I've made something of a rule for myself when it comes to non-videogame media: Never get into ongoing series. While I've never experienced such a thing personally, reading horror stories like Game of Thrones S8 and Usagi Drop has made me determined that I will not get punked by the next disaster at that scale. The only exception is Dragon Ball because 1) I've been reading/watching the series since childhood and 2) By its nature it has like 5 different alternate endpoints in case of catastrophe
I followed Steven Universe from 2015 onwards and I adored it sooo much. Like I did fanart, was in all the communities, was super excited for every episode release, made fan theories (bunch of em were actually proven right, which made me quite proud) and I even loved the in-universe websites and tumblr pages that the creators of the show made
I was sooo dissapointed by the ending. It made me reflect on the rest of the show and realized how much of it had the message of "everyone is redeemable and nobody is evil", which is... really dumb. I hated how there were these stupid plotlines from season 4 that detracted from the entire course of the show, fr there was a whole season where nothing of value happened. And I just don't understand why the started to have the city the show plays in be a dynamic and changing setpiece IN SEASON 5, not in the 4 seasons before. And I always disliked how everytime two people of the same gender spent together, they were gay. Like I get it, the show was made for the rights of LGBT people, but they basically had no straight friendships in the show
That said however, I have zero regrets about following the show. Even if I was dissapointed by the end, it won't take away from the years of fun and wonder I had with this show and with the community. I guess the journey is what matters to me, you know? The summer of 2016 was a pretty magical time for me, and a large reason for it was the release of SU's third season, which, even in retrospect, was really damn good. And so varied, you had one episode that was basically Inital D, and the next episode was about pizza, and the episode after that was about letting go of your anger towards someone you were projecting on. Every day I came back from work or school, I ate my dinner and watched a new episode, it was... really nice. Kinda magical in a way, no joke
And I honestly really liked the sequel show, despite it being received rather negatively, because I was able to related very deeply with the development that Steven took throughout. He was 16 in this sequel series, and he was fr just like me at that age. The credits song of that show, Being Human, is one of the very, very few pieces of art that can make me genuinenly cry
So I can't really fully agree there with you. I think following something whilst it's being released has a certain magic to it, that I can appreciate even if the final result is dissapointing
