#stevenmas

[joecasualnerd]

Number 17: Bismuth

A little behind the scenes thing for whoever happens to be reading this, I am writing every single one of these posts on a single word document first and then just copying and pasting them onto tumble with the title card.

Well I am on the 26th page and have written over 11,000 words, and I just thought that would be a fun thing to share with everyone.

All that said, let’s get into this episode because, yes, it is the only other double episode in the series, Season Three’s Episode 20 and 21, Bismuth.

Premise

Steven is playing a video game with the Crystal Gems cheering him on, only for everyone to get sad when Steven dies in the game. Lion is messing around with a novelty T-shirt that Steven has, so Steven goes to keep it away from him.

After Lion tries to take it again, Steven takes the shirt into the one place that Lion cannot get too, and that’s in the dimension inside of Lion’s mane.

As Steven hangs from one of the branches in the tree that just so happens to be in the mane, the branch snaps and Steven lands on the bubble that was in the Lion dimension.

Steven panics and tries to re-bubble the Gem that was in the bubble, only for it to form into a brand-new Gem. After the two stare at each other for a bit, Steven leaves the mane and tells the Crystal Gems about the Gem in the mane.

Upon hearing the description of the Gem, both Garnet and Pearl are stunned to hear about the Gem and request for Steven to take her out of the mane.

Steven goes back in and he manages to get the Gem out of the mane. While Amethyst has no idea who this new Gem is, Pearl and Garnet are in absolute shock, and Pearl runs into the Gem’s arms and we learn the Gem’s name, Bismuth (well within the show, the title card gave her name away).

Pearl and Garnet have immediate chemistry with Bismuth, making jokes about Pearl being an ex-slave and some light teasing at Garnet. Garnet and Pearl reveal that Bismuth was one of the original Crystal Gems and she formally introduces herself to Amethyst and Steven.

Pearl said that Rose told her and Garnet that Bismuth went missing, sparking a reaction from Bismuth and her asking where is Rose. Steven says that he has Rose’s gem and after some musing on how Rose was something else, Bismuth asks where everyone else is, rattling of names like Crazy Lace, Biggs, and Snowflake.

They take Bismuth to the Strawberry Battlefield and tell her that the war didn’t go so well, and they had lost many comrades, to which Bismuth begins to cry. Pearl and Garnet say that they managed to get Homeworld off planet, but that they are planning to come back.

Bismuth then becomes motivated to take on Homeworld, and manages to boost the group’s morale by saying that they have faced worse odds before, and they can do it again. She then declares that they are going to the forge.

What forge? Bismuth’s forge, because the audience learns that it was Bismuth who created the solid weapons during the war, and even presents some upgrades to the Crystal Gems weapons.

Amethyst shows some hesitation in trusting Bismuth, but that quickly disappears when Bismuth gives her whips some spike balls.

They all go back to the house to do some training, and after an awesome action scene, Bismuth invites Steven in on the action, but Steven says that the training may be a bit too intense for him.

Bismuth says that it’s a tradition for the Crystal Gems to spar before battle, and Steven says that there are some rituals that he likes better. Bismuth asks to see these rituals and we get a cute montage of everyone playing tennis, playing cards, making pizza, and end on everyone watching a Lonely Blade movie.

When the day is over, Steven says that Bismuth can relax on the couch and Bismuth says that she had a great time and that she might even actually try sleeping.

Steven says that he’s glad that Bismuth hasn’t tried to kill him like almost all the other new Gems that he has met, and Bismuth asks if she’ll see what Steven has on the battlefield the next day. Steven says he would, but that all his weapons are built for defense, except for one.

He show’s Rose’s sword to Bismuth, who marvels at her creation. Bismuth remembers how Rose changed her perspective on things, brings up that Rose came from Earth, and says that Rose gave her the opportunity to be whoever Bismuth wanted to be.

Steven says that he feels like he must live up to being Rose, and Bismuth says that Steven can be whoever he wants to be and says that she’ll give him an even better weapon.

They go to the forge and Bismuth says that Rose’s sword will always cut through the form of the Gem, but never the Gem itself. She then activates a secret elevator and when they reach a secret room, she reveals a new weapon, the Breaking Point.

Steven asks what it does and Bismuth, after giving a small speech, activates the weapon, shattering one of the training rocks. Steven is horrified to see this, and Bismuth explains that to definitively make sure that the Homeworld Gems won’t come back or take over, they need to use the Breaking Point to reduce them to shards.

Steven point blank refuses to use the weapon and says that shattering a Gem is wrong and that no one is using that weapon because it isn’t what a Crystal Gem would do.

Bismuth then remarks that what Steven is saying is exactly what Rose said. Steven tries to say that he isn’t rose, but Bismuth is not listening to him, thinking that it’s just Rose lying to her again since she had lied about everything else.

Bismuth goes to attack Steven and after a fight scene, Steven has the Breaking Point in his hand. Bismuth demands that Steven shatter her, and Steven won’t do it. Bismuth grabs the Breaking Point to use against him, and Steven grabs Rose’s sword and stabs Bismuth in the gut.

Bismuth says that he should have shattered her, and that if she was shattered then she wouldn’t have had to know how little she mattered. Bismuth then says that Rose didn’t even tell her friends what she did, and Steven says that he is going to tell the Gems everything.

Bismuth chuckles and then says, “Then you really are better then her,” and then poofs. Steven tosses the Breaking Point into the lava and goes back to the temple.

After explaining everything, the Crystal Gems take the bubbled Bismuth and set her in the Bubble Room, and they all go outside to comfort Steven, ending the episode.

Discussion.

You know what’s appropriate for a family show? Speaking about the complexities of war and trying to say whether it is right or not right to destroy a being with a complete conscious into several dozen smaller beings with a broken conscious in every one of those pieces.

Now there was, and for the most part still is, a debate on whether Bismuth was right or not in wanting to shatter the Homeworld forces, and that’s what I love about the episode.

It presents a moral conundrum about whether it is better to essentially kill your enemies or keep them as prisoners of war in bubbles.

Both aren’t the best options, but at least it is much safer to bubble the Gems and keep them in a secret place as to not have them return to the battlefield. However, if the Gem was shattered then there would definitely be fewer soldiers on the battlefield and potentially be used as a scare tactic.

There isn’t a clear answer, but there is a moral answer, don’t shatter Gems.

Now to me this is the better option, because let’s face it, Bismuth doesn’t know about the fusion experiments or the Cluster. She doesn’t know that even if the enemy Gems were reduced to shards that they could still potentially pose a threat.

Not only that, but if the Breaking Point were to be taken by the enemy and mass produced, then Bismuth would have just handed Homeworld a new weapon to destroy the resistance faster.

Not only that, but there could also potentially be a schism between the Crystal Gems, with one side favoring the Breaking Point and the other side favoring the bubble.

Rose, as a leader, saw this and made the decision to not let this potentially happen, since an army divided is going to lose. Bismuth was very much focused on completing her goals of shattering the Diamonds that she failed to think about the plan on a logistics level.

Again, this is my interpretation.

However, there is much more to the episode then the complex questions of war, and that is the fact that Bismuth said that Steven didn’t need to live up to Rose. Granted, it could have been used to convince him into using the Breaking Point, but I do think that she was sincere.

She was a builder and with the help pf Rose, Bismuth was given the choice of what to become, and she tells this to Steven. Steven can choose to be whoever he wants to be, and during this arc it is an important piece of dialogue.

Another important piece of dialogue is Bismuth saying, or implying, that Rose came from Earth. So not only was Rose protecting the planet from becoming a husk because she loved humans, but also because it’s where she was from.

Speaking of Rose, we get to see the image of Rose being broken down a bit by the reveal that she had lied to Pearl and Garnet about Bismuth’s whereabouts.

Why did Rose do this? Was she ashamed that she had to do this to one of her closest allies, or was it just a calculated risk to make sure that one knows about the Breaking Point?

Either way, it shows that Rose may have even more secrets that the audience will be clued in on later in the series (spoiler, they do).

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[simplemadeeasy]

If you feel like your failing. Always remember God created you not to fail. He CREATED US TO SUCCEED!!!!

StevenMaes

[joecasualnerd]

Number 15: Last One Out of Beach City

Normally I would say something about the behind the scenes or make some remark about how this post is late, but in all honesty, I really have no good or even bad intro to work with.

I guess all I can really say right now is welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) and today, I will be talking about the Sixth Episode of Season Four, Last One Out of Beach City.

Premise

Steven and Pearl are working on a puzzle while Amethyst is bouncing around as a ball. This obviously irritates Pearl, who asks Amethyst to stop.

She does, but the reason why Amethyst is bouncing around is because Greg is taking her to a concert by the real life musician Mike Krol, and just as her excitement can reach no higher bounds, Greg comes in and brings bad news.

He says that he will be unable to go to the concert because he had promised Barb, Sadie’s mom, and Vidalia, Sour Cream and Onion’s mom, that he would play cards under the threat of having his mail being held hostage by Barb.

Amethyst is disappointed and, surprisingly, Pearl says that she will go to concert with Amethyst, inviting Steven to go as well. This catches the two of them off guard, but they all decide to run with it, with Amethyst saying that Pearl needs to blend in.

A pair of jeans and a rocking leather jacket later, the three of them go to The Big Donut to get some snacks before the show. Suddenly a rocker girl walks in and Pearl is very clearly smitten. Amethyst says that Pearl should go talk to her as practice for the party, and Pearl fumbles around making herself look awkward.

The three go back to the car, Amethyst teasing Pearl about her smooth moves when Steven makes the remark that everyone in the audience realized.

The girl with the pink hair looked like Rose Quartz. He noticed, we noticed, everyone noticed, except well Amethyst.

Suddenly the pink haired girl drives next to them on her motorcycle, and Amethyst tells Pearl to play it cool, and at the right time signals Pearl to take a look at the Mystery Girl. After the girl smiles at Pearl, they gang is stopped at a red light, with the Mystery Girl having sped off.

Steven, optimistically, thinks that the Mystery Girl will be going to the same show that they are, but Amethyst says that a girl as cool as her would probably be at a million other shows. A look of determination crosses Pearl’s face, and she runs the red light, much to Steven’s chagrin and Amethyst’s amazement.

As with most who run a red light however, a police officer comes to pull them over. The issue is that Pearl doesn’t have a license and, deciding that she’s breaking the law anyway, Pearl continues the chase and pulls off some bad ass moves to avoid the police.

After hiding behind a sign and waiting for the cop to pass, Pearl tries to start the car again, only for it to have run out of gas.

The three decide to walk to the concert and Pearl, upset, decides to rip off her pants, which isn’t used as an innuendo here, since she still has her usual clothes under the pants.

She said that the reason that she decided to go to the concert was to impress Steven and Amethyst, to show that she can be just as cool as Amethyst, but she believes that the night is ruined because of the whole debacle.

Steven and Amethyst say that Pearl was totally awesome and Steven remarks that Pearl is a criminal now (as a positive note) and Pearl remarks that she’s been a criminal for 6000 years.

They hear music and they realize that they had managed to make it to the concert and lo and behold Mystery Girl is there. Pearl tells Amethyst to watch Steven while she goes up to talk to Mystery Girl, to which Amethyst says that Pearl should practice on some nerd.

Steven and Amethyst do play by play as they see Pearl and Mystery Girl interacting, and when Pearl comes back she shows them a piece of paper with some numbers on them. Amethyst and Steven are in shock and happily exclaim that Pearl has Mystery Girl’s number and we end the episode with an homage to eighties nerd romance movies with each character in the episode being given a particular trope seen in those kinds of movies.

Discussion

I have to say right off the bat, this episode was fun as all hell.

Sometimes you don’t need an epic story to get my attention, hell most of the time I’m not interested in the story in most pieces of entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, a good plot can do a lot, but if the characters are generic, then a masterfully done plot can’t make me interested.

This episode is predicated on the fact that it was a character episode, not building off of the plot (at least in a way that is particularly significant), but it does develop the characters and places them in an environment that hasn’t been seen in the series.

The homage to the kind of nerd romance movies or the road trip romance movies is something that comes by rarely, and when it is done I usually find them to be dull or uninspired.

Here though? I loved every second of it.

Maybe it’s my bias to the characters, but I personally believe that the reason why this episode worked so well was that they had the tropes of the movies they are homaging, but they manage to make them their own.

Steven as the voice of reason is done to show that Pearl is going a bit off the reservation in how she usually acts, but does so in a way that is realistic to his character and how he isn’t trying to force them to turn around and go home.

He supports Pearl in her pursuit after Mystery Girl, but only after how he remarks in how similar she looks to his mother. It was made obvious to show that while Steven can be naïve at times, he isn’t dumb, and he can be very aware about the situation and still show support.

Granted he began to freak out when they were being chased by the police, but again that was understandable and didn’t break from Steven’s characterization throughout the series.

Amethyst was extremely supportive of Pearl, which shows how much she has grown as a character throughout the series. Looking at my last post of Giant Woman, the two were at each other’s throats, and her Amethyst is wholeheartedly supporting Pearl in getting the girl.

Meanwhile Pearl is shown development by doing something out of her comfort zone. She decides to go to a loud music concert with Amethyst and Steven, she wears pants and a jacket, SHE DRINKS JUICE, the whole nine yards!

Then it is revealed that she wants to show that she has indeed changed, but Steven and Amethyst remark that all Pearl had to do to be awesome was to be herself (and outrun the police, but that’s besides the point).

Now onto Mystery Girl. Initially I wasn’t too fond of the fact that she looked almost exactly like Rose, but then it was pointed out that it just shows that Pearl has a type, which made me warm up to her.

I really want to see her again, maybe on the phone with Pearl or a date, or some form of interaction to show that Pearl is really beginning to move on from Rose. Now it isn’t that Pearl has completely moved on from Rose, but that she is taking the steps to do so.

Oh, and I would be remiss to mention that this episode had a female coded character pursuing a character that is presumed female, and no one made a huge issue of it within the show. They were fully supportive of their female friend pursuing a friendship and possibly a romantic relationship with another female without bringing up the whole issue of sexuality.

In other words, this is how a gay person should be written in television when they are wanting to ask someone out. Not as a weird joke, but like if it were done in a more conventional romance story. It can be silly fun, but there shouldn’t be any awkwardness about gender or sexuality, just one person wanting to ask another person out.

Another small thing, I remember when this episode was announced that it was having an actual musician cameo as himself, Mike Krol, people were upset. I distinctly remember people saying that if they didn’t do the cameo correctly, it would just show that Cartoon Network was forcing celebrities into their shows.

And when the episode aired people enjoyed the music, enjoyed the simple cameo since it was just a performance and that the episode didn’t revolve around Mike Krol solving the conflict.

Just goes to show that sometimes the fandom can overreact to something that isn’t an issue in the grand scheme of things. This isn’t unique to the Steven Universe fandom, but it was just a funny observation I had while writing this.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 22: Gem Harvest

(Editor’s Note: That moment when you clicked save as draft instead of schedule)

Welcome back to an on time (hopefully) edition of The 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) and today we have an extremely long and very detailed post.

