#the dream was all over the place lol but i was a lost pearl (su) with amnesia but for some reason knew i was married to heat

[heatobrienswife]

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[dogcopter]

Rose is Lion Liveblog episode 45: Rose’s Scabbard Part One (long)

Rose is Liveblog 2020 Masterlist

(recap/summary: I’m liveblogging every Lion appearance in SU in order to emphasize that he is obviously the heinous, beautiful Rose Quartz in disguise. This episode in particular is a smoking gun like Escapism)

Lion takes center stage opposite Pearl in Rose’s Scabbard. Steven learns a bit about him, and about Rose. This episode, Lion’s revelatory behavior towards Pearl stands out.

Lion looks unhappy to be here. He is unhappy because he is Rose Quartz, and has thousands of years of regrets.

Pearl suggests Steven rob a grave and also that he get Lion obedience training. Lion appears to follow a magic butterfly through the strawberry patch. 

Steven says “We’re making progress. Now he looks at me when I say his name!” and calls to Lion, who ignores him.

Lion digs up Rose’s Scabbard.

Pearl’s jaw drops.

“That’s the scabbard to Rose’s sword!”

She tries to yank it from Lion’s mouth. He’s annoyed, because it was for Steven, not her.

Lore concept: In this episode, it’s made clear that Lion knows Pearl, likes her, and cares about her to some extent. These things are true of Rose Quartz, but new to Lion’s characterization.

Lion resists at first, but is defeated. Pearl shoos him away. 

One of Lion’s most consistent traits thus far is not giving a shit about what anyone around him is doing, but this episode, he’s attentive to Pearl. Why’s he making eye contact with Pearl and reacting personally? IMO that is super obviously Rose Quartz.

Look at this exchange. Lion often has ambiguous expressions, but that looks like a smile. Lol.

Although he “spoke” to Steven in Lion and Lion 2, at this point in the series he has only recently shown real affection toward Steven, in Lion 3. There’s also a whole running gag in almost all of his appearances that he doesn’t care what Steven wants or cares about because he’s a cat. He’s hardly ever attentive to Steven’s requests, with the exception of Rose lore. 

Amethyst hugged him once onscreen, in Ocean Gem, and he and Pearl watched Steven sleep and she spoke at him once. The only other character he’s interacted with at any length onscreen is Connie, and they will become close later in the series because Rose Quartz loves Imagination and Connie is an MG fantasy protagonist. At this point, Connie and Lion had a couple of moments: his interest in her in Lion 2 and cooperating to rescue Steven in Ocean Gem. But aside from how he acted in Lion 2 he really hasn’t been social like this.

Lion snorts in Pearl’s face when she shoos him, annoying her. 

“Mom fought here?” “That’s right! And I fought alongside her.” (said while alongside Lion)

A teary-eyed Pearl recounts the glory of Rose Quartz. 

Garnet tries to keep it real, but Pearl at this point in the series is still coping via Rose Quartz fanfiction, which has been her coping mechanism ever since a clown dressed up as her hot OC 6,000 years ago, so naturally, she associates telling epic RQ stories with inspiring her charge (Steven) in an effort to fill the void...

Anyway she says “Here we made our stand against our Homeworld!” and a half-truth, “We won!” Winning meaning the Earth not being colonized I suppose. 

We don’t get to see Lion’s reaction to this. Probably as he is Rose Quartz he is thinking things like, “At one point listening to a Rose Quartz story GMH but now the lies are too bitter” or “this is almost definitely where I betrayed my best friend and biggest fan, the #1 Crystal Gem, Bismuth. I am a bad person” or maybe “It sucks that approx. 5,300 years ago all these people believed in the cause and now they’re digimons in bubbles in the basement and I feel personally responsible” or maybe just “It’s sad to see Pearl like this.” there are layers. Or maybe he feels nothing at all because Rose is still working on empathy! It’s probably a mix of different things.

Steven is dazzled, ofc, which is what matters.

Next part of the ep lacks Lion but recap: Pearl wants to show Steven a SECRET SECRET Rose place, secret even to Amethyst and Garnet! They travel on foot and she carries him up a cliff without a belay. Steven has already been there via Lion, which breaks Pearl’s fragile hard-light projection heart in two. Then he smashes it to bits under his heel by knowing where Rose’s long-lost sword is.

Reiterating: Lion knew about the cave because he is Rose Quartz. This was a very secret home base for Pearl and Rose’s eyes only. 

