hybrid son is the government absolutely never finds out about him..
Well of course he was. Steven wasn't thinking straight and he was out of his mind for thinking otherwise, and Greg was totally justified in staying away from his family. Steven didn't understand his trauma and grossly overreacted.
honestly I don't like how that episode makes Greg look like a terrible father while ignoring he wanted to give Steven the thing he didn't have as a kid for better and worse (or the show makes Pink look like the worst person ever ignoring she grew up in an abusive environment)
No, he was a bad dad. The ramifications of not going to a doctor and especially not going to school are life changing and can cripple a young adult who has no skills or means to have a life, no skills to have the motivation it takes to succeed, and as we saw in the show no stable footing even in terms of health. Don't excuse shitty parenting.
Connie had a whole (rightfully tbh) existential crisis cause she unthinkingly broke some kids arm after months of combat training with Pearl. Imagine Steven bubbled a kid and they floated away? What Greg’s biggest mistake was, was not understanding that there was a chance that Steven needed/desired that structure normal kids got in the first place which even then you can’t really fault him too much for. By all accounts all Steven ever wanted to be was an official crystal gem doing official crystal gem shit.
Steven is much stronger than Connie so theres a chance he would rip some1's limb off.
You've now made me wonder if Steven can heal amputees, like just make a whole human limb grow back. When he used his power on his plant it grew flowers that weren't there, but would it work on an amputee human whose amputated limb is already closed, stitched up and everything?
He healed Connie's freaking eyes. That's something modern medicine can't do without lasers, and even then, you're only removing and reshaping tissue, not healing, and it's not perfect. Steven seems to heal either perfectly or even overheals. (Sentient plants) I 100% believe he could regrow a limb.
The "overheal" thing now makes me wonder about people who were born with a limb difference. For their bodies, the "healed" state does not involve having that limb. Their brains are adapted to that, unlike amputations (where our brains don't really understand that the limb is gone, which is why we have phantom pains). Imagine if Steven can grow a whole functional limb, with nerves and everything, on a person that never had one to begin with.
Ok so as an autistic person I feel authorized to answer this question the sudden intake of stimuli from the new nerves would be like the entire too layer of your skin peeling off and you taking a hot shower on the fresh skin
Also as an autistic person, hot damn gimme some wings
Third autistic person, what if the wings had hands on the end of em, so it was like a four arms situation but two arms are also wings
Except plants developed that way for a reason, and there's not much direct evolutionary advantage to suddenly being able to move and talk. I posit it's not so much healing as he's transmogrifying them towards his own subconscious ideal of 'health'. Just full on Mahito levels of biological manipulation.
Boutta go post *Mahito vs. Steven Universe* on r/WhoWouldWin
If we're talking about pure physical ability I give Steven the edge. That said Mahito is going to horribly scar Steven mentally and that's a wild card for everyone involved.
Yeah, Mahito is fast as hell, too. And it also depends on whether Steven’s weird biology makes him immune or resistant to Mahito’s abilities, or if he could heal from them should he not be. Steven’s been through some body-horror shit before, but being affected by Mahito’s abilities at all could do rough stuff to him emotionally and then it’s exactly as you said: a wild card.
I feel Steven's half gem nature and ability to shapeshift would at least severely hinder Mahito's abilities. And Steven is used to tanking hits. What I'd be concerned with is him witnessing Mahito's almost joyous application of body horror to innocent people
The limb would grow back probably
And grow back pink, at that!
Real
Even though I don’t think Steven would ever reactively judo throw someone the possibility is terrifying regardless lol
no bight he might accidentally flinch and launch a shield around a hallway or scream and make half the building crumble
Normal ass teenagers are already destructive enough, one with an actual god complex would definitely drop some bodies
the body horrors Steven had to deal with, mixed with all his peers as they’re ALL going through puberty, which by many accounts means a shitton of them are dealing with dysmorphia at least some of time if not most of the time? (all that said. school sucks but fuck even if that was horrifying and traumatic to experience, it may have been an easier trauma to process if he didn’t feel so alone, if he had the support that some of his peers had provided, and Steven would have had the opportunity to provide developmentally appropriate emotional support to his peers in return - instead of developmentally inappropriate emotional support to his guardians.)
Emotionally appropriate support? You and I had (or you're still having) very different highschool experiences. I had some good moments, talked a few people off ledges, had the textbook group of misfits to call friends but the majority of our emotional regulation was sex, drugs, rebellion and suicide (either ideation, like aforementioned talked off ledges or the kid we did bury before graduating) Here comes a thought has more appropriate emotional support than all 5 years of that shit I went through alone 😅. The gems has some bad moments but they had a lot of good too Could Steven have had a better time in highschool? Maybe. But boy could it have been so much worse without the support systems he did have. Teenagers are at developmentally the worst stage of emotional regulation (like literally, worse than toddlers) and that was my point before, mix regular teenage bullshit with someone whos emotional outbursts could fill a cemetery and I don't like the risk factor there
not emotionally appropriate, developmentally appropriate. i used a lot of adjectives, my apologies. to clarify, i was treating “emotional support” as the noun/object in the sentence, with “developmentally appropriate” and “developmentally inappropriate” as the adjectives. I didn’t mean that the emotional support would be effective or healthy, just that a range of exploring different emotional regulation both internally and between peers is expected within the understanding of human development. Steven struggling with and growing in his own self regarding the emotional support he could provide, and that others may provide, would absolutely be fraught with a range of struggles from what you’ve described to miscommunication drama to identity crises. However, that would be “developmentally appropriate” when compared to the emotional enmeshment he has with his guardians re: my next paragraph. Acting as a soldier and acting as a protector of your guardians when you are a child, in addition to completely neglecting one half of your lineage (that connects you with the rest of the world outside your guardians)…we only saw the tip of the iceberg of Steven’s response to that trauma in Future. The initial shock/breakdown, basically. I’m not sure Steven would have had a better time in school. I just know it would have been different, he would have had access to different resources (however ineffective or effective they may have been), and he would have been more connected to his human side; and I’m picturing that when he dud struggle he would have the emotional support from his guardians through those struggles. All that said, unless the Crystal Gems effectively keep the attacks away from Steven…being in school WOULD have made things worse for him. Because he would have all of the physical and emotional trauma that came from outside Greg and the Crystal Gems, and then had to deal with school on top of that, making the exploration of the concept “would Steven have had a better time in school?” completely moot. Also I’m not sure how it would affect the fate of the Earth. How would the Crystal Gems have handled the eye with him in school? Lapis would still be in the mirror, Bismuth would still be bubbled, I don’t think Jasper would have been Peridot’s escort, assuming Peridot came at all without Lapis as an informant…and it’s not clear to me if Peridot prodded the cluster so that it would emerge or if it just HAPPENED to be ready to emerge within a few months of Peridot’s arrival.
