#she probably has a cluster a pd though

[imjustbaby]

I'm totally headcannoning Mutsumi to have DID. She's dissociating literally all the time, she has flashbacks, has issues with boundaries and codependency, she literally split and switched in Ave Mujica's performance, she has an emotionally neglectful family, and yeah. She has DID, she has a dissociative disorder. People think DID is just about the alters, but no it's not, it's about the dissociation. I will also say she probably has other comorbid disorders, such as social anxiety and selective mutism. She also has psychotic features, but I don't know enough about it to really determine which one it is.

[water-fan-art]

Jasper / Lapis swap (AU)

Since I’m not planning on making a fic, I thought I’d post some of my ideas:

War (Lapis):

Lapis was caught up in the middle of the war (like canon) but instead of being dissipated she joined the fight.

During the war higher officers took note of the fact that she was much stronger than the average Lapis, and post war assigned her to non-terraforming jobs.

War (Jasper):

There had been a tracking device planted on the back of Jasper’s gem after she was dissipated in battle one day- they did this because she seemed to be the most promising of her unit and wanted to test out the technology (which they later abandoned after era 1 ended).

Jasper was dissipated by a fusion during the war & put in the mirror - her gem wasn’t cracked during the retreat, but Pearl still put the mirror in her gem.

Mirror (Jasper):

Jasper reforming unknowingly set off the tracking device, making her gem traceable - Yellow Diamond ordered Peridot to go check it out since she already had Earth based missions, and asked Blue Diamond if she could assign Lapis to her Peridot - since Earth is mostly water, Lapis seemed like a good escort.

Jasper tries to attack Steven after he releases her from the mirror, but she collapses onto the beach before the Crystal Gems see that.

The Crystal Gems try to capture her but she spins off into the ocean (her eyes are still reflective like mirrors).

She figured she could hide until her strength came back, but doesn’t stray far from the temple - thinks it would be a good tactical advantage to observe them.

Hand ship:

When the ship lands on the beach, Jasper thinks Homeworld has returned to rescue her so that she can serve The Authority again- so she runs onto the beach.

Lapis think’s Jasper being happy to return to Homeworld is an act, and dissipates her with a Gem Destabiliser before using it on Garnet.

Lapis removed the tracking device when Jasper was inside her Gem. Jasper wasn’t happy to find herself reforming in a prison cell

Reforming fixed Jasper’s eyes - they were no longer permanently reflective (they can still go reflective when she zones out though).

Jasper kept trying to convince Lapis that she wasn’t a Crystal Gem, but Lapis didn’t believe her- only a handful of Crystal Gem’s managed to survive the war, so clearly Jasper was one of them. She tried to tell Lapis that she didn’t know Steven was Rose Quartz until she saw the shield on the beach.

Lapis says something along the lines of “Do you really think you would be believed back on Homeworld? You somehow scared tracking for thousands of years, and you were found with your Crystal Gems. You’re going to be interrogated and then Blue Diamond will shatter you!”

Jasper is okay with being shattered at the hands of a Diamond if that’s what they viewed as just, but she refused to accept shattering for being a traitor when she wasn’t one- she hated the Crystal Gems more than she hated Earth.

Beach / fusion:

Lapis’s gem cracks on impact from the ship hitting the beach- but like in canon, she is still in control over her form and part of her powers.

They can’t return to Homeworld because of the busted ship. Lapis cant fly back because of her cracked gem, so she proposes fusion to Jasper, telling her it’s the opportunity to prove she’s not a traitor.

Jasper agrees to fuse without hesitation.

Lapis evaluated Jasper as the strongest Crystal Gem and think’s she acts as the leader, so she believes if she takes her out of the picture (by fusing with her and keeping her bound to her underwater for months) then Peridot would be able to eliminate the rest of the Crystal Gems.

She thinks she is keeping herself safe, and protecting Homeworld from the Crystal Gems by holding Jasper prisoner.

The whole time they’re fused, Jasper tries to convince Lapis that she’s not a Crystal Gem- while they can feel each other’s emotions, Lapis isn’t sure if Jasper is lying or not. She can’t take the risk.

Post fusion (Lapis):

Lapis is swept up into the water (because of the cluster-earthquakes) after unfusing. She stays there because it’s where she feels strongest with a cracked gem.

She rounds up the corrupted gems to fight for her bc the crack makes her vulnerable.

Steven heals her after she fuses with a corrupted gem, but it only heals the crack not the corruption.

Post fusion (Jasper):

Jasper is taken back to the barn - she’s angry when she reforms. Talk’s about how the Crystal Gems are traitors and that they should all be ashamed of themselves. She wants to run off but she still feels weak after fusion.

Jasper argues with Peridot over why she would ever become a traitor. Probably calls her defective (because of her height).

The baseball ep results in more broken bats / a ball explodes. (Jasper wears a bandanna over her face like a mask). The Rubies are asking for Lapis, since she was the leader of the Earth Mission - Jasper stay’s silent because one of the Rubies also asks Peridot where the traitorous Quartz they were tasked with retrieving was.

Jasper struggles to be around Garnet and flinches when she sees the others fuse- but she doesn’t say anything to let the others know.

Eventually Jasper tolerates Peridot because Peridot is more than happy to tell her all about what she missed over the years back on Homeworld. Jasper has a lot of questions, and doesn’t mind when Peridot gets off topic because she’s still leaning about Era 2.

While spending a little more time with the Crystal Gems, Jasper slowly learns to see the Earth from a different perspective, but still struggled with her inner conflicts- she still hates Earth and the Crystal Gems, and doesn’t want to betray her Diamond by falling victim to their propaganda.

One day while they were having an argument over everything, Jasper screams at Steven about him shattering Pink Diamond, before she runs away from the barn and makes her lil cave in the woods for a while (same as in SUF).

Jasper lets the others visit her once they find her - she acts like she hates it but she hates the silence. She accepts that Steven isn’t Rose, but he is Rose’s son so she still doesn’t want to see him. Peridot visits more often than the others.

Jasper naps a lot, and is a heavy sleeper (she doesn’t breathe when she sleeps, so no snoring). Sometimes her ‘naps’ last a few days.

She eventually returns to the barn (she stayed in her lil territory before the Rubies return and doesn’t come back to the barn until after Navy steals the ship again- she never knew the ship was there).

Jasper makes friends with Peridot- they mostly tolerate each other. Jasper doesn’t talk much, but she always listens to Peridot when she speaks.

Jasper is pretty calm until the others are around, but she doesn’t try to attack them- she’s mainly just tired. Sometimes makes snarky remarks about how they’re all traitors.

After the PD/ Rose reveal, she goes back to the barn to be alone. She doesn’t go to Garnet’s wedding, and sleeps instead.

She sleeps through the entire Diamond ordeal, (idk how they won without Lapis, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it happens somehow)

Steven asks Bismuth to go to Jasper to tell her that they’re leaving - she replies with “who’s Jasper?” Greg shows her where the barn is.

Bismuth and Jasper become friends pretty quickly, and Jasper helps Bismuth rebuild the house & goes with Peridot and Bismuth to Homeworld (knowing PD was Rose, Jasper would rather fight alongside the Gems who Rose cared about than alongside the Authority)

Post CYM (Lapis):

Lapis returns to Homeworld to try to get over her fear of Blue Diamond, before deciding to live on a liberated Gem colony that she had never visited before, and try to put the past behind her.

She makes a few friends, and generally tries to stay away from conflict- she’s oh so sick of conflict.

Post CYM (Jasper):

Jasper helps Bismuth build Little Homeworld, and lives there. She doesn’t teach any classes, but she does take them (she still struggles to love Earth, but she no longer has to worry about being a traitor).

Jasper doesn’t label herself as a Crystal Gem, but she hangs out with Bismuth and Peridot a lot, and doesn’t get mad at comments like “we Crystal Gems” etc. that clump her together with them.

Jasper reconnects with the other Earth Quartzes, and makes friends with some Corrupted Quartzes too - she plays beach volleyball with them.

If I ever draw things from these ideas, I will edit this post with a link to the drawing like this.

[citrusella-flugpucker]

All 68 of my SU fics, apparently

((Because @novantinuum did it and then I wanted to do it and then they said “do it” and I took it as a dare

Compiling these gave me a sense of accomplishment. And pain. In my wrist.

Multi-line summaries nearly always squashed to lessen the vertical length of this post, even if most of it is below a readmore))

Multi-chapter fics, regardless of collection status (chronological order--oldest to newest):

And He Doesn’t Wake: My first SU fic, complete; “It can't end like this. Or: Waxing realistic as we examine the events of the episode "Bubbled".” Steven suffers halfway-realistic effects from being exposed to the vacuum of space. Probably not super canon compliant given what we learned in Growing Pains but a fic that branches off at Bubbled and rejoins canon around Mindful Education (and written around that timespan).

Diamond in the Rough: Incomplete; “Connie is in the hospital with a serious disorder, and her biggest chance is an experimental treatment combining minerals with blood transfusions. Little does anyone know...” Originally crack of “Connie gets powers from PD-infused blood” but then ASPR happened and I have to figure out where it goes now (and I want to! but...).

The Results Are In: Incomplete; “Sadie gets a piece of mail from her dad. For most people that'd be pretty mundane, but it's a little more complicated considering who exactly her dad is.” Barb/Blue Diamond crack (it makes sense in context) and affectionately called “Space Maury” internally for reasons that will make sense later. Has a similar but less “it flips the ENTIRE plot” issue with ASPR. I have many idea chunks but almost no connection between them

He’s Gone: Complete (and technically a oneshot with two “bonus chapters”); “Steven asks Peridot to get the shirt Connie got for him for his birthday from his closet. He says he wants to look nice. She's confused by his request. Greg and the Maheswarans are less confused and more terrified. He keeps saying it'll be okay. They'll be okay, even though he'll be going away. It'll just be a couple of days now. Or: Steven and Pink Steven are unable to fuse after being separated on Homeworld. That's not good for Steven.” Steven dies. That’s it. That’s the whole fic. Might potentially get an extra chapter or two still. Or not. Eh.

Thanks, Padparadscha: Incomplete/open-ended oneshot collection; “Stories about the best gem.” Padparadscha oneshots.

Your No-Good, Dirty-Rotten, Gem-Shattering, Rebellion-Leading Mother: Incomplete, little desire to finish; “What if Steven had gone to Camp Green Lake instead of Stanley? Or: If Steven Universe And Holes Were The Same Universe: A Fanfiction (thanks @captainjzh) Or, as the top of my Google Doc I started back exactly a year ago (*2019-01-07) says: SU x Holes: Because the fact that Steven Universe and Stanley Yelnats are both 14 is messing with me”. Wrote this as an exercise after reading the appalling original shopped screenplay for the Holes movie which was basically a nuclear fallout enthusiasts dream world but also quite possibly the worst and most uncomfortable thing ever written and I have had to have whole pages bleached from my memory

It’s Okay to Need Help: Incomplete (three chapters total planned), the last part of the pre-SUF-finale “Steven Corruption Theory” collection; “"Everybody needs support sometimes, and you need support right now, with this. And that's okay." She takes a deep breath. "It's okay to need help, Steven." Or: (Based in corrupted Steven theory as well as taking inspiration/using characteristics from a fic by @love-killed-the-superstar​) Sometime after coming back from corruption, Steven sees a therapist to try to hammer out some lingering issues.” Steven has specific lingering issues from corruption due to the way they had to mitigate it, and that affects how he communicates with his therapist some days. Just been blocked on the best way to write it

Waiting is Worse: Incomplete; “Is there anything more awful than the feeling of powerlessness?” The movie mostly ends the same, except Steven doesn’t un-rejuvenate.

Realism: Incomplete, strong desire to complete; “As much as he may want it to be, this is not a dream. He's not possessing anyone. It's not happening to someone else. It's real.” Steven has the same effects happen to him as the Watermelon Steven from Escapism--an arm and a leg are amputated.

The President Kisses Babies, and Other White House Briefs: Incomplete, open-ended oneshot collection with very little overarching plot; “Oneshot escapades of President Connie Maheswaran and her First Man, Crystal Gem and public speaker, Steven Universe.” Inspired by a Tumblr post and with more ideas in the pipeline! Love this fic even if I lost most inspiration for four years!!

Collection (series) oneshots (chronological order):

Citrusella Tries (And Succeeds!) to Write a Fic Each Day of the Bomb: A collection where I tried to write a fic each day of the HotCG (wedding) bomb. I succeeded but also kind of not? XD

Could You Imagine?: “Imagination is wish fulfillment. What are some of the things Pearl has imagined?” Now We’re Only Falling Apart

Partake In New Extraordinary And Pleasing Pizza Lover Experiences (Or: Kiki's Lament): “Kiki rarely hates her job. But she does hate pineapples.” What’s Your Problem? (Also the title spells PINEAPPLE o.o)

Acquired Taste: “Steven has a snack as he helps prepare for an important ceremony.” The Question

My Whole Life: “Some people are just born to go into certain careers.” Made of Honor

We Can Think About Hope: Incomplete multi-chapter with no hope of completion (why it’s not listed in the multi-chapters, BTW... also the “kind of not” regarding success); “What's going on? What do we do now? Can you still hear me? (Or: The end of Reunited plays out differently.) (Or or: And He Doesn't Wake: Part II: This time with weirder angst! And more not waking!)”

Citrusella's "Steven Corruption Theory" Collection: A collection of fics written on the corruption theory premise before it became canon. It’s Okay to Need Help not duplicated here but would be at the end.

Change: “Steven's come back from probably the most serious thing that's happened to him--save almost dying after his gem was ripped out--but that doesn't mean he came back unchanged. (Based on the "corrupted Steven theory".)”

My Skin: “Steven does a mental inventory of what's changed about him since his uncorruption and finds himself starting to fall into a hole of self-criticism, until a song playing downstairs sets him straight. (Based on the "corrupted Steven theory".)”

Eternity in a Moment: “It had only taken a few hours, and yet, an eternity.”

I Can't Say with Confidence: “Over an hour. He's been sitting in the tub, fully clothed, the bathroom a mess… for over an hour.It should be working! Why isn’t it working?!” Based on this art!

It’s Okay to Need Help

Happy Steven's Day!: Just after Steven discovers his mother is Pink Diamond, Mother's Day rolls around...Greg just doesn't want Steven to be in a slump about it anymore.

You Deserve All the Joy: “Because nothing is better than being surrounded by family and love. Or: Steven's once-a-year struggle with a holiday he doesn't exactly have the ability to traditionally celebrate.” It’s Mother’s Day and Steven is sad. Post-ASPR

Universe Day: “"Being your dad is the only present I really need." Or: Greg and Steven talk and realize their experiences with Mother's Day have been two sides of the same coin.” Post-SUF

Citrusella's Comfortember 2020 Fics: Fics written based on prompts for November 2020 Comfortember... not finished with it

Speed Bump: “Steven's first night on the open road isn't as smooth as he wanted it to be. Attempt to combine prompts 2-6 of Comfortember (prompt 1 just couldn't be squeezed in): "first day/night", "nightmare", anxiety", "cuddling", "afraid to sleep"”

In the After: “Steven wonders if it was corruption. Comfortember days 7-10, though only in the most tenuous, technical sense (and by that I mean all four phrases are mentioned): "blanket fort", "lashing out", "confession", "crying"”

Late Night Hot Chocolate (described in next section)

Zombie Club Chronicles: Steven endures a violent accident on Frightnight (Halloween) that changes his life forever.

Beach City Zombie Club

Prompt: [Randomly roll from list: Steven] doesn’t enjoy the Halloween season, but [Fill in: Steven] take(s) them on a well-meaning trip to an old Gem Ruin where they come to realize [Pick from list: They’ve made a terrible mistake in coming here]

On Frightnight when he is 17, Steven experiences the most serious event of his young life. Almost exactly a year later, Steven takes Steven to Lars' ship in hopes of being able to hop off at a truly secluded gem ruin to talk about something that Steven and Steven have been disagreeing on for several months. Lars has an idea, and Steven comes to a realization.