Why?

Well the episode in question is the second double length episode of the series and is one that brought on a bit of controversy, one for being a misleading title that let a part of the fandom to thinking that it was going to be something that it wasn’t (as Steven Universe does) and for coming out at a time where there were some political issues going on in the United States.

Now I won’t go into those political issues, mostly because talking about politics will be a death sentence for this blog. I will lightly touch on them, but won’t go into detail.

So, all that out of the way, lets’ talk about Season 4 Episode 8 (and 9 since it’s a double length episode, but doesn’t break the rule about two episodes per spot since it is still one episode), Gem Harvest.

Premise

Steven goes to the barn for a sleepover with Peridot and Lapis, only to find them working on the crops, because you know they live on a farm, so they must do something with all that land.

Well actually Peridot and Lapis say, in their own ways, that they could always use some more company, with Peridot thinking that once the crops are fully grown that they will become sentient.

Steven explains that’s not how food works, and the two Gems become dejected. Steven, wanting to help out, decides to use his saliva to help give the plants a bit of life, because he has that power remember?

The next day, Steven wakes up to see Peridot and Lapis with Pumpkin Dog, thinking that it was because of them that Pumpkin Dog came into being.

Slight hiccup, Pumpkin Dog only seems to want to be near Steven, and Lapis and Peridot notice this very quickly. Steven confesses that he helped the plants grow, and the two Gems become disappointed once more.

Trying to raise their spirits, Steven suggests that they carve some pumpkins, and after a gruesome display of pumpkin slaughter, Pumpkin Dog runs to Lapis and Peridot, becoming their companion for life.

Suddenly, a plane lands at the barn and a man comes out, yelling about how the barn has been torn apart. When Steven and the Gems go to the man to see what’s going on, he yells at them, calling them hippies and the two begin to defend themselves.

After Lapis and Peridot trap the guy, Steven calls Greg and the Crystal Gems to help solve the problem. When they arrive, Greg recognizes the man as his cousin Andy. Andy recognizes Greg, berates him a bit, and then realizes that Steven is his nephew, hugging him.

Andy asks who the mother is, and Greg says that Rose is gone, to which Andy gives his condolences, but then says that the barn is for the DeMayo family, which is revealed to be Greg’s last name before he changed it.

After some more arguing, Steven says that they should all eat together as a family, to continue the DeMayo family tradition that Andy was hoping to do before he found the barn to be preoccupied.

Things start off awkward, with the Gems picking vegetables in an unorthodox way, and become nearly hostile when Peridot and Pearl convert one of Andy’s parent’s planes and walks off to cool down.

Greg tries to talk to Andy, and Steven tells the Gems that they need to make the party amazing. The Gems drive off into town, with Greg, Steven, and Andy staying behind.

Steven is impressed with how Andy can peel a potato in one peel, and Andy explains that it was because his Aunt Deb taught him how to do it. Greg ask how Aunt Deb is doing and Andy makes a remark about how suddenly Greg cares about his family now.

They get the vegetables done and seeing how the new oven from plane parts is being used, Andy realizes that maybe it’s better that the planes were recycled in this way, since they haven’t gotten any use for a long time.

The Gems come back, carrying various items from various human traditions, to include a headstone and a wedding cake. Andy has a big laugh and they all start eating.

Things seem to be going well, but Andy slowly begins to feel left out as the Gems begin discussing Gem things and Andy has no frame of reference to what they are talking about. Eventually Andy decides to skedaddle and says that the Gems can keep the barn.

When Andy flies off, Steven asks Lapis to take him to give chase, and they do so. When they catch up, Andy explains (after being concerned with the fact that Steven is in the air being carried) that he tried to keep on following the family traditions, even when everyone else stopped doing so.

Steven then asks Lapis to toss him, and the plane becomes unbalanced. As they are tipping Steven says that while he loves the Gems, he wants to learn more about the human side of his family, and really does care for Andy.

Steven is tossed off the plane and Andy manages to rescue him, and when Steven thanks him, Andy yells at him for not being careful, but is happy that Steven is safe,

When the two get back to the barn, Andy laments on how he could have used the plane to visit everyone, and that he should have adapted to everyone else instead of staying stuck in his ways. Steven says that Andy is welcome back at any time and after Pumpkin Dog coughs up a groom figurine and everyone has a laugh with Andy saying the funny final line, we end the episode.

Discussion

That was a lot to go over, but there is so much to unpack with this episode.

To start with the simplest thing, the Lapis and Peridot stuff in the beginning. I really like that they show the two getting along and it was nice to see that they do feel a bit lonely and try to get some company, and they do with Pumpkin Dog, which is incidentally the most time I have written down the word pumpkin in anything.

Cute fun, but the real fun of this episode comes with the introduction of Andy.

Andy is a fascinating character because he is important to Steven’s past without being part of the big Gem stuff. He represents an aspect of the series that a few fans seem to forget: Steven is part human, he has a human dad, it would make sense that he would have a human family.

I know for a while it was speculated that Greg may have had a falling out with his family, which would explain why we hadn’t seen them and probably wouldn’t see them, and I was fine with that.

Then this episode came out and I was like Steven, I wanted to know everything about Steven’s family. Who they were, what they were doing, and why they aren’t in Beach City anymore.

Did Greg ask any of them if he could use the barn? If so, who? Why did they let Greg use the barn? So many questions came to my mind on what Greg’s side of the family is like, that I almost forgot that a brand-new character was introduced, and a complex one at that.

Andy is stuck in the past, and wants everything to be the same, he wants everything to be familiar because nothing is familiar anymore. The world changed, but he didn’t want to. He wants everything to be like it was, because it was something he could manage. Now that everyone is so far away, all he can do is go back to the barn and hope that everyone comes back.

When he comes back to the barn this time, he sees everything has changed. He sees people he hasn’t seen before, he realizes he has a nephew, and the people that are living on his family’s land are weird people talking about magic and wars.

It’s exactly what would happen if you took a forty or fifty-year old man and dropped him in this exact situation.

The biggest part about this episode however comes in at the end, when Steven says that he wants Andy to be part of the family that Steven has.

Steven, this entire series, has only, really, been exposed to a world of magic and aliens so that is normal to him. While the magic stuff still fascinates him, it can only go so far.

It’s the reason Connie plays such an important role in the show, she had never experienced magic stuff, but still had the imagination of a child who read a lot of fantasy books so would always be fascinated with the magic stuff, while Steven was interested in the boring human stuff. It’s stuff he had never experienced before.

Andy is the opposite however, being angry and afraid of the magic stuff because it’s a huge change in how he perceives things, but Steven maintains that it’s ok and is fascinated with the mundanity of peeling a potato in one peel. He had never experienced that before and has had no other human family to relate to.

And looking back on this episode, it is a bit of foreshadowing in how Steven is when he comes back from Homeworld.

He expects everything to stay the same, but when he comes back a lot of things change and the status quo shifts. Steven takes quite a while to realize that he needs to adjust to the changing times, just like Andy.

And people say that this was filler.

Filler is what goes into fast food hamburgers to lower the cost to the restaurant, this is a full-on character steak made of one hundred percent development.

The food metaphor does bring me to an important point about the episode, the length.

Being a double length episode allowed the character development to take it’s time and allow the development to go on at a natural pace, which is the episode’s drawback. There are points when the episode does feel slow, and while it is all very important to the episode’s structure, the plot does drag on a bit too long.

I’m not saying that the episode should be cut, far from it. I’m saying that the writing could have been improved a bit more to tighten up the pace and maybe develop Andy a bit more, because I find him to be fascinating personally.

That’s all I have to say about the episode. It’s a great character piece, with some writing quibbles that drag the episode a bit, but doesn’t detract from the character stuff.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 1: Rose’s Scabbard

Here it is.

The episode of Steven Universe that I consider to be my favorite.

It has been a long journey, and I write this knowing all the things that I put out already, and this is not going to be any less than all of my posts

I have so much that I want to say, like thank you if you have been a part of this journey with me, and for liking the posts or following me. Everyone of those things were what kept me going, and I knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied with myself if I didn’t see this project through to the end.

Enough gushing my appreciation for everyone, let’s get to the episode already.

Welcome to the final day of the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) and the episode that I consider to be the best in the entire series is…

Season One Episode Forty-Five, Rose’s Scabbard

Premise

The episode begins with Steven and the Crystal Gems walking around the Strawberry Battlefield, collecting the old weapons that were left over from the battle.

Steven decides that he wants one of the weapons from the battlefield and tries to enlist Lion for help, but Lion does what all cats do and walks off to do his own thing.

Pearl remarks on how Steven should train Lion better. Lion digs up in the ground and pulls something out of the ground, which Pearl identifies as the titular Rose’s Scabbard.

Steven asks if his mother fought, and Pearl gladly proclaims that not only did Rose fight on this battlefield, but so did she. Amethyst says that she wishes she could have been there, but Garnet cuts her off by saying that the battle was a maelstrom of death and destruction.

Pearl then interrupts her by saying that they won the fight, with Rose leading them to glorious victory even though the odds were against them and it couldn’t have been easy and luckily they weren’t alone (insert more extended theme references here).

The Gems warp back to the house and while Amethyst and Garnet are trying to get some of the more unwieldy weapons inside their rooms, Pearl looks at the scabbard fondly, and reminisces on how it’s been so long since she has seen the scabbard.

Steven asks what Rose was like, and Pearl says that Rose was courageous, brilliant, and beautiful, saying that sometimes Steven reminds her of Rose.

Pearl then says that Steven should keep the scabbard, as it’s technically his, and Steven thanks her by saying that if anyone tries to mess with him, he’ll bop them in the head with it.

Pearl says that the scabbard is meant to hold Rose’s sword, and Steven asks were they can find the sword. Amethyst and Garnet manage to get the large weapon into the temple, leaving Pearl and Steven alone.

Pearl says that she knows of a hidden place that belonged to Rose, and since Steven has Rose’s Gem, it’s his now and she can show it to him.

They warp to a canyon place and Pearl details what they have to do to get to the secret place. Somehow, Steven managed to convince Pearl to carry him up a canyon in a papoose.

Pearl explains that she was Rose’s sole confidant, and that there were certain things that Rose would only tell her. Steven asks why Rose kept so many secrets and Pearl said that as a leader there were things that she had to keep secret in order to protect the ones they care aboyt, and she relishes the fact that Rose trusted her so much.

They reach the secret place, an all too familiar cave. The cave from An Indirect Kiss. Pearl looks at Steven expectantly, thinking that it will amaze him, but he breaks that illusion by saying that he has been there before, and that Lion took him.

Pearl says that there is no possible way he could have been there, but Steven proves her wrong by using the various functions to bring out the Axes of Ages, the Heretic’s Anguish, the Quartizine Trio, and the Armor of the Fallen.

Steven asks why they are at the armory again and Pearl exclaims that they are looking for Rose’s sword, and she describes what it looks like in detail. Steven then remembers the sword and says that he knows where it is, which comes as a surprise to Pearl.

Back at the house, Steven pulls out the sword that was also shown in An Indirect Kiss, which is in fact Rose’s sword.

Steven says that not only is the sword there, but he also uses Lion as a personal storage, while Pearl poses the right question in asking if Lion belonged to Rose.

Amethyst realizes that’s the reason why he’s pink and Garnet says that it was pretty obvious, but Pearl says that Rose never had a lion.

Steven points out that the stuff he found in there looked like things that would belong to her, but Pearl insists that Rose never had a lion. Garnet points out that Rose kept many things secret, even to them, but Pearl says that Rose never kept secrets from her.

Steven points out that Rose could have done it to protect her, but Pearl lashes out and says that Steven wouldn’t know what Rose would have done because he never even met her, and hits the wall, causing the portrait of Rose to fall.

Luckily, Garnet manages to catch the portrait before it hits anything, and Pearl runs off, with Amethyst yelling at her and then mumbling that she hates when Pearl gets like this.

Steven asks Garnet if Pearl is ok, wiping tears in the process. Garnet doesn’t answer, and Steven decides to go find Pearl and help, recruiting Lion in the process and the two warp away.

Before the scene transition we hear Garnet say, “Good luck.”

Lion warped the two to the Strawberry Battlefield, and Steven quickly spots Pearl, and she says to leave her alone and runs off.

Steven and Lion give chase, but Pearl hops on some floating rocks to get away. Steven tells Lion to sit this out as he goes hoping on the rock alone. He does well enough, stopping on the last smaller floating rock while Pearl is standing with her back towards him on a larger rock.

Steven makes a huge leap to the larger rock, but Pearl gives Steven a death glare, and Steven begins to fall, with a quick glimpse of a worried Pearl.

Steven manages to climb up the dead vines and makes it to the top where Pearl is having a breakdown.

Steven asks that Pearl tell him what’s wrong, and Pearl says that sometimes he sounds like Rose too. She asks if he remembers anything from the past, and if he has any of her memories.

Pearl then says that it was there were Rose asked her to be a part if the war. Pearl, projecting a hologram of Rose, says that there were a lot of risks for joining the war for Earth, but Pearl, as herself reenacting the scene, says that she wants to be there.

The hologram says, “My Pearl,” and then disappears.

Pearl says that everything that she did, she did it for Rose, and wonders if she can she Pearl through Steven’s eyes. She wonders what Rose would think of her now.

Steven then hugs her from behind and says my favorite line in the entire series.

“Well…I think you’re pretty great.”

Pearl begins crying and with a musical montage we see Pearl telling stories to Steven about the war, after Steven gave her the flag from inside of Lion, and the episode ends with the two riding Lion, with Pearl carrying the flag and looking at Steven before looking ahead.

Discussion

Was it predictable that this episode would be my favorite? Maybe it was because it made sense with how much I went on about how I love character moments, and maybe it wasn’t because I have had some serious fan favorite episodes lower on the list, and having some major episodes not even on the list.

There is so much that I love about this episode, from the designs, the character stuff, the music, and the heartfelt moments, that I could go on all day about them.

I won’t, but I’ll still go into a lot of detail about what I loved about this episode.

Tackling two birds with one stone, the art and the music in this episode is especially amazing. The parts where this all shines comes from the Strawberry Battlefield at night.

The pinks, purples, and blues really contrast it from other night scenes in the show which have much darker colors. Here, the colors are conveying a certain kind of warmth and cold that are completely unique to the night setting of this place in the show.

The music, my goodness the music and sound design in this episode was fantastic.

When Pearl hit the wall, the first time I heard it, I jumped. The use of silence really let the characters and the animation move the scene.

And of course, the final piece of music for the montage at the end, “I’m Still Here”, is what I can best describe as a bittersweet positive song. What I mean by that is that there is an underlying tone that Pearl still feels the pain of Rose being gone, but the positivity comes from the realization that she has Steven, and Steven loves her even after everything that she had done.

To expand upon that point, we have to go at the beginning when they find the scabbard.

Pearl makes no bones about how much she idolized Rose, and this was evident with how she interrupted Garnet, who was telling Steven and Amethyst how horrible the war actually was, by saying that the reason why they won the war was because of Rose being amazing.