Arguably, sure, Rose could have traveled around the world with Lion showing him places, especially places she’d rather forget, but Lion being Rose just fits better when you consider both information (lore) and behavior (personality). 

Steven Universe Future relevant characterization meta sidenote: This LB is about Lion, but by extension it’s also about Rose and Steven. Here’s another formative moment: Steven is really excited to show Pearl he knows where Rose’s sword is. This is an occasion where Steven is trying to be helpful, but everything goes poorly and he thinks it’s his fault. Pearl was overjoyed to bring him to a dangerous place full of secrets, both canonically core elements of Steven’s desire for bonding activities with the gems (For example, Secret Team, Serious Steven). He also loves learning more about his mom and yearns for lore on her (Story for Steven, Lion 3).

Steven’s dream came true today, he got a dangerous adventure and a bonding moment where he also learns about his mom. He doesn’t realize the glorious war stories are lies/coping mechanisms, he’s still a hundred episodes away from learning the terrible truth about Pink Diamond, and he has not a single clue this will upset Pearl or how badly. He’s just trying to show her something cool like she did for him. She falls apart and then he spends the rest of the episode “picking up the pieces”. 

Pearl: “Rose’s sword. How did it get in there?” 

(Lion: Oh boy.) Steven: “I don’t know! But there’s a ton of stuff in there!”

Steven:  “I keep stuff in him, too.” (Lion: STEVEN DON’T TELL HER THAT)

Lion’s face is doing this as Steven says this because he’s Rose Quartz. He just realized Steven might tell the Crystal Gems that Bismuth has unjustly imprisoned for over five millennia, or bring out that chest, and is bracing for impact. The childhood traumatized Rose Quartz has never been ready to face people.

Luckily Steven is an adorable fool.

Pearl: “But how?” 

Lion, who was downright chummy with Pearl earlier, doesn’t want her messing with the mane.

After all, Lion isn’t just a secret Rose kept from Pearl. He’s like a series of secrets within secrets Rose kept from Pearl. And he’s Rose, actively keeping herself secret from Pearl. And that is kind of a bummer.

See, he makes so much eye contact with her this ep. He’s not acting like he did in others; he’s probably spent more time onscreen caring about Pearl than about Steven at the moment. 

I’m so proud of Pearl for her growth and that she was able to talk secrets eventually, this was a rough period for her.

This is Pearl’s face as she realizes that Rose had secrets even from her, even though she is also a container of Rose’s secrets. (Episode title drop)  “But Rose didn’t have a lion.” “It seems like her stuff in there.”

Note that we don’t see Lion’s face again for this part. I wonder if when we get the reveal, we’ll see a new side of some of these past scenes where Lion’s back is to us.

 “Rose didn’t have a lion! Because if Rose had a lion, I would have known about it.”

“Rose kept many things secret. Even from us.”

Pearl is teary-eyed again, this time actually in tears. “But not from me! I was the one she told everything!”

This is untrue. Bismuth is right there, and as recently as Volleyball, Pearl was learning new things Rose never told her. But the secret Pearl had to keep for Rose, the secret of her identity and Pink Diamond’s shattering, is so significant that the alternative is unthinkable because it changes Pearl’s self-image as much as her image of Rose. Even though at the time (and probably still, certainly at the time of this episode) doing that was her proudest moment and with the intent to break free of the system once and for all, both the trauma of what followed and of Rose’s decision to refuse Pearl the ability to speak of it had completely shaped her life from that point forward.

Not to belabor the point but Rose as Lion in this scene is witnessing the effects of what she did and of losing her on Pearl, like how he was present for the gems responding to Steven’s “death” in So Many Birthdays, or the events of “Cry For Help”.

“Yo, you’re not the only one who misses her!” We glimpse some of what Amethyst is struggling with - and details on Amethyst and Rose’s relationship are few and far between. Garnet showing genuine surprise, too. Possibly she is future visioning that Pearl is about to knock down Rose’s portrait.

Remember Lion is sitting there seeing all this. So is Steven, who just wanted to surprise and delight Pearl with the sword.

“You can’t understand how I feel! None of you had what we had!”

This one really is true, but Steven won’t learn how true until the events of Now We’re Only Falling Apart. Still no visible reaction from Lion, but he does appear to be listening attentively.

Steven echoes Pearl’s own line from earlier in an attempt to reassure her like she reassured him. Great leaders have to keep secrets to protect people! “She probably just wanted to protect you, like everybody else.”