For the Cluster Spooky Writing Challenge!

Late Night Hot Chocolate (also a Comfortember fic)

"Steven? What are you doing?" He stares into the pot.

The gem half's voice comes monotone. "Making hot chocolate."

"It's three o'clock in the morning. Why on earth are you making… hot chocolate?"

The slyness on his face is one pixel away from nonexistent and yet it's practically a traffic cone to his other half, as he remarks flatly, "Because I've lost control of my life."

Or: Steven and Steven both have nightmares that threaten to take them back to... that night... One copes by making the other hot chocolate and pretending he really isn't having any problems.

Comfortember days 16-18: Protective, Flashbacks, Hot Cocoa

Standalone oneshots (reverse chronological order--newest to oldest):

Rumble Strips:

Prompt: [Randomly roll from list: Greg] notices [Fill in: Steven] is in a somber mood lately. Out of the goodness of their heart they try to cheer up the sad soul in the only way they know how: [Fill in: WHO WANTS TO GO ON A ROAD TRIP?!]

"I really thought I could handle myself on my own." He scoffed. "Even my own therapist didn't think I could do it."

"I bet she thought you could handle yourself just fine. She probably just thought you'd do better with your support system close, bud. Like, literally, I mean." His eye weaved through the thin line of gravel past the edge of the shoulder. "You started saying some pretty concerning things."

Or: Greg and Steven stop on the side of the interstate on their way to Empire City for New Year's, to have a conversation.

For the Cluster Christmas Writing Challenge!

Auto-Injector: “In an alternate timeline, Steven meets Bluebird at her welcome party but he cannot, under any circumstances, try her hors-d'oeuvres. Or: Steven ends up with allergies because why not” (I have three more ideas for chapters)

Don't Put Beans Up Your Nose: “"I know you want answers, and I wish I had some for you, really, Steven, but from what you've described…  those aren't things to play around with. It's unethical to knowingly subject you to those for the sake of 'experimenting', even if you consent." Or: Steven asks Dr. Maheswaran a question she's not ethically able to answer.”

The Exor-schist:

Prompt: A series of events have led to a terrifying effect on one or more of the series’ characters. [Randomly roll from list: Mr. and Dr. Maheswaran] are now suffering from [Randomly roll from list: Spiritual Possession]. How did this happen?

"This corrupted gem, it has a powerful connection to organic matter. Ones this powerful have been known to overtake and even kill humans."

For the Cluster Spooky Writing Challenge!

It's My Party and I'll Dry If I Want To: “You would dry too, if it happened to you! Or: Steven says he wants a pool party for his eighteenth birthday in Delmarva, after over a year of traveling the country. ...But why isn't he swimming?”

Ace Up Your Sleeve: “Or in your back pocket, same diff. Or: Steven's sad about potentially not getting to go to Pride.” (oneshot and an epilogue)

Milestone: “"Okay, so like, the books aren't, like, useless, but they assume you have like the perfect baby. Maybe consider the following: kids are dorks, man." Or: Steven went to the doctor. Once. Or: Greg thinks Steven, at 15 months, is being weird and missing milestones and is worried he's a bad dad so he goes to Vidalia for help.” May eventually be part of a babby Steeb over the years collection

Full Enclosure: “What am I going to tell you? You're better off not knowing the trouble I'm in. / I don't want you to worry about what I've just seen, about where I've just been. / You don't have to be a part of this, I don't think I want you to be! / You don't need this, you don't need me... Or: Steven defines himself by his connection to others. So when they all leave, then… he's no one. (In short: Steven is crushed by his need to be needed.)”

Vice: “He could stop whenever he wanted to. He just didn't want to. Or: Steven falls into a bad habit and tries to rationalize it as okay as long as he's not completely abandoning the idea of improving his life.”

Stairwell Solitude: “Over ten years, Greg wrote just six letters to his parents. What could they have contained?” Post-Mr. Universe

Striations: “At Connie's behest, Dr. Maheswaran makes a house call to Steven's place after his un-monstering. It's different than his last appointment, but its core is the same.”

Everything Stays: “Ever so slightly, daily and nightly, in little ways, when everything stays... Steven's therapist brings up something she's noticed about him outside his PTSD.”

I Do It For Me: “"Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense, and overcomes negative emotions such as resentment and vengeance." Steven asks his therapist a question. The answer may surprise him.”

A Break in the Case: “Dr. Maheswaran takes a look at Steven's results but quickly finds herself in over her head.” Mid-Growing Pains

I have a couple entries in the @connieswap omake collection (Comic Relief and Same Old Steven)--I’m not linking them

Changing Tastes: “ Steven and Connie share a conversation after watching Crying Breakfast Friends: Under the Butterknife.”

Rejuvenated Regrets: “Someone calls Steven's name from downstairs. He's not listening closely enough to know who it is. He's not sure he cares right this moment. He wants Mom—Rose—Pink—and that's the one person he knows it's not.”

Gut Feeling: “Every time, he has to push his brain off that train of thought--what if she does it again?--but for someone with super-strength, he's surprisingly not very good at pushing.”

Lapis Watches Titanic (1997) ...There’s no summary

The Cluster Halloween Exquisite Corpse 2019 (I only wrote part of this!!): “Lars tells a horror story but loses track of it, or; a bunch of fic writers do an exquisite corpse and hilarity ensues. Written by DocCairo, citrusella, E350, love-killed-the-superstar and br42.”

Drift Away: “There are timelines where Steven fell into the biopoison when the Earth cracked under his feet. Here we see three times Steven (technically) lived despite a dive into pure poison, and one time he didn't.”

The Rose Wilts: “Once upon a time, he knew Rose. But he knew he didn't know everything.Sometimes it feels like he's learned more about her after she died than he ever knew while she was alive.“ Doug and Rose used to be friends

Tying the Knot: “Steven never wears shoes with laces, because he can't tie them. When Connie finds out, he's pretty chill about it.”

Haploid: “You're not sure if this is what being shattered feels like. You don't know if you want to be sure.” Mid-CYM

Thestral: “"How many have you seen?" "All of them." She answered without hesitation. "Oh." Or: Pearl and Steven talk about a type of gem that corruption has given some... special characteristics.”

500 Words a Secret Santa Gift: The Gratuitous Reference: “200 words a day, every day, until Under the Knife comes back. Or Crying Breakfast Friends. We're not picky at this point. Secret Santa edition! (A Secret Santa gift for @e350tb that deliberately and gratuitously references their 100 Words a Day series.)”

Sesimorp, Sesimorp: “A Lapis Lazuli makes a beautiful work of art.”

Ship Talk: “Lars and Steven share a moment on the Sun Incinerator.”

No Way Around It: “An order is an order.”

Give It A Try!: “Steven gets a Diamond to try something new.”

Better Off: “Peedee ponders what could have been.”

Steven x A Nice Calm Life Please and Thank You™: A Case for the Realization of a Bold New Ship: “Steven deserves a happy life free of interplanetary struggle and strife. It's my OTP. So I'm going to give him that! :D”

I Don't Know: “Will this ever make sense? Will this ever feel normal?” Post-ASPR

Force of Nature: “Her diamond gave her orders no longer.”

My Gemmortal (by XXXbloodstoneshardz666XXX): “the escupaids fo steven hardlight amnesia lion universe and his freinds n crushs” (this is exactly what it sounds like)

The Picture of Steven Pink: “It took a lot out of him.” (SU but Steven takes on the injuries he heals)

Self: “In the Connie Swap AU, Steven considers his identity and place in his family, community, culture, and himself. For a kid who at least tries to be all sunshine and rainbows, this isn't exactly the most fun thing to do, but sometimes it's necessary.” (these are different than the things in the CS omake collection)

I Really AM My Mom...: “"When you're singing, you want to use enough air that you could blow a throatful of peanut butter clear across the room." The crackiest of escape-from-Homeworld plots, based on a ClickHole article and a joke headcanon.”

Left: “Of course there's shame in bailing.”

Old shames (chronological order): Stories I just kinda cringe at now

Shrinking Rose: “Steven never felt bad about his stature. Until he did.” (I just don’t love it)

A Rose for Emily: “What if Rose wanted to spend the rest of her life with someone before Greg? ...It's safe to say she has a skeleton in her closet.” (less old shame than the others on this list but was hard to shoehorn in the A Rose for Emily style writing)

Alone: “Steven won't open up about how everything that happened is affecting him. Not even to himself.” (I know I’ve written other dark stuff but this one just hits different)

You Should've Asked Me, I'm Really Good at Naming Bands (November 2019 Unfinished WIPs): “(title subject to change) I did a challenge that I had to write my WIPs in November (revised to November and December) or be forced to post them unfinished. I got some updates done, but several not done. These are those stories. Dun-dun.” (only “shame” because they were things that were never finished--I also had a Connie Swap omake I was supposed to finish or the punishment was not to post it unfinished but to write Steven and Spinel (NOTP) but I just never did that)

[seedleaflesssapling]

Ver 2.0? Turning Point?

I can't really identify to which point in my life that i started to doubt myself but im pretty sure that it was because of UP. Damn, that school, my uni. It do really have the ability to make you feel small; i was in a disadvantaged side when i entered it, you know. I was acquainted, no we did not really talked one-on-one, but i heard when we did introductions - Pisay, UP High, science comprehensive schools, Xavier University, who wouldn't be intimidated by that when you came from Col. Ruperto Abellon National School (who would know where that is? I was lucky enough for a teacher recognized it and my classmates be like 'ahhhhhh,' .....really?! I dont even know where xavier is, it just sounds cool). Another thing is that, i wasn't a stem shs graduate - a leverage(?) or excuse (?) that i always use for them to know that i am at disadvantaged side here, not their competitor, probably a NOBODY. They, being stem graduates, have capstone projects you never thought that they have at that age, but i would hear them saying that it was publish in this journal (whatever, idk the journals lmao, i dont even understand their studies 2nd lmao, but that was some smart shit you know, a shit that makes me feel pathetic for being too proud of my what? Correlational study from inconsistent surveys?!!! Wtf, wtf, wtf). But it was a very good peer pressure you know, i kinda turned it that way. Being left behind, being on the rock bottom, i have no other place to go but up. It wasn't the goal, like making or taking the top spot, i just need to survive.

Inevitably, the exams came. I had hard time adjusting chem but math was kind to me. Who would have thought that i would get two 1.0 at my math subjects for the first semester, the sem that i thought i would barely pass. I was even a CS for that sem. Who would have thought? Our first chemical engineering subject that involves computations was on the list the next semester and the first exam, out of 100 i got something like 20ish. WTF. THAT WAS MY FIRST FAILED EXAM. but no, never did cry but tears were flooding inside. So apparently, i have to focus more on this subject and i did. Some were still failing, but i raised my average up. We also had physics, my first ever physics. I really love physics that time or that sir rommel is just a very good professor. I got the highest score on our second LE, everybody else did fail. Small victories. Not that they lose, but i just won. But i heard one time they were talking about me re: passing the physics exam and even getting a high score. They were uhm.. a guy i really look up to cause his good, the other was a girl that idk but i think she didn't like me back then. They were friends but eventually the girl transferred uni because who cares why. i heard the guy saying something like sin.o gid na si franklin nga taas iya score man, maybe even worse than that, i still look up to the guy even until now. But wtf. I really took it in that time, like i wanted to cry but did not. With all that, i got a fair grade at physics. I still got 1.0 at maths that sem and even maintained being on the CS list. S M I L E. BECAUSE WE HAVE A MIDYEAR CLASS. VERY EXHAUSTING FOR SOMEONE WHO DONT WANT ANYTHING BUT JUST ADJUST, SURVIVE, AND FIND MEANING OF BEING A UP STUDENT. It was just one subject and it was math, but i got 2.0?!!! I have no excuse to that, i am very grateful for the family who accommodated me. After midyear class, i did got sick, it sucks, really sucks. I wanted to file an LOA for the next academic year, it is the only thing i can think of for me to go back on track (i haven't said that my parents pushed me to graduate with latin honor and i wanted to also for my resume to look good because everything else in me is effed up). I really wanted to pause and be free for a while but i also wanted to graduate on time (mostly because i want to give the bitches who dared to have expectations be put on my shoulders not the satisfaction, but the audacity to tell them 'i aint did it for ya') so i asked mama. THANK GOD, SHE DID SAY NA KUNG ANO LANG KAYA MO, AMO LANG DA IH 😭😭🤧🤧 so i enrolled, but went to school late, haven't attended the school opening but all is good. I did kind of reset, just enough for me to face school again.

Second year, it was fucked. I did really love coding on octave and doing sheets at ms excel though. On that year, we have formed the che 103 bagsak group. Together with two of my classmates on 103 and math 55, we became buddies after failing che 103 on the first LE, another 30 over 100 exam hahahahaha. We made bawi just enough for us to pass the subject hahahahahuhu. I have thermodynamics sub, i barely pass. Thank G na wala ko nag removal. If ever i did, i am so sure that i wont make it. My GWA for that sem was not enough for me to be a CS. Who cares? I still did, actually but mama was never been too pushy since then, even since after midyear, after getting that 2.0 grade from the only subject i am good at. Btw, my math 55 for first sem, second year, was 1.25. Not a 1.0 but still, it's good. Second semester that year was when pandemic hit so there's nothing much to tell. I was, sorry but i was really, glad to be away from school for a while, not until for a while became forever. Virtual university set-up was very hard. With too much from taking in whatever i see and hear on my surroundings, even just at home, everything is difficult. It is very hard to find motivation and discipline in studying when i was surrounded with people who do nothing. Even to this point i am writing, everyday is like a battle, but is mostly an internal one. Self vs self, a war no one knows who will win. So the confidence, the tower of knowledge i did build, exponentially went down. I did really well when i was in grade 10, i did my best that time and it can be seen at the achievements i had that year. Being consistently on top 1 the whole year, placing second on division MMC (even getting the highest score on the written elimination round for the whole cluster), doing well sa physics under maam andico, placings on cluster journalism competitions - it was like a record best, best record (?) Whatever. But it wasn't enough you know, i eventually came fourth like wtf. I had read from somewhere Newton saying like the two years when he did write the three laws of motion and the calculus stuff were the two best years of his life, and it kept me thinking that what if mine already passed? That it was when i was in high school?

But, back when i was in school, every time that i was belittling myself or even at random times that i would feel nervous for nothing, my classmates and close friends would say na:

Uno mo man ang Math, uno mo na na (it was a one or two time thing, what if chamba lang to???)

Ikaw man highest sa first le sa thermo (it was really an absolutely one time thing, i barely passed that sub)

Alam ka man sa physics (i was just invested on physics and maybe nachambahan lang na ang ginpractice ko solve kay parallel sa exam ni sir)

Alam ka, d ka lang confident (OKAY???!)

I was ignoring those shit cause who cares if i did really good that time. Yeah, it felt good but it wasn't fulfilling. Satisfied but not happy. But with recent events, i think i would be changing. This post will be a written contract that i will push to be better, to start trusting myself, and build that confidence glow behind me; to believe that i am bright and i can hack it, whatever it may be.

For coherence, i would itemize na lang all of the events that brought me to epiphany lol

It was Friday, 17 Sep, when Dean, in our plant design subject, gave an activity for us - to come up with solutions that would address problems he presented. 1 off grid island community (either you address the water, electricity, and phone reception/signal problem under a 100k budget) and 2 vinegar packaging with a 500 mL volume and should cost less than the cost of vinegar. The due's on Monday, 20 Sep. The challenge is that you should come up with an idea that is not the same with those who already turned in their proposed solutions. I haven't turned in mine until Sunday afternoon. We are 23 in class, hence there should be 23 proposed solutions for each problem. However, only 20 or 21 turned in their solutions and as a student who decided to do it three days after the sheet was given, i was at the second to the last of the entries hahaha. I have limited choice since a lot have been proposed. And ngl, i did entered my idea for the first problem at Sunday evening and for the second problem it was on the afternoon of the next day. Those were basic solutions cause who am I? Am just your basic guy.

