#though main point is it will be a while for the cg (yellow specifically) to see chosen as “”“normal”“”

[itslilacokay]

yet another chosenthought

[twistedwonderlandimaginesblog]

yellow rose with idia? ^^

Idia Shroud:

Yellow Rose - a happy thought that causes a smile.

Today was a day to celebrate memories.

Idia awkwardly fumbled with his tie, feeling it was so tight it might strangle him. Ortho had checked at least three times and confirmed it was fine, but had since left the room to focus on other tasks that needed to be done. Idia had practically thrown him out as the constant reminder of his quickened pulse and high blood pressure only made his anxiety feel worse. He could only stare at himself in the mirror for so long, though he did admire his handiwork as his hair was neatly braided with his brushed aside to prevent his face from being covered. There weren’t many stylists gifted with the ability to style cursed hair and he’d really rather do it himself anyway.

Today was too important for anything to go wrong.

“It’s time!” Ortho floated into the room with an excited look on his face, gesturing to the hall where there would be many people awaiting his arrival. It made his knees knock together as he’s about to be thrown into an ultra-stressful situation, like he was desperately climbing ladders and avoiding barrels to reach a princess who didn’t even want him.

But you did want him, because how else would he have ended up here?

He has a lot to thank Ortho for, including the embarrassing situation that had got you here to begin with. They had been playing a silly little otome game together, meaning Idia was on a CG collecting journey and Ortho was helping him remember which path led where. There was a scene between two main characters where a note was exchanged, something very juvenile with a ‘do you like me, y/n?’ written on it.

“Have you ever tried that?” Idia was carefully reading the dialogue, making sure there were no flags being raised that he was on the wrong route and thus locked out of a precious CG that constantly eluded him due to the specific choices that had to be done in a very specific order and—

“Tried—Eh?” Idia hit his keyboard and accidentally began to skip already seen dialogue, panicking and back tracking to his previous save while Ortho patiently waited next to him. “Wh-what are you saying?”

“Writing a note!” Ortho pointed at the screen where a crudely drawn note was, suddenly looking around the room as he tried to find a physical example for Idia to use. It took some snooping but he found a few crumpled pieces of paper with madman scrawling on only half of it, tearing it apart and handing over the blank piece. “Ask them if they like you, and then I can deliver it! If they say no, you don’t even have to see them!”

It wasn’t like Ortho to indulge in his brother’s extreme introvert nature, and Idia was nearly swayed before remembering it could also implode the fragile balance of his online friend group. You, him, and Crimson Muscle made a formidable group, often being enough to on most raids together so he didn’t have to interact with other idiots online. It was much less painful to speak with you through a screen, knowing he could erase a message over and over until he got it just right. He couldn’t sacrifice that, could he?

He should’ve known Ortho’s mercy was only temporary.

Idia was forced out of the solitude of his room, a luncheon being held to celebrate the hard work of each dorm leader being held. He’d rather eat his own hands than celebrate but Crowley wouldn’t budge, persistent and irritating about the whole ordeal. The only good part was seeing your face in high-def rather than via a pixelated avatar online. He still didn’t sit directly across from you but diagonal was good enough for him; not the center of your attention but just within your peripheral where you could notice him.

“Psst, brother! I brought it!” Idia has a piece of paper hastily shoved into his hand, “I wrote it last night! Now you can give it to them in person for an even quicker response!”

He’s suddenly certain the entire world is conspiring against him, trying not to attract your attention as he frantically responded to Ortho.

“That won’t work!”

“Why not?” Ortho tilted his head in a clueless gesture, “In 4 out of the 6 good ends, the note is the pivotal moment in all of them! The Bad End only triggered if you didn’t build up your characters confidence enough to pass the note in class!”

Ortho is just quiet enough that you can’t make out exactly what he’s saying but you can hear him speaking, your eyebrows raised as you looked at the Shroud brothers. Idia saw the dialogue options appear before his very eyes as reality blended with video games for a moment: he could either pass the note to you now and accept the consequences or allow Ortho to reveal it was from the plot of some 3-star Otome game since he wasn’t creative enough to come up with his own way to confess.

He had tossed the paper at you, watching it land right in your half-open bag before he dashed, moving quicker than his physical body had ever moved before. He’d personally expel himself if Crowley tried to drag him back out of his room, he’d just take his parents business over and that’d be the end of that. He didn’t know how long he’d been curled up on his bed, face in his pillow as he considered just smothering himself rather than facing the light of day again. Life’s built-in autosave meant his fate was sealed and, somehow, he felt even more cursed than before.

Until a note slipped under his door, the side the writing was on turned upward so he could see it from his bed.

A little ‘y’ circled in red ink had led to this.

A grand hall decorated with flowers, STYX employees in their finest clothing filling most of the seats, the smell of expensive but most likely delicious foods just waiting to steal everyone’s attention away. When Idia entered the room he could see some of his and your family, along with a few friends dotted throughout but he can’t look for long as he felt like he might pass out.

He stood tall at the front of the room, glancing at the entry way anxiously, like he was truly afraid a too big primate would come through beating his fists on his chest and kidnapping his lover. He had been in a position like this before, albeit less willingly, and he began to understand now why it was so important to put his feelings out there even with the chance of rejection. A bell chimes and the music begins, and Idia can’t wipe the smile from his face.

The pointed grin remained even as you approached, your expression mirroring his as you smiled right back; he suspected by the end of the night his cheeks would ache with how happy he was, but he supposed he could put up with it for a day, for you.

[shinneth]

I’ve been pretty quiet about Steven Universe Future in general, and I’ve said pretty much nothing about Steven’s inevitable breakdown.

Mostly, I don’t have much to say that others haven’t already repeated ad nauseum.

It seems pretty straightforward to me: Steven will inevitably become his own final boss.

(It’s very telling that pretty much the only episode Steven was entirely normal in was Why So Blue? ...)

He’s needlessly overworked himself, getting him to open up is like pulling teeth, and a couple of episodes have him falling into behaving a lot like the Diamonds, to society’s detriment.

I honestly haven’t been that fazed by what’s been happening to him in SUF, but beyond being an ice-cold bitch, I’m pretty sure I’ve been subjecting GAverse Steven to levels of PTSD-inducing trauma on par with canon - and in sone cases, far exceeds it.

And yet... while it isn’t by much, part of me wants to say GA Steven is probably more well-adjusted/stable/mature than canon Steven.

I’m not sure if it’s an accurate assessment, though. This is something I’ve been curious about for a while: does GA Steven have his shit together better than his canonical iteration?