“What do you know?” Pearl’s hurtful words cut Steven, who is only trying to help. 

”You’ve never even met her!”

Now we see Lion looking at Pearl with everyone else. Steven has taken a step back in fear.

The portrait begins to fall from the wall,

Garnet activates Sapphire speed and catches it. Lion’s back is to us once again, as is the portrait’s.

Pearl glances at Steven’s face again, looking strung out on grief and presumably fresh guilt for what she just said,

And takes off. Amethyst says, “Fine! Go cry about it!” Steven says, “Where did she go?” and Amethyst replies, “Who cares? I hate it when she gets like this.” This isn’t the first time Pearl has been upset like this since losing Rose. These are their reactions to that. 

Amethyst frustrated, maybe because Rose was the most important relationship in her life too, and Pearl’s words about being the most important devalue that. Garnet is carrying on putting the portrait away.

“Garnet?”

Garnet doesn’t answer him. She probably doesn’t know what to say. This has been the family dynamic since at least losing Rose.

Steven pushes down his own hurt feelings. Asks about Pearl instead. “Is she okay?” Garnet still doesn’t respond. This kid needs a parent to rely on!

“Well, I’m gonna go find her.”

“Do you know where she went?”

The heartbreaker Rose Quartz growls an affirmative. Unlike Garnet and Amethyst, who are exhausted by the cycle of grief they’ve been trapped in since Rose gave up her physical form & who’ve probably given up trying to talk to Pearl when she won’t (or can’t) talk to them if they tried in the first place, Lion and Steven want to chase after Pearl and do something.

Lore: Lion knows where Pearl is (The battlefield) because he is Rose Quartz.

Rose knows where Pearl would go to be upset about this (Rose, the sword, lies). Just like the armory was a place known only to Pearl and Rose, the floating island Pearl is about to leave Steven to is an unmarked location with special significance to Pearl and Rose.

Sure, we were just there and they found the sword, as the audience we need a setting established before we can return to it and it bookends the episode – but Pearl’s first line introducing the setting in the episode is:

“This was a site of a historic battle. Every weapon here was left by a gem over 5,000 years ago. I don’t like to disturb it, but Garnet said we can’t just leave these lying around.”

She describes that it was an important place because of the battle that happened there, but a place that lay mostly undisturbed for over 5,000 years, and Pearl makes it sound like she’s rarely visited since. No personal connection or feelings, really, aside from respect for the dead. It paints a very different picture from the one she projects for Steven in just a few minutes.

“Let’s go find Pearl!” Pearl left via warp pad, but Lion and Steven take a lion warp. Lion was present to hear the war stories at the beginning. 

Pearl was excited by the scabbard, but Lion would only have reason to assume she’d return there and agree to follow her with Steven if a) he actually cares about her and b) he knows something about her we don’t. Another Lion behavior detail that is odd if just Lion, makes perfect sense if Rose. 

Rose’s Scabbard Part 2

[myeffeddreams]

6/26

Had a really abstract dream that will be hard to describe, but it was about a war zone, like it started out in space and then at the end it became about ISIS. But there was a ton of shit going on at once and constantly shifting.  Each war side had squadrons and teams. each team had different members: fighters of different types, assassins, double-agents that would infiltrate the other side, get in good with them, and then double cross them to benefit our side, and future-seers who periodically and randomly acquired visions of the future of the war that were not set in stone, but they could use that info to aid our side.  We had two squads; on one, their future seer was Teen Titan’s See-more (good guy in the dream), and on the other was Pearl from SU, which eventually turned into Deedee Magno-Hall, her voice actress.  The double-agent found himself in a situation where he had to kill his teammates for the opposing side because they got caught and he was a high-ranking commander for the other side.  So to give them a break for it, he made a hard call and decided to shoot himself in the head (something I saw in Fear the Walking Dead last night), which shocked the opposing side enough for his team to get away.  This was a vision that came to one of the future-seers.  She didn’t have time to warn anyone yet, not until they were already being captured.  She grabbed his shoulders, shook him, and screamed “You know what you have to do! You have to do the right thing at the right time! Do it or we’ll all lose our lives! You must sacrifice yourself! You know what I’m talking about!”  He looked confused as she was being dragged away, and he contemplated what she meant.  It was implied that the future was changed because of this event, but I didn’t see the rest of that timeline.

