war and glory.

when i first started watching this show, i connected with pearl pretty deeply. i was someone who was, in many ways, defining myself by my devotion to and ability to care for someone else. i was bottling up my emotions, crying when nobody could see me and pretending to be okay the rest of the time. i was sacrificing my own wellbeing in favor of those around me and i didn’t know how to stop. i was (and still am) deeply afraid of causing conflict with the people i love, afraid of doing anything to earn their disapproval; i would rather hide things than risk confrontation. i was fragile and i really needed to see my struggles reflected somewhere and i saw them in pearl.

and pearl gets hate, and pearl gets criticism, and pearl is abrasive and pearl is flawed but she’s also trying, always, and seeing her improve, and seeing other characters praise her for trying, meant a lot to me. her character growth has always been deeply personal to me.

and i couldn’t have predicted back when i first started watching how some other aspects of the show would affect me too. the queer representation has always been important to me -- there have been a lot of moments where i’ve cried out of sheer disbelief and gratitude that i’m seeing queer relationships represented so openly in a children’s show, because that never happened when i was a kid. 

but since i started watching i’ve also realized that i’m nonbinary, and gone through a whole other set of struggles with regards to that that i hadn’t experienced with the other queer aspects of my identity. and when i started watching, i could never have known how hard hearing blue say “she prefers to be called steven” in this episode would hit me, or how much i’d cry hearing steven sing, “you don’t have to respect me because i respect me, you don’t have to love me because i love me, but you could know me.” the metaphors for trans support and acceptance in this show mean so much to me now, just as having a character whose flaws i related to meant so much to me then.