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silveradeptIn your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
As it turns out, much of my new canon this year is everybody else's old canon. I've been introduced to Ladybug, The Dragon Prince, Hilda, and Steven Universe, among other things. And while there's a lot about Hilda that I really enjoy (the title cards on the episodes, along with the small musical cue that plays with them, reminds me a lot of Over The Garden Wall, and they're gorgeous, and I routinely think they're the artistically best part of the episode), if I were going to talk about Hilda, it would essentially be "you should watch it, go borrow a friend's Netflix login and binge away", and that's not really a piece of the canon.
So, instead, I'm going to talk about a small piece of Steven Universe. It contains a mild spoiler about the nature of a character, although that spoiler has been known for a few years at this point. So, under the cut it goes, just in case someone wants a clean viewing experience of the series.
So, from the episode "Mindful Education," here's AJ Michalka and Estelle singing "Here Comes A Thought." (The video's closed captioning is functional and accurate, so yay for accessibility.)
What makes this piece so appealing? First, it's a beautifully drawn representation of the process of meditation. Thoughts represented by butterflies (or moths, one of the two) and the idea in meditation being to let them pass by, but that's difficult for everyone involved. Garnet is a more experienced practitioner of the art (and of the art of being a fusion), but as this sequence makes clear, she's this way because her component parts, Ruby and Sapphire, balance each other pretty well. Ruby's the kind of Gem that chases a single thought incessantly and pours her emotion into it trying to get it to go away, or at least for her to feel less terrible about it, but feeding the thoughts doesn't make them go away, and a lot of the time, it only makes them worse. Sapphire, on the other hand, having been blessed with future vision, sees so many possibilities, many of them quite terrible, that it's hard for her to focus only on the things that she wants to have happen and to let the terrible things pass her by. Even though she's old, it's still a relatively new concept for her to take action to try and change the future, rather than just seeing it and reporting on it. Ruby needs Sapphire to help her see the bigger picture, Sapphire needs Ruby to commit to a course of action. Between the two of them and their loving presence for each other, Garnet is a much more balanced whole than either of her parts.
At this point in the series, Steven and Connie, as Stevonnie, are having trouble keeping themselves in balance. In the song, we see Connie agonizing over the fact that she did what a trained fighter is absolutely not supposed to do - she reacted and ended up breaking a kid's arm by flipping him over when he brushed into her. At this point, Connie has been training a lot to get up to fighting strength because she wants to help protect Steven (and the planet) from corrupted Gems and Homeworld invaders. Those sorts of things are do or die situations, and there's no doubt that Pearl has been impressing that on Connie as she's been training. Connie's horrified, though, that she reacted to another kid like he was a threat and feels terrible about it. She's Ruby here, chasing a single problem well past the point of being able to put it in perspective and utterly terrified that this act has shown that she's fundamentally not a nice person or a safe person to be around. (I might know a thing or two about that feeling, and for much less than what Connie did.)
Just past this part of the episode, though, we get a glimpse into Steven's mind, and the guilt he's feeling about not being able to produce happy nonviolent ends to some of his more recent conflicts - Jasper falling to gem corruption, Bismuth having to get poofed again because of a difference of methods of war, and the burden that Steven is beginning to feel about how everyone still sees his mother when they look at him, and the possibility that they might have been much happier had she decided not to transform into him. It's not seeing multiples of the future, but instead trying to map out of there were some other way in the past that could have had a more satisfactory result. (Also a feeling I'm familiar with, for lower stakes, of course, than the fate of the planet and your friends.) What destabilizes the fusion for them is the same thing that would tear Ruby and Sapphire away from Garnet - they're too wrapped up in themselves and their own thoughts to reach out and get help from others to bring them down to a manageable size and amount, and then to let them flutter on from their minds, instead of chasing them or feeling overwhelmed by them.
It's also a very catchy song about having friends who are there for you, even when you mess up, even when things get overwhelming, even when you're sure that you've failed to be charming and everyone hates you now. It's really easy to lose perspective on how terrible something actually is, and to go chasing things that are best left to themselves. It resonates with me on a deep, experiential level, and for that, I'm profoundly grateful that it is a thing that exists and that I have experienced. It may still not be easy to take a more detached perspective, as Garnet can, but it's nice when there's something in media where you can point to it and say "Yeah, this is basically a good representation of how my brain works when it's doing its best to remind me of how terrible I am, and what I might need to help me get out of that mood."
Take a moment and think of just / flexibility, love, and trust.
Take a moment to remind yourself.
Take a moment to find yourself.