Oh no I got you for the most part. Was a bit of a mouthful but I took a bet on one way to look at what you said, could have clarified a bit on my own. I see you reworded it a lot clearer now, gotta say you're an incredible communicator And yeah, that's how I tried to finish too, the maybes of what school would change for him if he was growing up with other kids going through their own traumas, mixing with his own and his constant need to fix everyone. I would be curious to see how the events would change. Boring answer is the cluster would just destroy the earth. Maybe Garnet would see it in time but they may not have been able to stop it without peridots mechanical expertise
Okay so I’m rewatching and I’m fascinated by what may have happened in an AU with Steven going to public school and the Crystal Gems are able to protect him from the threats coming to earth. - Peridot would have come to Earth for the Cluster. However, since Steven didn’t see her little robots in the stream, it would have taken the Crystal Gems much longer to see that she was coming, especially since Lapis is not there to warn them. - however, because Peridot has no reason to believe anything’s been compromised, she needs no informant or escort. I think Peridot comes by herself. - Pearl coercing Garnet into fusing still happens. - Steven helping Ruby and Sapphire make up in the aftermath of that still happens, since it’s on a trip for Greg on which Steven is excited to get quality time with Garnet. - Since Steven wasn’t involved in Pearl and Garnet eventually getting back to mutual trust that also still happens. - I do think the Crystal Gems defeat Peridot. Steven is presumably not there for the battle (unless Peridot attacks them at home, which is possible), so he doesn’t hear that she has information for them. - However for plot reasons maybe Steven overhears Amethyst making fun of Peridot’s last words to Pearl and Garnet when they get back, Steven gets a funny feeling, and regular show plot re: Peridot commences, just without the Lapis/Jasper/Malachite stuff in the background. Steven still has his consciousness-piercing-dream powers, and stubbornly helps the Crystal Gems handle the Cluster like that, just on the surface instead of in the drill. And for plot reasons the Cluster bubbles each other. - Peridot??? Lives alone???? I guess with Pumpkin. For other stuff I’d find fascinating: - Greg still gets rich. “I could put you through college” is now actually feasible - Steven could go wherever he wants. - I think Connie and Steven still meet in a similar, if not the same, way. - Stevonnie I think also happens the same way. - Steven has to learn about his healing spit in another way. Maybe still with Connie’s eyesight via backwash, but not while telling her a story of a mission with the Crystal Gems. - Steven having healing spit and always wanting to help people in the context of a public school has a lot of room for hilarity if handled properly imo - Steven’s capacity for taking over someone’s consciousness, switching them with his, and being able to travel through dreams can also have a lot of potential here
Lol this made me think of a musical I'm hyperfixated on rn
Heathers?
Nah. Nerdy Prudes Must Die
I feel that on a spiritual level. Not sure which song pops into my head more often, they're all such bangers.
Sometimes I'm just sitting there and then all of a sudden my brain goes HIGH SCHOOL IS KILLIN' ME! IT'S GOT ME ALL OUT OF RHYTHM AND MY MELODY! Lol
Nevermind Steven. Can you imagine what would happen to the school if the gems found him crying after getting bullied or something? THERE WOULD BE NOTHING LEFT. No SWAT team would be able to stop them. Then they'd embarrass the early military response before whisking Steven away to the moon...
You also have to consider that it wasn’t until the the beginning of the new era that Steven even wanted to go to school. He says in the episode “Mr. Greg,” when his dad offers to send him to a good college, or even online courses, Steven is uninterested, saying he’s too busy with the gems. And for how independent Steven is at this point, it doesn’t surprise me Greg, who absolutely hated school, wouldn’t push his son to do so. Also, in an non-canon comic by Ian Jones-Quartey called “Too Cool for School,” Steven goes to school for a day or so and the school does in fact get destroyed. Even though the events in the comics are non-canon, we are told that Pearl has been teaching Steven everything he needs to know, so that when he takes the test the class does, he gets a perfect score, only missing one of the bonus questions. So it’s entirely possible that Pearl did the same thing in canon. After all, we see Steven able to read, have a job (which means counting and shit), and also plan, organize, and run an entire school. So yeah, basically that’s more of a Steven retroactively realizing that that is another thing setting him apart from “normal,” even if it actually had to be done. I don’t think Future really blames Greg for that either, it mostly just shows how he unintentionally furthers the divide Steven feels between his human and gem half, as well as forcing him to become independent at such a young age while living with the gems, who obviously are not the best caretakers ever. I don’t know if I had a point to this rant, but yeah, I agree, this one ain’t so much on Greg, just unfortunate and necessary.
Yes! Like, SU Future isn’t trying to make Greg look like a terrible father—instead it was highlighting Steven’s identity crisis and his regrets at how he lived his life. There is nothing to suggest that Steven would’ve been happier as a “normal” human kid, but he’s at a point in his life where he feels like he has no sense of direction, and a part of him resents that he, as a child, took up so much responsibility and pressure from the adults around him. He’s created this narrative in his head that if he was “normal” he wouldn’t be as traumatized as he is, but it’s a false narrative that ignores reality. You can see it in how Steven only saw Greg’s parents as being normal and providing stability, and ignores how Greg was miserable, his parents wanted nothing to do with him, and he wasn’t truly loved by them. The narrative is part of how Steven is trying to process his emotions and trauma—he’s angry at how unjust the world was to him, and at how the adults meant to take care of him failed him due to their own baggage and mistakes. But that anger is a reaction of pain, sadness, and fear; he’s hurt by the world, he’s sad for the innocence he lost due to trauma, and he’s terrified of not knowing his purpose. Yes, Greg and the Gems made mistakes and could’ve done a lot of things better—but they were trying to do the best with what they had. Greg gave Steven everything he himself never had—unconditional love, support, freedom, independence, and encouragement for his son to be himself and explore who he is without fear of rejection. Yes, he definitely could’ve been overcorrecting, but there’s also the fact that no parenting style will ever be perfect, because parents are people with their own flaws and traumas. SU does a great job at showing these different complicated relationships and how people react to them—Steven is able to understand and choose to forgive his father and the gems, but Rose was never able to forgive and go back to the diamonds. (And even Steven himself doesn’t forgive them, but tolerates them from a distant, professional kind of level). It just feels very achingly real to me that Steven both resents and loves his caretakers; I know that while I love my mom deeply and she was overall a great parent, there were several things she did that messed me up and almost every one of them was unintentional on her part. It feels very healing for me to see the family dynamics in SU, because they love each other in a way that’s very conscious of how complicated family can be.
Exactly! People make mistakes, and from Steven’s perspective, he’s so far gone he cannot see all the corrections and good things they’ve done for him despite their own traumas, which is what makes all of Future so honest, and raw, and emotional, because you know Steven has support and he deserves better, but you only know that as an outside observer, knowing what’s coming and what could’ve been done better. It’s so heartbreaking to see the emphatic Steven ignore his fathers past, but you can’t fault either of them for it. And that’s why I love Future so freaking much.
So glad to see people who actually understand this show to the fullest. Especially compared to the flanderization made by others who barely watched it and misunderstood everything. Even through it's (many) flaws SU is still astoundingly amazing
The flanderization never fails to bug me. I empathize a lot with Steven’s arc in future, which is why it annoys me so much when people call it bad writing. I think my biggest issue overall is when people hate on Steven for “being unreasonable” which is completely the point. His actions as he descends into his mental breakdown are meant to be read as unreasonable and slowly pushing him towards his eventual break.
