Harmony

hey dude i think theres smth wrong with the stars

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Bulldog listening to the radio, 1922 

Because I study queer media history as a hobby, am working on an intense project on media censorship, and the way Steven Universe was treated is a fucking textbook example of queer content getting shut down by the powers-that-be.

It was literally censored in reaction to its inclusion of queer content. This isn't a secret and it never has been. Rebecca Sugar has been completely open about how hard they had to fight against homophobia at Cartoon Network. Steven Universe is a case study of anti-queer censorship from a mindset of "think of the children."

[ID: A screenshot of a comment from tumblr user mechfried, saying, "Wait, that isn't working out here, they wouldn't cancel the show for having a gay wedding, but than [sic] give the same creator a movie and a second show to continue that story." End ID.]

"Cancellation" doesn't just mean "immediately ended." Cancellations can include shortenings.

These photos are from the "End of an Era" artbook.

Transcript:

Rebecca Sugar: After the publication of The Answer in 2016, I was pulled into a meeting and asked to explain myself. I had been told to play down this relationship, and now it existed as a book. In every meeting like this, I would defend our stories and our audience of queer youth--they deserve cartoons and picture books, too. I would leave these meetings feeling rattled. I drew this self-portrait the night of The Answer book meeting. [Portrait not included in this photo.]

Transcription:

We decided it would be an inexorable part of the story. And then the back-and-forth started, and no one wanted to say the real concerns, so instead it was, "Will this appeal to our demographic of six-to-eleven-year-old boys?" But Ben 10 had an alien wedding, Powerpuff Girls had a wedding--there was no question that the Cartoon Network audience would definitely watch a wedding. Arguments were made that it was "out of character" for Steven to want a wedding, but we'd covered our bases there with the episode "Open Book" [S1E51], which had already aired ages ago. It's old news that Steven loves weddings. I wouldn't bend on the story, and every time there was a concern about it not being entertaining enough, I would add more: A big musical number! A huge fight! A half-hour special! This thing will be so entertaining it'll blow kids' hair back!

"But if Steven Universe gets a gay wedding, then every show is going to want a gay wedding!" "YES!" I said. "GOOD! WHY NOT???"

Eventually the decision came down from on high: We could have the wedding. I knew that was an extremely difficult call to make, and that we were going to be censored heavily and pulled in many countries because of it. And we didn't know at that time if this would mean the end of the show. It looked as if the writing was on the wall, and we were working toward the end.

I had been told this would be the final pickup for us, and I campaigned for an additional six episodes on the end of the season in order to wrap up the story--this became the Era 3 arc.

Navigating a cosmos of relationships was a lot for a young person like Steven as he attempted to find the good in everyone and hook that connection that would allow positive change to blossom in the minds of others. His powers were going to be put into the test in so many more ways as the series moved through this slate of episodes, building steam toward an interplanetary conflict.

The discourse is exactly why we Can’t Have Nice Things (tm). Queer creators out there are doing their best and being subverted by the powers that be, and viewers just... tear them apart over it. It’s not good enough. They should have done better. I don’t like the representation that was presented to me. I mean holy shit, Steven Universe was one of the queerest shows available at the time, and pioneered what was acceptable in children’s programming because of Rebecca Sugar. 

This isn’t saying there weren’t missteps! Of COURSE there were. There always will be, because nothing is fucking perfect! But boycotting the whole show over it and demonizing people who like it is just assery, pure and simple. 

テレビの中からの脱出 Escape From TV is a fun little Ringu inspired horror puzzle game where you help Sadako escape from a TV!

Space! ft. NASA

It was a big year in our part of the cosmos. We’ve invited our friends at @nasa​ to recap all the stunning scientific advances that gave us a deeper glimpse into the galaxy around us this year.

JWST Showed Us Space with New Eyes

In July 2022, we saw the first full-color images and data from the largest and most powerful space observatory ever made: the James Webb Space Telescope. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is speckled with glittering stars, and called the Cosmic Cliffs. It’s the edge of the star-birthing Carina Nebula. Usually, the early phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but the infrared Webb can peer through cosmic dust thanks to its extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI 

Artemis I Flew Us Beyond the Moon 

NASA’s most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), lifted off for the first time on November 16, 2022, launching the Orion spacecraft on a journey around the Moon. Orion has now traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth. The Artemis I mission is the first part of a new era of deep space exploration. The program is designed to take astronauts back to the Moon and eventually on to Mars.

Credit: NASA

This One’s for the Dinosaurs

NASA’s DART mission successfully redirected an asteroid—the first time humanity has ever changed the orbit of a celestial object in space. On Sept. 26, 2022, the vending-machine-size spacecraft slammed into the stadium-size asteroid Dimorphos, slightly shortening its orbit around its much larger companion asteroid Didymos. Neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth before or after the test. The objective was to test this “planetary defense” technique, should an asteroid ever pose a threat. Note: there are no known asteroid threats to Earth for at least the next 100 years, but NASA is keeping an eye on the skies, just in case.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL

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