Of course, I don’t expect to really get feedback on this. And I’m not entirely sure whether or not it’s fair to compare the two. Mainly because SUF Steven is a 2-3 year time skip from CYM (the point from where canon and GA become divergent); GA Steven, while he’s roughly the size of his future canon counterpart with the lower voice and everything, is not timeskipped. The events of what happened in his equivalent of CYM are still fresh.

GA Steven also has a lot more on his plate in terms of Era 3 responsibilities, but he’s not nearly as “alone” in shouldering said responsibilities. And I don’t just mean Peridot - the GA Crystal Gems are a much more cohesive team from what I’ve seen in canon. In GA, they’re all sharing the same roof and have a more obtuse representation of a “family” of sorts.

They’re all actively looking out for each other; now that they all have a much bigger responsibility than they had in canon, the CGs know how fast everything’s gonna crumble if they don’t have their shit together.

That also calls in the other major difference between SUF Steven and GA Steven:

One managed to make peace with the Diamonds without anyone losing their life, Homeworld was peacefully revolutionized (along with most of their colonies), and the corrupted gems are cured. Basically, Canon Steven managed to end this conflict precisely the way he wanted it to.

GA Steven, despite his efforts, failed in all of this.

It wasn’t his fault; in GA, White Diamond no-sold his every attempt to reach out and compromise. He did manage to get Blue Diamond to see the light, but she soon died to save the CGs from White. Yellow also fell to White for being indecisive/conflicted since Blue’s death, White ran Homeworld itself into the ground so much that the planet itself died, and White basically shattered herself after being shamed Freeza-style.

At no point could GA Steven do anything to stop any of this. He didn’t get the happy ending he wanted; what he got instead was a foregone conclusion that couldn’t be salvaged. GA Steven had to pick up the pieces left from that outcome and rebuild to a better future.

While he lost a lot, he didn’t lose everything. Most Homeworld gems were saved from Homeworld’s destruction; since the colonies were bound to fall into civil disorder after the collapse of their main hub and overlords, Earth was the only option for a new home for these refugees. Millions of gems basically have to adapt to life on Earth now.

Oh, and the corruption still has no cure. There’s also another widespread gem disease arguably even worse that most of these gems are afflicted with. So the CGs are stuck trying to find an alternative treatment for two ailments, as the Diamond factor is permanently off the table.

So while GA Steven failed to end the gem war on an optimal, peaceful, pacifistic note, he is doing what he can to make the best of his situation in spite of his colossal failure. While it’s going to be insanely risky and difficult to salvage the situation and keep Era 3 alive on Earth, GA Steven is committed to making up for where he fell short.

Also, the fact that Homeworld is gone and Steven is the last of the original four Diamonds still alive and shitloads of gems have to be acclimated to Earth... well.... GA Steven doesn’t have the luxury to “resist change” like SUF Steven. Change is all goddamned around him. He’s got no choice but to adapt to change and embrace it as best he can. He literally cannot do his new job while still clinging to the past.

Now that GA Steven has to live with the consequences of a critical failure in how he tried to resolve a conflict spanning across several millennia, he is under no delusion that he can or must fix everything that doesn’t sit well with him.

Failure shaped GA Steven to improve himself and see beyond his pacifistic tunnel vision.

That’s not even getting into the specific horrors I put GA Steven through.

So, yeah... I dunno. Almost seems arrogant of me to presume GA Steven is more stable than canon Steven - but GA Steven is by no means a solid pillar of perfect competency. He’s a fuck-up in many other ways.

However... I feel like Steven getting the exact ending he wanted in CYM has done a lot more harm than good to his psyche over the years. He seems to be under the delusion that only he can fix things, and now that he’s seen how he can get his way, it’s gotten to his head and it’s making him a bit of a control freak.

He’s defined himself by his successes - so Steven is trapped in his own bubble of idealistic fantasy where he’s not seeing the forest for the trees.

So I’d argue that despite not being quite as loaded down with responsibilities as GA Steven, SUF Steven is much more fragile mentally and emotionally. He’s needlessly putting himself through torture - and yeah, that can be partially chalked up to puberty.

While we don’t know when Steven started growing in canon, how gradual it was, or how/why it happened, I presume it was gradual and not a spontaneous growth spurt fueled by primal rage and sorrow from being constantly subjected to a looping visual of a friend’s graphic throat laceration like GA Steven’s sudden growth spurt.

And... eh, I guess I’ll clam up now. I’ve been pretty much talking out of my ass, haven’t I?

I might regret this, but I’ll openly invite discussion or questions about this. Maybe even derision if you’re polite enough about it. But I’ll be genuinely surprised if anyone pays this any mind.

[imagitory]

D-Views: Aladdin (with guest input!)

Hi, everyone! Welcome to another installment of D-Views, my on-going written review series where I take a look at Disney-produced and/or owned properties, as well as occasionally non-Disney films that were influenced by Disney’s success! For more of these reviews, you may consult my “Disney reviews” tag, where I’ve discussed such films as Treasure Planet, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt!

Today I’ll be doing something a little different. In lieu of the live-action Aladdin remake premiering in less than two weeks, I decided it’d be best to re-watch the original 1992 classic, and I invited two of my good friends, Christina and Jen, to help me analyze it. I will note any of their input when it arises, and hopefully you’ll enjoy hearing three voices for the price of one!

Aladdin was released in the midst of the Disney Renaissance in the 1990′s, sandwiched between the landmark hits Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Out of Disney’s biggest blockbusters, Aladdin is easily the most “of its time” -- it relies on pop culture references for its humor and uses era-specific slang (i.e. ”NOT!” and “Made you look!”) more than most Disney films do and features a celebrity voice in a prominent role, which was quite uncommon, compared to previous Disney projects. (The best examples I can think of prior to this was having John Hurt, Peter Ustinov, and Vincent Price play villains in The Black Cauldron, Robin Hood, and The Great Mouse Detective, but...yeah, as amazing and well-renown as those men are, they weren’t insanely popular media stars of the time the way that Robin Williams was.) One could attribute this “hipper” aspect at least in part to Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was head of Disney’s animation department at the time, and Disney CEO Michael Eisner, both of whom put a lot of focus in following what was popular and marketable. (Katzenberg later put all of his attention and focus on molding Pocahontas into a historical-fiction retelling of Romeo and Juliet as he assumed a forbidden love story would be a hit, while Eisner kicked The Rescuers Down Under to the curb a year before Beauty and the Beast came out all because it didn’t break the box office opening weekend.) Fortunately the approach paid off and Aladdin was a big success, fueling two direct-to-video sequels, a spin-off TV series, and a show at Disney’s California Adventure that transformed into a full Broadway musical. Even now it’s still very well-loved by Disney fans, many of whom are now looking forward to the live-action remake coming out this month. As my followers might know, I’m still very on-the-fence about the remake myself, as I haven’t reacted very warmly to Disney’s other recent live-action remakes, but my two cohorts Jen and Christina are much less cynical about the prospect, so hopefully any commentary we might make about what we’ve learned about the remake compared to the original will be minimal. Now that our context is framed, let’s board this magic carpet of a movie and see where it takes us!