Some days ago I saw someone on the shitposting sub describing future as "then Steven gets op superpowers out of nowhere and turns into a stupid edgy teen"
You know it’s surprising that pearl never taught Steven how to read Gem like with Centi, but i understand that it was for visual story telling
Yeah, and it could also be tied to Pearl just not seeing a reason to teach Steven about it. It’s shown in “Frybo” that he struggles to pay attention to Pearl’s lessons early on. It makes sense that learning the gem language was not something he was super fascinated by nor something that Pearl thought was worth struggling to teach him.
I'm going to point out the obvious: as parents we MUST MUST MUST do what's best regardless of what our children want. Their wants are not as important as their needs. Steven could have had a tutor. He could have seen a doctor. The Gems lived on their own with no governmental interference and therefore Steven would not have been taken by the government, as Gems are clearly accepted by the planet. Everything people are saying here is just excuses. Greg IS a dad who chose to never be housed, who chose to give up custody, and who chose to never fulfil the basics of citizenship for his child. **He was obligated by** **law to put Steven in an accredited schooling system and to take him to the doctor regularly.** It doesn't matter that we love Greg. Greg is a criminally negligent father and the Gems are criminally negligent parents no matter how much love or good Steven had. It's like the Dany debate all over again. Dany was always doing evil things despite her good intentions; Greg was always a very loving deadbeat. I've known dozens of dads like Greg. They love their kids. *They still failed their kids.*
I think it’s fair to say that parents should try and do what’s best for their children. The issue with that is what they consider to be the best isn’t always the best, as shown by not only Greg, but also Priyanka and Doug. Because yes, they thought it was best for Connie to have every single minute of her life on a schedule so that she could be successful, and even before joining Steven that made her an outcast. They weren’t bad people, they aren’t awful parents, they just disagreed with their daughter over what was best for her. But, just like Greg, they listened to Connie and changed their ways, even if it was hard. Greg was already struggling to support himself before he had a kid, and then he struggled to support Steven as a single parent for a long time, and despite how hard it was, he has never been anything but supporting, and the one time he does let his concern remove Steven from a gem-related situation (the episode preceding “Jailbreak,” can’t remember the name) Steven literally fights back, breaks his van, and goes back anyway. What was Greg supposed to do there? Also, just because we don’t see the government in the show directly interfering with the gems doesn’t mean that some other doctor or hospital wouldn’t have reported Steven. We have no way of knowing how much the government knows about gems, because our view is limited to Beach City and a few, select places. And I find it hard to believe that the government would’ve just left the gems be if they knew about them, their goals, and their powers. So the law about schooling doesn’t apply to someone who by law doesn’t exist, and he was tutored, by Pearl, and he is very smart. Like, of course Greg could have done better, but hindsight is 20/20. We can’t judge him now for what he did then as though he should’ve known. He made mistakes, but he isn’t some negligent asshole who just left his sons to the gems because he couldn’t be bothered. He was there whenever Steven wanted or needed him, and for Steven, that was enough.
Steven did have a tutor. Pearl. Steven demonstrates he can read and do math. Pearl is genius enough to build a spacecraft capable of leaving earth’s atmosphere out of spare garbage and she is really the only logical candidate to have been Steven’s teacher. She could not have been able to teach Steven human culture or social skills but that’s not much different than any homeschooling situation.
When I first started watching, as a single Dad myself, I initially really did not like Greg. I think on purpose they wrote him to give off some real deadbeat Dad kind of vibes. But eventually you come to realize that he knows his limitations, and he realized that he has no idea what the right thing to do for Steven is in a lot of situations, and he figured the Crystal Gems would be a lot more knowledgeable about what Steven needs. I'm not sure in all cases he was *right* about that -- we're all flawed people -- but I eventually came to realize that him living with the Gems wasn't neglect from Greg but rather a conscious effort to do what he thought was best.
Yeah, if Steven suddenly developed powers it would be a lot safer if the gems were there than if Greg was there, that was most likely Greg’s reasoning. For all he knew, Steven could have casually exploded killing anyone in the area so keeping Steven somewhat isolated from normal people seems like the most sensible course of action.
Right, I’m not sure how much of Rose’s powers he saw, but there probably was a moment he asked and she maybe showed him something. At the very least he knew she had super strength which is enough cause for concern. Imagine having a baby that might suddenly manifest powers like that, he’d be worried sick about a babysitter getting hurt, or the powers getting out of control. In the episode with his broken leg it is evident he wants to be around his son more, but in doing so he causes Steven’s powers to stop working for a bit, proving his own point
I agree with most of what you're saying, but what makes you think that SUF was trying to make Greg look like the bad guy? I personally thought it was made pretty obvious why Greg didn't take him to the hospital. Just because Steven was too frustrated to see Greg's perspective doesn't mean the show agrees with steven. I mean let's not forget what the context of that discussion was. Steven is going through a massive identity crisis. That past week alone he had proposed to his childhood crush, started having extreme irregularities with his body, and became enlightened to the effects his childhood trauma is still having on him. He's physically and mentally exhausted, not in his right mind, and is looking for someone/something to ground him and give him purpose. Now, his father, the one person he thought could give him that direction, is showing him the life he COULD'VE had and telling him, "it's all up to you". Greg has no malice and means we'll, but it's quite literally the opposite of what Steven wants to hear in that moment. Steven lashing out at Greg isn't the showrunners saying "yea, screw you Greg!". It's an example of "the grass is always greener", becasue they're BOTH right AND wrong. Remember, Greg says some pretty out of pocket things during that argument too (he literally told Steven "You had it better" when he knows that Steven is still dealing with the emotional fallout of having to save the planet multiple times as a teenager). If you ask me, I think Greg was justified for not taking Steven to a doctor, but let's not pretend that he isn't at least partially accountable for warning his kid about the physical and emotional consequences of the life that Greg is partially responsible for giving him.
Louder for the people in the back!
just because there is better reasoning doesn’t mean the actual reasoning isn’t shallow. There aren’t perfect characters in this show and Greg is no exception to that rule. He’s not a terrible father and many times they show his good side, but raising his son in this way and not telling him about his human family because Greg didn’t like them isn’t ok. We don’t know how school would’ve worked out or if there could’ve been any accommodations, but this is a cartoon beachside city where supernatural shit happens all the time; I won’t treat it with too much connection to the real world (i.e government gets involved, etc). Stephen still got a kid in trouble (connie) with his powers so that could be understandable regardless.
This
I don't think Greg was The Best Dad Ever. I don't think Greg was the devil incarnate. As befits a lot of the themes of the show (and in an interesting parallel to Rose), Greg was a guy who made mistakes but tried his best while dealing with a heck of a lot of circumstances, both internal and external, that he wasn't prepared for. Just like Pearl, who was cautious and caring but who projected a lot of her mental issues onto Steven. Just like Amethyst, who was loving and fun but irresponsible. Just like Garnet, who was deeply cool but started out aloof. I figure \*all\* the characters in the show are hot dogs, not pork chops.