Tuesday, 21 Sep (#NeverForget #NeverAgain), class again for plant design (PD). Dean discussed stuffs which im ngl, i did not listen because im bored (not until he said 'we'll have a 5-min break and we'll have a quiz after that' like wtf, how will we do our quiz???!). After the short break, I did study cause i panicked as hell, he presented the prospects of the course, that we will be divided in groups and that the leaders were chosen based on the solutions they turned in the activity previously given. So there's no quiz, i was calm the whole time after that until my name was called. Like wtf??! Your basic guy will be a leader???! Hello!!! So i chat people, asked them if it was a good thing (course it was!!!? So dumb right?!). And then, i asked another leader and she agreed to my argument that we should only be divided into six instead of seven as what dean has decided. So i chatted dean (pic below). I just accepted the role half-heartedly.

As leaders, we should be hiring people for our team and we should make pubs. I dont have a canva account to help me do pubs. I made mine at MS ppt HAHAHAHAHAHA but im good so its cute. We were assigned with projects and i get to have the 4-member team. The vacant roles were project maven and liaison officer for a 3-member team. In my pubs, i included scrummaster as position to be filled, cause who am i to lead?! So yeah, that's it. I did the pubs Wednesday and I submitted my resume Thursday (third to the last hahahaha but my resume's cute hahaha).

Thursday. So i had this invite by a classmate to join the Shell event long time ago. He was reaching out for someone to ask Dean for his approval because Dean did not replied to the email he sent. So, i volunteered. I really want this competition cause this will be my first and maybe last competition as a UP student. So i DMed dean and blah blah blah he asked for selection process. I relayed the message and apologize to them for being me because i was thinking that it was me who made him come up with the decision of having the team be selected. Like, wtf i was just asking for his approval. Getting kicked out of the team was not my intention. Those whom i chatted that night were telling me that it wasn't my fault blah blah blah. So i half-heartedly agreed to them.

Friday came, yesterday, the interview. I am very anxious for someone who will be the one asking the applicants lmao. I already have been interviewed before for college applications and somehow remember the feeling, nerve wracking, whatever. To calm my nerves, i listed questions which i never got to ask properly btw, but at least i have concrete ideas on what to ask. The first interviewee was my very closed friend and so we just laugh and laugh and laugh HAHAHAHAHA. IDK if dean saw it but who cares. And the next and next and next. 3:30 passed by fast and guess what??? YOUR BASIC GUY HAS THE MOST NUMBER OF APPLICANTS TO THE POINT THAT DEAN CUT MY LIST. IT WAS EXHAUSTING BUT VERY FLATTERING. I FEEL SO HONORED. i really thought and very scared at the thought that no one will apply to me but wtf, just wtf. Ranking my applicants was damn hard. 1 i have a dream team but one was cut by dean; 2 this could make my friends mad; 3 this will be the group for the whole year; 4 i am really exhausted. But still, i submitted the list. I was hoping for the people i chose to choose me back. Only two out of three did, i am forever grateful.

Still on Friday, the classmate who invited me to the Shell thing and Dean had a zoom call and discussed about the competition. That classmate told dean what i told him the other day that i might be the reason for the decision of having the selection process done. He told me this through a voice memo, katamad daw magtype. A voice message that i played over and over again. Dean actually find me interesting (?), Invested (?) Idk exactly but the classmate told me na 'may nakikita daw talaga sya sayo. Na grabe ka ka-practical as a person like yung ideas mo daw sa plant design napakasimple lang pero napaka practical to the point daw na madami nag apply sayo kanina. And then, you need more confidence lang daw talaga' so ig, you basic guy is a practical guy now. It's just flattering.

Now, whatever happens, i must meet those expectations right? This could be a lousy motivation but what is if there's none? I dont know why im writing this. I just thought i should get my thoughts out. Ver 2.0? Turning point? Let's just do good 😌

PS I put this on my bio on FB, guess im getting more public, and if you happened to read this because you saw the link on my bio, send me a message about you thoughts.

PPS if your initials are JTZC, these have been my week and i miss you even though you're not interested in me anymore, you are hard to forget

[psychemoss]

I forget what I was doing at the time, but it crossed my mind that maybe I'm narcissistic. I then started a difficult conversation with my girlfriend, which seems to have confirmed it in both of us. Then yesterday I decided to write out my thoughts without censoring anything. Things became more obvious. But now I don't know how to deal with the realization, and my ego is badly bruised. I see my therapist next week, but I'm not sure I can tell her about it. Do you have any advice?

You’re in luck, my dear anon! I do!

First and foremost, allow me to say: Welcome to the NPD trait family. 

The following is what personally worked for myself, if you need more tips feel free to ask.

Now, take a deep breath. It’s an odd revelation to have. It’s important to first accept that a lot about what you think of yourself might be about to change. If you don’t do that, you can lead to sending yourself spiraling, which is not ideal. 

Once you’ve reached some level of acceptance, you should probably mark down symptoms that you have of the disorder and the severity of each (I used a scale from 1-10). This way, you can determine if it’s characteristics of NPD or if it’s the full disorder that you have. In addition, this gives you a way to validate that you have it with yourself and anyone who might challenge you over it. 

Next, and this is likely going to be the most difficult part, write down what you objectively know about yourself: the good and the bad alike. For example, if you think of yourself as the best worker at your job, why? Have you gotten employee of the month? Have you ever gotten in your work late? With this, you can identify how large the divide between your view of yourself and your actual ability is. This can help to identify any limitations and better allow you to avoid overestimating yourself.

If you decide you’d like to speak of it to your therapist, you should ensure that she doesn’t have too many incorrect ideas on NPD. You can try to do this by asking her her opinion on NPD or on Cluster B in general. If it turns out she has incorrect ideas on it, it will likely be safer to not mention you think you could have it. You can reroute the conversation by saying that you learned/made a friend that has it, and say that you just wanted to know what she thought about it.

If she doesn’t have a poor opinion on it, though, I suggest bringing it in gently, mentioning that you believe you may have it and you’d like to speak on it. Don’t go in speaking of the worst symptoms unless if she has worked with PDs often, or she may get intimidated and formulate a new opinion of the disorder based on how you start. This will also ease you in, and if you notice her starting to disengage you can step back from the topic.

Should you decide you’d not want to discuss it with your therapist, Tumblr is the best place I’ve found for Cluster B communities. From what I’ve seen, you can typically send in asks to NPD blogs should you need help with coping, and, getting playfully narcissistic here for a moment, my DMs and asks are always open should you need specific advice or otherwise.

Remember that having a disorder that makes you think higher of yourself doesn’t mean that you aren’t deserving of respect; just about everyone has places where they can excel. Even if you’re sacrificing believing yourself to be a certain way, now you’re capable of being better than you ever were by acknowledging faults that you may have never noticed previously. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of for having it, and the fact that you’ve willingly decided to ask for help is admirable.

I hope this helps, and I wish you luck in your journey. 

[dogcopter]

Rose Quartz is Melon Mutt

and Lion (but only sometimes!) theory. I know this is an ancient one that is generally disregarded at this point, but please suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and entertain the thought, have some fun with me. After all, it’d be really funny if they revealed Rose a third time.

This stuff can probably be explained by some kind of magical connection to Steven’s gem. However, his actions can also be explained by Lion sometimes just being a lion and sometimes having Rose Quartz in his brain, no additional magic required. And I think that makes him the Melon Mutts too. 

Spoilers for all of Steven Universe and the movie!

In “Escapism”, the melon dog sees Steven off on his makeshift raft with a worried expression.

Lion shows up to save him after being battered on the open ocean, knowing he’s Steven, and brings him back to the Temple to relay his message.

Bear with me question: What if Lion knows where Steven is and is searching for him on the ocean right now, because whoever is in Lion was just in the dog that saw which way he was headed?

We know that Steven can astral project, and that he has occupied other organic bodies like the Watermelon Stevens. He even controlled Lars’s body before he’d ever magically revived him.

We know that there’s some kind of distinction between the “soul” or consciousness and the body, in Steven’s astral plane powers. 

We also know that the person can be represented by their projected body, organic body, and/or their gemstone (but the person doesn’t appear to be present if they’ve retreated into the gemstone to heal.) Could Rose be piloting another body without her gem or body? Maybe so.

We know Steven has the ability to leave his own body and communicate with other people this way through direct contact and across great distances in psychic ghost land and/or dreams, including both humans and gems. He even talked to Lapis in his dream while she was part of a fusion.

So we know that psychic ghost powers exist, and we know someone who has the Pink Diamond gem who can use them. We also know the manifestation of gems’ body can be altered through choice, or damaged through both physical trauma to the gemstone and mental trauma to the person. We know even shattered and corrupted gems retain some measure of their original personality and Clusters can be formed. 

There are things we don’t know about the real nature of the gemstone/personality relationship, but it’s clear a Gem is more than their gem. We know that Steven also, for example, doesn’t need a gemstone within Watermelon Steven’s body to continue to be “Steven”. 

This post doesn’t have an explanation for Steven’s Rose/PD dreams, but I don’t want to guess about Gem mechanics, this theory is strictly based on the hypothesis that Lion’s actions make the most sense if Lion is Rose.

And we know one other thing! A change in body is usually accompanied by a change in consciousness, at least for Steven. He needs to fall asleep to leave his body, and when it’s time to return, he wakes up. So piece 1: Steven’s Psychic Ghost Powers Are Real, Body Swapping Is Real. Lion being a body swap is in the Pink Diamond moveset.

- But why wouldn’t Rose have told him if she’s Lion by NOW?

Rose Quartz, the character defined by running away from her problems? I’m gonna say this is still plausible in the magical world where this theory is true. I actually think it’s more likely that RQ faked her death twice than that RQ trusted a lion and/or additional accomplices with some of her most closely guarded secrets. But don’t take my word for it, keep looking at the screencaps.

- But Steven we can’t both exist I’m going to become half of you?

Gems use “physical form” to mean their projected light body, but technically, their gem is their physical form. What if Rose gave up her physical form - her gemstone and body - but her psychic ghost (or part of it) is still dickin around somewhere? She also says in Nora’s version of the tape, “We can’t both exist but I won’t be gone”. The message of Lion 4 is that Steven is just supposed to be Steven, but imagine the speculation if that line had been in Steven’s video way back when.

This all establishes that astral projection is real, Rose would have had access to it during her time with Steven’s gem at a minimum, and it could explain the possibility of the same consciousness inhabiting both Lion around Steven and Melon Mutt around Watermelon Steven - particularly if the Rose ghost is linked to his gem or ghost in some way. 

And rule of Crewniverse And Emotional Torment: the thing that sounds really frustrating and narratively terrible has often ended up being executed in an awesome, Steven-appropriate way. We love a reveal that retroactively makes the entire series more upsetting. 

But back to the first question.

-What about all the other times Lion has found Steven on his own?

Well, what if they can also be explained either by Lion being Rose, or Lion having seen where Steven went?

In “Steven’s Lion”, Lion is first shown under Steven’s shirt. 

This is how he spots Steven and recognizes who he is, because his gem is exposed. (Rose’s gem is also under Steven’s shirt.) 

Hypothesis: Lion (Rose in Lion’s body) was also hunting the Desert Glass, and his meeting with Steven was by chance. Upon spotting the Pink Diamond gem, he came to Steven.

So question 1: Why did Lion know who Steven is? I think Rose recognized the gem, obviously, and would understand this is Steven.

This can be explained by magical connection as easily as by the Rose idea, even though we know now that Steven doesn’t have a magical destiny (Lion 4) and Lars doesn’t have a sixth sense for locating Steven in his moveset (Jungle Moon). Gems repeatedly recognize Steven as Rose or Pink based on his gem so it’s possible Lion knows to do the same.

We saw in Buddy’s Book that the lions were already pretty tame even when not-pink. We see Lion’s nose only, before the shot changes to Rose, but the other lions are gentle with Buddy. Lion’s tame behavior when acting as a normal lion is in-character for Rose’s lions.

Timeline recap: we know a couple of centuries ago, Rose had alive tame lions. At some point Lion died and was revived by her healing tears, but remained a secret from the other Gems, including Pearl, who is the only person we know of who knew about Pink Diamond. Rose later met Greg and was with him until they had Steven. At some point after meeting Greg, she put objects inside Lion’s mane. There is a VHS tape addressed to Steven in the mane dimension, while the Nora tape was abandoned in the desert, indicating that he was likely meant to find that stuff.

Remember what we just established about Steven’s body swaps being linked to a change in consciousness? What better character to mask body swapping sleep with regular sleep than a cat?

Lion finds Steven and his eyes are glowing. 

We know that Lion’s eyes and mane sometimes glow when using his powers, like making wormhole warps or summoning objects from his pocket dimension. Sometimes his eyes just seem to glow for no reason, but what if they can also indicate a body swap taking place?

As soon as he catches up to Steven, Lion immediately falls asleep. 

...and then acts like a totally normal very tame lion while Steven cuddles all over him.

Then when the Gems show up, Lion’s eyes are glowing again. 

After this, he watches Steven and the Gems leave, looking alert, and shows up at the Temple to break things. Lion doesn’t always appear to switch bodies onscreen, but another time this happens is in “It Could’ve Been Great” when Steven is begging for a ride to the moon.

“No more Earth, no more naps...” Lion is napping, then suddenly stands up and roars. His eyes glow, then he teleports them all to the Moon.

Back in Steven’s Lion, here’s the Second Finding Of Steven to support my point.

Lion shows up to find Steven and finish beating the Desert Glass.There’s about a five-hour time difference between the Delmarva area and the Sahara IRL, so it could be noon or early afternoon in the desert at the same time that it’s early morning in Beach City, and Lion seems to show up pretty quickly.

How did Lion know who the Gems were? How did he know where to go?

Here’s a rundown of things we know about Lion and the Crystal Gems and Rose, that explain this scene based on knowledge and not mysterious magic powers.

The Temple is where Rose used to live.

And where the Crystal Gems and Steven still live.

When they are hunting a corrupted gem like the Desert Glass, they return to put it in a bubble here, or bubble it and send remotely.

Lion can make wormholes to travel across great distances quickly.

If he goes too far it tires him out, even by endgame in the series.

He can run very far without growing tired, but has to travel in realtime.

Lion had to travel across continents to get to the Temple.

Lion did not use our warp pad to get to the Temple, because he arrives outside the door.

Lion is energetic enough for this and a battle, which could mean he warped straight there.

It’s unlikely Lion had met the Gems personally before because the Gems didn’t know Rose had a lion and didn’t know the Lion was Rose’s until Steven confirms it later, even if it was “kinda obvious” per Amethyst. (Connie is actually the team member who has seen the most of Lion, and she doesn’t have preexisting Gem knowledge)

By the same logic, it’s unlikely but not impossible that Lion had ever been to the Temple himself before, as well.

The Gems don’t have Rose’s gem, so Lion wouldn’t have recognized them the same way he recognized Steven if it’s a Rose-magic-connection thing.

Rose would know who the gems are, where they took the Desert Glass that Lion was hunting, and she’s one of the few people who would even know Amethyst, let alone well enough to predict her slacking off on the bubbling job! Warping straight there matches the available facts about Lion’s abilities.

Sidenote to Lion Finding Steven: Lion also found Pearl in Rose’s Scabbard, and kept pace with her as she headed to a place special to Rose and Pearl. We’ll come back to this episode in a sec.

Remember, this initial bit is to establish that there’s a logical explanation for Lion finding Steven at other times, therefore lending credence to the idea that the Watermelon rescue was based on knowledge shown onscreen (dog seeing Steven leave) and not a one-off magical GPS. 

Here are the other Lion Finds Stevens that I found:

In “So Many Birthdays”, Lion is shown dozing off at Steven’s party. The party location shown in the beginning is the cliff overlooking Beach City, from where Lion would be able to see Steven on the beach when he woke up.

