#the workers are no pushovers they could have handled themselves were anything to happen in n1mbasa

[lcpmon]

idk how other ppl learn to read characters but even when someone has very few lines, if they're not a few throwaway lines and have a smidgen of thought put into them, you can really deduct a lot of things from what they say without mountains of dialogue and array of actions they take.

cIaus, even Iucas via his few lines and interactive dialogue, is so easy to understand and learn what hes about from the dialogue you are given. it shouldnt be hard to mess him up

and even tho these are more active characters in the story with goals to achieve and story beats to hit, u rly can apply the same to lngo and 3mmet. u can make assumptions or deduct possible aspects about how they act from breaking down their dialogue and possible routine. some things might be completely speculative and pulled out of thin air but as long as it matches the characters general front its hard to go wrong

[kristinarambles]

Gem Glow

  Analysis Two:

Going into this re-watch I know that the animation has changed slightly and that the models are not always consistent but that is not what I’m going to be paying attention to. Any changes in the visuals I’ll be referring to throughout all my posts are the ones that were intentional, like Sadie’s scar after Island Adventure or how Steven slims down after he starts actively working out, not little differences in heights or anything like that. I’m here to analyze a show I love, not to nitpick.

So we are introduced to Steven not with a bang but a shout. Sugar and her references starting out right away by Steven yelling about dreams and throwing himself on Lars lol. I wonder if Cookie Cat versus Lion Lickers means anything, they make a lot of things deeper than they seem at first. It could be Cookie Cat is Pink and Lion Lickers is Rose? Rose replaces Pink and Steven as a stand in for the Diamonds is distraught and believes that Cookie Cats are superior, how could you replace them with Lion Lickers? No one likes them. I’m just speculating, maybe this is the one thing in the whole show that doesn’t have a deeper meaning lol.

I love the character growth in this show, but my favorite thing is consistency of personality. They grow and mature but they still stay essentially the same person. Sadie and Lars are our [the viewers] first glimpse into Beach City’s general population. At first they are just the doughnut shop workers, The Big Donut being one of the main staples of the boardwalk and the closest one to Steven’s house, but as the show progresses we learn that “Sadie is nice” and “Lars is grumpy” as the first impression is true but also the reasoning behind it and all the other facets of their personalities. And then later they are also The Off Colors first impression of Beach City, although Lars does a much better job of impressing them than he did me. I will admit I wasn’t very fond of him in the beginning and often questioned why Steven was so attached to him. But he’s supposed to be obnoxious at first, and looking back on my own life I know there are times I tried to be likeable to a certain group dynamic and overcompensated to the point of being annoying so I kind of feel bad for my assumptions. I think that this episode is the most we ever see Lars actually work though lol. And of course he is the one who introduces us to Steven’s “magic belly button”. It really shows how used these people are to the Gems that he can be so flippant about it. Frankly if I were introduced to any of this stuff I would probably freak out a little bit, but I didn’t grow up with it. I also wonder if Sadie should have let him take the freezer. I mean, obviously it was a great thing for her to do but having worked in fast food I really don’t think that’s something she would have been allowed to do lol.