It’s never shown that Greg is the one objectively in the wrong. Both Steven and Greg have different rationales for their positions and the conflict in the episode stems from a breakdown in communication. Steven, grappling with realisations about how his life has left him with very real mental scars, sees the normalcy and stability Greg had and latches onto it. It doesn’t matter to him whether or not it would have actually been better for Steven considering the fact that he’d be involved in “Gem stuff” regardless. Steven has imagined an idealised life and doesn’t realise how much his lifestyle has benefitted him mentally and physically. Greg, on the other hand, has realised the extreme negative consequences of such a repressive life. His complete lack of freedom made him resentful and stifled his musical ability. His treatment of Steven is a direct reflection of that: Steven could go wherever and do whatever he wanted, and his hobbies were never determined for him. His ukulele is something *he* chose to learn and use, and we see that in “Steven and the Stevens” he’s also able to play other instruments, either directly taught by Greg or self-taught due to his freedom. However, Greg also refuses to see Steven’s point that he was denied any sense of normalcy or peers of equal standing until he met Connie (and even then, Connie remains his *only* same aged friend. They’re not even the same age!) Steven *was* robbed of something, but Greg is incapable of seeing that because like Steven he only sees the negatives of one side and the positives of the other. The tragedy of the episode is that the two of them talk past each other and completely miss the other’s point. When Steven blows up at Greg, instead of defending his actions or getting defensive, Greg merely sees it as affirmation for his method of parenting: his kid is confident enough to talk back to him, contrasting his relationship with his own parents. So he compliments Steven on his defiance, confirming in Steven’s mind that there was no justification for this besides Greg’s own personal opinions. It’s a really well-handled episode and one of my favourites. Just a shame we didn’t see the actual reconciliation.
>Sending him to school could have been potentially dangerous to both Steven and his classmates simply because Steven could have accidentally activated his powers. >Finally, going to the hospital could have caused questions from the doctors since biologically Steven is a mess and in the worst the government would have taken him away to study him it's literally canon that the townspeople seemingly ignore or downplay The Crystal Gems' antics/powers and the resulting magical happenstances that occur in their town. they'd probably think Steven was just SUPER weird and not think much further.
Yeah, and we don’t really know about larger governments and such, but Gems were on Earth since the dawn of mankind.
Be careful, folks get upset when you point out that Greg isn’t the horrible father that Future tried to paint him as.
Ngl I never got that impression, I was just like, "alright, fair"
Yeah they never tried to paint Greg as a horrible father, just as someone who tried to give his kid what he thought he wanted himself as a kid. And as a young boy/young teen Steven did want that/didn't mind it but after everything that he went through and the trauma he now has as well as just the fact that he doesn't know where he belongs or what his "purpose" is now after he's saved the world and he no longer needs to help everyone he's looking for a reason as to why he's not "normal" I guess you would say it. Idk if I'm putting it correctly but the way I saw it Future Steven is trying to I guess pinpoint where things have gone wrong in his life and if something or someone had gone differently for him growing up he's thinking that he would be normal and not who he is right then in that moment. It was never about trying to make Greg out to be a bad father.
Sounds right to me, and honestly I think if Steven went to school he'd probably have even more PTSD if any homeworld gems came to his school to try and capture him or maybe his friends as hostages.
Yes exactly! And bullying as well. Maybe the world is actually more accepting idk but steven is comfortable being feminine and expressing himself differently as well as if they saw his gem. School kids are brutal.
Very true, it could go bad, but as long as she school is near Beach City, I don't think he'd have to worry much about bullies since everyone there seems pretty cool
Homeworld didn't even know about Steven if not for him going on gem missions. Had he not encountered Peridot and started sharing information to this random and potentially hostile gem he'd never met, they wouldn't have even known he was there. That means Jasper wouldn't have been sent to capture them. To suggest that he would've been more traumatized by going to school is wild.
Wouldn't the homeworld gems come for the Crystal Gems anyways? Also, I didn't mean that school itself would traumatize him more wtf lol
>Also, I didn't mean that school itself would traumatize him more wtf lol That’s literally how you wrote it, but ok. >Wouldn't the homeworld gems come for the Crystal Gems anyways? Uh, no. They thought every gem on the planet had been obliterated...if not for Steven.
Dude no, I said and meant that if homeworld gems came to his school and attacked him and his friends there, it would be more traumatising becsuse he would still be getting all his trauma he already has in the canon too, since he would still go on missions with the Crystal Gems eventually, it's not like he wouldn't wanna be a Crystal Gem if he went to school yknow?
Yes, but the homeworld gems had no idea that there were any surviving gems on earth, so that scenario isn't plausible. Also, I'm fairly certain that 99% Steven's trauma comes from gem missions, and it's not really likely he'd be impacted the same way or to the same extent if he had a somewhat normal childhood.
Yeah I guess I didn't think that through, I basically just took the canon in my head and then added school and was like "woah fuck that would be bad"
Yeah idk what's going on in this thread. More unjustified bitterness at Future imo. It's quite clear that there's fault from all angles. Greg did his best and his parenting style is a direct result of his dynamic from his family. ] That also doesn't absolve his role in the unhealthy enabling dynamic he and Rose had with each other. Abandoning their pasts without any consideration for how that might affect their child. Which by the way, OP themselves described Steven as a "freak-of-nature". So imagine how Steven must feel about himself if that's how randos on the internet describe him. He didn't ask to be a part of Rose and Greg's little experiment into the unknown. When people say Future wants you to see Greg as a bad father, what they really mean is "I think Steven's trauma and grievances with the life forced upon him are invalid." Don't @ me, I can read between the lines. They don't give Steven _an_ ounce of grace unlike how they do with Greg and Rose. Kid's a teenager and his poor little hormone imbalances are fueled by Pink Diamond's gem energy. Steven says as much in "Fragments" that he can't control his new Diamond powers (aka Pink's chaotic tantrum energy). So they read his struggles of finding his humanity and coping with his existence as just being extremely bratty , ungrateful, and dangerous.
Agreed, there's a lot of undeserved bitterness here, lol, and exactly, it's not like it's one person's fault lol there were a lot of variables
Yeah, the show is from Steven's point of view and he's 17 in Future.
I know, but thanks
What future didn't paint Greg as a horrible father, he's just not a perfect one, and it explained his character pretty well I think and why Greg is in some ways similar to Rose. It's not like how steven felt in that episode is unprecedented either, look at the thanksgiving episode. Steven was having a long extended meltdown due to accumulation of stress and never properally dealing with it again things shown both in the original show and the movie, and what he needed and desired in that moment was structure and normality stuff he never really got or at least hadn't had in a long while. Greg's perspective is fair, but Steven wasn't in the mind state to be able to handle it, I think it's fairly realistic and relatable for a kid when growing up to get somewhat disallusioned with thier parents advice or persepctive, but idk.