It’s almost as if she worshipped Rose, or rather, it’s as if she loved Rose.

There were hints of it throughout the series, but those feelings became explicit in this episode. There is no doubt that Pearl loved Rose, and whether or not Rose loved Pearl the same way is debatable, but there had to have been some feelings that Rose had with Pearl.

There were things that she told Pearl that she didn’t tell the others, but there were also some secrets she kept for herself.

Why did Rose not tell Pearl about Lion? Did she not see it as important, or was she intentionally hiding something Pearl?

This is further magnified when Steven says that he is able to operate the stuff in the armory without her, Pearl is just crushed.

This all comes crashing down, almost literally in fact, with the portrait of Rose falling on Pearl, as if saying that the image of Rose that Pearl had was crashing down and becoming ruined.

Then Pearl ran away. Out of guilt that she had yelled at Steven, shame that she caused a scene, grief over Rose, anger at Lion, and a whole host of other things could have been the cause. What does Steven do?

He goes to look for Pearl and help her.

He knows that something is up with Pearl, and he wants to help Pearl get better, but this is not something that can be fixed easily.

To Pearl, the death of Rose is still recent. Thirteen years is nothing to a being who has lived thousands of years, so Rose’s death must feel like it happened yesterday for her.

Pearl remembering when Rose gave her the choice to join the rebellion must have been life changing for Pearl. Remember, Pearls on Homeworld are glorified purses, at best, and slaves at worst. They would have no say in the matter and even if they were asked for an opinion, it’s not like any Gem would care what she had to say.

Not Rose.

To Pearl, being given a choice to do something more must have been exhilarating, and it must have been made more amazing when Rose seemed to reciprocate at the very least affection to Pearl.

Pearl knows that Rose is gone, but that pain isn’t something that can just go away. Pearl is worried what Rose would think of her if she was here.

Would she be mad at Pearl yelling at Steven? Would she be sad that Pearl felt this way and she didn’t know it? Would she be indifferent?

All of that doesn’t matter though.

Rose is gone, Pearl is there, and so is Steven. All that Pearl should care about is what Steven thinks of her, because let’s be honest, Pearl has been more like a mother to Steven than the other Crystal Gems.

And what does Steven do to make Pearl realize this?

“Well…I think you’re pretty great.”

That line and that hug showed that Steven loves Pearl, and that he forgives her for the snapping and the yelling, and Pearl cries. She had scared Steven, made him worry, and even snapped at Steven, but after all of that, he still loves her.

Those are some deep feelings.

There is one other reason why I love this episode over the others, and it is a bit of a personal story.

When I graduated high school in 2012, I was dead set on studying Mechanical Engineering. I had prepped myself for going into that field of study and was ready to do the four or five years to get that degree.

Two years into the program and I hated it. I was skipping classes, I was feeling depressed and detached, and I thought that the best thing to do was to change my major.

Not wanting to waste the math credits I had earned, I had decided to change my major to Applied Mathematics.

That just made things worse.

After a semester I changed my major again, this time to Film, which was better, but I wasn’t satisfied.

Then one day my parents came to me and we had a talk, and an argument, about what I wanted to do with my life. After some thinking, I had realized what I wanted to do with my life.

Go to Culinary School and focus on pastries and desserts. I enrolled in the program and now I am near graduation.

However, before the first day of the new classes, my parents and I had an argument again. They thought that I wasn’t going to like the program and was going to switch again, but I reassured them that I was going to stick with it, but in the back of my mind I was worried about the switch.

Then I remembered that I hadn’t told my then girlfriend that I was going to switch majors.

I told her, and she said that if Pastry was what I was going to do, then she was going to support me doing it. She had known about my major switches, but saw that I wasn’t happy doing those things.

I had baked before as a side thing, and was pretty good at it, so when I told her about the switch she encouraged me to go through with it.

And I have loved every minute of being in the program. I am much happier; my parents are relieved that I found something that I enjoy doing (and when I started the classes they quickly saw how much I was enjoying the program and began to encourage me like they had done before).

So, what does this have to do with Steven Universe? Well remember in the Mr. Greg post when I said that the show had an uncanny ability to have shown me episodes where it closely related to my life? At that time, I watched Rose’s Scabbard, and cried when I watched it.

I related to Pearl so much, the feeling that I was a disappointment, and the feeling of intense emotional relief when those who cared about me still cared about me even though I felt like I was nothing more than a waste of time, space, and money.

This episode had a profound effect on me, and still does to this day.

While me and that person are no longer dating, I am still eternally grateful that they supported me in one of the darkest moments of my life. I am grateful that my parents and brothers support me in everything that I do, and that they are happier knowing that I am doing something that I love.

I needed time to heal, and that’s what Pearl needed and to some extent still needs.

She began her journey to recovery at Rose’s Scabbard, and that coincided with my journey of recovery and I am so close to the goal that stopping now would make all the previous support moot and wasted. Pearl is very close to recovery, so I don’t doubt that by the time I graduate (Summer of 2018) there will be an episode on the horizon that shows Pearl recovering.

I love this episode.

And so ends the Steven Universe Advent Calendar (name finalized), but what does that mean for the blog?

Well I’m not going to stop blogging, but I don’t think I’ll being doing it daily. In fact I know I won’t be doing it daily because like I teased in the previous post, I have an announcement to make.

I have had so much fun doing this, I want to do it some more. Not on the daily because I won’t be able to keep up with that schedule. But, I have decided that on January 1st, 2018, I will start blogging three to four times a week.

What will I blog about?

A whole slew of different things. Different episodes of shows, ramblings about Pokemon, posts where I am just pissed off at something, posts where I praise something, stuff about anime, comics, movies, and a bunch of other things that I have planned out.

I’ll probably leave the monthly things to once or twice a year, one being December.

I just want to show how much of a nerd I am about a lot of things.

I am Joe The Casual Nerd, and I’ll see you on January 1st.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy late Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, and happy holidays.

Until the first,

Peace.

*Note: Final page count – 94 pages and Final word count - 42,107 words.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 9: Jail Break

Getting this one out a bit late because I had some holiday stuff to take care of.

Such is the season after all, but it’s that time of year where we have to put on airs of happiness while we stealthily try to get the point across that we don’t want any lavish gifts and a gift card would be just fine.

At least that’s me.

My personal holiday struggles aside, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where today I’ll be covering Season One Episode Fifty-Two, the Season One Finale, Jail Break.

Premise

The episode begins with Steven hearing a melodious voice echoing around the halls of the hand ship, and he immediately wakes up.

He sees that he is inside a cell, then he remembers seeing two Gems fall to the ground, suddenly remembering that Garnet split apart in a terrifying scene last episode.

He pokes the cell door, which is a wall of light, and he realizes that he can pass through the cell no problem. Well there is a slight tickling sensation, but that’s a common side effect as I’m told.

He runs around and passes by a red Gem, who has her head in her hands.

This red Gem, who is at first angry that Steven noticed her, realizes that he managed to escape. Steven sets the red Gem free after she hear the singing voice and whispering “Sapphire.”

The red Gem runs off in search of Sapphire and when she thinks that she notices her, she realizes that it’s Lapis. Steven starts talking to Lapis while the red Gem runs off on her own.

Lapis says that Steven should just give up, but Steven says that he must look for his friends. Steven promises Lapis that he’ll come back for her and runs off to look for the red Gem.

In a nearby hallway Steven hears the footsteps and conversation between Jasper and Peridot. Jasper tells the singing Gem to stop singing.

She stops Peridot from talking about why they were on Earth in the first place and says that Rose Quartz takes priority and to set a course to Homeworld.

When the two Gems are gone, the singing Gem goes back to singing and Steven asks if she is Sapphire, to which she confirms.

Steven breaks her out, and when Sapphire hears the red Gem call out to her, she grabs Steven by the hand and speeds of to find the red Gem, who she calls Ruby.

Ruby asks if Sapphire is hurt, which she says that she’s ok and when Sapphire asks Ruby, she says “Who cares,” to which Sapphire responds, “I do.”

Sapphire kisses Ruby, the two laugh and spin around, fusing to form a very happy Garnet. Steven is amazed at this revelation and asks if he made a good first impression, to which Garnet responds that they already love him.

An angry Jasper can be heard through the halls and Garnet tells Steven to find the others. Steven asks how and Garnet grants him temporary Future Vision, which tells Steven where he needs to go.

Steven asks if Garnet will be ok fighting Jasper alone, and Garnet responds by saying that she’s never alone, to which Steven gives a smile and nod and runs to find Amethyst and Pearl.

Jasper runs in and sees Garnet is fused again, saying that fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Gems stronger and says that she knows what Garnet really is.

Garnet chuckles and says that Jasper doesn’t know, and then breaks out into Stronger Than You.

During this fight ballad, the Gems manage to crash the ship by throwing Jasper into the power core and they crash on the mountain hill where the temple is.

Luckily, Steven’s bubble protected them. When Steven once again remarks that Garnet is a fusion, Amethyst and Pearl are shocked to hear this because Garnet had planned to tell Steven on his birthday.

They all have a laugh when Jasper comes out of the debris, saying that the only reason that Garnet won was because she was a fusion, and if she had someone to fuse with she would win. She gets cut off at that last bit because Lapis also ahs survived the crash and attempts to get away, only for Jasper to grab her arm.

Jasper makes a case for her and Lapis to fuse, and after some deliberation, Lapis accepts and the two fuse into an eldritch abomination.

It seems like the Crystal Gems are goners, until the water hand that was going to grab them, grabs the fusion instead. More water grabs the fusion and become chains, dragging the fusion into the water, and Lapis through the fusion declares that she’ll be keeping Jasper prisoner.

After a horrific scream and a moment of stunned silence, Garnet remarks that Lapis and Jasper don’t make a great fusion. Steven then gets a call from Connie, who is very concerned at what happened to Steven, since he called her last episode saying that he might die, ending the episode.

Discussion

There is so much to unpack with this episode, so I’ll start with the obvious, the Garnet is a fusion reveal.

Throughout the series there were hints and clues that Garnet was a fusion, there were fan theories on how she was a fusion and how she wasn’t a fusion.

There was solid evidence for both, and when it was revealed that not only was Garnet a fusion, but that the two component Gems, Ruby and Sapphire, were two Gems who were fused together because they love each other, the fandom lost their mind.

It was one of the biggest moments of the series!

One that made people scream in joy!

And was completely spoiled for me!!!!!!

Yeah, the biggest reveal of the first season was spoiled for me, and it was by my own hands.

When I had first seen a commercial about the show, before the series aired or around the time the series aired, all I thought about it was that it was going to be some dumb Cartoon Network show about a dumb fat kid spouting stupid catchphrases at his mentors.

I was then browsing YouTube and came across a video titled “107 Facts About Steven Universe.”

I remembered my original thoughts about the show and decided to give the video a watch, figuring that there wasn’t going to be anything missed if I watched this video.

At some point the fact that Garnet is a fusion comes up and I was surprised at this. It wasn’t often that you see two female coded characters be explicitly a couple in a show that was primarily aimed towards children.

So, I decided to give the series a shot and here I am today, doing in depth discussions about the show.

I don’t mind spoilers personally, and am actually glad I saw that video, because if it wasn’t for that video then I wouldn’t have expressed any interest in watching the series.

Back to the episode, the scene where Ruby and Sapphire reunite is one of the most adorable moments in the show. They truly love each other, and their dance to become Garnet shows it. They don’t need anything fancy or overtly sexual, they just need to be together and happy, and lo and behold they reform into Garnet.

This leads nicely to Stronger Than You, which is a badass fight ballad. Having Estelle waiting until the finale to do a song was a great choice because not only does it enhance a really awesome fight, but it also adds more to what fusion is.

Fusion is a conversation, and this conversation is not only how Ruby and Sapphire love each other, but also how much that love is gonna kick Jasper’s ass

Speaking of Jasper, let’s talk about the fusion at the end, Malachite as it would be named in Chille Tid.

Lapis, as a character at this point, was very much a beacon that things were changing. In Mirror Gem and Ocean Gem it was the reveal of Lapis and her leaving the planet that kickstarted the Homeworld plot.

In The Message, Lapis managed to get a message to Steven and the Crystal Gems warning them that Homeworld forces were coming.

In The Return, Lapis was revealed to have given Homeworld information about Earth, possibly through torture or some other means.

In Jail Break, we see Lapis becoming proactive in imprisoning Jasper as the unstable fusion, all as a way to get back at all the abuse she has taken throughout her time.

She is a tortured character who wants to get back at her captors and show them what it felt like to be her. I’m not saying that it’s right to imprison your captors against their will just to satisfy your revenge, but I do understand why she did it.

Jasper is a complicated nugget to crack.

She actively rails against fusion, but when she is beat by a fusion she decides that fusion is the only way to win.

Remember when she said that fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Gems stronger? Maybe at the end of the episode she sees herself as weak, and throughout the series, those cracks do appear for her character.

Malachite, as a fusion, is a beautiful mess of terror. Six armed and two voices talking at the same time instead of one unique voice and four eyes, Malachite is the definition of a bad fusion.

This episode presents that dichotomy, with the first part of the episode dedicated to a loving fusion of Ruby and Sapphire making the kickass Garnet, and the end of the episode showing a terrifying fusion of Lapis and Jasper making the horrific fusion of Malachite.

It’s almost like seeing the difference between a loving couple and an abusive couple. And the abusive couple metaphor goes even further in Alone at Sea, with Jasper wanting to get back together like an abusive person trying to get back with the ex that they had abused.

A lot of metaphor going on in this episode.

I’ll end it here and give my usual sign off.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 10: We Need To Talk

This is it folks.

We are getting into the biggest episodes, or rather the ten episodes of the series that I happen to enjoy the most. Prepare for some obvious choices, and definitely prepare for some surprises.

I can’t wait to talk about these episodes, and a fair bit of warning, as the numbers progress, the discussions will be getting longer. And if you don’t believe me, I said on the Bismuth post that I was at the 26th page of a Word document and was at over 11,000 words.

Now?

I’m on the 50th page with over 20,000 words. I’ll be surprised with myself if I don’t hit at least 35,000 words by the time this is all over.

Padding my word count aside, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where today I’ll be going over Season Two Episode Nine, We Need to Talk.

Premise

The episode begins with Steven and Connie hanging out with Greg at the Car Wash, looking at some of Greg’s old music collection.

Connie mentions that she hasn’t heard of some of the bands, and Greg satiates her curiosity by playing one of his records.

While the three are jamming out, Steven and Connie begin to dance in a cute scene when suddenly Stevonnie joins in on the party.

A stunned Greg stops the record and the two defuse immediately. Greg is surprised that the two can fuse, and Connie immediately asks Greg to not tell her parents.

Greg calms Connie down, saying that he is the only human who can understand.

The two kids wonder what he means, so Greg says that he’ll tell them what he means, but first he must show them a video tape.

Cue a clever transition to a flashback where we see Greg and the Crystal Gems, sans Pearl, making a music video together, playing the song What Can I Do For You.