Lion shows up later that evening to save old!Steven on the beach and drag him to the Gems. Then he stays by Steven’s side. 

In “The Return”, Lion comes to get Steven and bring him back to protect the Gems with his shield. 

Lion only shows up after Steven has popped out of the car in a bubble, and all his neighbors stop the evac caravan to check if he’s OK. If Lion were looking for Steven via non-magical means, he could easily locate the commotion from any Beach City vantage point as they’re in the valley right now.

After the events in Jailbreak when they crash back down, Lion comes running straight onto the beach searching for where Steven’s bubble landed and uncovers the gang. 

Lion fought during Mirror Gem/Ocean Gem, but doesn’t fight Jasper in The Return. Couldn’t there be a reason he stayed out of sight when Homeworld gems showed up but came out of hiding to find them after the events on the ship happened?

Interestingly, despite Lion having run beside Greg’s car during the Lapis episodes and being shown around Greg before, in Full Disclosure Lion hears Greg’s van coming and immediately peaces out. Maybe Lion feels bad about showing up to grab the kid and then almost getting him sent to jail on Homeworld?

(Ronaldo voice) Rose Quartz, running away from the consequences of your actions yet again I see????

Either way, this can be explained by Lion seeing things from an ordinary Beach City vantage point. So an explanation is present when Lion finds Steven. Which also explains the times Steven is lost/in danger and Lion doesn’t show up to save the day.

Next part: In Steven’s Lion a big part of my argument is that Lion returns to the Temple because he knows things only Rose would know, not just because he can follow where Steven warped.

When does Lion know things only Rose would know?

Exhibit A: “Lion 2: The Movie”

Connie shows off some overhand deathstrike and Lion, uncharacteristically chatty this episode, says, “You need a real sword, am I right?”

Lion talks to characters repeatedly. He behaves like a normal cat most of the time, but on a few occasions he actually tries to respond verbally to someone talking to him with a kind of meow. We saw it in Steven’s Lion as well. Lion is obviously sentient with a will of his own and the ability to understand language, even though he doesn’t always respond. I think the super catlike behavior can be explained by body swapping as well as Rose picking up instincts from her nothlit body.

In “Lion 2″ we see Lion responding to speech again. Steven says he and Lion are both untrained, so Lion brings the kids on a field trip to get weapons and training. 

Obvious belated notes: Heart shaped face, star shaped mane like Pink/Steven/Rose, color scheme, Rose had a sword, Rose loved humans and swords, Lion is Rose’s size, Lion’s themes involve Rose’s theme.

More talking. “Nyurry up”

“Come on Steven. Push the button.” 

Then he takes a nap! and the kids get beat up by the training program. When he wakes, Steven asks for help. Lion judges Steven for running after asking for this training, but assents.

...Only to conveniently leave the wormhole open long enough for the robot to show up and the kids to HAVE to finish their training.

This is when they receive Rose’s sword. Lion appears to be able to summon objects from his mane. (Later, Steven claims Lion can’t get to things stored in his mane, but he might just be wrong.)

Interesting that Lion summons the sword through his forehead in this Utenatastic shot, which mimics the position Rose would have drawn a sword out of Pearl.

Note that Lion does hang by and look out for them right up until it’s clear they’re going to win.

We find out in Rose’s Scabbard that Rose’s Armory was another secret that Pearl thought only she and Rose were in on. It’s also in a location far from the desert that Pearl had to freeclimb a million miles to get to. The movie theater is in Beach City. 

Lion can warp to these places, but unless he has Rose’s knowledge, would he know where to go? 

Exhibit B: Speaking of “Rose’s Scabbard”.

In this episode, Lion’s not happy about the battlefield. Garnet and Pearl are telling war stories, but he busies himself with digging up Rose’s scabbard after Pearl suggests Steven find something he like. 

Pearl and Lion are pretty antagonistic in this episode too. We know how Pearl feels. Under the assumption that Lion is Rose, I think Lion grouching at Pearl could be interpreted as friendly as well as “Please move on.” Notice also that Lion, who hardly interacts with the others and was surprised by a hug from Amethyst in “Ocean Gem”, watches Pearl intently in this episode and tries to talk to her twice. Despite the fakeout at the beginning while he searches for the scabbard, this his Lion’s least catlike episode by far.

The scene where Pearl knocks down the painting goes without saying. I think the Rose parallels are also echoed in the end when Steven and Lion chase her down, I think we’re supposed to read some of Steven’s dialogue as an echo of past times Pearl was upset and Rose handled it the same way.

Steven: Pearl! Did I... did I do something wrong? You got to tell me!

Steven: Pearl! Pearl, you have to tell me what's wrong. Pearl: Sometimes, you even sound like her... 

We even get a rare glimpse of Pearl’s pent up anger toward Rose as she holds her sword.

Here’s what we have seen onscreen: So far Pearl has treated Lion as a slightly annoying animal that she tolerates for Steven’s sake. They hadn’t met before Lion found Steven. Their interactions in this episode are antagonistic up to the point where Pearl runs off.

Lion contradicts or ignores Steven sometimes, but this time they both take action immediately. Steven asks if he knows where Pearl went, and Lion responds in the affirmative. This is another example of Lion Finding People Because He Knows Where To Look (Because He’s Rose.) 

Do you remember this place? Do you have any of her memories? We were right here, over 5,000 years ago.

They chase Pearl to the place where Rose and Pearl decided to stay on Earth and fight. Somewhere Pearl expects Rose to remember. The choice Lion and Steven both make to chase her down and demand answers reminds Pearl of Rose. 

If Lion is Rose, it explains his motivation for helping Steven/Pearl despite not seeming to know or like Pearl very well, his knowledge of where Pearl will be, and the fact that Lion and Steven both reacted the same way Pearl expected Rose to.

Lion Knows Rose Things Exhibit C: Lion 3: Straight to Video

Steven wants to know more about his mom and Lion keeps pushing him into his mane in response. We see some treasures in there.

Some stuff from the war, some Greg related stuff, THE CHEST!! and Steven’s tape.

Consider this seriously for a moment: How did Steven’s tape get here? 

We do see Lion manifest the sword for Steven and Connie, which we know is a physical object created by Bismuth and not a hard light construction, we see it here in the mane. We also see Lion cough up the key to Rose’s storage unit later, where Steven finds the Nora tape. In theory he would know how to put things in his mane, and we’ve seen him take things out. 

We also know these things, continuing from assumptions in Steven’s Lion:

The gems didn’t know about Lion.

Lion had to be dead before his mane could be accessed, so Rose would have stored these things elsewhere as early as ~200years ago per Buddy’s book.

Rose would have placed the Greg items in Lion after meeting Greg, chronologically.

Greg and Rose made two tapes because they didn’t know Steven’s sex.

Only Steven (Or more likely, Pink Diamond gem holder) can enter this dimension, although he can take others with him.

Steven’s sex wouldn’t have been apparent until after Rose was gone.

The other tape is in the desert in Rose’s landfill.

The lion is from the desert.

The landfill is framed by Pink’s ship.

Steven doesn’t recognize the ship in Lion 4 or “Legs From Here To Homeworld”, but to the gems it is immediate and obvious what’s buried there.

So who moved the Steven tape into the mane and left the Nora tape in the desert after Rose gave up her physical form?

If Lion can put things in his own mane, and Lion is Rose, we have an answer. An accomplice is unlikely, given that only Steven can open Lion’s mane, and any gem who saw her possessions at the landfill could put the pieces together that Rose and Pink Diamond are the same. The Landfill clearly belongs to Pink Diamond and the objects in Lion clearly belong to Rose Quartz.

Pearl is the only Gem we know of who knows about the secret, because she started it, and Rose wouldn’t even allow her to speak of it after they staged the shattering. Rose didn’t even tell Greg about her past (which he respected). She didn’t tell the Gems about Bismuth, and Bismuth is in the mane. Any Crystal Gem would know Bismuth and know one of Rose’s secrets, so the likelihood of a secret gem collaborator who both survived the war and helped Rose cover up Bismuth’s bubbling is basically nil. 

Given the timeline and Rose’s secrets, especially given her secrets from Pearl who otherwise knows the most Rose lore and spent the most time with her, it makes very little sense for someone else to be involved but a whole lot of sense for Rose to be Lion. Lion could have moved Steven’s tape into the mane after meeting Steven.

Sidebar: THE MOON

Isn’t it convenient that the being who can teleport them to the moon is so tired out by the trip that he’s then unconscious during the plotty Diamond reveals and we don’t see his reaction to anything?

Again, Lion didn’t know the Gems and wasn’t known to them pre Steven. But when he takes the gang to the moon, he heads straight for the moon base, which Rose would have been to before - another location previously visited only by Rose and Pearl that we know of. Amethyst has to open the door and check - “YUP, WE ON THE MOON!” 

But we do get a shot of him with the Pink Diamond portrait in “Can’t Go Back”; a shot of PD’s mural pans down to Lion facing away from the camera as Steven initiates a cliffhanger.

As we all know, after this, Steven slips into Pearl’s memories and sees everything.

Which leads me to:

The thing about Rose’s portrait and Lion. (and that one (1) pic of Pink Diamond)

I think I’ve made clear why Rose = Lion seems plasuible in terms of mechanics and Lion’s behavior. Now for a couple thematic notes.

I’m just gonna dump some more screencaps for this one. Basically, we never see Lion’s face and Rose’s in the same shot. The only exceptions are panning shots that still don’t have both in the frame. And sometimes this happens while Steven is talking about his mom, or other people are.

I remember people speculating about the meaning of hiding Rose’s face. I was looking for Lion things on this rewatch, so I didn’t look closely at the painting, focusing more on character, but I don’t think Rose’s face being covered has to exclusively mean one thing; there may be other instances where it’s symbolic to the scene and unrelated to Lion. However, Lion is the only character for which this seems to be a hard rule.

Sometimes Lion is just being a goofy cat while Rose’s portrait hovers in the background, static, serene, complete.

This one pans down from Steven looking at Rose, to Lion looking back at Steven, much like the PD shot on the moon base.

(Lion, Steven and Bismuth waiting to see how the CGs will react to Bismuth appearing)

Ok, that’s a thing, and we know the art and story go hand in hand in this show. Moving on, just a few last thoughts. 

Lion eavesdropping awake and asleep, & angst potential

The thing about a character that’s always napping in the background is, sometimes maybe they’re awake? And if a change in consciousness can trigger the body swap, which crucial conversations has Lion been present to overhear? Certainly not many of Steven’s complicated feelings about his mom? Wouldn’t that be a great long road to retroactively torture us all?

In “An Indirect Kiss”, Lion is dozing while Steven complains about not having the healing powers he already has - Lion’s annoyed with Steven’s moon in the beginning. While Steven tells his story, Lion’s tail is moving and at the end he opens an eye. 

It's just... I mean, I don't know how to feel about you, but everyone else does. I wish I could have met you then this place would make me sad, and I could cry healing tears, like you.

So Lion probably heard the part that made Connie cry, when Steven is laying in statue Rose’s lap and lamenting how little he knows about her. We also discover later that Lion was revived by healing tears.

In “Nightmare Hospital”, Lion is awake to witness Steven hugging his mom’s sword while Connie hugs her mom. I invoke rule of Crewniverse emotionally devastating everyone in Steven Universe.

In “Ocean Gem”, Lion’s there for Pearl’s explanation of corrupted gems to Steven.

He’s present for the convo at the beginning of “The Test” about Steven learning the Sea Spire mission was a setup.

He’s there when Steven and Amethyst catch Pearl tricking Garnet into fusion.

And when Peridot is learning to love the Earth and accept things that don’t make sense.

He’s also hanging out with Connie at Kevin’s party and is there to hear Steven and Connie talk through their conflict.

Lion could still just be a lion that happens to know things only Rose would know but I choose to believe there’s somethin’ going on. 

Finally, in the Tale of Steven intro to the movie, Lion is a Rose.

This brings us to the final question, which was also the first question:

Why why why would Rose not just come clean? 

The simplest explanation is yeah, Rose still hasn’t learned to stop running and hiding. I have a theory below because it seems to line up, but I am pretty convinced that Lion is Rose. I know we’ll enjoy Steven Universe: Future regardless of what they’ve done but I just think it makes sense.

TL;DR: We know there are psychic ghost abilities and astral projection can be triggered or ended by sleep and that someone can be in someone else’s body in a non-fusion way. Lion sleeps a lot and occasionally seems to know things only Rose could have known. If Lion isn’t Rose, it doesn’t track with Rose’s secretive behavior. Lion is Rose.

SPECULATION from here on.

I’m inclined to believe we’ll find out Pink was responsible for the damage to Pink Pearl’s eye, maybe due to giving an illogical order-

-Or lashing out in anger?

We would finally understand the first choice Rose made that changed her, like what A Single Pale Rose did for Pearl. And if she had a core trauma unresolved it could explain why she kept hiding from the past. We’ve seen something similar with Lapis.

And what do you know, before Steven Universe wrapped, Lion got an adorable little one-eyed companion!

Rose genuinely being gone forever is a choice I like also, but to me, there’s too much about Lion that’s explained this way that is more satisfying than just “he’s magic and knew rose offscreen”

To cite another conspiracy theory, maybe this could be how Steven emotionally self-corrupts, if that’s a thing. I’m not attached to that one but this could trigger it. What could possibly be more upsetting than this? What could force him to deal with his own problems?

RECAP

Lion’s actions make sense if he’s Rose more than another explanation because 

He has only warped to places Rose would know about

A number of which only Rose and Pearl know about, canonically

Rose’s big secret identity is compromised if anyone interacts with Lion. In fact Lion basically holds all of her secrets?

He gave a shit about Pearl’s feelings in Rose’s Scabbard despite Lion not knowing her

VHS tape conundrum

We know Steven can body swap without bringing his Gem along

Connie, a HUMAN from EARTH who has a SWORD and LOVES MAGIC and is Pearl’s FAVORITE STUDENT, is Lion’s favorite person*

Lion has a personality and sentience, why would he not have a character arc and motivations and knowledge that explain his behavior? Does it really make sense for him to be a handbag who takes Steven on quests? Isn’t that exactly what Pearl’s character arc was all about not being?

Offers the opportunity for Rose to face her problems

*this isn’t really evidence but I love Connie and so does Lion

(Lion is also Melon Mutt because)

There are 3 Melon Mutts but they all come to Steven immediately after body swapping

The Watermelon society episodes are clearly saying something about the story (Baby Melon = Pink Diamond and Steven Melon 1 = Rose), but my galaxy brain is too deep into Lion to actually understand the melons beyond that

Lion rescued Steven because he saw where he went

Why would we need Melon Mutt at all otherwise? What’s the point? We already have Pumpkin?

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

Urchin

Summary: Lift a few bags or starve? For Sam that’s an easy choice to make. Though, sometimes easy choices can change the course of your whole life.  

Warnings: Some gross smell stuff. Nothing too wild. 

A/N: I feel bad that I haven’t had a fic update in a minute but I thought I’d share that the reason is because I’m focusing more on my own content. Def. not leaving fic just what little creative energy I have is going mainly to things not fic related (still getting bits and pieces in here and there though). 

To try and make up for it I thought I’d share some with y’all. This was an exercise that’s turned into a possible prologue for a story I’ve been sitting on for a long time now. I hope y’all like it and would love any feedback you want to share. [Also, I don’t expect any feedback at all since I know y’all are here mainly for fic and not original works.]

Love you pumpkins! 

Lungs burning with effort, feet flying over the steaming concrete, Sam runs faster than she has in her short life. Funny enough, the gnawing beast of hunger that drove her to this place has faded to a low hum, leaving only adrenaline behind.

A giddy laugh trips across her lips as she barely dodges a cluster of tourists. Maybe she was delirious - the situation at hand was dire at best, far from funny, yet still, she laughs. Honestly, she hadn’t felt this good in a long time. 