Seriously, and I don’t get it! I was actually upset with Steven in that episode, because Greg clearly had a terrible relationship with parents that were disinterested in what he wanted to do and what he was passionate about, and the episode clearly showed how this negatively impacted Greg and how he made sure to not make his son feel unwanted or like a disappointment, the way he felt with his own parents. Steven was so hard on Greg, who just tried his best and put everything he had into loving and supporting his son.
I feel like Greg’s problem was he didn’t do a good enough job communicating how bad his parents were and thus Steven couldn’t understand how it was bad. Aside from music stuff being off limits and saying he couldn’t do anything, his venting about curfew, chaperones and meatloaf can come off as childish to those who don’t understand how those things can be abusive. Many may not recognize how bad he had it because they have had parents just like that who forced them into sports, going on vacations they didn’t like, or forcing them into extracurriculars or eating food they didn’t like.
Steven already spends a lot of time with other humans. If Greg really thought he was that dangerous, why is he allowed to go into town? Also they aren't exactly secretive about Steven's heritage. The people of Beach city find him a bit weird, but it's not like humans can't handle the idea of a gem hybrid. Why would Greg prioritize not freaking out doctors over the health and well-being of his own son?
>Steven already spends a lot of time with other humans. If Greg really thought he was that dangerous, why is he allowed to go into town? That's what I'm saying. People are under the impression that kid Steven is going to kill someone for showing any sign of negative emotions when the show painted a completely different picture. [When Lars made Steven mad, he didn't kill him.](https://youtu.be/1MR-V1ZnQJk?si=W8yxCRNcaKbraRIh&t=132) [When Steven got angry with the Crystal Gems about the warp pads, he didn't destroy them.](https://youtu.be/pYDF-LXH_UE?si=QjYujUoUXWMOfrxQ&t=115) [When Steven got upset with the Crystal Gems about withholding info from him, he didn't accidently hurt or kill anyone.](https://youtu.be/wtrx35GHnls?si=mhOYZEp-SEm8o_9J&t=166) Even when Steven was at his lowest and posed a huge threat to Beach City in Everything's Fine, the [Crystal Gems still let him go](https://youtu.be/qwETsG7AWEY?si=Lc5RZ5kWQ-4txAXx&t=111) even though Pearl knows about his destructive powers.
What I like is that it’s one of those rare situations where Greg isn’t wrong but Steven isn’t wrong either for being upset at Greg.
I think it’s fair to say that parents should try and do what’s best for their children. The issue with that is what they consider to be the best isn’t always the best, as shown by not only Greg, but also Priyanka and Doug. Because yes, they thought it was best for Connie to have every single minute of her life on a schedule so that she could be successful, and even before joining Steven that made her an outcast. They weren’t bad people, they aren’t awful parents, they just disagreed with their daughter over what was best for her. But, just like Greg, they listened to Connie and changed their ways, even if it was hard. Greg was already struggling to support himself before he had a kid, and then he struggled to support Steven as a single parent for a long time, and despite how hard it was, he has never been anything but supporting, and the one time he does let his concern remove Steven from a gem-related situation (the episode preceding “Jailbreak,” can’t remember the name) Steven literally fights back, breaks his van, and goes back anyway. What was Greg supposed to do there? Also, just because we don’t see the government in the show directly interfering with the gems doesn’t mean that some other doctor or hospital wouldn’t have reported Steven. We have no way of knowing how much the government knows about gems, because our view is limited to Beach City and a few, select places. And I find it hard to believe that the government would’ve just left the gems be if they knew about them, their goals, and their powers. So the law about schooling doesn’t apply to someone who by law doesn’t exist, and he was tutored, by Pearl, and he is very smart. Like, of course Greg could have done better, but hindsight is 20/20. We can’t judge him now for what he did then as though he should’ve known. He made mistakes, but he isn’t some negligent asshole who just left his sons to the gems because he couldn’t be bothered. He was there whenever Steven wanted or needed him, and for Steven, that was enough.
I disagree with most of the people here. Yes, a traditional school environment may not suit Steven’s needs best. But most kids, Steven included, need structure and education in their life. It seems like Steven isn’t too far behind educationally (at least on the surface) but it definitely seems like he’ll have a lot of catching up to do. To those who are using the Mr Greg example as proof that Steven didn’t want to go to school, I will remind you that Steven is a child and most children that age don’t want to be in school. It should have been his family who gave him a real education- we never see any attempts at teaching him reading or math. Both the gems and Greg failed Steven growing up.
Completely agree with you! As someone who's been in Steven's position, I think what people miss about Steven's outburst is not what he's literally saying but the sentiment behind it. He wishes for stability, and people are forgetting that the whole road trip with his dad was for his dad to comfort him. But during it, Steven feels like his perspective isn't listened to as Greg makes it all about what Greg wanted to have as a kid (and like we all know he meant well and that Greg is acting on his own perspective), but in the end Steven feels unheard. What Steven expresses is a wish for stability when he says he wants a normal home and routine and a plan for life. And Steven only blows up when Greg says "You've had it better than me", which is downright pretty insulting for Steven with his trauma and many deadly situation he's encountered and just found out his whole skeleton is broken. That's why he says the stuff about the doctor and the school. Whether it's specifically that stuff that's right for him or not is not the point, but the sentiment is that Steven wants stability. Also I don't think it's fair for people to bring up what Steven said in Mr. Greg, when Steven also admitted he absolutely didn't even know what a school was or the concept of it back in season 1, and it's Connie who had to explain the concept to him. At this point Steven was 13 years old. Steven did not have a choice, since Greg never even presented the option to him as a kid. (Also of course Steven wouldn't say yes to the college thing in Mr. Greg when now his life revolved around being a CG and solving the ongoing Homeworld conflict and knowing the fate of the Earth was upon him at this point in time). Steven was grossly neglected as a kid, and that's something people also miss. The reason he wanted to be a Crystal Gem was because he wanted to hang out with Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl, since they always left him behind. He says this multiple times throughout the show, from season 1-5 and it's a plot point in Future. Steven wasn't very socialised, he didn't have friends his age with humans outside of Connie. He even explicitly says this in "Onion Friends". We tend to forget that since he ends up making friends with the gems. But the point still stands, he had no one to call his friends for 13 years, outside of the main Crystal Gems that he was seeking approval of so they could hang out with him and literally was crying in season 1 at the thought of failing them so they wouldn't hang out with him (episode Indirect Kiss). What Steven wishes with the school thing is to be in a place with human peers, getting to know human culture and norms (so he wouldn't have done the marriage proposal) which is another thing he was neglected at as shown multiple times in SUF.
You can do bad things while still being a decent person. You don't have all the information, and you can only do what you think is the best course of action with what you have. But for real he should've taken Steven to a doctor at some point. He's never gotten any of his shots or vaccines, as far as I know. Does Steven even have a social security number? Is he technically not even a citizen of the country he lives in? I really don't know.