For some reason in this warzone world, the dream would reset itself if too many people died on our side, like a video game, but none of the characters knew except for the future-seers.  They had to explain everything over again at the reset (in one of the timelines, Pearl was Bulma from Dragon Ball).  I asked the 2 future-seers (seer being a term from Homestuck) if it was hard knowing about all of the resets (a concept I once heard about Sans from Undertale). They said yes and became emotional since they’ve seen many of their friends change and die many times over (I have been obsessed with Madoka Magica lately).  At one point the dream shifted into a grocery store where Deedee Magno and See-more (who was changed at this part of the dream?) ran into eachother in passing and casually said hi, but went on their ways.  then a bomb went off outside and when they ran out there to check it out, Deedee’s car had been hit and her pet rabbit who was in the car was found dying.  She started crying super hard and she said that even though this happens every time in the time loops, it’s still the hardest thing she has to deal with.  See-more and I (eye, heh) were crying lightly and it was a very emotional scene (seen, I need to stop these puns.

There was this story about one of the team members, who in every single timeline was destined to become corrupted and put the team in jeopardy because of his harsh, rogue attitude. So the future-seers had to warn the squads of that every time.  (That might have also come from Fear the Walking Dead based on a character named Troy).

The dream shifted and suddenly my whole war effort was stationed inside an abandoned university as a secret base; it was kind of apocalyptic.  I’m a little stressed about my housing for next semester lately, so in the dream, I was stressing about finding my correct room.  I was wandering through the university, seeing many familiar faces in an old arcade where everyone was partying, playing games, and having a blast at this carnival; there were arcade games, carnival games, video games, and tournaments.  I saw some old friends from high school and new friends from college.  One of my boyfriend’s roommates was one of the double agents set to kill me in a future timeline, so I didn’t feel like sharing my snacks with him (lol).  I didn’t know who to interact with, they were so different and I wasn’t friends with most of my old group anymore anyway, but I missed them. I put my stuff down somewhere near my old friends and when I left, an attack hit and everybody scrambled to their stations.

Professors/squad leaders were running through the university making sure students/civilians/crew members were all safely hidden or in their battle positions to push buttons and defend or attack.  

The dream temporarily shifted since I was waking up.  I was wet in a bathing suit, outside at night, in some dead grass with patches of dirt, at a bachelor party, looking for some things I put on the ground and lost - wallet, keys, cell phones from my group at the party.  People were behind me (my boyfriend and his roommates, and my brother-in-law) also looking for this stuff, all arguing over whose fault it was that lost them, but it was no one’s fault, we all scrambled.

Suddenly I was back in the action, running through tunnels in the school to get to my assigned place.  I found a place and settled down and looked out a big window to the outside where we could see some old, warn-down buildings, tall, dried grass, and a town in the distance.  That’s when we saw a bomb fly over us in slow motion.  I looked around at my peers and we all started hugging, crying, holding hands, saying goodbyes and last words. I grabbed the hand of one of my new friends from school and told her I loved her (meaning I’m glad to have gotten to know her), and we watched the bomb drop and the mushroom cloud form, and the smoke slowly rush toward us, knowing we were about to die.  We closed our eyes and held our breath from the noxious gas... and then I woke up. 

And then I went back to sleep

Everyone was okay!  (I am not a writer, I can’t write suspense xD).  The smoke cleared as we wondered what happened, why we were still alive. So I pulled a little magic, round, glass bottle with a cork out of my pocket and began sucking the smoke into the bottle to purify the air and save the people around me. When the bottle filled up, I would cork it and keep pulling bottles out to suck up the smoke.  I flew around the school, sucking up all the smoke I could, and when another bomb was dropped, I straight up sucked that bomb into the bottle too! I was saving people left and right.  But people were getting annoyed because I was getting into their way and basking in the glory.

The dream shifted for the last time, as I was now Hamtaro!!  Now I was to steal a big-rig truck (my dad’s a truck driver) full of ammo and information from the opposing side so they couldn’t attack us anymore.  I had my team of My Little Pony toys smaller than me (I was already smaller than the real Hamtaro, and also a pillow at the same time?) to fly around and help me out, although they weren’t much help since we were all toys and I was actually being controlled by myself like I used to play with toys when I was little.  All the mlps were just erasers and I had to push handfuls of them around behind the Hamtaro doll. As Hamtaro, I had to drive this huge truck to my base from the outskirts.  It was really hard and stressful to maneuver (I’m practicing for my driving test next month, I’m 22 and still don’t have my license).

And then the dream sort of... slowly went away, and I finally woke up @.@