Gripping a lamp post to keep her worn sneakers from skidding out on the wet pavement she takes a hard left. Her haul, slung over her shoulders and stuffed into the pockets of her ratty cargo shorts, jostles with each stride. The weight of the designer bags and wallets feel like a full belly and maybe even a shower. They feel like some kind of freedom. 

“Get back here you little shit!” A man with a strong Long Island accent screams from somewhere behind her. Well, they would feel like freedom once she shook these assholes. 

Shouldda’ paid more attention, Sammy, she scolds herself silently. Had she seen the PD patrolling the venue she would have picked a different mark… Maybe. 

A row of Peking Duck in a window makes the hunger override everything for just a second. All of Chinatown’s intoxicating scents suddenly plotting to distract her. Before she can be too mesmerized, a far from appetizing smell brings her back to her current predicament. 

The seafood on the sidewalk vendor’s tables looks fresh enough. Down the alley next to him though, something else entirely was happening. 

Sam hears the telltale shuffle of the crowd and immediately sprints into the stench thinking to cut down the alley and behind the buildings, hoping the smell would lead the officers to keep running. 

“Fuck,” she chokes out, slamming into a near palpable wall of stench. Panic bubbles to the surface along with whatever her empty stomach could spare. There wasn’t time for any of that. 

Covering her mouth, forcing the bile back down, she tries to think. This alley was blocked off, if she headed back onto the street she was almost certainly going to get caught - that was simply not an option. 

Looming like a great beast is the source of the smell coating the insides of her nose. It’s a large dumpster, mystery ooze seeping from one corner like blood. Steeling herself, Sam opens the lid. 

Certainly, the waste inside had once had more form than what was there now. Unfortunately, the August heat and afternoon rain had worked a kind of dark alchemy transmuting it into the stuff of nightmares. 

Shouts from far too close seal her fate. With a breath of far-from-fresh air, Sam pulls the neck of her t-shirt over her nose hurling herself into the deepest part of the dumpster’s maw. 

Back pressed into a corner, eyes watering from the heat and overwhelming stink, she listens. 

“Jesus fucking christ!” A man audibly gags. “Ain’t no way she’s down here, Hardy.” 

“Did you see her out there?” Hardy asks, his Long Island accent making him sound all the more put upon. “Cuz I didn’t,” he lets out a breath. “Nowhere else for her to be.”

“Alright, you look. I-” Another gag cuts him off. “Nah. I’m done.”

“The hell you are, Jackson!” 

“You wanna find her so bad you go down there and look!” 

“I don’t wanna have to tell the Sergeant-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jackson grumbles. His steps are muffled but clear enough to make Sam’s heart jump. 

After a minute he huffs, “Nothin’. Just like I said. No one but us is stupid enough to come down here.” Silence hangs. 

“What about there?” Hardy asks. 

“What about- you’re joking right?”

“We need to thoroughly search-” 

“Thoroughly search… Man have you lost your mind?! No way in hell. No. Report me I don’t give a damn.” Jackson’s voice seems to fade as he speaks, clearly heading away from the dumpster. 

“Goddamn kid,” Sam barely hears Hardy say, fairly certain he’s not talking about her. “Nobody said this was supposed to be an easy beat,” his voice closer and closer. 

“If you’re scared of a little garbage,” he pauses to take a shaky breath in front of the dumpster, the smell clearly getting to him. If Sam hadn’t already been holding her breath she would have started. “You should probably go get some suburban gig.”

“You keep stalling old man. Open that beast if you’re so hard,” Jackson taunts from the mouth of the alley.

With a huff, Hardy opens the opposite side of the dumpster. “See it’s-” 

Even though Sam can’t see the man from her position she can feel the moment the stench hits him. With a clatter, the lid falls back in place followed by the clear sound of someone violently hurling. She fights to hold in a laugh. Jackson, however, lets loose. 

He whoops, “Oh, I’m gonna be smelling that shit for a week but it’s so worth it!” 

“Fuck you,” Hardy grunts between retching.

“You find your perp?”

“Fuck,” he gulps in air, “you.” 

Hardy’s boots fade away, “Like, you said, ain’t no one there. Let’s get the fuck outta here.” 

Sam doesn’t move for as long as she can stand it, wanting to be sure they’ve given up their pursuit. Finally, she slithers out of the abyss.

When her eyes spot the place Hardy lost his lunch she can’t hold in the laugh. Sure, she might smell like rotting fish for the rest of her life, but she wasn’t in cuffs and those assholes had to tell their boss they lost to a girl. 

Making her way through the city she feels like Moses, the sea of people parting around her. For once she doesn’t bother keeping her guard up, no one wanted to fuck with someone who looked and smelled like they crawled out of the bowels of the Hudson. 

Carefree, she calculates what she’ll need to do in order to make anything off the bags, hoping there was at least some cash in a few of them so she could eat. Not even the stink could chase away the ache of hunger now. 

Suddenly, Sam finds herself sprawled on the pavement. 

“Oh,” a woman with a foreign accent Sam can’t name speaks, “sorry about that.” Quickly Sam rights herself, looking back to the voice. 

The woman stands from the small sidewalk table she’d be at to pluck her umbrella from the ground. She’s not an overly pretty woman but the kind of person that’s desirable based on their presence alone. Also, with a chilling realization, Sam knows she’s seen her. The clutch in her left pocket suddenly seems very heavy. 

An almost mischievous smile curls the woman’s pale pink lips. “If you’d be so kind as to return my Channel to me I will happily buy you dinner.” She sits, waiting for Sam to respond. 

Maybe Sam was actually turning into a fish, her mouth opening and closing with nothing coming out. The chances of running into this same woman in a city of millions was… impossible. This was impossible. 

“It isn’t very easy to get the drop on me, you know. I can’t even be mad - even though, by the looks of you, that clutch will need to be burned.” With one patent leather pump, she pushes out the chair across from her. “Sit, girl.” It’s not until Sam is already in the chair that she bothers to wonder why she’d simply obeyed. 

Across from her, the woman grins, extending her hand. Sheepishly, she reaches into her pocket for the clutch, decidedly less filthy than the bags across her shoulders though still filmy with that unnamable goo. 

“Thank you,” the woman sets it on the edge of the table and Sam removes the rest of her haul from her shoulders, setting them under her chair. 

A waiter comes up, only barely glancing at Sam. 

“Ah, yes,” the woman beams at the man who appears utterly charmed. “I will take a glass of your best and coldest white and my friend here will have- Hmm,” she seems surprised by something. “I’m not sure. What would you like, darling?” 

“Uh,” what kind of drinks were there, she seems to have forgotten. “I guess a... Coke?” She finally responds after a painfully long pause.

“Excellent,” the waiter nods, disappearing inside. 

The woman studies Sam with unnerving intensity in absolute silence. With each passing moment, Sam inches closer to exploding. When the waiter arrives with their drinks she’s pretty sure she’s never been so happy to see someone. 

“Also, for you,” he holds out a plate with a warm damp cloth. 

“Oh, thanks…” Sam feels her cheeks heat under the grime. She wipes the cloth over her face, trying not to be horrified at the stain left behind. 

“What is your name?” The woman asks, taking a sip of wine, clearly savoring the taste. 

“Sam.” 

Her eyes narrow, “Not a Samantha, I think.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Samara.” The sweet Coke chases away the taste of rotten fish for a glorious moment.

“Samara,” the woman echos, the syllables sounding much prettier on her tongue. “That’s a beautiful name.” She takes a pensive sip, “It means guardian, did you know that?” Sam shakes her head. 

“It’s good that you do now. Our names are powerful things, Samara. They hold secrets about what fate may bring our way.” 

Sam holds in a bitter laugh. If that was the case then fate had a sick sense of humor when it came to her. Once again the woman studies her in silence. 

“So…” Sam swallows hard, “What’s your name?”

The woman smiles slowly, “I told you names were powerful.” Sam nods. “You do not give away powerful things for free, my dear.” 

“Please,” the woman gestures to the menu before Sam, “pick whatever you’d like.” 

Half of the menu looks like it’s the type of food you finish in two bites and leave still hungry but gloriously, there is a burger. Sam orders that, with an extra patty and double the fries, her mouth watering so hard at the prospect that she has to fight to keep from drooling. 

“I can see only two explanations to our earlier exchange, Samara,” the woman pops a piece of bread in her mouth - Sam had already shoveled half the basked down her gullet. “Either, I’m getting old and rusty-” honestly, the woman could be anywhere from her mid-twenties to her 40’s, she certainly didn’t seem old- “or you are one hell of a little thief.” Sam fixes her eyes on the tablecloth. 

“You misunderstand me, Samara.” Sam looks back up at her. “I don’t mean that as an insult. Given that getting rusty is a very bad thing in my line of work, I’d much rather the latter be true than the former.” 

The waiter arrives, the prospect of food distracting Sam from the woman’s odd statement. Though she wants to maintain some form of decorum she can’t help but apply herself to the plate in earnest. It had been so long since she’d tasted anything half as good. To her credit, the woman doesn’t bat an eye. 

After Sam made it through half her plate she asks, “Are you alone in the world, child?” Her somber tone slows Sam’s pace. 

She feels she should be more afraid of this peculiar woman. After being on the street for a couple of years, it was impossible to not have heard the stories of girls being lured into trafficking rings or a pimp’s clutches by women who tried to gain their trust. Sam liked to think she was too smart for that. Only weak people fell for that kind of bullshit. And yet… 

“Yeah.” 

“It is a hard world for women. Even harder when we are alone.” Sam’s french fries almost get stuck on the lump of tension in her throat. “Yet you have clearly gained the skill you need to survive. That’s something to be proud of.” 

This time Sam can’t help but laugh, “Sure. Proud.” She shakes her head, “Lady, I’m covered in fish viscera because I had to hide from two incompetent cops in a dumpster today. I don’t think pride is the right word.” 

“You outsmarted two grown men,” the woman’s smile seems genuine. “Trained law officers - whatever that’s worth,” she raises a brow and Sam laughs once more. “You did what most wouldn’t have thought of or been willing to. On top of successfully pulling off a pretty impressive mark.” 

Was she honestly congratulating Sam on her delinquency? The absurdity of it all was too much suddenly and if she was being honest with herself, it was also unnerving. 

“What’s this all about, lady?”

The woman steeples her fingers before her, “I have a proposition for you.” She gives Sam a moment before continuing. “Someone with skill and a will such as yours is bursting with potential. I know people who can help you tap into that potential.” She opens the clutch and removes a card holding it across the table. Sam hesitates before accepting. 

A familiar lion in profile graces the front of the card beside text reading New York Public Library. Flipping the thick cardstock over Sam sees a name, number, and the address of the main branch. Nothing strange. 

“You inviting me to join your book club or something?”

“Something,” the woman’s smile is slow, knowing. She stands, picking up her bag. 

“Bring that card to the library anytime. Ask for, Rita.” She takes a few steps away before turning back. 

“I will not promise you that what you’ll find after will be easy. However, you’ll have a full belly and something more than just survival to strive for. I think sometimes, that is enough.” 

“Hold up!” Sam stands, sending the chair skittering across the concrete. 

“Good evening, Samara. Perhaps fate will allow us to meet again.” In moments the woman disappears down the street. 

Sam considers chasing her but instead collapses into the chair, staring at the business card until the waiter returns

“Here you are,” he sets the bill on the table. Given everything that just transpired, Sam expected to open the little black folder to find some hidden message, or instructions to meet a stranger under the bridge, honestly, anything but the check which was dangerously close to the triple-digit mark. 

That bitch, Sam thinks before a much more pressing issue pushes her anger to the side. As if he can sense the situation the waiter hadn’t stepped away from the table, instead, he stands expectantly for her to magically produce some method of payment. 

Given her appearance, the prospect of rifling through several bags until she produced said payment seemed like a sure way to make her earlier endeavors to maintain her freedom worthless. She smiles up at the man, hoping she looks like an innocent - though filthy - little urchin and not the subway rat she actually was. 

Taking a deep breath, Sam grips the side of the small bistro table farthest from the waiter. With one heft she sends it toppling into him. Ignoring the protests echoing down the street she bolts into the fading evening light, the bags from earlier forgotten in a tangle and the business card clutched tight in her hand. 

[laviarray]

So Lily Orchard is doing a Steven Universe video...

And I’m dreading it...

Now Ive been following Lily for the past few months on Youtube and I like her take on a lot of subjects, both media and politics. I’ve marathoned all of her Glass of Water videos and found a lot of her points in them to be thoughtful and logical... Except when talks about Steven Universe...

I don’t what it is about this series and her, but it always she short circuits when she tries to talk about the series. Its one thing if we reach different conclusions on certain things about the show but another thing entirely when the evidence fro her points either makes no sense or almost comes from a different series. So as she comes closer to releasing her “Steven Universe sucks and here’s why“ video, I sit disappointed, knowing I'm about to lose a lot of respect for her. 

One of the first weird point she makes in the sneak peak of her video is the release schedule of the series. Now I don’t think anyone who watches the show is thrilled with the releases being so erratic, but Lily takes to another level by no only blaming the crewniverse for the erratic releases, but says they should write the show to cater to that release schedule so they don’t come back from a long hiatus to filler beach city episodes.

(What....?)

Ignoring the fact that the writers have gone on record saying they don’t control that, there is no way to write a show to deal with a weird release scheduling issue like that.  CN usually structures the bombs around the story arcs and then might either tie the filler stuff in that run or they might go on hiatus after the arcs and come back to the filler. There isn’t any way for them to deal with that kind of problem without writing the Beach City episodes out entirely. While I do generally hate Beach city episodes, they are there to give Steven a breather and deal with more laid back issues and function as filler should.

She goes into how the Cluster arc waffles too much as there are only a few episodes that deal with it directly while the others just focus on side stories with the characters. So she ends up recommending that those episodes come first to resolve the Cluster first and then deal with the side stories.

The original order:

Her Order:

Ignoring that the episodes after would make you wonder why are they still at the barn at this point, this would make sense to structure the arc this way, only if you didn’t notice that the arc was about Peridot. The whole reason the cluster is never made a huge thing in those episodes was because the arc is about Peridot going through an arc to value the planet so when goes to deal with the cluster, its out of love for the planet and for the people she had bonded with over the course of time she worked on the drill. Shuffling the episodes around like this would undermine the conclusion of that arc by gem drill. (Plus Super Watermelon Island was probably written in to make them more an event two-parter. ) Granted you could argue you could move the arc this way to just deal with the cluster first, but nothing is really gain besides just dealing with the ticking clock of the cluster faster, which wasn’t the point of the arc in the first place. The only episodes that count as filler there were “The Answer” and “Steven’s Birthday”, both probably there to break up the 7 episodes that are Peridot focused and give the other characters some breathing room.

However it isn’t just this video she is weird about Steven Universe. In her video “ Equestria Daily Community Devolves Into Racist Tantrum “, while talking about the lame criticisms about Applejack’s voice actress black in the next series, she says just because she is black does not mean she will sound like a stereotype, like how Amethyst’s voice actress tries to make her sound like she has a really bad southern drawl. Besides the fact Lily didn’t do the basic research to find that Michaela Dietz, Amethyst’s voice actress, is basically doing her own voice in a higher pitch for Amethyst, Amethyst doesn’t sound black nor southern. (Speaking as a Texan, I know what southern accents sound like).

There are more places she has these problems too

Saying Pink Diamond is a fascist, even though everything that would classify the Diamonds as Fascist, PD/Rose Quartz fights against. Saying Pink Diamond is never challenged by the plot, even though the last run of episodes was about the crystal gems challeging their views of her. Saying PD and Pearl’s relationship is that of a master and slave, even though all of PD and Rose’s dialogue is treating Pearl as an equal. Saying that off-colors are a plot hole while Peridot is able to function, which is a whole bag of worms that can be its own post, but basically they made Peridot knowing she couldn’t change, while the off colors are anomalies that weren’t planned.

I can keep going....