To start with, Arabian Nights is just such a fantastic musical introduction to this story! Aladdin was the last project that lyricist Howard Ashman worked on before his premature death in 1992, and like in the rest of his work, the word play in the songs he wrote for this movie (Arabian Nights, Friend Like Me and Prince Ali) is just masterful. Arabian Nights in particular just emanates “adventure” -- it was later used as the opening theme for the Aladdin TV series, and it got me so pumped up whenever I watched it, just as much as it probably excited those who first saw the movie in theaters. Fun fact: while listening to the intro, one might notice the names Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio credited as two of the film’s screenwriters, alongside directors John Musker and Ron Clements -- down the road, Elliot and Rossio would also write the screenplay for The Road to El Dorado, join the writing team for Shrek, and be the main writing force behind the Pirates of the Caribbean films. 

As much as I rarely go for films that market themselves as comedies, I feel like Aladdin handles its comedy really well. From the beginning, we see the comedic, spontaneous tone in the peddler’s narration scene, and that tone is taken on by Gilbert Gottfried as Iago until Robin Williams reappears as the Genie later. It makes it so that, unlike Mulan where the comedy kind of starts and ends with Mushu, the comedy is a constant fixture in the story, never distracting from the plot and never feeling out of place. 

One niche interest of mine that I rarely get to delve into is color psychology, and oh BOY, does this film give me a lot to talk about there! Aladdin’s production designer, Richard Wende, used a very simple, yet striking color palette for the film that favors blues, reds, and golds. The effect is a beautifully lush setting while maintaining a “desert” feel: any greens that appear really stick out, like when Aladdin and Genie arrive in an oasis after escaping the Cave of Wonders. It also makes it so that when the background is mostly red or gold, any blue shades draw focus, or when the scene takes place at night and is mostly shades of blue, anything red or gold likewise draws focus. This post goes into the color symbolism more deeply, but generally blue is representative of good characters, while red represents evil, with gold being a sort of middle ground. Primary colors often are used in properties marketed toward children (ex. Team Valor/Instinct/Mystic in Pokemon Go, Snow White having all three colors on her dress), so it’s understandable that so many kids from the 90′s gravitated toward this movie, but the palette never feels restricted or simple. The deep, saturated fusion of reds and blues and reds and yellows creates a lot of texture despite the limited color range, and it beautifully communicates the heat of the locations and creates a unique visual style for the film. I’ve noticed that in the trailers for the remake, this color symbolism was discarded in favor of a more “Bollywood” look, not unlike how the Beauty and the Beast remake likewise ignored the color symbolism of Belle being the only villager to wear blue (which accents how much she stands apart from the crowd) and decided to dress a lot of people in blue during the opening number Belle. I can only hope the decision means the film is just choosing to make Agrabah more like India than Arabia, rather than this just being a stylistic choice with no substance, but I think the subtle color psychology in the original film is very clever short-hand for the audience, even if they’ll likely not be able to consciously express how the color palette affected their viewing experience.

As Jafar and his stooge Gazeem come across the Cave of Wonders, I’m reminded of how awesome the Cave’s design is. It was made primarily with CG animation, yet the CGI is never distracting: on the contrary, it fuses together beautifully with the rest of the hand-drawn background. Even the sandy texture on the Cave is very well rendered. Christina also noted a neat detail I hadn’t picked up on before: the tiger head has an earring in one ear, just like the Genie whose lamp lives inside the Cave!

After the Cave of Wonders devours Gazeem, declaring that it will only allow the “diamond in the rough” inside, we meet our title character and resident “diamond,” Aladdin. Voicing Aladdin is Scott Weinger, or Steve of Full House fame, who brings such charm, energy, and personality to the role. I honestly think it’d be hard for anyone else to match the sheer likability rippling out of Scott’s voice. Accompanying Weinger and Robin Williams in this stellar cast are Broadway actor Jonathan Freeman as Jafar (who has since gone on to play the character in everything from TV shows to the Broadway musical), raucous comic Gilbert Gottfried as Iago, and three voice-acting legends -- Frank Welker (who voices Shaggy and Scooby Doo) as Abu and Rajah; Jim Cummings (the current voices of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger) as Razoul; and Corey Burton (who is best known for playing Ansem the Wise in Kingdom Hearts) as Prince Tiger-Fucker Achmed. Even Jasmine, who was voiced by the at-the-time-fresh-faced actress Linda Larkin, had her singing voice done by Broadway legend Lea Salonga, fresh off her success premiering the title role in Miss Saigon. Even though many of these names aren’t celebrities like Robin Williams, and so I would hesitate to call this an “all-star cast” exactly, it doesn’t change how much talent was accrued by Disney’s casting agents! 

Unlike most main characters in a Disney musical, Aladdin doesn’t get a full solo number to call his own. Originally Howard Ashman wrote a song for Aladdin called Proud of Your Boy, where Aladdin sings to his mother (who played a large role in early drafts of the story) about how he’ll make good for her. Unfortunately the story’s focus on Aladdin and his mother’s relationship ended up taking focus away from Aladdin and Jasmine’s romance and Aladdin’s character arc to accept himself, so the screenwriters ultimately had to cut the mother character from the story, at which point the song no longer fit. The decision was very difficult for the filmmakers at the time, given that it was one of the last things Ashman wrote and it’s such a beautiful, raw song, but I ultimately think it was the right decision. Putting Aladdin on his own with no one but Abu for company and giving Jasmine no emotional support outside of her naïve, misguided father and her pet and only friend Rajah I think goes a long way to explain why they’re such kindred spirits. Aladdin and Jasmine each become the friend and support that the other needed. (This is also why Christina and I are concerned about the inclusion of a servant/friend for Jasmine, as the choice would likely weaken any rationale Jasmine could have for leaving the palace and for connecting so instantly with Aladdin.) Plus I think Aladdin’s reprise of One Jump Ahead is just as beautifully raw as Proud of Your Boy, just with a slightly different message and less words. I really feel Aladdin’s frustration and yearning for something better, and Aladdin’s singing voice Brad Kane is able to stuff so much pathos into such a short tune that a longer song isn’t even necessary. And fortunately Proud of Your Boy was later utilized in the Broadway musical version of Aladdin, so it got its dues eventually. 

