Quick-cap!: Steven finally finishes Connie’s favorite series of fantasy novels (a little bit of Tamora Pierce, a little bit of Harry Potter, a lot of His Dark Materials), and learns that Connie hated the ending (wherein the witch hero got married to her falcon familiar-turned-human). Trying to cheer her up, Steven takes her to his mother’s room to make up a new one – you know, the one where he can conjure anything he wishes for out of clouds? Connie goes to pick the perfect costume for the new ending, but Steven’s impatient wish to see her ends up creating a fake Connie, who goes from overly agreeable blank slate to real threat when Steven tells her to stop doing everything he says. The fake Connie turns on him, demanding he reveal his true feelings: that he really liked the ending after all.

And now, an Important Episode about how to be in fandom with your friends. No really, I’m not being glib. I genuinely can’t remember seeing another cartoon approach the concept of how kids interact with stories and each other in such a thoughtful way, and it’s never been more obvious that the majority of the SU crew both have Tumblrs and are quite familiar with how impassioned fandom conversations go down. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen something like Steven and Connie’s conversation: one party just sort of gets sucked into the emotional tidal wave of something, the other person looks at it more critically, and because the first person is inexperienced at both acknowledging what they feel are valid critiques while also embracing the things they liked, they sort of clam up and go with the wholly negative interpretation (this also works the other way, where the former party might start yelling at the critical viewer about how everything they say is terrible and wrong and makes them a bad fan, but luckily Steven is an inherently empathetic soul).

This kind of thing comes up all the time, and navigating the balance between loving something and being able to admit its flaws is something one never really stops grappling with. It makes it all the sweeter that the script comes down so neatly in the middle: Connie doesn’t have to learn to “stop overthinking” the books she likes, Steven gets to go on feeling gooey and elated over his ship becoming canon, and they both still love the books together. But they can also have a calm, friendly disagreement about it, and admit that the other side has a point about their respective opinions. In the modern internet battleground where everything is an all or nothing fight (I love you, Tumblr, but good lord), it’s not just unique but heartening to see this as an example for young fans to look to (and a tip of my hat in flipping the gendered expectations of fan focus, with Connie on the themes/political intrigue and Steven the character-oriented shipper).

The episode even takes an opportunity to have some gentle fun with the concept of fan complaints before the reveal of fake Connie: pointing out the flaws in nebulous things like theme or representation are important things to do, but they can also be harder to figure out how to fix; and there’s a certain familiarity in Steven gamely asking what he should do to go in a new direction with the story only to be met with a demanding but blank “what do you think?” It’s a strange divide we’ve all done, to point out flaws specifically but also to feel, deep in our guts, that a simple “fix it” will put our beloved creator back on the right path.

As for the script, the central conflict does some real fancy footwork with Steven and Connie’s relationship. It’s pretty obvious to one and all that they have warm and fuzzy feelings about each other (not least because of their success as Stevonnie), but they’re also kids – it’s more than okay for their relationship to just be a sort of amorphous, affectionate thing without the implicit pressure of acting out adult roles as “boyfriend/girlfriend/partners” (because this show sees your gender binaries, and takes the time to lovingly kick them in the nose as often as possible). When fake Connie’s speech switches from implicit “tell her you liiiiike her” to “tell her you liked the ending,” it doesn’t feel cheap: strong, close relationships require feeling safe to be honest with one another, after all. The move still strengthens their bond and makes them closer, without making it about some kind of supposedly “magic” words (I’m fairly certain there’s an anime reference in all this supposed “ideal” fantasy girl vs real girl thing, but my brain kept fixating unhelpfully on Silent Hill 2 – though it was awake enough to point out that Princess Serenity-esque wedding gown). It’s a nice meta tie-in with Steven and Connie’s disagreement over the subtle buildup of the Lisa/Archemicarus relationship too (please know I thought of your Rose/Pearl debate during Connie’s “I guess you could read it that way,” commenter nation).

Fake Connie (which, by the way, way to subtly foreshadow by giving her an uncharacteristic pink cloak when Connie’s almost always in blues/greens, designers), actually, is something of a horrifying creation. Her sudden anguish at being Kirk’d into an impossible logic loop isn’t played for a scrap of laughter or any relief on Steven’s part, and only gets worse when Steven hurriedly tries to wish away (not that you can blame the poor kid) the little bit of sentience he’s seemingly created. If that kind of effect can be created accidentally, imagine what the room could do under the guidance of the Gem who created it. In fact, there’s something of an ominous undercurrent to Rose’s room as a whole, given what we’ve learned in the last few weeks of episodes. There’s Rose the loving caretaker in that cute cloud whale, but there’s Rose the war hero and master strategist lurking around those limitless creative possibilities as well. Which, by the way, at this rate Rose is proving to have a Xanatos-like skill at planning for future events. First there was Lion and his limitless storage space, and now her room seems designed to intuit Steven’s skill level and respond to it: the first time he got stuck in a basically harmless (if Paranoia Agent levels of eerie) space until he was able to clearly articulate what the room wanted, and this time it provided just the right threat level to teach him the desired lesson (after which fake Connie promptly disappears). How deep does this rabbit hole go, exactly?

On the subject of Rose, contingency plans, and things I forgot to mention in the last post: it seems that Gem tech is modeled on the humanoid form, if Peridot’s ship is anything to go by (and I’m doubly sure there’s another hand if not a whole body mothership out there). So hey, how about that broken goddess statue that forms the backbone of the cliff, huh? Also possibly relevant: the complete absence of any of the Gems, even in the episode’s bookends.

Next episode is called “Joy Ride,” and the six second preview thus far released tells me a grand total of nothing. But I look forward to watching it with all of you.

Vrai is a queer author and pop culture blogger; they’ve been a day late and a kidney short ever since the rent went up. You can read more essays and find out about their fiction at Fashionable Tinfoil Accessories.

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