Our first glimpse of the temple is impressive and our introduction to the Gems follows the same formula as meeting Lars and Sadie, we get a general idea of who they are, which is accurate but not everything there is to them. Amethyst rescues Steven right away, big sister to the rescue “’Sup Steven”. Pearl doing her ballet twirls fighting off the centipeedles. Garnet doesn’t say a word but just knows what to do. Pearl explains the centipeetles with a perfectly polite apology, but only after being prompted by Stevens question. Interesting that they call the whole house his room, but then it is one room kind of like a studio apartment, and it’s actually smaller than all of their rooms within the temple. I do wonder how they know to call them centipeetles though, I think she’s the only Gem Monster that gets a clear label other than the pufferfish [I’ll be keeping a running tally of all the Corrupted Gems we run into that I’ll post when I’m done with my re-watch]. Later in the show Pearl admits that the monsters are drawn to the Gems themselves, and Peridot says that the Gem Mutants are forever looking for their missing pieces, and here Pearl says that she thinks the centipeetle babies were trying to get to the temple. A lot of the monsters they fight near home really do seem to be aiming for the temple so I wonder if they can sense all the many gems bubbled in the basement [or maybe even the active gem in the lighthouse above]. Amethyst gives us our first hint that the monsters are actually Corrupted Gems by observing that the little ones don’t have gems, while picking her nose of course. Garnets first words are “That must mean there’s a mother somewhere nearby” which just opens up all sorts of questions. Can all Gems do that? Make little copies of themselves? This may be the first time we’re introduced to the concept but certainly not the last, we see that Drill Gem later on make little drill things that fly off unaided and unguided, Pearl makes her HoloPearls, and then there’s Steven of course. Rebecca even says that Rose could have made Steven wholly human and continued to live but she chose to give up her physical form and pass on her gem. These centipeedle babies just poof with not a whole lot of effort though, so I guess without a gem they aren’t as stable or maybe not as real? They don’t have hair and their rock pattern is on their bellies and not on their back, but that could just be because they’re babies. That acid they’re spitting sure is real though and the drill babies left pretty real holes in the rock face. Maybe if they were left to mature and somehow gain energy and power they could grow gems? Geez, so many questions

Moving on. Pearl tells Steven that until he learns to control the power in his gem that they’ll take care of protecting humanity when he asks to come find the mother, our first indication that he’s in training. I think the reason this is the first episode is because this is the first time he was ever actually involved in the fighting, but based on how he reacted to the centipeetles he’s obviously seen Gem Monsters before. A little more insight to the Gems personalities when Steven finds the cookie cats in the freezer [and that shot of Garnet cracking her knuckles at the last baby, oh Jesus I love her], Amethyst saying she stole them, Pearl irritatingly sticking to the rules by insisting on payment, it was Garnets idea because of her future vision even though we didn’t know it back then. And when we see inside the freezer we can also see Connie’s glow bracelet. Also I would eat the ears first too lol.

There’s been so many theories about the cookie cat song that I’m not going into it myself, although I do think it’s adorable how the Gems all react to his singing. I do want to talk about the weapon summoning though. Pearl tells him not to force it, but she’s so excited to explain to him how it’s done. She’s so cute and excited to show her son how to use his powers. We get the Gems themes in the background of each of their explanations and their way of summoning their weapons directly corresponds to how they fight.  Pearl wasn’t made to fight and so had to work hard and dedicated her life to fighting alongside Rose. She equates the weapon summoning to a dance because it’s what was familiar to her. She often punctuates her speeches with big sweeping movements, using her whole body to communicate and not just her voice. Amethyst is clearly familiar with Pearl’s teaching strategy, which tells us for the first time that she is in fact younger than the rest of them. But she summons her weapon with no effort, entirely on instinct. This could be because she’s a quartz and designed to fight but I think it’s also just because of who she is. Maybe because she’s a chest gem, maybe just because that’s who she is at the core of her being, but Amethyst does what feels right. She’s impulsive, but strong. Lars exclaims “again!” at her slicing the dumpster apart which implies that she has done This Specific Thing before, but he apparently just reacts this way whenever something crazy happens to the dumpster. I guess it’s a popular thing to destroy lol. Last but not least, Garnet. I remember watching that bit for the first time I texted my sister to ask why she had two gems but the others only had one lol. I noticed it when she got rid of her gauntlets first but after seeing the split screen that drew attention to them I was very curious. My OCD self was especially irritated that they didn’t even match, one had a triangle and one was a square lol. My sister didn’t spoil it however and told me it would make sense later, and after meeting Opal I dwelled a lot on the possibility that she was a fusion. Which of course she was. Her explanation of how she links her mind with the universe to call out her weapon reminds me a lot of her explanation of how she views the future as a river, or I guess since that comes later the future vision explanation reminds me of this? She may become more open as the series progresses and we see more of her dork side than her stoic side but it bothers me when people say she becomes all about fusion and nothing else. Didn’t they say the same thing about her future vision when it was revealed? I think those people are just looking for problems because the writing was on the wall for both of those things the whole time, she was just doing her best to keep it from Steven until he was ready to handle it. But it was there all along, part of who she is. Sugar, you’re a genius. Hiding these things in plain sight and giving us hints so we could draw our own conclusions .