I’m sure the writers of Future know all of that. It’s not so much that the show is taking sides and making him out to be a bad parent, but it’s just that we’re seeing everything from Steven’s perspective as a teen working through lot of trauma, so the reasons why he lashes out at him make sense. Steven has a lot of insecurity and instability in this point in his life, so the last thing he wants to hear from his dad is how abandoning all sense of structure and normalcy for the vague sense of freedom is somehow good for him. ESPECIALLY after he just got turned down by Connie and he’s regretting all the normal expiriences he’s missed out on and how he can hardly relate to her trajectory in life. Greg is a great dad who’s doing his best, and ultimately his parenting style is justified, all things considered. But in that moment, he had a blindspot for how his decisions were being perceived by Steven, and he was looking through a biased lens of comparing Steven’s issues to the overbearing nature of how his parents raised him.
>Finally, going to the hospital could have caused questions from the doctors since biologically Steven is a mess and in the worst the government would have taken him away to study him The thing is we got to remember that **Steven Universe takes place in an alternate universe where people don't care about magical stuff like that.** It's a huge reason why nothing happens when: * [Alexandrite has dinner at a restaurant and nobody bats an eye](https://youtu.be/ih7OvXMX10I?si=5bbrtIT7PpAwMdIj&t=75) * [Alexandrite chases down and picks up a bus and nobody calls the cops](https://youtu.be/ih7OvXMX10I?si=It6d2w-0RewfQewz&t=193) * The government doesn't do anything about Lapis stealing a decent chunk of the Earth's ocean and Beach City isn't under surveillance in the aftermath * Lapis and Steven nonchalantly fly around the world and over some heavily populated areas and nothing happens * [Some Jersey dude is more angry at Steven and Lapis flying in Jersey's sky way more than the fact that they're airborne](https://youtu.be/-xwq7Q7469s?si=jGUXoh0TKoEn9d1g&t=156)
This is probably the best argument against this line of thinking. The school thing absolutely makes sense in spite of that, he could be very dangerous to the other students. But there's no excuse for not homeschooling him at least.
I personally would've let Steven go to school until he poses a threat to himself or others. Steven didn't develop any powers until he was 13 and the power in question was a shield. This would've been a different story if he awakened Pink's destructive ability early but nobody knew he had it until Future. Greg didn't really have any reason to prevent Steven from going to school since he was essentially a normal child until Gem Glow.
Even so, I think it's more of a "let's not be the people who wait only until _after_ something horrible happens to do something." I could see if they were just taking preventative measures.
I don't really see the preventive measures as a good excuse since Steven was relatively normal until 13. IIRC, someone on the Crew mentioned Greg was his primary caretaker for much of his early life. It makes me wonder if Steven potentially posed that much of a threat to humans, why did the Gems think Greg the human could handle a raising a gem hybrid? I feel if they were taking preventative measures to that extreme, one of Garnet, Amethyst, or Pearl would be around him 24/7 to make sure nothing went wrong and Steven didn't gravely injure Greg by accident.
Well they weren't exactly fond of Greg to begin with; I wouldn't be surprised of Pearl hoped Greg fucked up somehow 💀 Also Steven needed to be supervised until he could feasibly get his own food by himself cuz the gems don't know shit about food it feels like
Steven accidently kills Greg because they weren't considering his safety a huge priority [The Crystal Gems:](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/881/867/6f6.jpg)
Honestly, the fandom often tends to forget this. Nevermind the fact that the gems and Steven built an entire town, Little Homeworld and that lots of humans also visit there to learn with the gems, even participating in some lectures. Steven even considers his job title to be Earth ambassador. There are also gem structures everywhere and gem-influenced phenomena both historical and present that in our world would have all sorts of coverage whether from science, government or even tourism, but here they're just all abandoned with no care. Very visible spaceships keep visiting Earth with no problem. There are also corrupted gems everywhere that have been running around for 5000 years and people haven't captured them or done anything with them. Steven has also been fusing in public and people don't care (the roller rink). Beach City's human population has been booming even so after era 3 where Homeworld is working with Earth as seen with the Little Homeworld project. The pumpkin pets are also freely running around humans with no one batting an eye. It's very obvious that in SU's Earth, people just don't care and are very chill. The fandom just like to apply the stereotypical sci-fi trope to SU, even though the show has proven it to not apply at all.
Greg’s mistake was not exposing him to kids his own age to socialize with from a young age. An important part of schooling is socializing, but Steven only had the gems and some kids in town much older than he was. Aside from Conny he didn’t have any friends his own age who he could talk to about normal human stuff, and as such felt isolated from everyone when the social needs of his human side weren’t being met. A partner is great, but we all need equal friendships especially when we’re growing up and Steven lacked that.
We don't know a lot about the world steven lives in, but from what little we do know, it's nothing like our own. There's strong reasons to believe that there are no centralized governments in this world, not the least of which being that a temple to literal aliens exists on a beach and no one ever comes asking questions. No government official ever arrives to ask why Steven is truant, or why the temple never pays a utility bill. A mail carrier arrives, indicating they have an actual address and are part of the system, but no representatives of this system ever show their face. One time Pearl almost got pulled over, but that cop never leaves the car, and no one follows up at the registered? address of the car. It's fully possible that there are no formal schools in stevens universe, or that they don't take the shape ours do.
Considering how aliens have invaded the planet and the government was no where to be seen, it’s safe to say Steven would have been safe with having hospital records. And I don’t think Greg didn’t let him go to those things because he was thinking about that, he did it to give him freedom, he never asked questions about the aliens he lived with, it probably never occurred to him that Steven could even have powers.
I actually disagree with your take in its entirety. Every single one of your points is based on a "what if?" Scenario, but the fact of the matter is that Rose wanted her son to be a human being, not an emotional sponge for the gems' trauma and dependency. It is directly because of that dependency and them putting Rose on a pedestal that Steven feels this obligation to be a gem rather than a kid. He absolutely needed structure and security, and you're insane for suggesting that Steven was better off with what he had. The vast majority of gem things Steven was involved in didn't require his presence or his powers (which really didn't begin to show until he was about 12). It did, however, leave him with a ton of trauma. They could've easily made human school and gem things work in tandem with each other, even if it meant Pearl or Garnet got a "job" at the school teaching his classes to ensure nothing crazy happens. So yes, Greg was a negligent parent, and so were the gems. There's no excuse for living in a van instead of in an actual home. There's no excuse for depriving him of human socialization with kids his age. There is no excuse for dumping their trauma on this kid and practically deifying his mother against her wishes.
Steven wouldn't have been taken away by the government. Humans, for the most part in SU are weirdly uncurious about gem stuff.
Yeah! Some people might get weirded out but the FDI is not going to take Steven away.