Towards the end of the song, during Greg’s sweet guitar solo, Pearl convinces Rose to fuse with her, making this the debuting episode of Rainbow Quartz.

When Rose has to leave on a mission, giving Greg a big ole smooch, Pearl goes straight into salt mode, calling Greg a phase. Greg, annoyed which implies that he has heard her say this before.

Pearl lords over the fact that humans and Gems can’t fuse, and Greg asks if a human has ever tried fusing with a Gem, to which Pearl says no.

Greg accepts the challenge and begins work on trying to dance like Pearl did. He isn’t doing so great, but Amethyst and Garnet come by, Amethyst being as helpful as she would be, which isn’t too much.

After Garnet sends Amethyst away by throwing a stick, she and Greg have a little talk. She says that Greg doesn’t need to dance like Pearl, just that he needs to dance like himself, that he needs to open up and get honest, so he can fuse his own way.

Greg sets up an elaborate stage using the stuff from the performance earlier, and when Rose comes by asking what everything is, Greg proceeds to be the smoother motherfucker in the galaxy.

He dances with Rose, sets up some boxes so he can be at eye level with her, and does the ole dip and kiss, which has Rose stunned and starry eyed.

But they don’t fuse, to Greg’s disappointment. He voices this to Rose, who laughs and says what we knew before, a pure human and a pure Gem can’t fuse.

Greg then asks Rose if she respects him, and she starts to laugh. Greg snaps and demands that Rose talk to him like a real person.

Rose, shocked, states that she isn’t a real person. The sudden reality of Rose being an alien finally dawns on Greg and he starts laughing and crying.

He asks how they can make it work, Rose asking if he means fusion. Greg says no, that he means how are they as a couple going to work. Rose asks what are they going to do, and Greg says that they should just talk, which is what they do.

Greg asks if Rose loved other humans, to which she responds yes after Greg does when she asks him the question. He then asks if Rose has ever been in love with a human, to which Rose responds by asking how would she know.

Greg says that it’s torture, and Rose asks if Greg is feeling tortured, and he says it’s the worst. Rose begins to apologize, but Greg says to not be sorry.

Rose is confused and Greg is as well, but Rose states that they now have that one thing in common, and the two begin dancing again.

Pearl, who has been watching the two along with Amethyst and Garnet, asks why are they still dancing if it didn’t work.

Garnet says it did, to Pearl’s brief confusion, but it soon dawns on Pearl that she understands what she meant. Amethyst says that the song that’s playing is her favorite while Pearl says that Greg is Rose’s favorite, the flashback ending with Rose and Greg dancing.

Back in the present, Connie and Steven are blushing at the story. Connie asks if Greg and Rose were able to fuse, but Greg says that they weren’t able to.

Greg then says that the important things was that they talked, saying that humans and Gems together is still new territory and that Steven and Connie have to work it out together.

Greg then says if Connie ever needs someone to talk to about all the magic stuff, she can talk to him, with them giving each other a high five and saying, “Human beings.”

Steven places his hand on his Gem, also saying, “Human beings…” ending the episode

Discussion

Let me get one very important point across before I start this actual discussion. It’s pertinent to the discussion, but I would like to make a very important point about myself and my personal beliefs, so bare with the brief distraction.

I take love very seriously.

The word love, to me, is something that shouldn’t be trifled with. If you ever hang out with me, I only say that I love something when I am referring to a person or living being, whether that be a member of my family, my pets, or a significant other.

I will on occasion say that I love a piece of work if I really did enjoy it, and I would say that I love all 25 episodes on this list, but I won’t say that I love the creators of the show.

Don’t get me wrong I really enjoy their work, but if I had the opportunity to meet Rebecca Sugar and talk to her, I would say that I love her work, but I won’t say I love her.

The reason? I don’t know Rebecca Sugar as a person.

Sure, I have seen plenty an interview with her and read many excerpts of interviews she has had, but I have never and probably will never be close enough to Rebecca Sugar to say definitively that I love her.

Love, to me, is something that comes along from getting to know someone deeply, to have utmost faith and trust in that person, to be willing to do everything in your power to be with them.

It is a very idealized way to look at love, and it has burned me in the past. I’m not some hopeless romantic, thinking that the person I’m dating is “the one” or that we’ll be together forever.

Love is fleeting, and love can go away. I treasure the idea of love, and being in love is one of the most amazing feelings in the world, but I know that there is still a chance that it can go away.

So, why did I talk about my philosophy on love? Because, this episode helps reinforce my idea of what makes a good relationship, communication.

Rose and Greg are in a relationship, but while Greg takes it very seriously, Rose doesn’t seem to understand how humans see love.

When Greg tells Rose to talk to him as a real person, it’s as if Rose realized immediately that she did something wrong. And what do the two do?

They talk to each other.

They try to understand what the other is feeling and the exchange I enjoy is when Greg asks if Rose loved humans and if Rose was ever in love with a human.

Those have very distinct meanings. It’s basically asking if Rose has ever loved humanity as a whole, and if she has ever loved an individual human.

And to think that this talk wouldn’t have happened if Pearl wasn’t so salty.

Seeing Pearl in an unfiltered way is fascinating, because she is the most motherly out of all the other Gems when it comes to Steven.

In the past though? She seemed like she was actively waiting for Greg to die so Rose can move on, calling Greg just a phase, which for a near immortal alien rock creature is a hard point to argue.

Then Pearl brings up fusion, which is probably the most intimate thing that a Gem could possibly experience. We can try to compare it to sex, but that doesn’t work when you take Opal into account.

Fusion is a complicated topic, but what I can definitively say is that Pearl sees fusion as something that she has over Greg.

Greg tries to learn how to fuse, but it takes a fusion made of love to give him the lo down. Garnet says that Greg can’t fuse when he’s trying to be like Pearl, he has to be himself.

This is good love advice in general, be yourself and someone will come your way. It isn’t easy, and it may seem like it isn’t working, but as Garnet said in Love Letters, “Love takes time, and love takes work.”

If you don’t put the work into a relationship, then you can’t say you’re in love with someone, or at least that’s my take on that.

Going back a bit, I want to quickly gush over how Susan Egan absolutely makes What Can I do For You into an amazing song. Her sultry voice, but off putting lyrics are a great way to not only sound amazing but also starts the journey of Greg questioning his relationship with Rose.

Also, Rainbow Quartz, awesome but we may never see her in that form if Steven and Pearl were to fuse. Not much else to say there except eighties AF.

Then we get to a very important scene, the final scene when Steven places his hand over his Gem while Greg and Connie give their “Human Beings,” high five.

It was at this moment in the series where Steven realizes that he is the only one of his kind. He isn’t a full Gem and he isn’t a full human.

He’s a mix of both, and they are two very different worlds. One is simple and can be very mundane but has unique things to treasure, while the other is amazing and an exciting new adventure always awaits but so does the idea that it could be your last day alive.

Steven doesn’t fit into one of these worlds, he fits into both, and this is where he begins to question what that really means.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 21: Earthlings

So yeah, another double post, but this time due to my own idiocy at dealing with Tumblr. Oh well, it can’t be helped. The past is in the past and all that jazz.

Anyway, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where I discuss my favorite twenty-five episodes of Steven Universe.

And today we are getting into a very revealing episode, Season Three Episode Twenty-Three, Earthlings.

Premise

With this being a continuation of the previous episode Beta, we return to where we left off at the end of last episode, with Jasper looking menacing.

Steven, Amethyst, and Peridot hide and see that Jasper has captured and locked up several corrupted Gems.

She begins talking to one, saying that it has become weak and wild on Earth. Steven and Peridot want to go back and get some back up, only to see that Amethyst has already begun to sneak up on her.

While Jasper keeps monologuing, Amethyst gets ready to attack, only for Jasper to mention that she had noticed her a while back, knocking Amethyst off guard.

Steven and Peridot reveal themselves, and Jasper get’s her weapon ready to go. Amethyst tosses Steven away and goes on a full-frontal assault on Jasper, ending her flurry with her spin dash.

It looks like Amethyst won, but Jasper reveals that the assault barely phased her, and hits Amethyst. Before Jasper can continue a beat down, Steven manages to knock an Injector in between them.

Amethyst declares that she can’t win, that what Jasper said was right and that she is weak. Steven then says that Jasper is right, that Amethyst isn’t like Jasper, that Amethyst shouldn’t be anything like Jasper and that she is unique, and that difference is what makes her better.

Amethyst then says that the worst Gems, a reference to an earlier episode where they refer to themselves as the worst Gems, should stick together. Steven then replies that’s what makes them the best.

The two embrace and a huge explosion occurs, which can only mean one thing.

Fusion.

The fusion, named Smoky Quartz, proves that they are much better than Jasper, using the deadliest weapon of all, a yo-yo.

The battle ensues, freeing all of the captured corrupted Gems, and culminates with Jasper making a bold decision, attempting fusion with a corrupted Gem.

It doesn’t last and is quickly taken down, but there is a serious ramification.

Jasoer is becoming corrupted.

Steven tries to help her, but Jasper attacks.

Jasper then says that Steven, or Rose as she continues to refer to him, will pay for what he did to her Diamond.

Steven says that he hasn’t done anything to Yellow Diamond, to which Jasper exclaims that she isn’t talking about Yellow Diamond.

She is talking about Pink Diamond.

Jasper fully corrupts and is taken down by Peridot’s metal powers.

Amethyst, sadly, bubbles Jasper and sends her to the temple. The three then go back to the barn, only to find that the Rubies have returned, ending the episode.

Discussion

This was an excellent culmination of Amethyst’s character arc. For a few episodes, Amethyst was beginning to feel like she was worthless, which is something that she had felt throughout the series, but now it’s coming more into the forefront ever since she was defeated by Jasper in Crack The Whip.

She and Steven grew closer in how they feel like they need to live up to the expectation set up by Garnet, Pearl, and in Steven’s case Rose Quartz. The two want to prove that they are important to the team, but Amethyst has a hard time accepting that while she may be a Quartz like Jasper, a Gem designed to fight, Amethyst isn’t Jasper.

Seeing that arc culminate in Steven managing to give Amethyst a much deserved and needed pep talk and the two fusing into Smoky Quartz, marking the second character that Steven can fuse with.

I do believe it was the right choice to have Steven fuse with Amethyst, and this is because the two have the closest relationship between Steven and the Crystal Gems.

Pearl is like a mother, Garnet is a mentor, and Amethyst is the older sister. She is fun and wild and the two share some similar interests and fear, the two made perfect foils for each other in this arc.

The two need each other, because they both feel like they must live out to certain expectations, but they don’t need to do that, they just need to be them, which allowed the two to fuse into Smoky Quartz.

I didn’t mention it in the premise section, but Peridot had some neat character stuff here too. It shows how far she came as a character, loving her time on Earth and feeling that if Jasper looked on Earth and be free, then maybe Jasper can love the planet too.

Jasper, however, is very set in ways. She was the best thing to come out of a rush job Kindergarten, and is the perfect soldier. She was banished from the place she was born, and her Diamond was shattered. She must have felt a lot of things, having seen Rose again, or who she perceived as Rose.

It was her chance to get revenge on Rose for everything that she had taken away. Her home, her Diamond, her everything.

And yet she failed.

Time and time again, after what could have been thousand of years being told that she was a valuable soldier, is defeated by the rebels that defeated Homeworld thousands of years ago.

Being beaten, not by them as individuals, which is something she prides herself on, but by them being fusions.

Her attempts at fusion have all been failures, and the most recent attempt caused her to become a monster. Symbolic? Probably.

And of course, we get the biggest confirmation since Garnet was revealed to be a fusion, that Pink Diamond existed, and Rose did something to her. It isn’t said what was done to her (that’s for next episode), but the audience is left speculating on what Rose did, although there was a very clear guess as to what Rose did.

Pink Diamond was the biggest mystery, ever since the first time the four Diamond symbol is shown (Sworn to the Sword I believe, but don’t quote me on that). Everyone was speculating why she wasn’t being mentioned and wondering why there were only three Diamonds in the current insignia.

Now the audience is given confirmation on existence and several possibilities about what happened to Pink Diamond, and this isn’t even the last episode of the bomb.

It was in the middle, which kinda sucked because it would have been an excellent conclusion to a bomb. Not a season mind you, but a bomb ending on this would have had so much hype.

I guess it made sense as to why this wasn’t the end of the bomb, but that’s what affected my enjoyment of the episode, which is a very personal and nitpicky reason for it to be this far down the list, but it’s my list.

I still really enjoyed this episode, and all the implications that came from it.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 3: The Test

Top three, the heaviest of heavy hitters.

A series of three episodes that I consider to be the cream of the crop of the series.

I feel like there is some pressure on me to get these three episodes right, so I plan to do exactly that. I’ll do what I can to shorten the premise section and focus more on the discussion section, but I make no guarantees that they will be significantly shorter than normal.

That all out of the way, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where today I will be talking about…

Season One Episode Thirty-Eight, The Test.

Premise

The episode begins with Steven and the Crystal Gems playing a board game with complicated rules. When Steven wins the game, the Gems all congratulate him, and Steven suggests that they play another game.

When he goes to look for one, he finds the Moon Goddess Statue from way back in episode three, Cheeseburger Backpack. He remembers how much he screwed that mission up, but all three Gems reassure him that he still did well.

Pearl then let’s slip that the Sea Spire was probably going to crumble anyway, and that they were using it as a test for Steven.

When Steven asks what she means, she puts the foot further into her mouth by saying that the test was an easy one, making Steven think that he failed an easy test. The Gems still say that he did well and has come so far, but Steven insists that the Gems test him again.

The Gems relent, and they reorganize the interior of the temple, as you do, into a testing room for Steven.

Steven approaches the first task, one set by Amethyst and pays homage to Indiana Jones, Steven manages to just make it across a gap.

The next room is a test from Pearl, one that involves a memory puzzle and then avoiding a series of pendulums, which Steven also just barely manages to get out unscathed.

The final room, Garnet’s room, is a gauntlet of fire traps and falling spike traps, the latter Steven fails to realize, and it looks as if Steven is about to get crushed.

Only he doesn’t. Steven then realizes that none of Garnet’s obstacles are hurting him. He falls back to Pearl’s room and sees that the pendulums aren’t hurting him either, and that the memory puzzle could have been easily solved if Steven just stepped on one pad over and over.

Amethyst’s room, in another homage to Indiana Jones, has an invisible floor instead of a death pit and the boulder stops before it collides with Steven.

Steven walks up the ramp on the other side and essentially breaks the geometry of the testing room, as if he were glitching through a video game.

Steven talks to himself, trying to figure out why the Gems would lie to him about the test being difficult, until he hears the Gems talking. He is out of sight, so he can hear what the Gems are saying, but none of them can see him. The Gems talk about how the test should not be able to hurt Steven in any way, and Amethyst questions why they are doing this.

Pearl says that it’s to act as a confidence boost for Steven, a way to give him a victory when he feels like he has failed. Amethyst remarks that they are bad at raising him, pointing out that they can’t raise him properly.

Pearl argues that they need to teach Steven how to be a Gem, but Garnet points out that Steven isn’t just a Gem, but he is a human as well, and that they have no idea what he needs.