At the palace, we meet our heroine, Jasmine, who was Christina’s favorite Disney character as a kid and who I personally think is the prettiest of the Disney princesses. Jasmine was designed by supervising animator Mark Henn, who modeled her after a picture of his little sister, which honestly is so sweet that I can’t stand it. What I really like about Jasmine in comparison to other Disney princesses is that she is fiery, but clever: determined, but calculating: proud, yet compassionate. It’s this balance that makes her interesting: in my mind, Jasmine is the ultimate Slytherin Disney princess (with just as Slytherin of a prince!), because unlike Ariel, she isn’t reckless in her rebellion. What’s also very cool about Jasmine is that her circumstances are a perfect contrast to Aladdin, placing them in a more romantic Prince and the Pauper set-up where they envy each other, and yet they want the same thing: freedom. In fact, all of our protagonists do -- namely, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Genie. Aladdin wants freedom from his poverty. Jasmine wants freedom from her privilege. Genie wants freedom from his purpose. They all have different cages, but they all want to be free to live their own lives, and it’s through Aladdin learning to empathize with Jasmine and Genie and see their respective prisons as clearly as his own that he grows as a character. (For a video that delves into this thought process further, please consult this piece by ScreenPrism -- it’s just beautifully done!)

Throughout the film, three animals emerge over and over -- the cobra, the elephant, and the tiger. Tigers -- which we see not only in obvious examples like Rajah and the Cave of Wonders, but also as a carving in the back of the Sultan’s throne -- are generally associated with courage and heraldry, not unlike their feline cousins, lions. The heraldry aspect I think is most relevant here -- only one who is deemed worthy, namely Aladdin, may enter the Cave of Wonders and access the wealth of kings, and when Jasmine runs away from home, she leaves Rajah, a symbol of her noble heritage, behind. Elephants in comparison are associated with wisdom and more notably royal power. In the film, Abu is transformed into an elephant steed for Aladdin when he becomes Prince Ali, and even the Sultan sits in a throne decorated with a statue of an elephant. As for the cobra, it’s entirely connected to Jafar, first as his magic scepter and then as a form Jafar takes on himself. Snakes overall are associated with many things like healing, rebirth, eternity, and the dichotomy of good and evil, but cobras specifically are the most poisonous snakes on earth. Legends even claim that Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, committed suicide by cobra bite. I reckon that meaning is more than enough reason for it to represent Jafar.

Through the use of a bizarre storm-making machine powered by Iago running on a treadmill-like wheel that Christina, Jen, and I thoroughly don’t understand and kind of find hilariously ridiculous, Jafar is able to discover the identity of the elusive “diamond in the rough.” He then sends the guards out to arrest Aladdin so as to coerce him into aiding him in his goal to enter the Cave, but in the process gets caught by Jasmine as he’s exiting one of the secret passages. Jen brought up the lovely point that Jafar seems to be the only person who knows about these passages in the palace, even though the Sultan presumably was raised in the palace just like Jasmine was -- this isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does make both her and me want to know the story behind this! Was Jafar basically raised in the palace too? Did Jafar partially create those passages? Were they forgotten after years of non-use and Jafar came across them by chance? It seems like there could be some fun explanation here, if someone wanted to write a fic or fan theory about it.

Okay, I really don’t want to express my concerns about the remake yet again, but I just have to say this flat-out -- there is no way that Abu in the remake could be as funny as he is in the animated film. Let’s be honest, CG characters in live-action films are almost never very charming if they’re more on the cartoony side compared to the so-called “realistic” world they’re supposed to inhabit. You can have very likable, well-developed CG characters -- just look at Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia -- but he wasn’t solely comic relief the way Abu is, and Abu’s comedy in particular relies on a lot of cartoon-like squash and stretch that would be difficult to recreate in CG for a live-action movie. Best case scenario, you’d have something like Pip in Enchanted, which is only irritating and visually out-of-place sometimes, but alternatively, you might get something like Alvin and the Chipmunks (where the humor falls flat), Dobby in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (where it’s clear he was never actually there the whole time), and/or the enchanted objects in the live-action Beauty and the Beast (where the characters end up looking creepy, like something out of the Uncanny Valley). Basically if they want Abu to work in the live-action setting, it’s likely they’d have to make him more like an actual animal, which as I said would make it so he is a lot less funny.

Anyway, not long after Abu unlocks Aladdin’s shackles, Jafar arrives to bust him out, disguised as an old man. Just as Jafar’s storm-making machine makes no sense, the three of us all concluded that his disguise makes no sense. Not only does Jafar suddenly look a good foot and a half shorter, which even with him crouching shouldn’t be possible, but he’s changed his teeth with no visible dentures (which would’ve slurred his speech anyway) and he can get rid of all of the white hair and beard he put on just by ripping off the beard in a single gesture. As Jen brought up, even the Evil Queen used a potion to turn into the Hag: if Jafar had used magic, these sort of physical changes would make sense, but he didn’t.

Back to the Cave of Wonders again, and now I get to talk about one of the most revolutionary aspects of Aladdin: the Magic Carpet. Our sweet little Carpet is a perfect fusion of CG and hand-drawn animation -- supervising animator Randy Cartwright drew the outline and tassels of Carpet with so much personality and silent comedy, and rather than have to animate Carpet’s detailed pattern in every single frame as the fabric folded and contorted, the pencil tests were handed to the CG artists, who melded the pattern perfectly to the line work, making it one perfectly cohesive character. Carpet’s pattern also has allusions to different parts of the film, including the Cave of Wonders, the magic lamp, and the flames that appear when Abu touches the red gem. Even if the technology of CG animation is much more advanced now than it was in 90s, it doesn’t change how seamless the finished result is.

As mentioned, the Cave doesn’t remain safe for our hero very long. When Abu snatches up a gem after being warned not to touch anything, the whole place starts to fall apart, raging with lava and fire. Christina brought up the question of why the Cave would allow Abu inside, since he wasn’t the diamond in the rough (yes, Abu was hidden in Aladdin’s vest, but the Cave was magical, did it really not know he was there?), but I almost wonder if it was an issue of Aladdin having trusted Abu when he shouldn’t have, which would end up being the true mistake in this scenario. Regardless, the CGI in this particular escape sequence is some of the more outdated material of the film. The flight on Carpet is still kind of fun, as it probably would make for a very exciting thrill ride, but it still looks incredibly fake, especially in comparison to other CG elements used in other scenes. Honestly, I’d say this Cave chase and the tower used in the “ends of the earth” sequence later are the worst instances of outdated CGI in this movie.