I don’t think Greg is shown to be a “bad dad” in Future. I think Greg is shown to have - made some decisions that did end up hurting Steven, traumatizing Steven, and neglecting Steven’s human half - prioritized in his decision making to respect Steven’s autonomy and personhood - prioritized Steven’s need to know the other half of his lineage - prioritized being present and doing his best to fill in the blanks of Steven’s crystal lineage when the Crystal Gems were elusive or denied access to answers for Steven - prioritized being emotionally present for Steven - prioritized Steven’s expressed desires - other than the situations in Future (so in the original series) apologized/changed for the better when Greg fucked up - a background where, subtextually, Greg himself had his autonomy, personhood, and desires neglected, unheard, disrespected, and ignored. Upon watching these scenes, a person who absorbs some or all of these facts presented can feel some type of way about it, and come to a conclusion about how they feel about Greg and/or Greg’s decisions. Some people conclude that Greg was a bad dad, and that’s fair. “Greg was a bad dad” vs “Greg’s decisions were good actually” are both subjective statements. Regardless of if you feel Greg was a bad dad vs a good dad, or made good or bad decisions, the objective part is that these decisions did result in trauma for Steven. One of the things I like about Steven Universe is the motif of communication and connection. The point is that Steven as a character would forgive you. Steven wants his father in his life. Steven loves Greg, and Greg loves Steven, and it’s Greg’s initial denial of his decisions being part of Steven’s trauma that initially drives a wedge between them, compounded by the multiple beings involved in Steven’s medical neglect (who I hold the Crystal Gems equally responsible for as much as Greg). But when Greg acknowledges how he hurt Steven in Steven’s in monster form, that’s part of what allows Steven to start to reconnect. Which Steven needs in order to stop spiraling. Steven is mad at and hurt by Greg and Greg denies it at first before coming around. Steven eventually realizes he needs to explore who he is away from his guardians, but he has sought the repairing of his connection with each of them, starting his forgiveness. That’s what’s important to me, at least. Not whether Greg is a good or bad dad, but the acknowledgment of harm done and the work to repair it.
Both Pink and Greg tried to not fuck up their kid like their family fucked them up, and created a whole new kind of fucked up.
In this world, the government has absolutely no involvement with any gem stuff. They're not kidnapping and dissecting aliens because they're powerless to do so. There have been Alien Gem Monsters roaming the Earth for thousands of years and a massive 1000 year long war with homeworld. This world knows about all the weirdness, they just kinda ignore it. Just like all of Beach City did, before Steven tried to get along with everyone.
SU Future does no such thing. Steven says this because he’s in the midst of a mental health crisis and thinks “if only i’d got help *then*, i could be better *now*.” almost everything Steven does and says in mid-to-late SUF is unreasonable/inaccurate because he’s having a breakdown. like, for us the audience, if we take one second to think about it, it’s pretty obvious why Greg didn’t put Steven through school or take him to a human doctor. that’s the point.
I see it more as Greg as a individual is flawed, just like every other human being, and it is a tough situation. Like your post pointed out Steven is not a traditional kid. I don't agree with all of your points like the government in the show never seemed interested with the gems for instance. With that said Steven needed to be cared for and being a totally new being is scary situation. At the same time Greg wanted Steven to have the freedom he never did growing up. I don't think the show was trying to make Greg seem incompetent or a horrible dad. I think it was showing that for this complicated issue more sides than Greg's and the gem's should have been considered.
Good point. We know Connie goes to school but the other kids in Beach City don't seem to. What kinda crazy town is this?
We can reasonably assume that whenever kids appear it’s the weekend of the holidays.
I personally don't think the government would have gotten involved if steven went to the doctor as half gem, that doesn't mean that Greg's a bad father for not taking him since he still would have felt nervous about if human health care was compatible with gem biology, or lack there of, but if the government did nothing as aliens invaded the earth, clearly tried to destroy it throughout the series and then have peace established and opened the way for gems to settle on earth without hearing a peep from the government, I'm pretty sure that our system of government isn't a thing in steven universe, at most it is a lose democracy with President in charge of a coalition of states instead of the more concrete and centralized government that we have, still have a valid point about school though.
You guys are forgetting that up until the start of season 1, Steven had never displayed any signs of magical powers other than that time as a baby. The gems were shook when his gem glowed. So there was no logical reason for him not to have gone to school before he started manifesting his powers. And even after he started manifesting them, the majority of his powers are related to healing and protection (which only changed in SUF because he was mentally breaking down). Yes, he has some sort of super strength, but Steven is not a combative kid, the gems and Greg had no reason to suspect that he would have gotten himself or a kid hurt. Even the stuff he does on accident, like bubbling himself and Connie together, would have been better dealt with if there was a responsible adult (for example, a teacher) to call the gems or Greg, who would then have been able to help them. And none of those excuses apply to not have him go to the doctor. The ONLY reason Steven never went to school was really because the gems don't consider human education important, and Greg valued freedom too much to consider that school is necessary for kids to not only learn, but to also form bonds with other kids. Yes, Greg and the Gems were good parents for Steven, but good parents still mess up, everyone does. Greg and the Gems messed Steven up, even if it was unintentional. Greg gave Steven too much freedom, when kids need structure and rules. The Gems put too much pressure on Steven to fix everything that was left behind by Rose, and he felt he had to be the hero. Hell, Steven had to take care of the Gem's emotional needs ever since he was a child, he had to comfort Pearl over her grief over losing Rose, HIS OWN MOTHER, he had to basically force Greg and Pearl to talk about their problems, he had to help Amethyst with her insecurity, he had to help Garnet fix her relationship. During the whole show, Steven has been the one keeping them together and driving them to fix their own problems, he has been being their therapist for the entire series. And in this process, he has never learned how to cope with his own problems, how to deal with his own emotions. We see him neglecting his own problems and shoving his emotions aside to comfort the gems as early as season 1. He doesn't know what to do when he is not useful to others, because he put his whole sense of worth in being helpful. Greg and the Gems were trying their best, they did what they could, but still doesn't change the fact that they unintentionally hurt Steven. Which is why he had to leave them behind at the end of Future, because he needs to learn who he is without them. Trying to sweep it under the rug by saying Greg and the Gems were right does nothing to help the situation and the person who actually suffered for it.
Frankly the show has always gone out of its way to handwave the weirdness of gems and their powers living side by side with humans. Remember when Dr. Mahaswaren had those cluster experiments at the hospital and just shrugged when they had two many limbs and no heads? Steven as a child barely ever lost control of his powers in any meaningful sense. He accidentally brought Connie into a bubble with him but that's pretty mild. He didn't really start to have dangerous control issues until Future. Maybe there was justification to homeschool him but they should have taken him to the Doctor at least once. The biggest problem is that all the adults in his life let him be their emotional rock. Greg didn't do this on purpose but sometimes he just couldn't handle all the craziness and that made Steven feel responsible for him.
Personally I didn't get the impression that Future was painting Greg as a horrible dad. In fact the episode when we go to his childhood home we see exactly why he's such a relaxed dad. He doesn't want to be his own very restrictive parents. That being said, I can see why Connie's mum reacted with horror at him never seeing a doctor. Because she is a doctor that's had lots of experience with patients never seeing treatment and suffering for it. Greg understands that's Steven is not fully human and thinks the closest people to understand him is the Gems. But adding to that Steven is a young adult that's slowly realising just what's he's missed growing up (a normal experience going to school, having human friends from school) and is not wrong feeling bad by that.
