🎤

You did it. You won the war. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ Everyone else go home, the discourse is over. Doesn’t matter if they were aliens, or if they love Steven and didn’t mean to neglect him emotionally and physically as a child. He’s still hurt.

Look. Steven being afraid of people leaving him because he doesn’t “know how to be a friend if there isn’t something to fix” directly correlates to needing to push himself to be stronger and a better Crystal Gem for the sole purpose of being able to hang out with them and not be left alone in the house for days at a time. Fight me. (ง’̀-‘́)ง

They need to take ownership. They are his guardians. Yes they love him, and no they shouldn’t be banished from his life, that’s the opposite of what he literally needs and wants but… They need to take ownership.

Yes! Everyone who’s angry that people are bashing the gems for saying they’re bad parents, and everyone who’s angry at the gems for being bad parents, listen up —

Even the best-meaning and most caring parents will make mistakes. And their children will be hurt by them. The best parents are those who recognize their mistakes early and apologize for them and seek to avoid repeating them. But even they will still make some.

Your parents can love you to pieces, to literally the moon and back, and still make grave errors that harm you in lasting ways. Your parents can make these mistakes and you are still allowed to love them even if they are not perfect. Even if you have hurt them too.

The Gems love Steven. The way they raised him has undeniably contributed to his current pain and mental illness. They didn’t invade Earth or make Rose’s mistakes or hurt Steven on Homeworld. But the way they raised him and cared for him made it more difficult for him to find his way through those traumas, and each of them also created trauma for Steven, accidentally, while trying to work through their own pain.

They love him. They’ve hurt him. Both things are true and they aren’t villains for it… they’re just people. And hopefully the show will allow them to apologize to Steven, to understand what he’s gone through, and to learn enough that they don’t make the same mistakes again.