In the thirty-sixth episode of the first season of\u00c2\u00a0Steven Universe<\/i>, this is your fault. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Steven Universe<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of gaslighting<\/b>.<\/p>\n
So, because this episode has ruined my very existence, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to split it up into two parts to address the two major things I got out of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Warp Tour.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d One of those is not me telling stories about going to the Warped Tour growing up, though\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m tempted. That tour used to mean a lot to me until my music tastes stopped aligning with the kind of bands they hosted.<\/p>\n
Anyway, another time!<\/p>\n
Mother Knows Best<\/b><\/p>\n
This episode has now provided me with a fantastic example of how parents can and often do gaslight their own children. Not only that, but it demonstrates just how confusing and detrimental that behavior is! I say this as someone who was gaslight by their mother for well over a decade about practically everything in their life, so much so that it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until I started comparing memories with my brother in my 20s. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I came to understand just how badly my mother had convinced me that her perception of the world was correct.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not setting this up to make the same accusation of Pearl because what she does here is\u00c2\u00a0nowhere<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0near the same level that I was subjected to. Her gaslighting of Steven is much more casual, and she does it out of her perceived superior knowledge. Obviously, she knows way more about the Gems and Gem science than Steven does. No one questions that! But as soon as Steven presents her with an experience that does not fit her view of the world. Initially, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not really a cruel thing; Steven has a\u00c2\u00a0very<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0active imagination, and it was possible that he\u00c2\u00a0might<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0have seen something that was nothing.<\/p>\n
The problem is that as Steven asserts his experience more and more, Pearl stops saying that\u00c2\u00a0maybe<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0he imagined it and moves to, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You definitely imagined it and I know what you saw.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Which is downright impossible! You can never\u00c2\u00a0know\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>what a person saw or experienced, not in the sense that Pearl describes. It made me sad to see how Steven reacted to this, too! He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sleep, then he tried to stay up all night to guard the warp pad from whatever he saw in that other stream. The show even depicts the redness around and in his eyes from sleep deprivation! He was\u00c2\u00a0fucked up<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0by this experience. And look, I was gonna say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sorry for getting so serious here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but you know what?\u00c2\u00a0Steven Universe<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0might be a silly, animated show, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brought up a ton of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153serious\u00e2\u20ac\u009d issues along the way. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S FAIR GAME.<\/p>\n
And the reason I want to talk about this is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to assume that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a physical side effect of something like gaslighting, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely not true. This shit\u00c2\u00a0hurts<\/i>, and it can often cause paranoia and anxiety, which also can manifest in VERY physical ways. STEVEN STOPPED SLEEPING BECAUSE HE WAS SO SCARED. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that Garnet not only believed Steven, but told him that she was sorry for not believing him in the first place. That is so important, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! Steven just wanted to be believed, and if someone had just stuck their head outside the warp stream, they would have seen the other streams forming.<\/p>\n
Peridot<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what to say because I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T REALLY EVEN KNOW WHAT I JUST SAW. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get such a huge update in this show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mythology, and I CERTAINLY DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T THINK I WOULD GET ONE THAT WOULD BE SO UPSETTING. Just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what the fuck??? WHY DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T THE GEMS WANT TO GO TO THE HOMEWORLD? I thought Pearl longed for the day when all the warp pads would work! Peridot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s robo thingies (Did they say the name??? I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rememeber!) could have provided her with that.<\/p>\n
Instead, as Steven discovers what he saw in the other stream and the whole team finds out that someone from the Gem homeworld has made it to Earth, they all hide\u00c2\u00a0in fear<\/i>. Why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they rush out to greet one of their fellow Gems???<\/p>\n
This episode changes my whole perception of\u00c2\u00a0Steven Universe<\/i>, and goddamn, that is a\u00c2\u00a0bold<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0thing to do. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even that the Crystal Gems have been lying so much as they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been concealing a\u00c2\u00a0huge<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0part of their history from Steven. There has to be a reason they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on Earth, there has to be reason why there are so many Gems corrupted and left behind, and there has to be a reason that Garnet would smash the newly-repaired warp pad to prevent any more Gems like Peridot from coming to Earth.<\/p>\n
I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET IT. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SCARED.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Warp Tour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a>! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards. I POST A LOT OF CUTE PHOTOS, OKAY. Think of it like a private Tumblr blog that only SPECIAL PEOPLE get to read.<\/b> In the thirty-sixth episode of the first season of\u00c2\u00a0Steven Universe, this is your fault. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Steven Universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[665],"tags":[666],"class_list":["post-5981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steven-universe","tag-mark-watches-steven-universe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I have updated my list of conventions and events for the remainder of the year and much of next year.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches have been announced here.<\/a>
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"