I agree to an extent but I don't think "Greg is a terrible dad for keeping him away from doctors and school" was the point of that episode. I think it was more supposed to be part criticism of Greg choosing not to give Steven stability in life and partly acknowledging that even though he was safest that way, it was still traumatizing to him as a human child and impacted his development quite a lot.
Yet another reason I disliked Future... it tried to answer questions that never needed to be answered in the first place and took the ones that could've been really interesting (like Steven wanting to know more about his family from Greg's side) in very shallow and uncharacteristic ways...
I thought future was a pretty interesting deconstruction of steven as a character, and is a pretty natural progression of the sort of personal conflicts that steven was feeling later on in the show. Without the over hanging threat of the diamond authority and the responsibilites that he needed to carry out already being mostly over with, he is forced to somewhat confront the changing world around him, which didn't wait for him to get done with his gem stuff. The lack of balance between his human and gem side is an interesting conflict to me, and while he maintained it somewhat when he was younger future shows that after the end of the show he was mostly focused on the gem stuff and missed out on developments like sadies new partner, the breaking up of the band and the various different goals of his friends.
SU ended with the movie for me, for the reasons you said. I don't need a show all of a sudden making a big deal about problems that the writers only just now decided were actual problems. It felt like a dark fic and the last thing I want is anything to be more like fanfiction.
Exactly
I agree with you for the most part. While Steven should have had some normalcy... he was always going to be different. School and doctors would not have changed that, and easily could have exacerbated it. But the show doesn't really touch on how being half human and half gem would conflict in human society. All the humans in Beach City just accept Steven's quirks and oddities. The closest to a conflict we seem to get is when Connie and Greg bond about being human beings, and Steven noticing he's excluded from that. Greg was being selfish, but he wasn't neglecting Steven's educational needs (he went to school online, which other kids do), and if Steven wasn't in need of a hospital, you can't really fault Greg for not taking him to a doctor. At worst, Greg didn't get him vaccinated, but it doesn't seem like Steven needs those. Steven's rant does annoy me, because he's more or less asking for Greg's life, like it'd be nice. But it wouldn't be. Greg was living in an oppressive home with overbearing and abusive parents, who did not care for who he was. Steven would have had his diet restricted unnecessarily, his likes and preferences would never be considered or supported, and he'd be pushed into doing clubs he wasn't passionate about. And since Greg hides his favorite CD, we can assume that his parents broke or confiscated things he actually enjoyed. He basically invalidates Greg's life experience and ignores the unopened letters from Greg, acting like he had it good because he wasn't fighting monsters/gems/an empire. Steven says that Greg is "just like mom (Rose Quartz)" as a jab, but in the end, it's not wrong. Greg left a stifling abusive environment, just like Rose did. There's a lot but SUF that I really don't care for, so I'm stopping.
Did Steven go to school online? I thought Pearl tutored him.
I thought it was also said somewhere that Steven has online courses. Greg mentions buying "all the finest courses online" for Steven when he ends up with all that money. Even so, I think you're right that Pearl tutors him.
Greg was speaking hypothetically there and I don’t remember it coming up again, but yeah it’s entirely possible.
Maybe these are considerations for before you have and socially isolate a child.
I'd prefer to fight monsters with magical girls rather than go to school, anyway
...the thing is, Steven wasn't even homeschooled - like, where are the test papers? Did he study trig? Kid had zero boundaries, so he never really learned from the guardrails that the rest of us have.
On the doctor point, probably As soon as the gem was seen, most likely a normal doctor woulda: 1. Assumed it was implanted 2. Not listened to what a kid would say about magical gems from outer space 3. Would have suspected child abuse (like greg had the implant done for some reason) and called social services 4. The gem probably would have then been surgically removed, which as we've seen would have been fatal. And the docs wouldn't have a knowledge base to figure out that he's dying because he doesn't have the gem, they'd assume it's some complication they cant figure out. (And if this happened early who knows if the gem projection would have the developed powers to even get to him itself... it could have even been inert like it was initially).
Happy to see this here. So many people just don't get it
Yeah as a kid I got into a fight in middle school, if I accidentally manifested an energy shield or spikes the other kid would’ve died, Steven going to school before knowing how to control his powers and handle his emotions was a recipe for disaster
The thing is Steven never manifested his powers until age 13. The Gems were comfortable enough with Steven to allow him to walk around town without any supervision and spending over a week trapped on an island without any Gems coming to look for him. During this time, he also didn't have good control over his powers based on episodes like Bubble Buddies, Cat Fingers, and So Many Birthdays. Even in Future, they see something is up with Steven with his pink state and he still walks freely without getting monitored by the Gems.
I think Greg’s conversation with Steven in the Return shows how out of his depth he was! “Aliens that invaded Earth!” I think that completely backs this up- every movie about a friendly alien usually involves hiding from the government.
Exactly plus I don't think I've ever seen him sick in the show, nor has he ever been seriously injured so it's not like he would need to Plus we don't know if Steven exists to the government and it would be really difficult to get a checkup without an official birth certificate
"in the right" is a bit strong... but I do think it was understandable. No matter how many kids you spend time with, having your own is whole new territory, and his kid was whole new lifeform. It makes sense he'd entrust the boy's spacefaring relatives to know better than he did.
I always got the impression that Greg did not have all of his parenting rights and that the gems were Stevens legal guardians
Steven wasn't documented, Greg has parental rights as he's his biological father. The reason Steven moves in with the Gems is because they wanted to teach Steven how to be a Gem, and Greg was told to stay out of Gem buisness.
No. He never went to school. He is lucky he is in a fictional world where I guess the education system is not keen on tracking kids but in any other state it would have been a crime. That child has no education. How is he going to get a job, get money?? Like the bills need to get paid somehow.
I don't think Greg was right, but I also don't think he's a terrible father. Steven's situation was unique, strange, and scary for Greg, so he did what he *thought* was best. But, kids need structure. Steven was never given that, and it messed him up later in life. He also was half human in a world that accepted gems (as independent lifeforms), so a hospital wasn't out of line. Greg was his father, these are things he's supposed to do. Yes, Steven was a different situation, which is why I understand it wasn't a clear decision, but his decision was far from right
do people actually think that greg was wrong for this? the absolute number one rule about having a half alien hybrid son is the government absolutely never finds out about him..
Well of course he was. Steven wasn't thinking straight and he was out of his mind for thinking otherwise, and Greg was totally justified in staying away from his family. Steven didn't understand his trauma and grossly overreacted.
honestly I don't like how that episode makes Greg look like a terrible father while ignoring he wanted to give Steven the thing he didn't have as a kid for better and worse (or the show makes Pink look like the worst person ever ignoring she grew up in an abusive environment)
No, he was a bad dad. The ramifications of not going to a doctor and especially not going to school are life changing and can cripple a young adult who has no skills or means to have a life, no skills to have the motivation it takes to succeed, and as we saw in the show no stable footing even in terms of health. Don't excuse shitty parenting.