As it turns out, much of my new canon this year is everybody else's old canon. I've been introduced to Ladybug, The Dragon Prince, Hilda, and Steven Universe, among other things. And while there's a lot about Hilda that I really enjoy (the title cards on the episodes, along with the small musical cue that plays with them, reminds me a lot of Over The Garden Wall, and they're gorgeous, and I routinely think they're the artistically best part of the episode), if I were going to talk about Hilda, it would essentially be "you should watch it, go borrow a friend's Netflix login and binge away", and that's not really a piece of the canon.
So, instead, I'm going to talk about a small piece of Steven Universe. It contains a mild spoiler about the nature of a character, although that spoiler has been known for a few years at this point. So, under the cut it goes, just in case someone wants a clean viewing experience of the series.
So, from the episode "Mindful Education," here's AJ Michalka and Estelle singing "Here Comes A Thought." (The video's closed captioning is functional and accurate, so yay for accessibility.)
What makes this piece so appealing? First, it's a beautifully drawn representation of the process of meditation. Thoughts represented by butterflies (or moths, one of the two) and the idea in meditation being to let them pass by, but that's difficult for everyone involved. Garnet is a more experienced practitioner of the art (and of the art of being a fusion), but as this sequence makes clear, she's this way because her component parts, Ruby and Sapphire, balance each other pretty well. Ruby's the kind of Gem that chases a single thought incessantly and pours her emotion into it trying to get it to go away, or at least for her to feel less terrible about it, but feeding the thoughts doesn't make them go away, and a lot of the time, it only makes them worse. Sapphire, on the other hand, having been blessed with future vision, sees so many possibilities, many of them quite terrible, that it's hard for her to focus only on the things that she wants to have happen and to let the terrible things pass her by. Even though she's old, it's still a relatively new concept for her to take action to try and change the future, rather than just seeing it and reporting on it. Ruby needs Sapphire to help her see the bigger picture, Sapphire needs Ruby to commit to a course of action. Between the two of them and their loving presence for each other, Garnet is a much more balanced whole than either of her parts.
At this point in the series, Steven and Connie, as Stevonnie, are having trouble keeping themselves in balance. In the song, we see Connie agonizing over the fact that she did what a trained fighter is absolutely not supposed to do - she reacted and ended up breaking a kid's arm by flipping him over when he brushed into her. At this point, Connie has been training a lot to get up to fighting strength because she wants to help protect Steven (and the planet) from corrupted Gems and Homeworld invaders. Those sorts of things are do or die situations, and there's no doubt that Pearl has been impressing that on Connie as she's been training. Connie's horrified, though, that she reacted to another kid like he was a threat and feels terrible about it. She's Ruby here, chasing a single problem well past the point of being able to put it in perspective and utterly terrified that this act has shown that she's fundamentally not a nice person or a safe person to be around. (I might know a thing or two about that feeling, and for much less than what Connie did.)
Just past this part of the episode, though, we get a glimpse into Steven's mind, and the guilt he's feeling about not being able to produce happy nonviolent ends to some of his more recent conflicts - Jasper falling to gem corruption, Bismuth having to get poofed again because of a difference of methods of war, and the burden that Steven is beginning to feel about how everyone still sees his mother when they look at him, and the possibility that they might have been much happier had she decided not to transform into him. It's not seeing multiples of the future, but instead trying to map out of there were some other way in the past that could have had a more satisfactory result. (Also a feeling I'm familiar with, for lower stakes, of course, than the fate of the planet and your friends.) What destabilizes the fusion for them is the same thing that would tear Ruby and Sapphire away from Garnet - they're too wrapped up in themselves and their own thoughts to reach out and get help from others to bring them down to a manageable size and amount, and then to let them flutter on from their minds, instead of chasing them or feeling overwhelmed by them.
It's also a very catchy song about having friends who are there for you, even when you mess up, even when things get overwhelming, even when you're sure that you've failed to be charming and everyone hates you now. It's really easy to lose perspective on how terrible something actually is, and to go chasing things that are best left to themselves. It resonates with me on a deep, experiential level, and for that, I'm profoundly grateful that it is a thing that exists and that I have experienced. It may still not be easy to take a more detached perspective, as Garnet can, but it's nice when there's something in media where you can point to it and say "Yeah, this is basically a good representation of how my brain works when it's doing its best to remind me of how terrible I am, and what I might need to help me get out of that mood."
Take a moment and think of just / flexibility, love, and trust.
Take a moment to remind yourself.
Take a moment to find yourself.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-03 06:21 pm (UTC)