Long story short, Im all for criticising the show on its failures, (I could go nuts ripping the show for Lapis) but Lily is just missing the mark on these points and its really sad to see a reviewer I respect mess up so much on this series.

[pingo1387]

[su spoilers under cut] 

wow so uh. this bomb. heart of the crystal gems and all that. positive and negative aspects... 

positive: not really any super-angst/wangst abt pink/rose getting in the way. rupphire wedding, genuine character development/exploration for garnet and ruby (and a bit for sapphire), the latter two not really being focused on as any more than “we’re in looooove, opposites attract” before this. bismuth is out, possibly permanently even if we might not see her too much considering the voice actor cost and praying she doesn’t get shattered lol. finally get some closure on the cluster situation with a positive outlook there. arm-wrestling with YD was great. garnet finally seeing BD again and BD recognizing her was really cool. lapis is back. peridot’s there. steven somehow getting a cool new ability again and that pink aura calling back to the foreshadowing from Mr Greg. ruby being a cowboy. amethyst being a horse and trying to protect steven emotionally. mr dewey and jamie connecting over their lost prospects and crying together. ronaldo squaring up to fight before petey pulls him away. actually using the emergency system they talked about when nanefua became mayor. 

negative: the “RQ is PD” reveal felt like a poorly-written fanfic (”Steven found out! Now Amethyst and Garnet found out! Now Greg knows! Oh my god, Bismuth reformed, and now she knows! Here come the Diamonds for a surprise attack on Earth, and now they know too!”); everyone was pretty calm about the whole thing, even considering bismuth’s minor freak-out and sapphire’s warping away; i understand greg’s and amethyst’s reactions since they never actually met pink diamond (plus amethyst probably never met YD or BD, and even though greg was kidnapped by them he never really saw any worse side to them than that), but everyone else is kinda... hm. anyway. the diamonds knowing the truth abt PD is a little weird, like, what are they going to do now? accept that pink is kinda really dead considering that steven remembers nothing about her life? kidnap steven and take him to homeworld? become best friends with the CG???? i really hope it’s not the last one bc jesus christ they’re genocidal imperialists, one emotional connection with their little sister doesn’t make up for that. also why did steven tell them in the first place? it was such an important secret that pearl was ordered to keep quiet about it for five thousand years and he literally told two incredibly major enemies without hardly a second thought, like, that was his first response, “oh the diamonds are here! gimme a sec guys i got this!” also why is lapis there? glad to have her back but her entire character arc so far has been “i’m scared of the diamonds and i will absolutely under no circumstances face them in battle” and suddenly she’s like “heyyy change of plans” with no forewarning? why 

[leoncillo]

Okay, so idk if this is gonna turn into a theory or not I just need to...process things.

Why was Steven able to access Pink's memories?

When I think of the similarities between Steven's other emotional/spiritual reactions to gems, they all had one thing in common: the gems were feeling deep rooted negative emotion. When Lapis was still trapped under the sea with Jasper and fighting with herself and her purpose in the chaos, Steven found her through dreaming. When Steven started crying Blue's tears, Blue was shown to still be mourning. Then, in Jungle Moon, we see that was the exact planet and area Pink Diamond had her breakdown. Surprisingly..well not really, Steven has been able to soothe or eventually get the gems out of their moods. Lapis was freed, Blue finally got her trial, but what about Pink? Steven even helped the Cluster calm down!

Pink Diamond is defective.

She's significantly smaller than the other diamonds. While I was disappointed that she didn't look like what most of the fandom pictured, her characterization makes sense. As the youngest myself, I know what it's like to not feel equal to a sibling. People always say "Oh, someday it'll happen." "You're not ready yet." Yeah she's a brat, but she has reason to be. Gems are born with a purpose. All gems even diamonds. So imagine when you're supposed to be one of the most powerful beings known to your kind and you're born, in the eyes of others, as being less than so. Pink Diamond was supposed to have what they had because that's what she was born for, she knew this, and Homeworld never liked to deviate from roles you were supposed to be. Yet, they did so to her. Her mural making her look a lot stronger and mightier than she was was more than likely for propaganda purposes. So lesser gems didn't know a diamond could be born defective. That a diamond could be imperfect.

Pink and her gems obviously represent the "heart" of the gem civilization.

Gems created under Pink Diamond are fiery, strong, stubborn, and will fight for what they believe in. Noticeably more free...whether they used that freedom for good or bad varied. Think of the quartz soldiers at the Zoo, they acted more like a family than a military unit. Rose and all of her dates with Greg and making Steven, the flowers, strawberry fields, etc. Whereas gems created under the other diamonds seemed to be more accepting that they were just numbers to their diamonds. They were weak willed and did what they were told. Pink Diamond had power. Not through sheer force or size, but her heart. If Jasper, the most famous war hero known to gemkind on Homeworld (?), is any indication, then Pink Diamond's army was a real threat. Not just to organic life on potential colonies, but to the other armies of her sisters.

Do I think one of the diamonds killed her?

Not necessarily. I wouldn't put it past them to have had plans to take her down a notch. They definitely knew what power her gems held since Yellow took Jasper for herself and all the other Rose Quartz were bubbled as a precaution. I don't think they wanted to kill her, though.

Could she have shattered herself?

This theory is what's currently winning in my mind right now. For one, Pink shattered an image of herself in a window. When does the Crewniverse ever do something like that without meaning? Never. Although, the mere fact that her image shattered could've been just general foreshadowing to her downfall, but considering PD did it herself, I'm going with it being herself as the culprit. Also, only a diamond can damage a diamond. So if none of her sisters did, then she's the only other option. How the whole scenario could've went down for their to have been "witnesses" to see her get shattered with a sword, I don't know. Tbh, it doesn't add up at all at this point. So either someone is lying or forgot some very important details.

Why would Pink Diamond want to die?

We've all been there before. We've all idolized something or someone based simply on what we saw on the outside. Only for it to turn out to be a horrible job, title, etc. Take adulthood, for example. When you were a kid, you probably wanted to grow up really quickly. You wanted to get to stay out late, shave, date, drive, what have you. You never considered what else comes with growing up. Tons of emotion and heartbreak, bills, losses, TAXES (jk but not), money to pay for gas to drive that car. I could go on. While I wasn't exactly a perfectly happy child, adulthood still hit me like truck...especially when I tried to enter it too quickly.

Pink was the baby sister. She didn't have a single colony, planet, army,...pearl?... anything. Honestly, did any of the other lesser gems even see her outside of murals until she got a court and entourage? Probably not. So what you have here are all the things to entice someone to want to grow up too quickly. Not treat them as an equal (sometimes you can't in human standards with age, but in gem standards your role was supposed to be absolute), isolate them, and tell them "someday" and "because I said so".

So one or all of the other sisters probably relented and got her a tiny little planet to look after. For all we know, she probably got some fancy limb enhancers to make her a little taller like she's putting on her sister's heels. She got a palaquin and apparently a pearl and entourage. Although something still seems off about that...Did they even give her guards? They should've and you would think they would've, but did they?

Anyway, after a few centuries/millennia on Earth, Pink probably became disenchanted with the whole idea of being a diamond and ruler. She didn't think it'd be that much work or she just wasn't agreeing with Homeworld's mentality. Something happened. Maybe she came to love the planet and the organic life, love her gems as more than just servants (who we've yet to hear say anything bad about her and Big Bad Jasper seemed genuinely distraught just thinking of her). Maybe she didn't want her gems caught up in Homeworld crap and thought they deserved better and deserved to be whatever they wanted to be. However, her colony was creating the best soldiers, you think her sisters would just let her stop?

So maybe Pink decided to secretly fight back and became close with Rose who shared her same views of the world. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Rose was already labeled a criminal before Pink was shattered. Maybe she sent Rose to "rebel" and disrupt gem activity on Earth to not only stop Homeworld from draining Earth but to take a stand. This could've backfired in her face when her sisters truly believed she didn't have a grip on the situation and sent their soldiers to correct the issue.

Pink seeing she effed up and just put her gems and world in danger, probably freaked out. There was probably bickering amongst them Y: "This is why we didn't give you a colony!" B: "You weren't ready!" P: "I don't want to do this anymore! It's wrong!" Her sisters probably wanted to wipe Earth off the map or at least start over with someone else at the helm, but Pink wouldn't risk it. She loved her first and only colony. It was small, but it was hers. She found her OWN place and purpose.

Idk what events would lead up to her shattering herself (and I'm pretty sure her shards are bubbled somewhere ready to be healed). But maybe she did set up a clever scheme to make it look like one of her own did it. The sisters would hesitate if gems from Earth could take out one of their own and back off. Or maybe it wasn't a scheme and she was found on the verge of doing it herself and the gem that found her couldn't stop her in time. She wanted the responsibility not knowing what all it entailed, what all she would feel, the pressure (did I just make a gem joke?), what all she would wanna fight for. She just wanted to be important like them for so long and when she finally found herself but wasn't accepted for it...she couldn't take it anymore.

[vulva-o-queef]

@hestiaq​ (making a new post because I don’t want to keep reblogging a long threat)

I’m really sorry for what you were put through. I sincerely hope you’re in a better situation now and doing okay. That’s horrific.

I remember the Ted Bundy bit you’re talking about- and she’s…. honestly quite right? If enough men have NPD/ASPD a few of them are going to seem intelligible, I think. I don’t really understand what you’re saying about Ted Bundy- if it’s tongue in cheek or not.

Okay, like I said, I haven’t seen this post she made. necromancerdoll just said that larps said sociopaths/psychopaths “can’t perform well in society/function with others.” I know aspd and being a sociopath are often considered the same thing, and I know a lot of them are pretty transparent assholes. Psychopathy isn’t a formal diagnosis at all, but criminal psychologists do use the term, and there’s a pretty solid consensus on what it means. Some people say psychopaths are a subset of sociopaths, and other people say it’s a similar but distinct thing, but in either case, one of the main characteristics of a psychopath (which a sociopath doesn’t, or doesn’t always have) is that they’re smooth and charming, and they use those traits to manipulate others.

My comment about Ted Bundy was sarcastic (and probably not in very good faith, but also wasn’t really related to the main point of all this), because saying psychopaths “can’t perform well in society/function with others” is the opposite of the truth. Ted Bundy was charming, socially adept, approachable, and likable, which was exactly how he managed to lure in many of his victims. He would put on a fake cast and ask women to help him get things into his car, which is what that scene from silence of the lambs is based on. Larps might be totally aware of all that and just phrased something too broadly. The only way it would be relevant to the rest of what I’m saying is, if she really meant to say that psychopaths are socially inept, it would be another example of how she tries to speak as an authority on mental disorders she doesn’t understand. Mostly I was just poking fun.

Women are over-diagnosed. But I don’t understand how Larps pointing out shitty behavior is the same as “diagnosing everyone”. Also, she’s talked about how borderline personality is over-diagnosed and often ascribed to women who are dealing with trauma. She’s also not talking about it from a “I don’t personally like them” only- “these people” are people who are cruel and vicious and play victim when called out on their cruel vicious behavior.

Clearly, you and I interpret the things she says about bpd and ‘cluster b’ in general very differently. For one, diagnosing anyone over the internet is absurd. In my first response to her, I did agree that she has made some good points, mostly about the link between autogynephilia and narcissism. But that’s about noticing an overarching theme within a specific population, and there’s already a decent amount of academic writing about that link. Case studies done by real psychologists. Actual studies done with controls and statistics and so on. And even with stuff like fucking “trans lesbian” dating profiles that larps points out herself, there is some solid evidence there due to the sheer repetition of entitled attitudes, fetishism, etc, the list goes on. My issue is with the way she thinks she understands BPD when she clearly doesn’t, how she applies “cluster b” or bpd to an awful lot of people, largely young ‘transmen’ or radfems she doesn’t like, and how whenever anyone she’s put down for having BPD tells her to cut it out, or tells her that she’s wrong about them, she dismisses anything they have to say by citing “people with bpd are insane,” or telling them they’re being irrational due to their disorder. Basically she’s using it as a shield to avoid being held accountable for the things she says. “Anyone who’s telling me borderline people aren’t irrational is only saying that because they’re borderline, and therefore they’re irrational!” I’m not saying she’s diagnosing “everyone.” And regarding transmen specifically, there are a lot of psychological factors involved in that situation, and for someone who’s so vocal about the cultlike, exploitative, backwards nature of the trans movement, you’d think she would understand how absurd and frankly just plain egotistical it is to think she can simplify all of those psychological factors and dynamics down to “cluster b.” Again - remember that she’s talking about people she’s never met in her life, usually judging from one blog description, a handful of posts, or sometimes nothing more than a fucking selfie.

Even as a younger girl with supposed “BPD” (who even identified with the label)- I wouldn’t have found this stuff offensive, and if it did (which I might have, and sometimes still do)- it’s really that easy to log off or go outside.

That’s good for you, and I respect your perspective. And you’re right, I could just log off and ignore what larps is saying. You can say that about anything anyone says on the internet, and technically it’s true. But I didn’t. The things she’s saying are ignorant, I find them personally hurtful, and I think she’s spreading misinformation, harmful stereotypes, and regressive thinking. I see that she’s saying dehumanizing and belittling things to women on this site who deserve respect, and probably worst of all, I see that there are a lot of people who look up to her, ask her for advice, sometimes idolize her a bit, and many of them will believe pretty much anything she says. She’s feeding them bullshit and some really vile ideas about mental health stigma, and how people with certain disorders (mainly BPD) deserve to be treated. I don’t think she’s the devil incarnate, and I don’t think she’s out here ruining lives and destroying families. I think she’s an asshole with an inflated sense of her own insight and knowledge, and I decided to say something. I could have logged off, but in this case, I didn’t. That’s all.

...I don’t understand how Larps memeing on a Tumblr blog and often posting insightful ideas about personality disorders is “insulting, ignorant, and dehumanizing”.

Yeah I don’t know what you consider “insightful,” but posting the definition of “insane” and copy-pasting a list of bpd symptoms and saying “see? these people are insane,” and tagging her response to my post with #have u ever noticed how all of these people have personality disorders (callback to “anyone who’s telling me borderline people aren’t irrational is only saying that because they’re borderline, and therefore they’re irrational!”) ...doesn’t quite cut it in my book.

She doesn’t bring up cluster b whenever she “feels” someone is acting unreasonable and dramatic- they… are unreasonable and dramatic- at least in whatever context, and people don’t have to dig deep to see who someone really is to be able to just say “no that’s insane, bye”.

Mmmm... I realize you see the situation differently from me, but am I acting insane? I mean, at worst, I’m making the undeniably blunt way she talks to people into something bigger than it needs to be. And yeah, I know... classic cluster b, amiright? But even if that’s the case, even if I’m misinterpreting her views, surely you can see where I’m coming from. And there are quite a few people who have the same objections that I do (mostly radfems, radfem adjacent women, terves, etc.). When she wrote that tag #have u ever noticed how all of these people have personality disorders, isn’t it clear that she was referring to me, as well as the rest of the radfemmish women who have been speaking against this behavior from her lately? Isn’t she making an assumption that I have a personality disorder (which I do not)? 

Do you really think my objection to the way larps talks about bpd is an indication that I have a personality disorder, and that I’m insane? Unreasonable at worst. But yes, she is absolutely using the excuse that those who object to her saying borderline people are irrational are saying so because they’re borderline/irrational. And like I said, I’m hardly the only example of her saying things like this. Someone just reblogged the original post of all of this and said #I just blocked larps bcuz shes been reblogging random old posts from me calling me a cluster b as bait #as far as I know I’m the only quote on quote crazy bihet that doesn’t have a pd? Someone else wrote #I really looked up to larps hence I’m so torn about this #if I didn’t believe she was a smart and decent well meaning person I wouldn’t care. That’s just on that particular post, within the last few hours.

People with personality disorders are diagnosed because they’re anti social and cause harm to those they “love”/interact with and the cluster b community (that I hung around) spend most of their time groveling in misery- despite often constructing their own fantastical narrative of people horrifically abusing them and demanding to be coddled for every emotion.

