friendbotbeeps:

Also can we talk about the, frankly, haunting display of PTSD in both Lapis and Pearl?

Lapis knows logically that she’s hurting hurself by constantly running away from the home and the family she has, but she’s plagued by the war and the fear that she’s going to be imprisoned again, so she destroys any chance for happiness before it can be taken away. She KNOWS she does this and it frustrates her that she can’t simply get over it like the others seemingly have.

Pearl has literally compartmentalized her own mind and shoved horrific war flashbacks into the depths of her mind so she can deal with responsibilities left to her. She blames HERSELF for the result of the Diamonds’ attack. She rebelled and her friends—THOUSANDS of them—payed the price. She even remarks the battlefield as “where I lost everything.”

I’m consistently blown away by how Steven Universe manages to do so much with the minimal screen time it gets. Nothing’s perfect, but the balance between the very real and tangible heavy moments and the fun and fantastical world-building is just…really nice.