And finally, at long last, we get to the big, blue guy himself, the Genie. As much as I wouldn’t say Genie steals the show, as Aladdin has such a likable hero and heroine and an excellent villain, Jen, Christina, and I will say categorically that Aladdin would not be as good of a movie as it is without Genie and without Robin Williams. The directors Ron Clements and John Musker wrote the character with Robin in mind, but thought there’d be no way they’d ever get him -- fortunately Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for Genie, got the idea to make an animation of Genie speaking a piece of one of Robin’s comedy routines, and the animation amazingly won Robin over and got him on board. And really, it is that flawless combination of Robin’s acting and Goldberg’s animation that really makes Genie as likable as he is. Even Robin’s humor, which still is very funny, is not what makes Genie as great of a character as he is, in my opinion -- if anything, I’d say it’s how much sincerity Robin gives the role. Genie is never a sidekick in this movie, as he has his own distinct motivations and feelings separate to the main character and their goals, and Robin just makes you feel so much for Genie and his own desire for freedom. One quote of Genie’s that has stuck with me since I was a kid thanks to Robin’s beautiful delivery is “To be my own master -- such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.” It makes it so his humor is a sign of how resilient Genie is, despite how unhappy his circumstances are, which is something I understand very well as someone who has suffered from depression and I’m quite sure Robin himself understood very well too. I think it’s why so many people found Robin so likable and felt so much for the characters he portrayed over the years.

Speaking on Friend Like Me specifically, I’m afraid I’ll have to go off on a bit of a tangent and share a story with all of you. The day that Robin Williams passed away, I was working at the World of Color show at Disney’s Calfornia Adventure. When the Friend Like Me segment came on, I danced along to the music while in the walkway outside the show, trying to keep the grief off of my face and just make others happy, the way Robin used to. As the segment ended, everyone applauded like crazy. Then, all of a sudden, we Cast Members became aware of a strange, sputtering, almost sobbing sound. One of the show fountains in the water had gotten out of alignment and it sputtered softly in the background as the next segment (Touch the Sky) began, before after a minute slowly quieting and coming to a stop. It was as if the show was crying for Robin, this person who had given so much joy to so many people. And this, among other reasons, is why I feel so very sorry for poor Will Smith, who somehow has to try to fill the shoes that Robin wore. Jen, Christina, and I aren’t very optimistic about his prospects (I still personally might have offered the role to Wayne Brady instead, given that he can sing, he has done comedy, and he worked with Robin in the past), as even Dan Castellanetta, who voiced Genie in the Aladdin TV series, was never able to match Robin no matter how hard he tried.

On the note of Genie’s motivation, as well, we hear about it in a scene accompanied by the beautiful instrumental “To Be Free.” It’s one of my favorite pieces of instrumental music from the film, which became one of Christina’s favorite songs from the Aladdin musical, To Be Free, which is a solo sung by Jasmine. As very pretty and appropriate the song is from Jasmine, I do also really appreciate the number accompanying Genie’s monologue. The instrumental comes across as more spontaneous and thoughtful, like it’s making itself up as it goes along, until it gets to the sincere, meaningful line about freedom, at which point the melody that inspired the song To Be Free's chorus starts.

Another neat touch with Genie is his use of Yiddisms, such as “punim,” meaning face. Of course, Genie’s animator Eric Goldberg is Jewish, and the idea of Genie being Jewish as well I just find so unbelievably charming, particularly when you place him in an Arabian-like setting full of (presumably) Muslim characters, given that the Sultan at one point references Allah. Therefore Genie and Aladdin’s (adorable) friendship could be thought of as a friendship between a Jewish person and a Muslim! I think that’s really cool!

We return to the palace, where the Sultan scolds Jafar for Aladdin’s supposed execution, only for Aladdin to burst onto the scene, dressed as the dashing Prince Ali. During this scene, Christina noted the fun juxtaposition of Jafar’s fashion choices compared to the Sultan, Genie as a human, and Aladdin as Ali. All of them wear very similar robes and turbans, but the Sultan, Genie, and Aladdin wear turbans with more rounded, floppy feathers, which Jafar’s feather is sharp and straight. Aladdin’s and the Sultan’s feather even flop into their faces sometimes, whereas Jafar’s is rigid as a board. As Jen likewise pointed out, Jafar’s design gives him this pointed, slender look not unlike Dr. Facilier in future Disney project The Princess and the Frog. The shoulder pads on his shoulders also serve to give him this sort of sharp “T” shape, contrasted to the more rounded and well-proportioned characters. Couple that with a black/red color scheme that contrasts the more saintly tannish-white of the other three, and it really does communicate the “black cloud” nature that Jafar’s supervising animator Andreas Deja wanted to give the character, to compliment the “Severus Snape” level of dry sardonicism Jonathan Freeman gave the character.

Even though the Sultan is very impressed by “Prince Ali,” Jasmine most certainly is not. Genie counsels Aladdin (with a few outdated pop culture references) that he should tell her the truth -- the nice thing about the pop culture references is that, really, even if you don’t get the jokes, you can still understand them, and the jokes still drive dialogue and plot forward enough that those lines don’t feel like a waste of time. I mean, I didn’t get most of the jokes as a kid, and it didn’t hurt anything for me -- I still thought the Genie was funny because of his comedic timing and odd voices. (Oh yes, and since Jen brought this up while we were watching this -- Aladdin does not say “take off your clothes” while up on Jasmine’s balcony: the line that Weigner improvised for when Aladdin is trying to shoo Rajah away is “take off and go.” Get your brains out of the gutter.)

Fortunately Aladdin is able to soften Jasmine enough that she gives him a chance, and the two go on a magic carpet ride (a.k.a. the fastest world tour ever, as Christina described it! LOL). Accompanying this scene is, in my opinion, the single most romantic song in the Disney canon. A Whole New World was the very first song Alan Menken and Tim Rice wrote together. After the loss of his good friend and most constant collaborator, Howard Ashman, Menken was very nervous about working with someone else. Fortunately, as soon as he and Tim Rice met, they came together pretty quickly while working on the aforementioned love song, which ended up taking some inspiration from their circumstances as new collaborators in its melody and lyrics. So yes, one could listen to this song and some of its lines -- a new, fantastic point of view -- but when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear that now I’m in a whole new world with you -- unbelievable sights, indescribable feelings -- with new horizons to pursue -- every moment, red letter -- let me share this whole new world with you -- as being not just about these two characters falling in love, but also about a brand new, exciting friendship.

