stink filth

alivehouse

once i figure out how to do anatomy and facial expressions and proportion and foreshortening and basic perspective and color theory and composition then youll all be sorry

fencecollapsed

the way Steven Universe sticks hard to its Steven-only perspective can be frustrating, and I get why it's criticized, but the more I think about it the more that frustration feels intentional. the point of the show being structured that way IS to emphasize the frustration of a limited perspective where information is omitted until someone decides to tell you, or you personally seek it out.

so much of Steven Universe is about a child discovering firsthand that his guardians are complicated and flawed, and make huge mistakes and keep bombshell secrets, and having to deal with the fallout. sticking to Steven's perspective is vital to the impact of those events. we as the audience are meant to learn details as Steven learns them, to experience the drama and earth-shattering revelations through his eyes, because that's the point. it's not just about these things happening, it's about them happening specifically through the eyes of a child, and what that means for his relationships with the people involved. because children have limited perspective, and get lied to all the time. growing up often involves learning about major things in your life that were going on under your nose the whole time, that you didn't know about until someone decided to tell you. and it's frustrating! Steven's frustrated by his limited perspective too! it's not a meaningless oversight that the show is structured that way, it's part of the point. it's thematically relevant

headspace-hotel

orcinus-veterinarius

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

twilightofthesandwiches

So obviously this whole disaster is mostly Fionna's fault. She's the reason why they went specifically to this club and, most importantly, Cake's going Best Friend Duty Mode and giving Fionna an impromptu intervention in the bathroom is the main reason why she couldn't talk it out with M-Cron before he left (like, y'know 'yeah, this place isn't really my scene either, we can go somewhere else if you'd like!').

But this whole debacle is also interesting to look at from the perspective of Cake's own arc, about her struggles with her identity as a Cat. Much like Fionna has been struggling with trying to reaffirm to herself that she's not a 'loser' anymore, Cake also has a past-self she wants to distance herself from. Only in her case, the thing she wants to prove that she’s not anymore is less ‘human dumpster fire’ and more ‘literal house cat’.

It’s very understandable why she would like to distance herself from her non-magical self. Especially when you consider her struggles last season to assert that she is no longer a pet to Fionna and that this is the real her.

But there is maybe a level where her need to assert herself as a Real Adult Person is clashing with her genuine self-expressiveness. Because unlike Jake and the other talking animals of Ooo, Cake has no frame of reference for what it means to be both a Cat and a Person at the same time, and so the only ways she sees to reinforce her personhood and intelligence is to force herself into a Normal Human Mode (Well, a Normal Human with crazy superpowers).

A lot of the time it plays very explicitly as a metaphor to, like, a young adult forcing themselves to do Arbitrary Adult-Coded Things just to prove to others that they are an adult.

And, like, Cake pretty much got the idea for a dance club date before Fionna got there with her specific club they were specifically going to. She got it by thinking not about what she would like to go on a date or where M-Cron would like to go on a date… The only thing she could think of is “what is the thing I'm Supposed to do on a date?!”

Again, without having to take care of Fionna’s Bad Romantic Decision-Making, Cake would’ve been able to solve that problem face-to-face with M-Cron…. But that is still a problem that cropped up at least partially because Cake doesn’t know how to draw the line between asserting herself as a Person and asserting herself as ‘Normal’.