Steven, with determination, literally walks through all the rooms, and reaches the end, where all the Gems congratulate him on a job well done.

Pearls asks how everything went, very nervous, and after a brief fake out, Steven says that the tests were difficult, praising the Gems for doing this for him.

The Gems, happy as well, all come in for a group hug, with Steven smiling to end the episode.

Discussion

This is a very simple and relatively self-contained episode, but it does a lot to develop the characters.

To start off with Steven, we see that he does still hold regret for the fact that he screwed up a mission, or at least he perceives that he screwed up a mission.

He is cognizant enough to know that if he wasn’t messing around, that a piece of Gem history could still be standing, or at least that’s what he believed until Pearl let the truth slip.

When Steven realized that the test should have been easier, he immediately wanted to prove himself, to really show that he has improved.

The problem here is that the Gems are right, Steven has improved greatly. He’s summoned his shield, he had shown his ability to heal exists, but is inactive at this point in time, and had not only successfully fused, but he had fused with a human in the previous episode, Alone Together.

Steven is about thirteen at this point (give or take a few months) and he is at that stage in growing up where you feel like you need to have your accomplishments validated. This happened to me around this age, where I felt like I needed others to reaffirm any successes I had, and I would blow my failures out of proportion.

This shows that Steven has doubts, and this was shown, again, in Alone Together when he thought he couldn’t fuse. Steven isn’t just the happy go lucky character, he realizes when he has made a mistake and he seeks to find ways to rectify those mistakes.

Onto the actual tests themselves, the Gems did go through some good effort in making it feel like a real test, but still managing to make sure that Steven wouldn’t get hurt.

If Steven missed the pit jump by just an inch or two with his back foot, but still make it with his front foot, he’ll just think that he made it with both feet. If Steven made a mistake with the memory puzzle, he would still accomplish the goal, and since the pendulums were essentially holograms, they had no chance of hurting him, and giving the illusion of a near miss.

Garnet had a very well-done room in terms of visual design, but was a bit overzealous in terms of keeping the exam safe.

The crushing spikes were never going to hit Steven, but it was this safety feature that caused Steven to realize that none of the tests were going to hurt him. If Garnet worked on the timing of the trap to give Steven enough time to jump away from the spikes instead of immediately crashing down on him, the illusion would have stayed, and Steven could have gone through the test no problems.

Also, on a design aspect, the fact that the whole test feels like a work in progress video game level is great, with things that are supposed to hurt you not hurting you, no fail scenarios, and breaking through the level of the game to reach points that a player isn’t supposed to reach, are all reminiscent of alpha testing a game.

And now that reach the breaking of the game, let’s talk about the Gems conversation.

This is the first time in the series where we hear the Gems talk candidly around each other without Steven being around, at least they think that he isn’t around.

They show that they are worried that they aren’t capable enough caregivers to Steven, and this to me is a revelation I had many years ago.

Being a parent is rough.

Shocking I know, but this is something that most kids learn as they grow up. When a kid is younger, many children will see their parents as superheroes, infallible, and cannot make any mistakes because they are their parents.

However, as a child grows older, they see their parents making many mistakes, which they were making before, but the kids were too young to notice them. Children aren’t dumb, and they only get smarter when they get older, and I have a feeling that most parents realize this.

Every parent that I have known has the worry that they aren’t raising their child well enough. That they are making some sort of mistake that will affect their child in the future.

My own mother has shared these doubts with me and my brothers, and we always tell her the same thing. None of us have been arrested, all of us are pursuing careers that we want to pursue, and we are able to cook, clean, budget, and essentially run a household by ourselves by the age of twelve.

We don’t ask for much, and we always help out our family. I say that we turned out alright, but my mother has still told us that she feels like she was a bad mother because we didn’t have the money to do extravagant things like go to Disneyland or something similar.

We made due with what we had, and we have an appreciation for everything that our parents have done and sacrificed for us to get us to where we are today.

The same could be said for Steven. He sees that the Gems, his caretakers, doubt their abilities as caregivers, and while they aren’t the best, the Crystal Gems still do everything that they can to encourage Steven and Steven has shown major growth.

Sometimes it isn’t the child that needs the encouragement, it’s the parents. Parents do a lot, and they sacrifice a lot to raise their children. I know that this isn’t a universal case for every family. There are plenty of people that I know who only had one parent in the picture, and there are many more people who don’t have parents at all.

I’m just saying that from my experience, when talking to people who I know are parents and from my own personal experience, I relate those experiences to this episode of the show.

I love how Steven encourages the Gems, when he could have easily chewed them out for making the test impossible to fail.

The Gems didn’t need to feel like failures, and Steven recognized that. He thanked them for making this test for him and showed that he appreciated them.

This was a great episode for all of that character building, and art design.

Also, obligatory mention of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reference at the end of the episode. It was there, and it happened.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 24: Garnet’s Universe

Two late in a row? That must be some kind of record, although to be fair I did have a personal issue that I had to deal with so that delayed me a bit.

That being said, welcome to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where we are having a double post because of me lacking a post yesterday.

Let’s talk about my 24th favorite episode of Steven Universe, Season One Episode Thirty-Three, Garnet’s Universe.

Premise

Garnet returns from a mission, only to see an empty house.

She hears Steven giggling and decides to play around with him, and after being attacked with the most devastating thing that Steven Universe can do, a Stevenbomb, second most powerful bomb after the Batista Bomb.

Steven sees that Garnet has a bubbled Gem and asks how she got the Gem, only for Garnet to say how does Steven think that she got the Gem.

This entire episode then becomes a story that Steven makes up, with Garnet arriving into a forest and is attacked by two animal friends, a frog named Hopper and a rabbit named Hoppy. They are all concerned with training and Garnet getting stronger because she feels that she isn’t strong enough to protect Steven.

They then meet a hurt person in the woods, a person named Ringo. Ringo says that an evil fox creature took the Gem that he was guarding and asks the three to help him stop the evil fox creature.

They go to the fox creature, only for Garnet to get defeated by the fox creature. Garnet realizes that she isn’t strong enough and then opts to have a training montage.

Once the montage is over and her power level skyrockets, she then takes on the fox creature again and wins, only to realize that the fox creature was the real guardian of the gem and Ringo used Garnet to get the gem for himself.

He takes the gem and then becomes Ultimate Ringo and transports them to the Ringo Zone, where handily beats them.

Garnet looks to her picture of Steven for strength only for the picture to be turned into an onion ring and eaten by Ringo. Garnet then goes even further beyond and grows super powerful, defeating Ringo.

Then we have Steven conclude his story to Garnet, who says that it happened exactly as Steven said, only to dryly reply no when Steven asks if it really did happen that way.

Discussion

The primary reason why I love this episode is that it is pure, unadulterated, ridiculous, fun.

It’s a parody of shounen style anime and all the tropes within; the comedic sidekicks, the betrayal of an ally, the training montages, the power of love bring a source of power, it’s all there.

Not to mention the homages to video games and anime like Super Mario, Dragonball Z, Chrono Trigger, Akira, Phoenix Wright, the list goes on!

Now the fun parody and homage stuff aside, this episode also has some subtle character and plot things that shows how even a fun one-off episode has a purpose in the series.

Let’s start off with some of the plot stuff, because I would be remiss to say that Hoppy and Hopper are foreshadowing for Garnet being a fusion, with one being serious like Sapphire and the other being much more emotional like Ruby, as well as some color palette similarities.

This isn’t the first foreshadowing of the fact that Garnet is a fusion, but it is one of the subtlest, with most first-time viewers probably overlooking the line “He’s not ready to learn that I have secret animal friends,” and see it as a mostly funny gag of what Steven thinks Garnet does on her solo missions.

One could make the argument that the reason Steven thought of two secret animal friends is because of something he watched on TV, but it could be argued that the reason Steven thought this is because of a latent memory of Steven seeing Ruby and Sapphire as a baby in the episode Three Gems and a Baby.

That’s what I think anyway, and I could be completely off base on that, but it is fun to speculate.

Speaking on the character stuff, this episode shows what Steven thinks about Garnet. He sees her as strong, yet needing to fight for Steven.

This could be interpreted, again, in several different ways. Occam’s Razor would say that Steven is using basic anime tropes too help create an entertaining story, or it could be a way to show that Steven has the real belief that Garnet uses him for strength to validate himself.

He sees Garnet as a protector, and she is always shown to protect Steven, so that would mean that she cares for him. To Steven, who at this point in the series has already shown that he has some issues with the Gem’s thinking of him to be like his mother, he is trying to show that Garnet isn’t just protecting him as Rose Quartz’s son, but because Garnet cares for Steven beyond that.

And that’s the beauty of simple episodes like this, they are open to interpretation. It is lighthearted enough for people to watch and enjoy passively, while giving the hardcore speculative fans something to dissect.

This is why this episode is in the Top 25, but not super high up in the list. It’s fun and can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but at the base level there isn’t much else there. I still love this episode though, plus it gave the term Stevenbomb, which is now used to refer to an episode released daily for a short period of time, usually five days.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 2: Mindful Education

Happy Christmas Eve to everyone that celebrates Christmas! I know this may be a bit on the later side of things, but you know I had family stuff to do.

I’m still so excited about these next two posts, and I even have an announcement at the end of the final post.

To get to that number one spot, we have to get to the number two spot. I’ll admit, I was very close at making this episode my favorite, but I had to really think about it and while I love these top two episodes, I had to put this one at number two.

Preamble out of the way, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending), and today I’ll be talking about…

Season Four Episode Four, Mindful Education

Premise

The episode begins with Connie knocking on the door of the Beach House, looking glum. Steven answers the door, with a bald head obviously trying to get a reaction.

Connie doesn’t take the bait and is instead wrapped up in her own head about something, not even noticing that Steven had a bald cap on until he pointed it out.

Steven asks if Connie is ok, but before she can answer, Pearl and Garnet warp in and Pearl says that Garnet will be observing the training session, as it is fusion training.

They all go to the Sky Arena, and prepare to fight a giant Holo-Pearl, Connie still being out of it, but still able to fuse into Stevonnie just fine.

Things seem to be going well, even with Stevonnie discovering that they can hover like a Yoshi, and everything seems fine and dandy until Stevonnie has an image of a random kid recoiling in fear taking the place of the Holo-Pearl.

Stevonnie apologizes and unfuses, Garnet and Pearl concerned and Steven asking what happened. Connie runs off and Steven gives chase to see that Connie is sitting on the steps outside of the Sky Arena.

Connie then says that she beat up a kid at school, the boy having accidentally bumped into her and her retaliating on instinct.

Steven says that it was just an accident, and continues on by saying that sometimes you hurt people on accident and that the best way to go about it is by not thinking about it.

Garnet comes by and decides to give some of her famous advice. She takes the two to the beach, and explains that fusion is a balance, and if one part of the fusion is falling apart, then the whole fusion will fall apart.

Garnet then asks if they can become Stevonnie, which they do, and then has Stevonnie meditate. When Stevonnie opens their eyes again, they are in what looks like a dreamscape and Garnet then begins to do something she hasn’t done in fifty-five episodes.

She sings the song Here Comes A Thought, which then becomes a duet with Stevonnie (which I will go in depth in the discussion).

The next day when Connie comes back for training, she shows a picture of the kid that she beat up, Jeff, and says that they are friends now. When Connie runs off to change, Steven looks at Rose’s sword and sees a butterfly.

During the training session Stevonnie is rocking and rolling. However when Stevonnie stabs a Holo-Pearl, they begin to hallucinate again, but it isn’t Jeff this time.

It’s Bismuth.

Stevonnie begins to panic, realizing that the hallucinations are coming from Steven now, and suddenly Jasper appears as she was corrupting. Stevonnie says that they tried to help, but Jasper wouldn’t take it.

Out of nowhere Eyeball appears, Stevonnie saying that they had no choice and that Eyeball wouldn’t stop. Should I mention that Pearl and Garnet are worried about what’s going with Stveonnie?

Soon the three hallucinations become butterflies and begin to form something, with Stevonnie backing off and panicking severely. Then the butterflies take shape.

It’s Rose.

Not just Rose, but a disappointed looking Rose.

Stevonnie backs away from the giant Rose, crying while they do it, and they just so happen to back off the edge of the Arena, falling.

The fusion splits, and Connie tries to fuse with Steven again, so they can Yoshi hover and not die. Steven, however, is having a major crisis, saying that he didn’t want to hurt anyone and that he had no choice.

Connie says that it’s ok to think about it, and Steven says that he feels so bad about it. Connie reassures him, saying that it’s important that he needs to be honest about what happened, so he can move on, and that’s what helped her move on.

Steven accepts this and the two fuse again, doing their best to calm down before they hit the ground while passing through a swarm of butterflies.

They manage to hover safely to the ground and laugh about the fact that they survived, the final scene of the episode being Stevonnie looking up at the sky saying, “I’m here.”

Discussion

Where do I even begin?

I guess it’s probably best to start off with the animation.

This is the first episode of the series to feature a guest animator, that being Takafumi Hori. For those of you who don’t know, Takafumi Hori is an animator from the Japanese animation studio Trigger, who have done shows like Little Witch Academia and Space Patrol Luluco and Kill la Kill, these shows being only a few he has worked on.

There was a lot of smooth animation in the fight scenes and with the butterflies in the meditation scene and that can be attributed to Takafumi Hori, who has also worked on the film Redline (an anime film that took seven years to make and has 100,000 frames of animation) and Summer Wars (an award-winning film).

I can gush about the animation all day, but to say that the animation of this episode is only one of the minor talking points of the episode is truly saying how much there is to this episode.

You can look up a bunch of stuff about Takafuumi Hori, because I can spout his whole MyAnimeList page of things he has worked on and that still wouldn’t due him any justice, so props to him.

However, the bulk of this episode focuses on one of the most important aspects of the show that has been building up and building up and has finally come to the breaking point (pun not intended), and that is Steven’s mindset.

Steven has seen things that most humans alive haven’t seen, and he has done things that many people don’t want to do, and he’s only fourteen.

Keep in mind, Steven has had to stab Bismuth in self-defense, saw Jasper corrupt in front of him, and had to send Eyeball into the depths of space just so she wouldn’t stab him.

In any scenario, Steven was doing what he could to survive, but what he sees is that he failed in trying to save them.

This is important, because up until Steven had to stab Bismuth, he was doing pretty well in helping people and Gems. Lars and Sadie were becoming more confident (Sadie more so than Lars), he helped Kiki out, he redeemed Peridot, and Lapis stayed around.

Sure, there were some hiccups, but Steven persevered and did his best to help.

Then came Bismuth, a Gem with radical ideals that clashed with his own and he was unable to convince her to see his point of view. She attacked him, and Steven had to defend himself in the only way he could, by stabbing her.

Jasper, a thorn in the Crystal Gems side for some time, was a Gem that Steven thought he could help by healing her as she was being corrupted, but she didn’t take the help. Instead she went through the corruption to show that she still had contempt for Rose and what she did to Pink Diamond.