Some of them, yeah. Not all of them, and not enough to justify making assumptions about people you’ve never met.

What I mean is- the pain that they’re feeling is an offense to ego a LOT of the time. And other’s shouldn’t have to walk around eggshells to make sure that they don’t injure others egos.

Agreed.

Like it’s not real, rudfems don’t enable or contribute to violence against women. None of these women, no matter how mean they are, contributed to the pain I experienced in childhood for being called BPD- actually it was always men and handmaidens.

I didn’t accuse larps, or any other ‘rudefem’ of contributing to violence against women. I know that men were the reason ‘hysteria’ could be diagnosed in the past, and I know that men are the reason bpd is being overdiagnosed in women today. And I’m honestly not even trying to say larps is being misogynistic to the women she says this stuff to (though re-reading, I realize it could easily sound that way). Misogyny or not, dismissing someone’s perfectly measured, reasonable objection as irrational just because they have a bpd diagnosis - which in several cases, dr. larps diagnosed all by herself - is unacceptable, is the same pattern and circular justification used on ‘hysterical’ women in the past, and is particularly bad because, as we agree, bpd is too often being diagnosed as the new version of hysteria. She’s re-enforcing age-old stereotypes about mental illness, and she’s buying into it so completely that she really believes that borderline people are so unreliable that she knows what’s going on in their heads better than they do. Hence saying that borderline people objecting to her backwards stereotyping are doing so out of a kneejerk reaction to a damaged ego, rather than because they know what she’s saying is false.

Also - she isn’t talking about everyone with “diagnosed” BPD.

If that’s what she means, then she’s the one who needs to say it, not you. Again, I respect that you have a different view of this, and I understand your perspective, I can’t believe what others say about her intentions and supposed read-between-the-lines distinctions, when she doesn’t say it herself, and the things she says and the way she acts do not communicate what you’re saying about her.

Meaning, there’s a distinction between people who have been diagnosed and are suffering, and people who have been diagnosed (or not) and are cruel and have a total lack of insight and disregard for other people.

Mental health is complicated. You can’t divide people with bpd into two clean categories like that. That’s not how it works. And you CERTAINLY can’t lump people into the “bad” category simply because they don’t like how you talk about their disorder. You can’t see someone objecting to what you’re saying and assume that YOU know that they’re coming from a “total lack of insight.” People are not psychic. Larps is using the fact that some people with pds have a lack of self-awareness to dodge accountability when it’s convenient for her. It’s complete circular logic - something you would think she would be above, no? “they’re irrational, and when they complain about me calling them irrational, I can shut them down by saying that any complaint they make is irrational.” I know I keep saying this, but it’s true. In my first comment, I pointed out that this is her pattern, and what was her response? hashtag have u ever noticed how all these people have personality disorders. fucking exactly what I said her response would be, because that’s the only excuse she has. 

And yes, insight is a qualifying factor that “””exonerates”””” (quite a loaded word in this context????) someone from being “really” BPD. The thing about BPD is that they will not (or cannot) change- like it’s not a fixed part of your personality, and if it is- you deserve to be called out, and if it isn’t and you still behave like that… you deserve to be called out, still.

Again, no. If this is the case, then we need to make a second definition to separate “REALLY bpd” from “sorta bpd,” since currently they both meet the same diagnostic criteria. It’s not up to you, or larps, to create definitive new categories of mental illness.

I went from being told I had “borderline tendencies” to being diagnosed with full BPD, to basically nothing at all, because I became aware of those patterns, learned how to be objective about my thoughts and emotions, and practiced resisting them to the point where they only show up if I’m already in a really bad state. I don’t consider myself to have - or to have had - a personality disorder, because I’ve almost completely gotten rid of those mental reactions. But I know people who do have BPD, who are self aware, who are trying the same things I did, but the difference is that even though they now have the tools to keep them in check, those mental and emotional reactions are still present for them, and likely always will be. To say they don’t REALLY have bpd because they’re able to control it is frankly insulting. “If you’ve been able to improve it through treatment, you never really had it in the first place.” I know that’s not how you meant it, but that’s what it boils down to.

BPD is not defined by a lack of self-awareness. It’s a pattern of ingrained emotional and mental reactions (and, subsequently, behaviors). These often develop as a method of self defense against external abuse. Or sometimes there’s no abuse and it’s there anyways. The cause isn’t always clear. But the criteria calling these symptoms “pervasive” doesn’t mean the individual is unaware of them. People who know they have bpd, and who are working on treating their bpd still have bpd.

“...deserve to be called out”... it’s not larps’ business to “call someone out” for having bpd. She can call someone out for acting like a shithead, but simply having bpd is not a flaw that needs to be criticized. Your phrasing makes it seem like that’s what you’re saying, and although I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant, that’s what larps seems to think.

Not only are neither you nor larps qualified to determine the “category” of bpd that people on the internet who you’ve never met fall into, but even IF that’s how she sees it, then, again, she needs to say that herself, and she needs to reflect that view in the way she treats people.

But to conclude, she really does make that explicitly clear that she doesn’t think everyone with BPD is a “screeching, manipulative, hysteric”.

Where

You made a bunch of excuses for her and I still have no reason to believe any of it is true

However, I’m mostly speaking for myself here because I’ve been hanging around tungle for too long and I mostly want to say that this all doesn’t really matter. Like, so many feminists on here ramble on about “but what about bpd women who get misdiagnosed?” yeah I didn’t face brutality at the hands of snarky women on the internet. These are not the people that even enabled the violence that me or many other women with trauma face.

Again, I didn’t say that. I don’t think she’s destroying lives either, I was just frustrated, saw that many other women are frustrated about her too, and I felt like saying something, so I did. That is the extent of my motivations here. I do think that she is spreading harmful stereotypes and misinformation, but I’m under no delusion that she is causing damage on a massive scale. She is, however, just one more raindrop in the proverbial ocean of mental health stigma. Insignificant as a single drop may be, surely it’s no less significant than any of those people with bpd whose bad behavior you say should be called out. If it’s larps’ business to call them out, then it’s just as much my business to call her out.

It’s not up to her and other women like her to clarify every single thing they say- people DO generalize and we should be able to communicate without having to specify for everyone.

I’m not asking her to clarify “every single thing” she says, I’m asking her to stop acting like a shithead, labeling people she’s never met, acting like she’s an authority on personality disorders, and using her actually wildly skewed perception of these disorders which is steeped in regressive, harmful, and demeaning stigma and stereotypes about mental illness in order to manipulate her way out of being held accountable for any of it. I’m not telling her to stop generalizing for the purpose of communication, I’m asking her to stop making inaccurate generalizations based on stereotypes, and to stop using “cluster b” as a catch-all for bad behavior. Just because someone is a shithead, or unreasonable, or overdramatic, doesn’t make them borderline, and it’s insulting to the people with bpd who are truly good people, who also have to deal with their disorder being an internet trend for self-dx’ers to milk sympathy and excuse their abusive behavior (sounds just like what larps would diagnose as cluster b, I know, but it turns out that many people who don’t have bpd exhibit these traits as well), deal with shitty treatment from healthcare providers who read the diagnosis and think they know everything about you before you even walk in the door (back when I had the ‘full bpd’ diagnosis, a therapist said to my face that people with bpd were considered ‘used goods,’ and my current psychiatrist treats me with an absurd and totally unjustified level of suspicion), deal with the massively pervasive stereotypes everyone else holds about bpd (ranging from ‘serial killer’ to ‘used goods’ to ‘fake trend on the internet to get attention’), as well as dealing with - oh yeah - the actual fucking disorder, as well as often comorbid cases of PTSD, depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc.

I’m just saying, it would be a lot more effective and hurt a lot less people you supposedly didn’t mean to target if you just called out the actual behavior instead of “calling out” a disorder. Additionally, I’m pretty sure that people with bpd who do lack self awareness are far more likely to respond to direct criticisms of their behavioral patterns than they are to respond to the label of bpd being “called out.” They’d just see the latter as more fuel for self-pity. It’s a little harder to justify being the victim of someone saying “hey stop being abusive.”

And if that’s not enough reasons for you, consider: people who have shitty behaviors who don’t have a cluster b disorder (yes, larps, they exist) are just gonna hear criticisms of a disorder they don’t have and brush it right off. Call out the actual behavior, and there’s a chance they might recognize it in themselves. It’s like a quadruple win.

A hallmark of bpd/npd/aspd/hpd is having no insight into that, that people say shit, and you take what you can and leave it-her, or me, or anyone else mincing that up….. doesn’t help bpd women live in a world where nobody is going to mince anything up ever. It did not help me when people coddled me, and I intuitively knew that and was deeply frustrated with it.

You’re right that it doesn’t help to have people make excuses for you or ‘coddle’ you. But not being unfair and pushing harmful stigma is not the same thing as “coddling.” Nor is “not mincing” words the same thing as saying things that are untrue, unfair, dismissive, and insulting. Much like Trump saying blatantly racist things is NOT “just telling it like it is.” (and no I’m not comparing you or larps to trump or calling anyone racist. except trump)

Many of the women who have ‘spoken up’ about larps on tungle, I’ve seen on other mediums (fb, wordpress) and they’re often just blatantly manipulative

Really? Am I being blatantly manipulative? Or insane? And, to reiterate, is what I’ve said on her post enough for her to assume that I - and anyone else raising these issues with her - ALL have personality disorders? Is it justification for her to say that I’m “glorifying” ASPD/BPD?

and will never have any insight to the fact that all of this is really a non-issue

I gave you several examples above, and here's your treasure trove:

https://larpsandtherealgirl.tumblr.com/search/cluster%20b

Notice how she loves agreeing with everyone saying they’ve been abused by someone with a cluster b disorder, or otherwise says something negative about a person/people with a cluster b disorder, makes sweeping generalizations and basically uses “cluster b” with the same tone that you would call someone an asshole - that is to say, using the same logical standards of “you said some shit I thought was rude, so I think you’re an asshole & I’m going to call you one” when talking about psychological medical diagnoses?

Yeah, occasionally she claims she’s only talking about The Bad Ones, but that’s a pretty thin excuse when 99% of the time you make no attempt to differentiate, and post things like screenshotted symptoms (which - if the “good ones” with that disorder actually have that disorder - would apply to the “good ones” too) with captions like “these people are insane.”

Again, I realize you see the things she says very differently from me, but surely you can see where I’m coming from. And I would hope that you can see that my having this perspective does not justify saying I have a personality disorder, that I am insane, or that I am “glorifying” ASPD and NPD. I would hope that the similar shit she’s said about several other women who said things similar to what I said would also strike you as unjustified. You can make excuses that she wasn’t literally diagnosing me with a personality disorder, but you can’t make that excuse every single time she says something like this.

but instead “leave radical feminism because it’s so full of mean lesbian separatists” and make huge texts about it everywhere else and how rfeminism is a cult.

Okay... this is an entirely separate and irrelevant subject and I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up. I mean it sounds like you’re saying “people who don’t like being told they’re insane are just butthurt kek” which I really hope is not what you’re saying. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of radical women who would object to being called insane and having their opinions dismissed because of a mental health diagnosis, who would raise their objections and still believe in their politics, probably due to the fact that - in this context - those things have virtually nothing to do with one another.

My point is- she’s not just saying ppl who criticize her have bpd- they often do because people with personality disorders come out of the woodwork to be hideously angry at anyone who calls them abusive or “wrong” and “bad” (whatever that means at any given moment).

In summary: I appreciate and respect that you interpret the things larps says in a very different way, and I’m not trying to tell you that you should be hurt or anything like that. But I can’t accept what I see as excuses that you’re making for her, since she doesn’t offer any of those explanations herself, and I don’t see any evidence of the intentions you’re attributing to her, in her own words or behavior.

At the end of the day, larps is the only person who can speak for larps’ intentions (much like the people whose criticisms larps deflects by claiming they’re motivated by irrational emotion and a threatened victim complex SHOULD be the only ones who can speak for their intentions).

And at the end of the day, larps didn’t show anything but disrespect and a total unwillingness to even consider that the way she speaks to, and treats, people with bpd and people who criticize her portrayal and internet-diagnosing of bpd, might not be 100% faultless.

At the end of the day, larps read what I had to say about her dismissive attitude and manipulative, circular justification for avoiding accountability. Her response was to double down on calling people with borderline “insane,” and double down on her own belief that googling a list of symptoms makes her an expert on psychology, as well as an expert on the thoughts in other peoples’ heads. She used the exact circular, dismissive excuse I was calling out, yet again said that the people criticizing her were all doing so because of their - well “our,” I should say, since she diagnosed me - personality disorders, rather than their actual thoughts, opinions, and perfectly reasonable objections. And then she answered a bunch of messages laughing about how crazy and terrible “cluster b”s are. No, she didn’t literally say “EVERY SINGLE PERSON with bpd is like this,” but come on. She’s not the only person who can recognize patterns of behavior.

[sanctferum]

Steven Universe - The Trial reactions

Let’s go!

I wonder if White Diamond is going to finally be introduced in this arc?

OK so we’re starting off right where we left off.

No, Steven, I don’t think an eternity of being in an otherwise empty holding cell is as harsh a punishment as the Diamonds want you to suffer.

Oh hello, new gem person?

4000 years of loyal service, and you end up having to represent a Diamond-shatterer in court. Yup. At least Homeworld has some kinda justice system and not just a Diamond yelling “off with his head!”. That’s, somewhat unexpected, but a relief.

New gem person is a zircon, and judging by her blue color she works for Blue Diamond.

You aren’t Rose Quartz in the way they think you are, Steven. You should make that the crux of your defense, actually. “I’m not Rose Quartz, and any revenge you take on me will have nothing to do with her, because she is dead and gone.”

Pink Diamond was apparently shattered in front of “her entire entourage”, a group that I guess included Jasper and Eyeball at the time.

Steven you are NOT your mom! You’re YOU. She’s DEAD, and you are alive, and you are Steven Universe. Unless you accept that, things are going to go even more badly than they were before.

“As soon as that door opens, you’re going on trial.” *door opens immediately*

I hear the diamond theme, certainly.

A green Zircon? The prosecuting lawyer, I’d think?

She’s a little shit alright.

And here are the Pearls. The light makes Yellow Pearl look pink, but that’s definitely Yellow Pearl.

Blue Pearl has no enthusiasm haha

Blue Diamond is leaning against Yellow Diamond’s shoulder for comfort.

They’re here now. It’s time.

The accused? He’s right there, your mineraljesty. And what you see is what you get. Rose is dead and nothing you do to Steven or Earth will let you hurt her.

Yellow Diamond sure takes appearances seriously! It’s like Loreweaver-universe’s fashion!Jasper’s boss. (I mean, YD is Jasper’s boss at the moment, but whatever.)

Blue wants to hear what “Rose” has to say. She wants to hear “Rose” try and justify her actions, and fail, so she can hate her even more.

Two thrones. White Diamond still is not alluded to in the show...

YD is practically rolling her eyes at Green Zircon’s ass-kissing. I hope Blue does the same every time she has to listen to Holly Blue Agate suck up to her.

Well, if the crime was “unprecedented”, then depending on how the incident went down, Rose might not have thought PD would shatter. Or maybe she did think that’s what would happen. It’s hard to tell. The crewniverse has said that Diamonds can’t be poofed, so it’s entirely possible that when a Diamond takes enough damage they just outright shatter, right?

Lars is exhibit A? Huh?

Lars is lucky he got his voice muffled before he could call the diamonds whatever it was he just called them.

Green Zircon is so fucking overdramatic. YD must be trying so hard to not roll her eyes, again.

An eyewitness, huh? I’m guessing Navy, or Eyeball if Navy rescued the other Ruby Squad members. Eyeball’s definitely seen Steven’s gem, don’t remember if Navy did.