In his recreation to try to make his gem glow again I find it pretty funny that he recreated it wrong, and absolutely hilarious that Garnet just lets him move her face around lol. Everyone made her out to be the strict mom for so long but she’s really the pushover. I just love all of them reassuring him, they’re so sweet and supportive. I think the Gems marvel [it’s not necessarily surprise] at Steven’s weapon being a shield because they didn’t know if Steven would get his own weapon because he is his own person or if he would inherit Rose’s the way he inherited her gem. It’s obvious that no one ever told him about Rose’s weapon though. I think that they only tell him things about his mother when it’s relevant or if he asks point blank. It’s also a counterpoint to how the Diamonds eventually interact with him. They constantly compare the two, ask him if he remembers this or that but the Crystal Gems have long ago come to terms with the fact that Steven is not Rose and they do their best to keep him separate in their minds. To the point of not even connecting the way his powers work to the way Rose’s powers worked, not that she probably shared that with any of them except possibly Pearl. Of course WE know now that Stevens powers are tied to his emotions and when his glow starts it’s because of how happy he is that they’re all showing him how much they love him, but it’s really cute how he thinks it’s because of the ice cream.  

And here comes Centipeetle, who we know now is Nephrite Facet 413 Cabochon 12 [Homestuck anyone?]. She is truly impressive and powerful, such that all three of the senior Crystal Gems are having trouble taking her down. Steven is so inexperienced trying to just go after her, but I think it’s interesting that she doesn’t attack him right away, she seems to go slower towards him even when she does start spitting acid. I wonder if a part of her recognizes her Diamond. That moment where the other Gems get their weapons out all at once is so beautiful, that pose, that poise! And we see for the first time a real Gem get poofed and not just one of her babies, it’s pretty much an explosion. Then, also for the first time, we see a Gem without its light body, and Garnet is the first one we see bubble one and then send it home. Back then we didn’t know where it went or what the bubble meant, but now we know it keeps the Gem safe and in stasis. My sister and I were discussing it the other day and we believe that the bubble passes time differently. The Gems consciousness is frozen but they’re able to heal and set their new form so when the bubble pops they’re able to reform right away even if they would normally take longer. Although Change Your Mind gave us an exception to that if Yellow poofs you herself.

It’s kind of sad that Steven went through all of his cookie cats, and that his freezer was ruined, but it was pretty ingenious of him to use it to electrocute Centipeetle. I wonder if he knew it would do that or if he was just throwing it in anger. All in all I think it’s a beautiful episode, it really does a wonderful job of introducing us to Steven’s world and his family. From Lars making fun of his magic, to Amethyst telling him they aren’t the Crystal Gems without him, to Pearl and Garnet saying he’ll figure out how to work his gem in his own Steven-y way. Just the right amount of exposition without getting too deep into it so we’re still left wondering. Words can’t express how much I love this show, and you can really tell the people working on it love it too.

The end theme is the instrumental version of Love Like you, as the theme evolves I’ll discuss it more but I wanted to just mention it here to start.

Total TV’s destroyed: 1

One last thing, in this post I called Amethyst big sister, referred to Steven as Pearl’s son, and called Garnet a mom. In a lot of ways they do all function as a family with three mothers but I always read it as Amethyst being a sister more than a mom. She’s just as protective of him as the other two but she’s treated as lesser and younger just like Steven is and we see later so much insecurity from her and the two of them bond over that. They spend more time just hanging out together where Garnet and Pearl try more to guide him. You’re all welcome to view it however you want but throughout my analyses I will be functioning under the assumption that Pearl and Garnet have a more motherly relationship with him and Amethyst has a more sisterly one. I am both a mom and a big sister and I feel Pearl and Garnet in the way I am with my kids, but I feel Amethyst more in the way I am with my younger siblings.