And finally, we have Eyeball, a Gem that witnessed what Rose Quartz did to Pink Diamond, and sought to seek not only revenge for what had happened, but also seek a reward for capturing Rose. Steven had to jettison her in order to stay alive, even though he helped her by fixing her cracked Gem.

Three points where he did what he could to help, but he failed, and these failures were not small by any means. And what does Steven do about these failures?

He does his best not to think about them, as if not thinking about them will magically make them go away. This is a naïve way to go about it, but it’s what a young person would do.

Repress trauma and not think about it.

When it all comes crashing back to Steven, what does Stevonnie see as the straw that breaks the camel’s back? It isn’t just Bismuth, Jasper, or Eyeball, but it’s also Rose.

Throughout the entire series, everyone that has known Rose always spoke about her in reverence, as a respected leader and an amazing being.

However, these three failures also brought about huge revelations about Rose. Rose lied to the Crystal Gems about one of their closest allies being gone and the biggest revelation of all, Rose shattered Pink Diamond, after her preaching about not shattering Gems.

That was the whole impetus of Rose keeping Bismuth away, Bismuth wanted to shatter Gems, but Rose wouldn’t let her do that.

Rose was a liar, a hypocrite, and a murderer.

What does that do to a fourteen-year-old boy? What does that do to someone who has been told his entire life that his mother was a saint? To learn that his mother did terrible things?

It’s just too much for him to handle.

But he must accept it.

He cannot go around pretending that what happened in the past didn’t happen. He needs to acknowledge his mistakes and his mother’s mistakes and do his best to move on.

And this of course is best summed up by the song of the episode, Here Comes A Thought, which is my favorite song of the series.

The visuals of the butterflies are representative of problems, and the imagery with Ruby and Sapphire show the way that they see problems.

Ruby sees one problem and focuses on it while Sapphire sees hundreds of problems can be overwhelmed by them. The point as the scene plays out is to show that problems need to be acknowledged and not ignored but also not to define you.

This is seen in the episode, where Connie’s issue may seem small in comparison, but the process in dealing with it is the same. Understand that there is an issue, accept that it is an issue, and find a way to move on.

It isn’t easy, and it can be one of the most painful things to experience, but it is necessary to do.

Speaking about the song itself, there is a huge reason why I consider the song my favorite.

A little over a year ago, I was working as a dishwasher at what was essentially a chain sports bar that had other commodities and could accommodate large parties. I won’t say the name of the business for obvious reasons, but I will say that I enjoyed working there.

For the first four months that I worked there.

After those four months there was a new kitchen manager hired and things changed for the worse. My schedule was becoming inconsistent, I was working days I don’t normally work, my hours were either earlier or later than usual, I was getting days cut, and a host of other things.

But that didn’t make me hate that job.

No what made me hate that job was a lack of communication between the people in the kitchen and the people who worked as servers and bussers. Some servers and bussers were good, they did their jobs and picked up individual plates, so we wouldn’t get bombarded with dirty dishes.

One night those servers and bussers weren’t there and what I had to deal with was, no joke, about fourteen bus tubs, each filled to the brim with dishes.

And the bussers and servers were just leaving those bus tubs there. What they are supposed to do is clear the plates and stack them, so we could clean the plates easier and quicker. That didn’t happen and what me and one other person were left with was to clear the bus tubs as fast as possible so there wasn’t a huge mess.

We told them time after time to help clear the bus tubs, because if they didn’t then everything would slow down to a standstill because we wouldn’t have enough dishes for new orders. It would have taken them a minute to clear and stack the plates and glassware, and would have made things go smoothly.

But the bus tubs kept on coming and coming, and I couldn’t get them clean fast enough. Keep in mind, I’m still going fast, getting two or three racks of dishes through the dishwasher every minute or so, but I couldn’t keep up.

Pretty soon I was slowing down, the pressure of not being able to keep up with the dishes was getting to me. I was getting worried that I would be fired on the spot if I couldn’t keep up. I was terrified that I would lose my job because I couldn’t keep up.

In short, I was having a panic attack.

Luckily for me, one of the former dishwashers who worked on the fryer was able to take over the hose that I was working, and I was able to get to the bathroom to deal with my panic attack.

This was around the time where the Summer of Steven, where a new episode of Steven Universe was being aired every day, and Mindful Education had aired a few days prior.

Immediately I went to the employee bathroom, which was a single toilet, and looked for the song and I listened to it, and surprisingly it helped calm me down.

I was in pure panic mode, but after listening to that song and concentrating on what the lyrics meant, and applying what those lyrics meant to my present situation, I was able to calm down.

I went back to work, a much lighter load thanks to that other employee (a good friend of mine as well), and was able to get through the rest of the night.

After a few months of dealing with similar incidents and having two more panic attacks that were mitigated by Here Comes A Thought, I left that job and am now working a job that I enjoy much more.

Here Comes A Thought is my go to song when I am feeling stressed, and has helped me on plenty of occasions. It is a well-crafted song, Estelle giving a great performance and a stellar performance by AJ Michalka.

This episode goes into so much depth into Steven as a character, has a great song, and a message that you don’t really see in a lot of shows today.

And this is still my number two.

What is my number one? Come back tomorrow and you’ll see.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 4: Laser Light Cannon

We are getting so close to the to spots, and one I am excited because I really do have a lot to say about these episodes on the list and two I am excited because I have managed to stay with this project for so long.

The end is near, and I can see the finish line, all I need to do is write them down and post them, and this is just another step closer to that goal, and this is actually a very important episode.

Like the previous post (which should have the title up by now), the title for this post will remain a mystery until tomorrow, as will the title card.

That out of the way, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where today I will be talking about…

Season One Episode Two, Laser Light Cannon.

Premise

The episode begins with Steven and Amethyst at Beach Citywalk Fries, talking to Mr. Fryman as Steven orders the bits.

Mr. Fryman remarks that Steven could order something on the menu, but Steven wants the bits, which Mr. Fryman obliges.

He and Amethyst are walking the beach when Steven says something about the second sun getting bigger an bigger. Amethyst chuckles at this, until she realizes that Steven said second sun, looking up and seeing something that shouldn’t belong in the sky.

Amethyst takes Steven to the other Crystal Gems, who say that the thing in the sky is a Red Eye. Steven asks what can they do to stop it and the Crystal Gems say that the only thing is strong enough to destroy the Red Eye is a Light Cannon, but the only one belonged to Rose Quartz, Steven’s mother.

Amethyst says that things would be easier if Rose were around, and Pearl says that Rose isn’t around anymore, so they’ll have to figure out how to stop it.

Steven says that if there is anyone who might know where his mom’s cannon is, it could be his dad.

Pearl does her best to say that Greg would probably not know where the cannon is, while Amethyst puts it more bluntly by saying that Greg is a mess.

Steven suggests that he go ask his dad, but Garnet says that they can handle it, proceeding to perform a Fastball Special with Amethyst at the Red Eye to no avail.

Steven goes to his dad’s car wash, It’s A Wash, and knocks on the sweet van, waking up the man inside, which is in fact Steven’s father, Greg.

Greg asks what Steven is doing there, offering up the suggestion that Steven came to talk about some lessons on life, but Steven says that the reason for his visit is to ask about he cannon to destroy the Red Eye, and we zoom out to see Amethyst trying out the Fastball Special again, failing again.

Greg says that the Gems told him to not get involved with magic stuff, but Steven begs him, thinking that Greg might know where the cannon is. Greg suggest that they look at his storage shed, which is packed to the brim with stuff.

Steven dons his exploring out fit and delves inside, investigating all the stuff. Steven then finds some of Greg’s old CD’s, where we learn that Greg used to be a travelling musician.

Greg then says that he played a concert in Beach City many years ago and the only person to show up was Rose. And after some time together Rose gave up her physical form to make Steven, and as if on cue, Steven accidentally steps on a picture of Rose and Greg.

Steven apologizes for breaking the frame, but Greg says to not worry about it, and if every pork chop were perfect we wouldn’t have hot dogs.

Suddenly there is a bright pink glow in the back of the storage shed and Steven sees that it is in fact the cannon.

Steven and Greg manage to get the cannon out of the shed, with some difficulty and manage to get it onto a wagon, with some difficulty, and begin driving it to the beach where the Gems are, with some difficulty.

Steven decides that now would be a perfect time to play Greg’s CD, and Greg gets bashful as Steven plays the CD and the song, Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart, plays and Steven sings along.

When the two arrive to the beach and start setting up the cannon, everyone realizes that they have no idea how to use the cannon. Things look dire, but Greg instills some confidence in Steven, and Steven says “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs,” which is just the thing that the cannon needed to activate.

The cannon shoots out a gorgeous beam and destroys the Red Eye. When the debris hits the ocean and parts of the town, Greg tearfully says Rose, until he realizes that the ocean is taking his van. Steven tries to cheer Greg up by saying the pork chop phrase again, but Greg makes the valid point that he lives in the van, so the episode ends with Steven and Greg going to retrieve the van.

Discussion

Yes, the second episode of the series is my fourth favorite episode.

Yes, it is my favorite over Jail Break, Alone Together, Mr. Greg, and some other really important and fan favorite episodes.

Yes, I am being entirely serious.

Now there are several important reasons as to why this is episode is preferred over many others, but let me start off by saying that this was the first episode of the show that grabbed my interest.

If Gem Glow had taken my interest, it would be here instead, but it was Laser Light Cannon that drew me into the series.

As I said in the Jail Break post, I was already spoiled by a lot of things by that one video I watched, so I just wanted to get past the early episodes to really get into the cool action stuff and the fusion stuff, but what I had failed to realize from that video was that this show isn’t a plot driven show with some neat characters.

This series is a character driven show that happens to have a neat plot. I have always preferred having interesting and compelling characters over having an engaging plot, and that is all my preference.

I think that a compelling cast of characters can take an average or even bad plot and take it beyond. I always make the analogy that the reason why I enjoy Dragonball Z is not because of the plot or the action, but rather the characters and how I get invested into them.

Dragonball Z has the barest bones of a plot, and it is repeated several times throughout the show, big bad tries to destroy the planet, the Z Fighters try to stop big bad, but it is up to Goku to come back from some sort of setback to beat the big bad.

While that plot is used ad nauseum, the reason I enjoy Dragonball Z is because I find the characters to be interesting, and that same concept dawned on me when I saw this episode.

Gem Glow seemed very much like the character introduction episode, where we got to see the characters act as their base mood and would set up how they would develop through the course of the series. This episode expanded on that, showing how these characters would act in a crisis.

It also is the earliest establishment that Pearl was close to Rose, just by the way she says that Rose isn’t around anymore. Sure, this is expanded upon in the rest of the series, but there is just a slight hint of what’s to come for her character.

Amethyst’s bluntness is put on display in how she describes Greg as a mess, and while there isn’t much for Garnet, she is still very much a stoic figure that comes up with the plans of action, even if they won’t work.

And of course, the two most important aspects of the show are introduced, Greg Universe and Rose Quartz being essentially dead.

Greg could have easily been the neglectful and idiotic dad stereotype, but he isn’t. He is shown to be bit of a slacker, but he does truly care for his son, and it shows by how happy and bashful he gets when Steven sings Greg’s song.

Greg has what I love to call, Slacker Wisdom, where he takes the inanest things and makes something profound out of them. The phrase “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs,” essentially means that there is still something good that can come from mistakes.

And that phrase brings me to the most important aspect of this episode, as it introduces Rose Quartz and the fact that she is dead, or at the very least thought of and treated as if she were dead.

In stories where there is a dead mother, there is usually some sort of basic explanation about her death like she died of a disease or was ran over by a pack of wildebeests.

Here? There is only the vague description of her giving up her physical form to make Steven. To this day we don’t fully grasp what this means, but that mystery was one of the things that helped draw me into wanting to know more about Rose.

Not only that, but also how someone like Rose decided to make a major sacrifice for Greg. Greg is an amazing character, but willing to die for someone is a really big deal and something that shouldn’t be taken very lightly.

We know that Rose loved Greg because of how the cannon was activated by his dumb little catchphrase. This little phrase is not only a brilliant way to keep the cannons from being used against the Crystal Gems if the enemy doesn’t know the password, but it was also something that Rose remembered about Greg.

This phrase that it’s ok to make mistakes sometimes because it can still lead to something good. What sort of mistakes did Rose make? We can probably guess what the hot dogs are in this scenario, that being Steven, but what were the imperfect pork chops to get to that point>

Only time will tell.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 5: Mr. Greg

This is it ladies, gentlemen, and those who prefer not to disclose, we are now in the top 5 episodes of Steven Universe that are my favorites.

For added suspense, I will not be doing what I usually do and have the title card before the break. In fact I won’t even have the title of the episode on the post until the next day, which should be really interesting because I will of course tag the post as appropriate, but I am hoping people won’t look at the tags unless they look at the post.

Hopeless fruition for an experiment that won’t work, welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) and today we will be talking about…

Season Three Episode Eight, Mr. Greg

Premise

This episode brings back the tradition of what happened the previous episode, where we see the reason Greg suddenly has ten million dollars. Apparently, Marty, the asshole, used the song Like A Comet that Greg wrote and used it for a burger commercial.

The money came from the royalties that Greg was owed. Pearl is skulking around, having questioned if this was the song that Greg used to impress Rose, which in a way it is, but it is only slightly different from the original.

Greg and Steven contemplate what Greg is going to do with the money by singing the song Don’t Cost Nothing, and when that song is over we jump right into the next song, Empire City, and it become apparent that this is the musical episode.

As they sing about how they are going to Empire City to have a bit of a vacation, Steven then ends the song by saying that they should bring Pearl, and he makes it awkward when he says that the trip will have him, Greg, Pearl, and to not forget Rose, which is a very morbid thought.

The three drive to a fancy hotel, and all Greg has to do is show a business card, flash some cash, and we get to the next song Mr. Greg. The song manages to be a fun tune, gets the three into tuxedos and ends on an awkward note when Greg tries to dance with Pearl, and she yells in refusal.

When Steven and Greg are partied out and sleeping, we get into Pearl’s solo song, It’s Over Isn’t It, where she sings about how she felt about the whole Rose, Greg, and herself situation.

When the song ends, she notices that Greg is awake (Steven as well, but she is more concerned with Greg) and Greg says that nothing is going to fix this and walks off. Pearl laments on how she shouldn’t have come along in the first place, but Steven says that this was the reason he brought her along.

Greg is in the lobby, getting drunk off cherries, and Steven brings Pearl in. Greg and Pearl stand awkwardly and the piano player in the lobby plays a ragtime song, which is inappropriate to the situation. Steven deals with this by handing the guy a stack of cash, and plays the song Both of You, which helps Greg and Pearl connect in some way.

Greg is presented with the bill, and the three decide to leave, with a reprise of Don’t Cost Nothing, and the episode ends with Steven singing a line from It’s Over Isn’t It while Greg and Pearl are having a conversation at the front of the van.

Discussion

While there wasn’t much in the premise section, you can bet your sweet bippy that I have a lot to say here.