Yeah it is Eyeball. I guess the ruby squad got picked up by Navy on her way back to Homeworld.

Now is not the time to feel compassion for the enemy, Steven! Eyeball very much wants you dead at this particular moment!

Eyeball, he threw you into space cause you tried to kill him. Sorry gal, but you had it coming.

YD just wants this over and done with. Rose Quartz executed, Earth destroyed by the Cluster, Blue Diamond having a reason to be able to stop mourning, and the whole thing put into the past. But Blue Diamond wants to throw every excuse possible into play to not shatter “Rose”. She wants the satisfaction of having proven “her” undeniably guilty in every single way, and THEN she wants her revenge.

Yeah, Blue Zircon, this does not bode well for Steven or you and your own career.

Steven don’t just fucking confess you utter idiot

Steven, did you forget what Blue Diamond said? She wants to know what you expect, and then do something worse. That does NOT sound like “I’ll agree to your terms and only punish you” at all. That sounds like “as punishment, we’ll destroy what you care about the most”.

Blue Diamond suspects something is up. And yeah, Steven has no idea what actually went on there. This is going to be very interesting indeed.

Interesting. Rose never used the Breaking Point - as Steven should well know, since only Bismuth could open the Forge entrance - but instead shattered PD with her sword. The sword said to be incapable of shattering gems, only poofing them. Something does NOT add up here, and I’m willing to guess it’s the fact that diamonds can’t be poofed. In which case...Rose didn’t mean to shatter PD, she just meant to poof her. Probably.

Blue Zircon thinks she’ll get shattered for fulfilling a court-mandated duty? Wow.

Enlightenment dawns in zirconland.

Wait, what? We KNOW Pink Diamond was shattered, by Rose Quartz. What is Blue Zircon going for here?

Yellow Diamond: *eye twitch*

Hmmmm. PD was shattered in the Korean field. Rose struck almost immediately upon Pink leaving her palanquin.

Rose Quartz was the only of her gem to partake in battle that day. The others may have all been poofed and bubbled by that point.

PD had agates, sapphires, and a pearl. None of the sapphires saw the attack coming. None of the agates defended PD against Rose Quartz. And the pearl in question may very well have been our own Pearl, for all we know.

Yes, Blue Zircon, this is what I just said!

That doesn’t sound like our Pearl, no it does not. Then is our Pearl White Diamond’s former pearl, like her color suggests? Or at least a pearl that had belonged to someone in WD’s court?

Wh...what are you suggesting, Blue Zircon? That this was an inside job?

Um.

Blue Zircon, you’re insane. They’ll shatter you ten thousand times and melt down your shards. What the hell are you doing?!

What if she’s right, though? What if YD had something to do with PD’s shattering? What would that mean? Can pink swords cut through diamond like jet fuel melting steel beams?

Ouch. Blue Zircon got poofed instantly, and I don’t think YD is gonna stop at poofing her.

Yeah alright. You win, Green Zircon. You w-

Or you could get poofed too?! What the hell? 

Remember when Peridot thought YD was a pinnacle of logic and reason? Ha ha ha.

And Steven takes the opportunity to jack Blue Diamond’s ride. Into the palanquin, boys!

Huh. The diamonds were so stunned, they didn’t do anything until it was too late.

And they’re off!

What’s the giant white structure in the background? It isn’t White Diamond, is it?

And YD cut power to the palanquin. welp

[kendrixtermina]

More Thoughts on the Diamonds

Based on the popular theory that we can infer their ages from the number of planets depicted on their murals, we can infer that White is older than Yellow who’s older than blue who’s older than Pink and apparently the two “babies of the family” were especially close; YD’s behavior certainly has some big sister vibes to it. 

Though this was a wholly unexpected & altogether brilliant twist it kinda makes sense that the Diamonds would be close to each other, no one else is equal in rank & they can’t show weakness to their underlings so the only ones they can shw their softer sides to are each other.

Since there see to be relatively sizeable gaps (PD in particular seem to have been a lot younger if she had only one planet) we can assume that they were created subsequently as the Empire expanded - of course we don’t really know, perhaps they were created at the same time as a set and can’t make more, or thereare particular circumstances that need to be met - Heck, Pink could be so recent that the hole in Russia is her exit hole and in any case the question as to where the first gems came from is still a mystery. 

But assuming that they were gradually added, it probably happened as the Empire grew bigger & bigger until it reached a point where WD couldn’t administrate it all on her own & then gradually kept adding others.  Given the time spans we’re dealing with even with the regular gems, at least the older three must be incredibly ancient - there also seems to be some specialization going on, with Blue being in charge of diplomacy and mysticism/aristocracy for example. 

You have White as the Head Honcho and the Older Immortal(TM), then Yellow added to oversee further expansion & progress, then blue to oversee specialist roles and finally Pink, presumably with the idea that she’d build up a big army on Earth & then go conquer more stuff. 

As for the Situation after Pink Diamond’s death, it seems that YD is pretty much running everything  by herself - or almost by herself depending on how White Diamond may or may not fit ito it. With Pink dead and Blue having never quite been the same afterwards and implied to be so distraught she’s neglecting her duties, it seems that YD is holding the empire together in the tough times it’s fallen on, the civil war could have stalled expansion & depleted ressources etc, at least she seems to have taken over Pink’s duties as well as taking care of Blue & coaxing her into tending to her own - Not only is Earth curently under YDs jurisdiction, Pink was the one mass-producing high-quality soldiers back in the day (which was partially what she wanted the Earth for in the first place), but in “Hit the Diamond” Peridot implies that YD runs the armies at the present time. One can assume that her previous responsibilities involved science, technology & arms developement especially as her underlings seem to have been in charge of making the cluster though we don’t fully know how the decisions toward the end of the war came about - what finally made them go all scorched earth with the cluster & the corruption?

We can imagine that PD’s death played a role. With Earth being her ‘capital’ PD was unlikely to give up & retreat, perhaps Rose figured that it would be “just another colony” to the others but what happened instead was that the violence escalated all the more because it created so much bad blood. Maybe the Rebellion was backed into a corner at the time they considered this, we really don’t know; 

Another Puzzle Piece is White Diamond. She’s likely  the oldest & the boss but that’s all we know atm - She may be indisposed due to yet another different brand of unhealthy coping mechanisn, always remain on homeword to ‘hold down the fort’, be so ancient she’s hitting the gem equivalent of senility or perhaps serving as a secluded, priestess-like figure  - the only thing that’s certain is that Miss Sugar will try to surprise us. If she’s still active she might be the planner to YD’s enforcer. 

[dogcopter]

its-a-gemfact tumblr com/post/610884086908780544/on-wormy-boy-so-heres-the-thing-i-am-onboard

I have the same reservations OP does about corruption theory. SU will have a consistent explanation for corruption, we just don’t know it yet. Healing from corruption (and seeing Jasper, the only gem who’s gone through corruption in front of Steven/audience) came up in the first ep of Future to set the stage, and the lore seems to indicate corruption is still relevant. This is a cartoon so if it points so clearly in a direction it’s likely, the journey the story takes to get from plausible deniability to twist is the surprise part. (Like Garnet is a fusion or Rose is PD!)

So it makes sense to think of worm as a corrupted Steven specifically, not just another Cat Fingers, and his emotional agony contributing to that is consistent with what we’ve been told and seen about emotional states and physical forms having a relationship. It also seems that corrupted gems have some disconnect between their forms and “psychic ghosts”. But corrupting from pure emotion alone breaks the rules as we know them, and if you could corrupt just from extreme trauma-induced anxiety and depression, wouldn’t Rose have corrupted before she gave up her physical form? Or even the CGs or Lapis or the Cluster? The closest we’ve seen is when Spinel releases her form out of heartbreak, which may or may not have also happened to the CGs when Rose left given their costume changes.

OP’s train of though about White makes sense. The only methods of corruption we’ve seen are the diamonds’ attack on Earth after Pink’s shattering, which included a beam of light and a “song”, and then Jasper somehow keeping traces of distortion when unfusing from a fusion with a corrupted gem, which spreads when she becomes upset until she transforms fully. Nephrite also re-corrupts when reminded of her traumatic memories, even though Steven had made progress in both magical and social healing (Steven Go To Therapy). If Steven’s going to corrupt it will be a combination or variation on these somehow. We probably will learn what it is when he goes through it. My theory is either Steven suffers an obliterating attack from the Diamonds firsthand (and IA with the OP of that post that it would probably not be intentional/directed at Steven himself), or he fuses with someone formerly corrupted and is still able to carry traces out when unfused, then transforms the next time he loses control of his emotions. Which for him lately has been a lot of the time.

I’m also suspicious of the story of the corruption song. I suspect Rose throwing up her shield to defend herself, Garnet, and Pearl played a role in the Diamonds’ attack corrupting gems’ physical forms instead of destroying them, and it makes me wonder if Steven’s Pink Diamond abilities have some intrinsic connection to the nature of corruption. It did take all four diamonds to heal the corrupted gems, after all. That also raises the possibility that Steven corrupts somehow while defending someone/something from a diamond attack, whether or not he approaches them for help with his problem. There are possibilities!

(We also know corrupted gems still bear physical features/scars from the experience even when they’ve been healed, so if he shows early signs like that shot of him hiding his hand might indicate, or wereworms, we may see him seemingly heal or improve, then re-develop it)

[calypsolemon]

we haven't talked about corrupted gems in a while, so whats up with that? do you think connie's mom ever encounters more corrupted gems in the ER? or how about the cluster of corrupted gems under the surface of the earth, do you have any idea how that's going to connect with pink/yellow diamond in future eps?

uhh well personally I still ascribe to the idea that corrupted gems are going to be healed via steven’s mental powers (which is the only power he didn’t get from rose and is completely unique to him), and that jasper will likely be the first one to be healed.  Actually I’d make a strong case for jasper’s healing and redemption arc to start this season because she’s the only readily available pd gem, and steven currently has a lot of questions about pd’s death that noone else is going to answer...

connie’s mom didn’t run into corrupted gems though, she ran into forced gem fusions/clusters, and no I dont think she ever encountered more. The prototype clusters were only unleashed after peridot checked on them at the kindergarten, all the others were buried with the main cluster and probably wont ever come near the surface. So I doubt we’ll be seeing much more of them.

as for the main cluster... honestly I feel like their part in the story is done, but I could be wrong. I do think if they were to help out in any way, it would be mentally via steven, because there’s likely no way they could safely leave where they are. but I dont think it’d be particularly fair to drag them into any conflict, and because they are shards I dont think they’d have enough knowledge of pink or yellow to offer any sort of specific information on them either.

[papysfuckingpissed]

This has probably been said a bunch of times by other people already but. I’ve honestly been so bored with SU lately. Other than our most recent Steven Bomb and Room for Ruby, I’ve been picking up my phone a little ways into the eps because I can’t focus on what’s going on, or can’t see what the point is. Granted, I have some serious attention deficit problems, but I used to be able to watch SU just fine, and I don’t have this problem with many other shows.

(putting under cut since this turned out to be a long ass post)

idk it’s just like.... ever since we got more into plot, the filler/slice of life episodes have been much less interesting to me, I guess. 

Now I know some people don’t think like that, they say “Steven needs to learn about his human side” and I agree! Steven’s human and gems aspects are equally important parts of him. 

I think the issue, at least for me, is where these episodes are placed. We got a lot of human eps in the beginning, which was fine because there wasn’t a whole lot at stake. All we knew was these aliens who call themselves the Crystal Gems live on Earth with a little boy and they go on adventures, catch monsters, destroy old buildings that have no use anymore. Occasionally we got some lore, and maybe a teeny bit of what could be considered plot. No big deal. Human eps were interesting because we got to see what Steven and the Gems were up to when they weren’t dealing with monsters and such.

Then the plot started forming, and it was okay at first, I seem to recall a fairly equal amount of plot/lore-related eps and human eps.

But now it’s like?? There’s a ton of shit at stake, tons of different ways this plot can go. We’ve met the Diamonds, the Rubies are (or were) chasing down the Gems, Jasper and Bismuth are bubbled, the Cluster has been placated. We should be mostly plot right now, with some filler in between to give us a break. But it’s almost the opposite? We’ve been getting a lot of filler with plot in between. 

And the plot we’ve been getting just seems really... inconsequential. The Peridemption arc (my favorite recent arc), while having Peridot’s redemption, hasn’t done all that much with it? Peri’s just hanging out in a barn with Lapis (whose arc with Jasper also went nowhere...). Yeah, we also got to meet Yellow Diamond, but... I feel like we should have started picking up the pace with the story once that happened. Why didn’t YD send a team of gems to ensure that the rogue Peridot hadn’t tried to sabotage the Cluster? Granted, she evidently doesn’t know that there are a few rebel gems still living on Earth, and probably figures a Peridot and maybe a Jasper can’t really do much to such a large geoweapon. But in that case, wouldn’t she still want to try to pick up and punish a gem guilty of pretty serious insubordination? It might be a good way to get the plot moving again. Whatever happened afterward, there should have been some sense of urgency, considering we’d finally met one of the Diamonds.

And the recent Homeworld arc? Sure, we learned about how the YD and BD feel about PD’s demise, and what they’re doing with humans, and where the Rose Quartz gems are--which is interesting stuff to know, and will probably be relevant later--but after the arc, right back to status quo. Still no sense of urgency, even though Diamonds are aware that the Cluster hasn’t emerged yet (which you think they might be suspicious about), there are humans trapped in a zoo that need saving, and all the Rose Quartz gems might be in danger considering that YD seems itching to get rid of them. And of course the Rubies are still stuck in space, in danger of being shattered themselves by debris while they’re in orbit.

It’s the same with major episodes, too. We’ve heard like ONE (pretty disingenuous) line about Bismuth since she got bubbled again, and the crew made a big deal out of that episode, acting like she was going to permanently join the team. Why couldn’t that happen? Since it didn’t happen, why was there never any discussion of whether she was right or wrong? And especially now that Steven knows Rose shattered PD, why haven’t they unbubbled her yet? It seems like they just don’t wanna change the way things are going.

In general, in regards to plot: There’s no sense of urgency, nor any evidence of changing circumstances. This is bad because stories are built on conflict and changing circumstances and how people react to them. So far in SU, conflict arises, subsides, and is rarely if ever even mentioned again. Things rarely change, whether it’s just situations becoming more serious or adding new members to the team. We barely even get to see the characters reflecting on what has happened.

And then there’s the filler. Or more human-focused episodes, as some people object to the “filler” label.

Like I said, at the beginning, slice of life was fine because nothing major was happening. Now, however, we’re getting a lot of slice of life with less focus on the plot, which is not how a plot based show is supposed to be written.

That’s not to say that I think these episodes focusing on Steven’s relationships with the people of Beach City are all unimportant. An idea I’ve been entertaining in my head for a while is that of the BC residents somehow either joining the Crystal Gems in saving the gems of Homeworld or proudly defending themselves, Steven, and his family from Homeworld. Because Steven’s spent all these “filler” episodes caring for his friends and helping them! Why wouldn’t they do the same for him, especially when humanity is in danger?

Think Super Watermelon Island--without the little watermelon people helping Alexandrite, it would have been a lot harder, if not impossible, to beat Malachite. (In all honesty, if SU does go this route with the humans, I think SWI could be some pretty cool foreshadowing in regards to that.)

In that case, the slice of life episodes would tie in the main plot and we’d see how Steven’s kind attitude toward the people of BC impact what he has to do in regards to Homeworld in the future.

If they don’t go that route, then I’m not really sure what the point of the slice of life episodes is. I find most of the recent ones pretty boring. But I think that’s really more of a personal issue than an objective one, though others might have other ideas as to why there’s a problem with recent episodes of this type.

Anyway. That’s why I’m bored with SU currently I guess. I really hope we get some decent plot soon. Other than Room for Ruby I can hardly be bothered to watch new episodes in a timely fashion anymore. And considering how much I used to love this show and how much it meant to me and how excited I used to be to watch it, that’s really sad.