Aladdin and Jasmine connect, Jafar is banished from the palace, and the Sultan blesses Jasmine’s decision to court “Prince Ali” -- but yeah, just as everything looks like everything’s coming up roses, things start to fall apart when Aladdin breaks his promise to set Genie free. (Another fun story: when I first saw this scene in the Aladdin Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure way back in the day, I couldn’t stop myself from yelling “BOO!” from the audience. The people around me giggled. Then the actor playing Genie, without looking away from the actor playing Aladdin, raised a hand and pointed out at the audience. “You hear that?” he said. “That’s my THOUGHTS.” I died laughing.) But yes, thanks to Aladdin’s mistake, Jafar is able to take advantage of the situation and snatch Genie for himself, singing his own quasi-solo, Prince Ali (reprise). Like Aladdin, Jafar doesn’t get a full number to call his own, but fortunately he doesn’t end up needing one: Prince Ali (reprise) is more than powerful enough on its own, and it concludes with the most amazing, deranged laugh in Disney history. Really, as good as some other Disney villain laughs are, I would say that Jafar’s is easily the best.

Jafar becomes the Sultan of Agrabah, imprisoning both Jasmine and the Sultan and banishing Aladdin to the ends of the earth. Even if Jasmine’s a prisoner, though, she is no damsel: in Christina’s words, she’s the Princess Leia to Jafar’s Jabba the Hutt, clever and proud as ever and ready to do whatever is necessary to break free...even if it means kissing our villain in order to distract him long enough for Aladdin to try to snatch back the lamp. (Insert a cringe from all three of us here.) Alas, the ruse fails, and Jafar discovers that Aladdin has returned alive and well. The “Battle” track used for this climax is just epic accompaniment, easily being up there among some of the best “final confrontation” instrumental tracks in Disney history like Sleeping Beauty’s “Battle With the Forces of Evil” and The Great Mouse Detective’s “Big Ben Chase.” The visuals as well are also thrilling -- speaking as someone with acute ophidiophobia, Jafar turning into a giant cobra is pretty terrifying.

Despite all of the odds being against him, our diamond in the rough street rat nonetheless is able to outsmart Jafar, and Jafar, tricked into the form of a Genie, is imprisoned in his own pitch black lamp, possessing all of the power he longed for but ignorantly sacrificing the power of autonomy he had already. (As Jen said, and I quote, “Karma, bitch!”) I just adore how Aladdin outwitted Jafar too: not only does it really suit his Slytherin personality to win through craftiness rather than just brute force, but it also perfectly showcases the difference between Aladdin and Jafar: namely, that Aladdin knows empathy, and Jafar does not. Jafar only sees what Genie has that he doesn’t have, supreme magical power, and longs to possess it -- Aladdin sees Genie’s circumstances fully and knows that he is both amazingly powerful in a magical sense and utterly powerless when it comes to making his own choices.

Accompanying the film’s resolution is the beautiful instrumental “Happy End in Agrabah,” which dips into lighthearted whimsy, resignation, bittersweet joy and exhilaration, alongside echoes of both “To Be Free“ and A Whole New World. Aladdin gives Genie his greatest desire -- his freedom -- and in the process makes, in Jen’s words, the most selfless wish you could make...for only a diamond in the rough would make a wish for someone else, not for himself. And as Jen also pointed out, the Sultan follows Aladdin’s lead, giving Jasmine her freedom just as Aladdin gave Genie his. Our story ends with all of our protagonists earning the freedom that they’ve so longed for -- the freedom to achieve their own happiness -- through their love of each other.

Aladdin may be very “of its era” from a humor point of view, but it’s a movie that truly becomes more resonant with age. When Jen, Christina, and I were kids, we all enjoyed this movie’s flights of fantasy, humor, characters, and songs, but as adults, we can feel for these characters and their desire for freedom more than ever. We can understand how similar these individual characters are, and how even though they’re all in different prisons with different advantages and disadvantages, they all need the same key to unlock their cages -- love and empathy. However much the new Aladdin film diverges from the animated version, I only hope that they remember that core of the movie and how it is integrated into the entire story, from how much Aladdin wishes people would “look closer” when looking at him to Genie’s last words to Aladdin being that “no matter what anybody says, [Aladdin will] always be a prince to [Genie.]” And if it doesn’t, well, we still have the 1992 original...

...and Christina, Jen, and I give that movie three thumbs up!

[hello--mrs]

Secret Team

Just a few observations I noted while thinking about the upcoming special ‘Battle of the Heart and Mind’.

This isn’t an exact theory and this could honestly happen at any point, I feel, within the next couple of seasons. But there’s quite a few parallels between the CG’s and the Diamonds in this episode.

The plot starts when Pearl and Amethyst start arguing over a Rose Quartz bubble and most notably, the gem shards in them. Amethyst even goes out of her way to say Garnet will be mad. As Garnet is perhaps the most obvious parallel to White Diamond, we can assume that in the case of the Diamonds, either Yellow or Blue have been found meddling with gems and/or gem shards that White didn’t know about.

Steven tries to intervene when they start to physically fight, which is how the gem shards end up being released. What the shards stand for is debatable but we can assume for now that it means corruption, as that was the main reason Steven agreed to work with them in the first place.

He immediately says “we have to get Garnet.”

A: No, we just freed a bunch of mindless gem chunks... when Garnet finds out, we’re dead.

Again, this could relate to corruption and how the Diamonds think White is going to react. Especially when Yellow felt the need to mention that she would return for him once White’s temper had cooled, while Blue called White difficult.

So secret team is created. It’s clear that they are paralleled with Blue and Yellow, whichever way you see them, and all three end up working impeccably together to solve this problem. So much so that Steven becomes overexcited and hopes their team will continue afterward. Even though that doesn’t happen.

P: It wasn’t about fun. It was about fixing our terrible mistake.

For the shards to be protected and placed back where it came from, Steven has to use his powers as it’s specifically related to Rose Quartz. Again, this could refer to a few things, including corruption but the shot in particular looks like the cluster.

Another thing I noticed is that when Steven laments about secret team to Fryman, he holds the card in his hand next to his money. But only the Diamond part of the bill is visible. The Diamond is also upside down, like Pink Diamond’s gem.

Steven gets the idea that he needs Garnet’s help for the other two to start working as a team again, so the three can do stuff together. He admits this and her response is: “I know how to handle them.”

However, when the three of them are confronted, only Steven confesses and immediately is given the blame by Pearl. Something consistent we’ve found with Pink and the way Yellow and Blue believe she’s handled things.

When Garnet doesn’t get the truth, she resorts to violence, where the other two confess when they realise their powers don’t work against the attack. Only then does Garnet release them.

G: So you two can’t get along unless you think I’m going to kill you.”

Here’s a shot of her as she speaks.