First things first, this show has a weird thing where the episode that airs has some coincidence that was happening in my life. This will come up in a couple future episodes (suspense and all), but the one that happened here was minor, yet still very odd.

Right before this episode had aired I was getting into old musicals, specifically Singing in the Rain, and then suddenly a musical episode of Steven Universe happened to air, It was odd, but not at all unwelcome because it heightened my enjoyment of the episode significantly.

I enjoy musicals in general, but musical episodes in shows tend to be very hit or miss, and luckily this one was a hit. It followed the structure of a classic musical, the opening song being one that set the mood, the second one a song about the journey the characters were going to take, the third a fun song, the fourth a somber song about something that was lost, the fifth song is the resolution to a conflict, and the sixth song is a reprise of the first song and the emotional song with new meaning behind them.

Speaking of the songs, let’s talk about them. I’m not going to count the jingle as a song from the episode since it was just a cheap cover of the original song to explain why Greg has so much money.

The first song, Don’t Cost Nothing, really shows the kind of character that Greg is. He is a simple guy with simple needs, and while he says that it would be nice to have a house and a car, he would rather spend his time and money for his son.

Greg is such a great father, and this transitions well with the next song, Empire City, which is all about how Greg wants to take a trip with his son to a fancy place in Empire City. Of course, this was Steven’s suggestion because despite Steven being naïve at times, he isn’t dumb.

He saw Pearl earlier acting somber and sad, and he knows that it has to do with Greg and Rose, so what better way to get the two to at the very least start being friends then taking a trip to an isolated area away from the others?

This really shows that Steven does want to help the ones he cares about, which is to say almost everyone, and this is one of the times it turns out well.

Moving onto the song Mr. Greg, this is essentially an intermission song that shows the commodities that the hotel has, but it does serve the purpose at the end of showing that Pearl is still very reluctant about being friends with Greg.

She point blank refuses to dance with him, let alone touch him, and when she realizes that she has made a scene, she leaves.

This of course leads to the most popular song of the episode, It’s Over Isn’t It.

The way that this entire song is gorgeous, and Deedee Magno Hall belts out a heartbreaking and beautiful performance that is full of emotion and pretty much sums up Pearl as a character.

Pearl loved Rose, no Pearl LOVES Rose. Even though Rose ended up going with Greg and sacrificing her physical form for Steven, Pearl still loves Rose. Pearl had been Rose for thousands of years, and whether Pearl had told Rose her feelings and if they were reciprocated at any point, is a topic of discussion for another time.

In fact, a wonderful person did have a conversation with me through the Tumblr messaging, although the conversation originally stemmed from Both of You and not It’s Over, but the topic of whether or not Rose was involved with Pearl in any way did come up.

This person brought up a very interesting perspective that I had never considered before, but could be entirely plausible, but I won’t share it until I know for sure that this person would be comfortable sharing it.

Needless to say, I do have some more things to chew on when thinking about Both of You, but for now let’s talk about what I had originally thought about the song.

I feel that Both of You is a severely underrated song, and I don’t use the term “underrated” very often. I hate the word “overrated” because if a lot of people enjoy something and you don’t, why call it overrated if a lot of people enjoy it?

I will, however, use underrated because it is a term that means that more people should be looking at something, but aren’t. it’s like saying that an indie band that you like should be heard by more people, but just aren’t.

I really enjoy Both of You, and it really shows Zach Callison’s chops as a voice actor because singing in character is a pretty difficult thing to do if you are new to the voice acting scene and haven’t sung before.

Zach had really improved as the show progressed, and this was the beginning of that being very prevalent, Adventures in Light Distortion still being my favorite performance from Zach Callison, but this song showed that he can sing while being very emotive.

And we end the episode with the reprise, which is done to show that Pearl and Greg have begun their journey on actually being friends. Not romantic partners, but two adults being friends, which is something that animated shows really need.

Usually when there are two single adults, there will be some emphasis on trying to get them together romantically. This episode doesn’t do that, instead opting for these two adults reconciling their differences and trying their best to become friends after so many years of animosity and hostility in their early years of knowing each other.

Now there is one thing about this episode that I would like to bring up, and that is the imagery used in Both of You, with Greg being yellow, Pearl being blue, and Steven being Pink.

I am not the only in thinking that this is some form of foreshadowing relating to Blue, Yellow, and Pink Diamond, however it is still way to early to tell where this all could lead.

One theory that I subscribe to, although I cannot recall if it is one I made up or one I read somewhere, is that with Greg being in the place of Yellow Diamond and Pearl being in the place of Blue Diamond and Steven being in the place of Pink Diamond, I have a feeling that this has something to do with the Cluster.

If Yellow Diamond gave Pink Diamond something that ultimately destroyed Pink Diamond but left something behind for Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond to take care of, it might be a subtle way to explain how the Cluster came to be.

It is a huge stretch, but it’s what I’m going with for now until the show proves me wrong, which it most likely will and I am ok with that.

In the end, I really enjoyed this episode. The animation was crisp, the singing phenomenal, and the character development was superb.

And it would be remiss of me to say that this was Joe Johnston’s last episode as a regular storyboard artist as he is now a Supervising Director for the show, occasionally storyboarding but not as often as he would.

I gotta say, for the last episode as a regular storyboarder, he went out with a bang, and I wish him the best for his new job, and hopes that he boards a bit more since I really enjoy the episodes he worked on (his most recently boarded episode after Mr. Greg was That Will Be All, though he has done a lot of writing for recent episodes, so kudos there!).

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 6: Alone Together

It feels good to be back on schedule, even though I technically was only late for one day. I was at a good run doing these on time, so doing one late was actually a bit sad for me personally.

I am back to doing these at my usual time though, and we are getting much closer to the vaunted top 5, which is a prestigious honor to only me because this is my list and my opinion.

Before we get into the top five, we need to talk about number six, which is a great episode in its own right, but only just missed making the top five.

Welcome back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where today I’ll be talking about Season One Episode Thirty-Seven, Alone Together.

Premise

The episode begins, not as a continuation of last episode which must be refreshing to some, but it does begin with the Gems giving Steven some fusion training.

He tries to dance like them, but that doesn’t seem to work. Steven laments on how he can’t fuse, and Pearl brings up the possibility that it is because he is half human.

Amethyst jokingly says that Steven can fuse, while Garnet has the fullest confidence that he can, which has Steven worried.

Later that day, Steven is at the beach with Connie and the two are discussing how Steven could get the hang of fusion. Connie suggests that the Gems write out the steps, but Steven says that it’s more than the dancing, making the point that his body probably can’t become light like the Gems.

Connie remarks on how she thinks that it’s amazing that Steven could dance with the Gems at all, saying that she has always wanted to go to a dance, but was scared that everyone would be staring at her.

Steven says that no one is staring right now, Steven obviously staring, and Connie makes this point as well. Steven, having inherited his father’s abilities of being smooth like butter, takes out his phone, plays a song, covers his eyes with his arm, holds out his hand, and asks Connie to dance with him.

The two then begin dancing with each other, each blushing but having a good time nonetheless. Steven slips, but Connie catches him like she was dipping him and the two laugh while being enveloped by a pink glow.

In the two kids place, there is an older looking person, with the features of both Steven and Connie.

The two have fused, and they are elated and immediately go to tell the Gems.

All three Gems are surprised that Steven and Connie fused, with Pearl thinking it’s unusual, Amethyst thinking it’s awesome and comes up with the name Stevonnie for the fusion, while Garnet looks giddy.

Pearl suggest that the two unfuse, and Stevonnie makes the point that the Gems were trying to teach Steven how to fuse, and that they thought that the Gems would be proud of him.

Pearl, very unsure of how to deal with the situation, asks Garnet for assistance. Garnet then gives the advice that Stevonnie is no longer two people, or one person, but rather an experience. She then says that Stevonnie should make it a good experience, and Garnet tells them to go have fun.

And Stevonnie goes up for that, running around, cliff diving into the water, and overall having a good time. Their stomach rumbles and they decide to go to the Big Donut, where Lars and Sadie are immediately smitten with them.

When Stevonnie tries to pay for their two donuts, Sadie says that they are on the house, and Stevonnie remarks that it isn’t a good business practice in doing things like that.

Stevonnie finds a bench and is happy to share the two donuts with…themselves. The realization that Stevonnie isn’t just Steven and Conie hanging out seems to dawn on them, and there is a short conversation that goes on that is one part of the fusion, presumably Steven, asking Connie if she is ok, and that they can stop if she wants, but Connie says that it’s fine.

Stevonnie begins to eat their donuts when they are approached by Sour Cream, who is also smitten, who invites Stevonnie to go a rave that he is DJ-ing, and Stevonnie accepts.

When they arrive at the rave, it seems to be small affair with a few people around, including a guy who doesn’t look like he’s having fun. I don’t blame him since he is next to Ronaldo.

Stevonnie takes to the dance floor and proceeds to murder everyone with their amazing dance skills. When they are finished dancing, they realize that they are being stared at, which ignites Connie’s original fear which was set up earlier.

Stevonnie has a panic attack, and is approached by the guy from earlier, Kevin. Kevin dances to get Stevonnie’s attention, but Stevonnie runs away to get some space.

Stevonnie remarks that they wish that they could be separate and together, but in the fusion they are together, but alone in a way.

Kevin comes back, affirming his status as a scumbag by continuing to try and get Stevonnie to dance even though they said no multiple times and calling the other people at the rave garbage people.

Stevonnie angrily relents, dragging Kevin to the dance floor and dances violently, freaking Kevin out a bit, and then finally defusing back into Steven and Connie.

Kevin remarks how Stevonnie was two kids and bails, while Steven and Connie look at each other and start laughing.

While Sour Cream throws glowsticks everywhere, no idea what’s going on probably, Steven and Connie start dancing, ending the episode.

Discussion

Ohhh boy, this episode can be some tricky territory to deal with.

Let’s start with the easiest thing, and that’s the metaphor for puberty.

Stevonnie, while primarily using they/them pronouns, is seen by several characters as being coded female, and this is the perspective of a straight male talking here, so no complaining.

The way that Stevonnie acts is very much akin to how most teenagers, regardless of gender, feels when going through puberty. Your body changes, people seem to look at you different, and there are some people that approach you that you are not entirely comfortable with.

There are times when you can rock the scene, like when Stevonnie was at the Big Donut. Stevonnie was very clearly confident in themselves, giving a pretty confident remark about how giving free donuts is a bad business practice. It could be that Connie borrowed some of Steven’s boundless confidence to do something that she has always wanted to do.

However there are other times when you can break down because when you get older, anxiety hits you like a freight train filled with tons of bricks, like the panic attack at the rave.

It is a very awkward time in everyone’s lives and one that most people wouldn’t want to reexperience, I would think, but it is one that pretty much anyone who has gone through puberty can expect and relate to.

This aspect is one that isn’t seen often in television, let alone an animated program that is primarily aimed towards children. I can respect the creators in taking that approach to Stevonnie.

Another thing that I must give major props for is the importance of consent.

There were two scenes that showed this, the scene with the donuts and the whole Kevin scene.

The way I interpret the donut scene is Steven asking Connie if she was comfortable being a fusion, to which Connie replies that she is. Fusion, again while not technically being sex, is still a very intimate thing for anyone.

Combining your entire being with another being is something that no human had experienced before, and the fact that Steven can do it and did it with his best friend/potential love interest can be an allusion to two young teens going out on their first real date.

It is fun at first, but when things get more intimate, Steven, being the very considerate person that he is, can tell that Connie isn’t completely comfortable with the situation and gives Connie the opportunity to stop.

Connie, while enjoying being with Steven as a fusion and pushes on with it, would much rather be with Steven while they are separated, and honestly, I can’t blame Connie.

Trusting someone with literally everything that you are is a huge deal, and these two are still preteens (technically), so they don’t really understand all the things that they are feeling.

I know I didn’t when I was their age.

Steven throughout the entirety was considerate of Connie’s feelings, but you know who wasn’t?

Kevin.

The exchange between Kevin shows the darker side of growing up, that there are assholes out there who only see beautiful people as a conquest, or a way to show off to others. They aren’t considerate to how the other person feels, and this was clearly shown when Stevonnie refused Kevin’s invitation to dance several times, and he persisted.

Kevin was immediately vilified because he wasn’t being respectful to Stevonnie having a panic attack, which by the way was a very wonderful bit of visual storytelling, showing how it feels to have a panic attack, kudos.

More kudos should also go a pair of people I haven’t mention, Aivi and Surrashu, the musical duo behind the music for the show.

The track “Alone Together” is one of my favorites in the entire series, and that is because how sweet it sounds. It perfectly encapsulates Steven and Connie’s relationship, and I would have it as my ringtone if it didn’t bring up some personal stuff I’m dealing with (long story).

The only thing I haven’t touched on yet is the Gems, whose reactions were what would be expected of them, with the exception of Garnet.

This was one of biggest pieces if evidence for Garnet being a fusion, because this had Garnet being excited for a fusion, and especially the line where Amethyst mentions that fusion is hard for Gems and Garnet responds with “Not for me.”

Looking at older posts and theories on the matter, this was a huge log for the Garnet being a fusion theory, but its was still only one line of dialogue and could be extrapolated in a dozen different ways.

Of course, now we know Garnet is a fusion, and I find it to be fun when I show the series to new people where the idea that Garnet is a fusion starts to become more concrete when this episode pops up.

This episode dealt with a wide variety of topics, but was also enjoyable to see Steven and Connie be together while not being together in a relationship per se. Love takes time and so on.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 7: Off Colors

From an early post, to really late post. My reasoning? I just fell asleep for a huge chunk of the day.

I didn’t sleep much the previous night, so my body decided to sleep most of today, so now as I write this I am feeling fully awake and lucid and will still probably sleep when I finish writing this (and eat, but that’s a problem for future me).

Until that comes, welcome back the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where I will be discussing Season Five Episode Three, Off Colors.

Premise

As a running theme, we begin this episode as a continuation of the previous one, with Steven and Lars coming out of the wreckage of Blue Diamond’s Palanquin, Lars thanking Steven for using his bubble at the right time.

Lars brings up the question of how are they are going to get off the planet and what are they going to eat, and Steven tries to remain positive.

That doesn’t last long as a cone robot, a Robonoid, comes in and scans the two, detecting Steven’s Gem, and the two make a break for it.

As they are running they manage to find a temporary hiding place, where Lars laments on the fact that he hates that he’s being a coward. He hates that he’s scared all the time and that baking was the only thing that he isn’t scared of…except he’s scared of making a few things like baklava.

Steven says to not beat yourself up because that’s what the killer robot is for (if only you knew). Suddenly, a rock moves and a voice can be heard, telling the two to get in the hole.

With the choices either being go into the hole and face those issues or die by robot, the two decide on the former and jump in the hole, moving the rock back in place to hide them from the passing Robonoid.

The two thank their savior, or saviors, as it is revealed that the one who saved them is a Gem that splits into two Gems at the waste.

Lars is scared at the sight of her, but Steven calms him down and thanks the Gem for helping them. She then leads the two to a safe place, a place she describes as where “those who don’t belong…belong.”

She leads them to a massive Kindergarten, and it is massive. Columns and columns of rocks that are plastered with emergence holes. The Gem leads the two to a cavern and says that she has returned, with a Gem fusion emerging.

The fusion asks if Rutile was followed, and panics when she sees Steven and Lars. Steven tries to say that they are no threat, but it takes the twin Gems to calm the fusion, Rhodonite down.

Emerging from another column comes a small Gem, who looks like Sapphire, and says that the Rutile twins, the Gem split at the waist, will bring two guests. Rhodonite says in a tired tone that her prediction came true already, and calls her Padparadscha.

Rutile said that they saw Lars and Steven running from the Robonoids and she had to help them, Rhodonite asking if she fought them, which Rutile says that she didn’t.

Suddenly a huge caterpillar like Gem comes out, speaking slowly and scaring Lars, remarking how the two don’t look like Gems. Steven says that he is half Gem and Lars is full human, and the caterpillar Gem remarks on that’s why they look unusual.

Lars says, “We look unusual?!” and Rhodonite says that the two can’t be roaming around the surface because they are off color, just like the rest of them.

Steven asks what she means by off color, and the Rutiles says that everyone of them is flawed in some way. Padparadscha can only see things that have already happened, and she conveniently calls the caterpillar gem Flourite as she makes a late prediction.

Rhodonite says that fusion like her is unforgivable and when her Morgonite found out about her, she was swiftly replaced, as she put it. Rhodonite then remarks that her story is nothing compared to Flourite, who says that she’s a fusion of six Gems, maybe more if she finds the right one.

Then the Rutile twins explain that they aren’t a fusion, but just a Gem that came out wrong, and the only reason that they survived was because the other Rutiles were afraid of them.

Lars remarks on how they live separate from the other Gems and asks what would happen if they were ever found. They begin to explain what would happen, a pause, then Padparadscha finishing the sentence by saying “Shattered.”

Suddenly, Robonoids start coming and everyone hides, with Steven and Lars hiding together. Lars is panicking, but Steven reassures him saying that it’s ok to be scared, which helps rally Lars. One of the Robonoids begins scanning Rutile, and before it can get to her Gem, Lars calls out to the Robonoids.

They scan him, but they don’t find a Gem, so they move on. Padparadscha points this out, getting scanned in the process, and Lars moves her out of the way from getting blasted.

Steven’s shield comes into play as it reflects the beams that the Robonoids are shooting and takes two down.

A Robonoid starts scanning Rhodonite, and Lars manages to stand in front of her Gems, which means the Robonoid can’t detect her.

Lars, in a brave move, jumps onto the Robonoid with a large rock and manages to move it away. He jams the rock into the Robonoid, causing it to explode. Lars flies off from the explosion, hits a wall, and falls about twenty feet, hitting the stone ground.

Steven runs up to Lars to check on him while the other Gems are celebrating Lars’s heroics. Steven places his ear on Lars’s chest, but hears no heartbeat.

Lars is dead.

Steven begins to cry, and the moment his tear lands on Lars, Lars begins to immediately glow, and his skin becomes pink. Lars gets up, holding his head and asking what had happened.

Everyone is in shock and suddenly Padparadscha says that something amazing is going to happen to Lars, ending the episode.

Discussion

This episode has a lot of very important things.

First off, baklava isn’t too hard of a thing to make. Sure, phyllo dough is an annoying thing to work with, but with enough time and practice, anyone can make baklava.

And the second most important thing, nothing too major, kind of a minor point in the grand scheme of things but LARS FUCKING DIED.

A major side character, who had a huge development arc in the past several episodes, died in both a very heroic way and a very brutal way.

If you consider all the things his body went through; an explosion, hitting a stone wall twice, and falling twenty feet onto stone on a planet with similar enough gravity to Earth (since Lars was moving and jumping relatively fine, but I could be wrong with that point) Lars would have been dead four times over.

If Lars had lived through that, then that could have been explained as a cartoon thing and the network wouldn’t have let them get away with such a brutal death.

But NOPE. Lars died, and even though Steven brought Lars back, Lars was still the first character to have an onscreen death, a human character that a chunk of the fanbase hated up until he had a character arc.

As someone who was a fan of Lars throughout the series, I was definitely shaken by this moment. This death was something that no one saw coming, even in the edgiest facets of their imagination no one saw a character death happening on the show.

This episode set up the precedent that characters can die, and the show won’t be afraid to show them doing so. It may not be a bloody affair, but it will be painful.

Going away from the death for a moment, let’s talk about the moments leading up to the death. Lars, throughout the episode and series, was a scared teen trying to be accepted. I made this point way back when I talked about Island Adventure, but it is all culminating to this moment.

Lars sees the Off Colors in trouble, and instead of doing what he did a couple episodes previous and hide, he did everything that he could to protect these Gems, even though he just met them.

He acted heroically, and was the complete opposite of what first episode Lars would have done. Every episode that was dedicated to Lars, and most episodes that even featured Lars, was leading up to this moment.

A moment where Lars could show what he really was, and that is a hero.

Enough gushing about Lars, let’s gush about the Off Color Gems.

It is fascinating to see these Gems as it would have been very easy to show that there was like some Crystal Gem rebels still on Homeworld, still fighting and trying to recruit more Gems for the cause.

Instead we have the outcasts of Gem society. Two fusions (one being of multiple Gems), a Sapphire who can only see the past, and a Gem that came out with two torsos. These Gems have no purpose on Homeworld, at least in terms of how the caste system is portrayed, but they all have managed to survive for several thousand years.

I want to know their stories. The Rutile twins are relatively cut and dry, but how did Flourite come to be? How did they find Padparadscha? What about the Morgonite that Rhodonite mentioned, how come she didn’t shatter Rhodonite? Will Word have a seizure if there are so many apparent misspellings of Gem names?

The introduction of all these characters felt natural, which is a huge deal considering that there were five characters introduced this episode (Rutile counts as two, thus the twins whenever I talk about them).

And of course, the piece de resistance, Steven being able to resurrect Lars from the dead.

Now while it would have been a neat idea to explore what Steven would do if Lars remained dead, this was not the route I would have expected them to take.

Next episode it is revealed that Lars has become like Lion, and that they share the same sort of subspace, so Lion and Lars are just two ends of a wormhole.

When I was theorizing on how Steven and Lars were going to get back to Earth, I was thinking of some sort of elaborate scheme where they use Lion to teleport all the Gems somewhere with Peridot leading Lion and having all the Gems in a bubble, so Lion isn’t strained by the weight.

Instead they use Occam’s Razor to solve the issue with a power that Steven had, but wasn’t fully realized.

This presents the question, did Steven always have this sort of healing capability? I mean when he cried on Amethyst’s Gem in An Indirect Kiss, nothing happened. So, do the healing tears only work on dead organic creatures and not Gems?

Did Rose’s tears bring back the dead, or were they just healing tears like Steven’s spit? Is it a reversal where Steven has healing spit and revival tears while Rose had healing tears and revival spit? Did she lick a dead lion, so we could have Lion? Was that intentional, was it accidental? Were Lion Lickers the longest piece of foreshadowing in the history of animated television?

OK, so it presented a lot of questions.

But none of these questions are bad questions, and they are in fact ones that could be revealed to be moot as the series goes on, or show that there was a lot to Rose that we still don’t understand, which isn’t saying much since we still don’t know much about Rose.

This episode was great for introducing new characters, opening a wide possibility of story telling opportunities with Steven’s revival tears, and of course the Lars development and death and revival.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.

[joecasualnerd]

Number 8: The Answer

What’s this? An early post? Well why kiss a horse on the lips before it has given you its presents? Bonus points if you can name where that reference came from.

The reason if because the place where I work, my Clark Kent job as it were, is having a holiday party and I’ll be attending that for the evening, which is when I usually write these.

That being said let’s have a good time when we come back to the 25 Days of Stevenmas (name pending) where today we’ll be talking about Season Two Episode Twenty-Two, The Answer.

Premise

The episode begins with Steven sleeping on a truck bed inside the barn. He is suddenly woken up by Garnet, and when Steven asks about the time excitedly Garnet replies that it’s midnight, which means it’s his birthday!

Steven asks if Garnet is finally going to tell him that she is a fusion of the Gems Ruby and Sapphire, to which Garnet replies that he already knows that, which Steven admits sadly.

Garnet then says what he doesn’t know is how Ruby and Sapphire met, which sends Steven into excitement overdrive.

Garnet begins her story, 5,750 years ago, Homeworld was colonizing Earth, which was going well until a small rebel faction came along and started screwing with things.

A team of diplomats came to the planet to sort things out and among them was a Sapphire, a rare aristocratic sort of Gem, accompanied by three Ruby guards, common soldier Gems.

The three Rubies are horsing around until one Ruby, our Ruby, accidentally bumps into Sapphire, and when she tries to apologize, Sapphire dully says that it was bound to happen, confusing Ruby.

Sapphire tells them to stay put while she talks to Blue Diamond. Blue Diamond asks Sapphire what is going to happen with the rebels, and she replies that the rebels will come onto the platform, taking out a few of her guards and herself, until they are captured.

When Sapphire returns to the Rubies, she makes conversation with our Ruby, saying how she wishes that she could see more of the beautiful planet. Our Ruby says that there is still time, and while Sapphire appreciates the sentiment, she says that there won’t be.

Suddenly, Rose Quartz and Pearl Team Rocket in and begin doing as Sapphire predicted and they take out a few guards.

When Pearl is about to take out Sapphire, our Ruby, having just been knocked out of a three Ruby fusion with the other two retreating into their Gems, goes to push Sapphire out of the way and the two fuse.

The being that comes out is a pink and blue mess of adorable, and everyone is stunned. When they defuse, Rose and Pearl split, leaving everyone to judge the two Gems when they defuse.

Garnet remarks that this was the first time two different Gems fused together, and Blue Diamond decides to shatter Ruby for fusing with a member of her court.

Sapphire, being very rash, takes Ruby by the hand, and the two jump off of the platform and land on Earth.

Ruby asks what the hell was going on with Sapphire to make her do that, and Sapphire says that they were going to break her, and Ruby responds by saying that there are tons of her.

When it begins to rain, Ruby asks what they are going to do, and since this is the first time Sapphire has seen that the path of fate had been altered, she is literally frozen and doesn’t know what to do.

Ruby, taking initiative, picks Sapphire up and the two take shelter in a cave.

When the two are sitting by a campfire, somewhat awkwardly, Sapphire brings up the topic on how it felt for her to be fused. She had never fused before, and Ruby had only fused with other Rubies, and Ruby remarks on how she never had a third eye before.

Sapphire then says that she had never had more than one, and that it was nice to have multiple.

This begins the song Something Entirely New, which has them montage around the planet and bonding, ending with the two dancing, humming Stronger Than You, and fusing into Cotton Candy Garnet.

She says that she started getting the hang of being fused.

Then she falls.

Right in front of the terrifying renegade Pearl and Rose Quartz. Garnet immediately apologizes and says that she’ll unfuse, but Rose Quartz says that Garnet should stay fused, since it is bound to be much more interesting than how Rose feels.

Garnet remarks on how she feels lost and scared, but happy, and she begins asking a bunch of questions, ending on asking, “What am I?”

Rose tells her stop, no more asking questions, and that she already knows the answer.

We get back to the present and Steven asks Garnet what the answer was, to which Garnet simply replies, “Love.”

Steven says that he knew it, and Garnet says so did she, ending the episode.

Discussion

This episode is adorable.

The whole presentation of this story is as if it where a fairy tale of how someone low class and someone in high class fell in love with each other despite what societal norms would dictate.

Sometimes you don’t need to have an overtly complicated plot to an episode. Sometimes you just want to know how one of your guardians came to be.

Garnet has opened up significantly throughout the series, and especially after Jail Break, and this episode is almost the culmination of that character growth.

Before, Garnet was closed off, acting as more of a mentor than a guardian, but when Steven learned that she was a fusion and loved her just as much as before, if not more so, then she began to open up.

Telling a child how their parents met is a story point that I would love to see more because I’m always fascinated by these kinds of stories.

You don’t need to drag it out for 208 episodes, you can do it in one self-contained episode of adorable.

And the adorableness peaks when the two are dancing, humming Stronger Than You.

This retroactively makes that moment in Jail Break even better because not only are they kicking Jasper’s ass to a bad ass song, but they are kicking Jasper’s ass to THEIR bad ass song.

While I know some people complain on how quick the two fell in love, when in Love Letters Garnet said that love takes time and work, I would argue that the two spent a whole lot of time together on the planet.

It may have seemed like a couple of days from a meta perspective, it could have been a couple of weeks until the two formed Garnet again. Remember, Gems can live for thousands of years, the way they perceive time is much different to how humans can perceive time.

There is also the somewhat awkward topic of how Ruby and Sapphire fusing could be an allusion to people having sex for the first time, and it is really hard to not make that parallel with some of the words used.

I won’t go too into detail about that, but that metaphor can be seen in the episode if you look at it.

Adorableness aside, what else did this episode have to offer?

Actually, quite a bit. For example, it explained a bit on how the Gem caste system works, defining what Sapphires did as well as Rubies.

It showed Pearls being subservient, with the debut of Blue Pearl, and it was the first “introduction” to a Diamond.

I say “introduction” since this is just Garnet telling a story and not Blue Diamond actually showing up. This is still a significant moment because the audience was primed to see Yellow Diamond, what with Peridot mentioning her and her sneak peek in the Extended Theme, when suddenly bam, Blue Diamond.

It also shows the strictness of the caste system, with Blue Diamond wanting to shatter Ruby for just fusing with a Gem in a higher place on the caste system, despite Ruby having had done her job in being a bodyguard and protecting Sapphire.

This brings up the neat character stuff with Sapphire, who was a real downer before she fused. It was the mentality that her Future Vision was always going to happen, and she wasn’t surprised by anything, even her being attacked by Pearl.

And the act of Ruby changing the course of fate must have been an eye-opening experience for her. She didn’t see the future as a singular path, but rather a series of multiple paths with different outcomes.

Just that experience of being able to choose what you want to do because you want to do it rather than following a straight path must have been and experience and a half.

It would also be remiss of me to talk about Rose and Pearl, who were essentially Team Rocket in that they were a small group of criminals trying to do something that they may have been ill equipped for.

It seems like this episode was set around the beginning of the rebellion, so Pearl and Rose may have been the only Crystal Gems at this point, and when they recruited Garnet, it started to become less of an act of violent protest and becoming increasingly like an actual war.

It is very possible that Rose saw Garnet as an opportunity to recruit more Gems for her cause, since it was a high-class Gem and a low-class Gem being together without being told that they needed to do so.

This is a somewhat cynical way to look at it when it could have simply been that Rose really was fascinated by the two being able to fuse, but extrapolating what Jasper said about Rose in The Return, we can also make the theory that Rose saw this as more than recruiting one soldier, but as a way to recruit thousands.

So, this episode was overall really adorable and very interesting from a world building perspective.

Until next time, thanks for reading and have a pleasant time.

Peace.