Lastly, she tells Steven, in regards to the other two- “I know you wanted to help them, to protect them. Even from me. They made you feel like you had to pick a side but there are no sides.”

In the context of White, this could her way of having Steven trust her or have him believe in the Authority as a whole. But it could also be her trying to encourage him that going against her is wrong, especially if he worked with Blue and Yellow.

Again, this isn’t a solid theory (obviously) but there are some interesting parallels and observations in this episode that can be related back to the Diamonds and what may be coming, whether in BOTHAM or in the following season.

Feel free to discuss ☺️

[landsoflightanddark]

Final Last Guardian Blog Post Thoughts

I had more thoughts than usual about the final TLG interview post on Gendesign’s website, so I decided to write a full post on it instead of a small one with bullet points  The interview itself is here (several months later I now see that this link was...not to the blog post.  Whoops, here’s the blog post), but since I didn’t make a post for the last part of it (here), I’m actually going to start by talking about the main interesting thing that came out of that.

So, as it turns out, the genDesign team actually wanted to update Trico’s AI after the game’s release in response to the “play logs” of everyone playing.  This is a big deal, considering that Trico’s AI was the main complaint about the game.  There are several parts of the game that could use an update specifically along the lines of what they say here - making Trico more agreeable.  The one that really comes to mind for me is the diving section, where in the second part I feel like Trico’s AI is genuinely broken.  It’s very sad to hear that they planned this and weren’t able to implement it.  Imagine all those players out there who had big problems with one or two parts of the game, having those problems removed.  And going by what I’ve seen on Twitch streams - which I detail in this post - that’s a LOT of people.

So, the latest and last post.  The most interesting thing here is the stuff about the Boy’s design, which I’m sure was something those of us who were following these posts were waiting for them to talk about.  Specifically relating to the fact that the character was originally conceived as a girl.  You may have seen my prematurely made, and promptly deleted, posts on this a couple days ago, but now I’ve read the actual post.  So, Ueda starts by elaborating on his reasons for not making the character female.  And, you know, much love to the guy, but his reasons are just as bad as they previously were.  This time he goes into the same argument Ubisoft used years ago with Assassin’s Creed Unity, where it’s apparently harder to model a girl character than a boy character because you have to animate hair and skirts.

There’s kind of a lot of talk about “extra costs” and difficulty of design in these posts, actually.  It’s weird.  Ueda and co. seem to make a lot of effort to convince everyone that these games are kind of just something they do at their jobs - they talk about how gameplay comes first and story second multiple times in these as well.  But actually playing the games, everything’s integrated so well that you wouldn’t know.  But it does make me wonder, what would the games be like if the devs didn’t worry about the budget or time constraints?

Anyway, Ueda also makes a more general version of the “people would look up the skirt” argument, by saying that people would “see her as a sexual object.”  Which is a weird way to state it because instead of “people would look up the character’s skirt for giggles”, which is probably the reason most people would have done that sort of thing.  it turns into some thing about pedophilia.  Not that it matters, because both arguments ignore the fact that you could just have the character wear pants even if she’s a girl.  Or you could change the hair so it doesn’t require as much animation.

But then, they post a screenshot of...what looks like a girl version of the Boy, with curly hair and pants!  They did it, they actually tried to make a better version of the model before settling on the boy for some other reason we don’t know!  Except...Apparently not.  According to the caption, these screenshots are from a time when the character was “a boy with wavy hair”.  This really confused me when I saw it.   I was very sure that character model was of a girl.  I shared gendesign’s tweet of the post link with that screenshot on the blog, excitedly saying we finally got a look at the girl character model.  But the post itself says it’s not.

Now, I don’t want to come off as weird, or as a conspiracy theorist, but I think there might be a bit more here than there seems.  Some people believe the caption fully.  Some people (well, one on reddit that I saw) believe very much that it’s a girl, and that the caption is wrong.  I think there is some evidence to that.  For one, most Japanese expressions lack pronouns.  There have been situations where fans of a thing were unsure if a character was male or female before the creator confirmed it.  I’m not entirely sure if that applies to the situation, because in the English translation, they’re not using a pronoun, they’re using a noun, just saying it’s a boy.

Aside from that is the pose.  I think it goes without saying that it’s a feminine pose, one the boy never takes in the main game.  The back is arched a bit, the leg is up, the character model is looking at the camera.

The third thing is that we’ve never seen this version of the boy, or at least I don’t THINK we have.  Someone on twitter posted a screenshot of the model used in the “Project Trico” trailer, insinuating it was the same one, but I think it’s different.  The hair in the Project Trico model looks like a bunch flat textures moving in the wind, while the blog post model’s looks larger and curly, almost like an afro.  I zoomed in on it as much as I could and I don’t see how I could be seeing it wrong.  Other than that, the pants are shorter and the undershirt is yellow instead of white in the blog post model.

So, they’re definitely different models, but is the one in the blog post a girl?  Well, we don’t know, and just like with Trico (though I often call it “he” out of habit), I won’t assume.  I also think the face looks smoother, and find it interesting how I don’t think you could describe the hair in the blog post model as “wavy”, but you could definitely describe the hair of the Project Trico model that way.

But that’s all I can say about it.  There’s more about the blog post to discuss.  They talk about the bridge collapse section, and how they lead players through it, which, in the case of that part, mostly seems to work, though I’ve seen people take time to figure out how to get over to the scaffolding, not realizing you can just jump over to Trico.  Really, one of the easier sections in the game.

They mention how their goal in the start of The Last Guardian was to reduce the technological challenges, which is an odd thing to say considering they needed to design a large and realistic AI-controlled animal and have it able to interact with the entire game world.

Then, they share a screenshot of a possible GUI the game could have had.  In it, there’s a wheel of symbols at the top of the screen that the player could probably cycle through.  There are only three symbols.  One is for the mirror (it says “kagami” under it), and the others are actually kind of hard to decipher,  There’s one that looks like some kind of crosshair that I’d guess would be for targeting something for Trico to interact with (didn’t they say that they thought about letting you do that in first person at some point, or am I imagining that?), and the other one for...Maybe just normal movement and interaction.

To close the post, they do something I didn’t expect, and talk about the teaser image they showed in January!  Ueda plays it very coy, describing it as “one picture from our process of trial and error”.  Gendesign is trying something new with the early days of this title, creating actual models and possibly gameplay in the game engine, instead of doing a CG concept video.  It seems like maybe they’re making multiple similar concepts and will decide which one they want to go forward with, though I’m guessing the girl and the creature from the teaser image will be in the next game no matter what.

With this information, it seems like we definitely shouldn’t have expected anything at E3, but I do think it’s possible to get something at TGS or PSX later this year.

And that’s pretty much it.  They talk about how they’re hiring at gendesign and what kind of people they want, though I doubt much of that is relevant to any of us.  This post ended up being pretty long, so thanks for reading and as always, if you have a response please reply or reblog.  I’m glad I was able to write this much about TLG again, it’s been awhile.

[tweakerwolf]

Ren Endings 17 + 24 + 26

Some of the Sweater!Ren endings. There are 6 that basically go down the same path here with various dialogue branches leading to the specific endings. So I clumped these three together as “easier” and then the other three as “harder” but still able to get via the same main path.

House:

You wake up in a strange house and almost immediately someone comes over to check on you. It’s Ren, from the bar... he tells you that you’ve been asleep for hours. Ask “Where am I?” to try and get your bearings and he tells you that you’re at S-his house... hmmm. Ren offers to make you something to eat since you’ve been out for a few hours now... but you’re eager to get home so say “I really should be leaving...” but he insists that you can at lease stay for for food. He even drops a hint that it’s been awhile since he’s had anyone to cook for but then cuts himself off and hurries into the kitchen. Looks like you’re staying for food.... you shift in the chair and hear a clinking noise and you notice that there is a chain coming out of the wall and it’s connected to your ankle. At the same time you finally realize that there is something around your neck too! Apparently you yelled out in surprise at the discovery because you realize that Ren’s stopped making noises in the kitchen. You pry at the thing on your neck, trying to find a way to get it off while Ren comes back to check on you. He asks what’s wrong, ask him “What the hell is this thing on my neck!?” He replies that it’s a hand-me-down- a gift! Now you’re starting to realize just what kind of situation you’re in, don’t push the point! Tell him “Uhh... Thank you?” to keep the situation calm. It seems to work, he says that you’re welcome. He pauses though, mentioning that it’s been awhile and he’s not sure if it works... works?? Ren pulls out a remote and presses a button on it, sending an electrical shock through your body (mini screen shakes). It still works!

Ren is satisfied with that though and runs back into the kitchen to check on the food. You take the time to think your way through the situation... you’re chained to a wall and you have a shock collar around your neck. Escape doesn’t seem easy, better not rush into it until you have a plan. Ren surprises you by suddenly appearing back in the room- you didn’t even hear him coming. He’s got dinner for you! He realizes that he forgot a fork for you, ha, that would make it hard to eat! Before he walks off call out “Can I... also have a knife?” Ren looks confused because why in the world would he give you a knife? You explain that it would be hard to eat the steak with just a fork. Surprisingly Ren concedes and gets you a fork as well. You take a bite and it’s amazing but, you’re still captive and you might as well make a move -attack him-! You draw him a little closer by talking about your potatoes and then lash out at him (instant broken heart) but he dodges! He’s pissed and he comments that you’re lucky he has more patience than ‘he’ did... Um, who? You get shocked again and your dinner falls to the floor as you quake. Ren comments that you’re going hungry and cleans up the mess. When he comes back he comments that it’s time to get you settled in, maybe once you have time to adjust it’ll be okay. He takes your shackle off but reminds you about the collar! Don’t do anything stupid, -let the timer run out- instead and Ren takes you to your room. It simple but there aren’t bars on the window or chains to lock you up, that’s nice. Ren makes the comment about sprucing the room up in the future and what? But hold that in, instead commenting that “it’s... nice” and he lights up (heart makes it back to black lol). Then he leaves so you can get some rest.

Look around the room a bit but realize that there’s no way out and no tools in the room that can help save you. Like Ren would really be that stupid... but you had hope. Sit on the bed and try to think about the situation... eventually lie back and fall asleep, it’s been a long day. When you wake up again, it doesn’t take you long to recall just where you are and what is happening. Quickly head over to the door and open it- it isn’t locked?! The house is quiet too... -Call for Ren- and get no reply. Well, if he’s not home and the door isn’t locked, it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek around the house! -Explore the house- and head into the living room. You notice that you have a few options... try the basement first. -Open the door under the stairs-, maybe you’ll find something interesting down there! As you make your way to the door you realize that the door is weird, something about the handle... and the door is heavy too, one side of it is metal. Um... You stare down into the dark basement and something about it makes you nervous. There’s more to this house than you realize, and you’ve got to -go down- because if you back away now.... who knows when you’ll get the chance to explore again. Go down the creaky steps and turn on the lights... the basement is very different from the rest of the house, it’s dirty and just feels... occupied, where the rest of the house feels un-lived-in. You can’t help but notice the stains... Bad things happened down here... And of course there is a freezer along the wall. -Open it- since you’ve already come this far. You cry out when you see what’s inside, a frozen, mauled body!! You stumble backwards and let the door fall closed. Ren is a psycho!! You scramble back up the stairs and before you can start looking for a way out, you hear a door open- Ren’s back! 

You rush back upstairs and into your room, unsure if you’re allowed to be exploring or not. You try to listen to what’s happening, Ren is talking to someone but you can’t be sure just what is happening... Suddenly he calls out for you, saying he has a surprise. He wants you to check behind a door to see the surprise. Oh no.... you have a feeling that this surprise might be like the one you just found in the basement... The room is dark and it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust but eventually you see someone- Lawrence, taped to a chair. Ren explains that Lawrence was originally going to be in your place but then you were there and messed everything up. So instead, you get to be Ren’s special friend and Law is going to be the sacrificial lamb... Ren wants to share a very special experience with you, he pulls out a knife and hands it to you. You are to hurt him, make him bleed. Uhh...  Before you can think about anything, Ren pulls the remote back out and warns you against attacking him again! Right...  won’t be making that mistake again. It’s better to just do what he says at this point, you don’t really trust the look on his face. -Cut Lawrence- and at least -make it quick-, that’s the least you could do for him. You press the knife against his neck and slash, looking him right in the eye (CG of Law with a slashed throat and blood all down his front). You drop the knife as Law dies, eventually stilling. Ren is by your side- he knew the two of you would get along! You drop to the floor, you’ve murdered someone. You hear Ren assure that he is as well (purple heart), he understands you. He gently leads you to the living room and you pass out on the couch.

Eventually you wake up and you’re okay for a moment but then everything comes flooding back to you. Ren appears, looking about the same as you feel (Sweater!Ren)... You two just stand there for a moment before Ren finally speaks. He thought killing would be easy, he’d never actually... killed someone like that. HA, that’s a lie!! “What about that guy in the basement?” Ren, huh?. Ren looks shocked at your knowledge and you confess that you went down there while he was gone. Ren looks away and tells you that he didn’t kill him. He died by himself! That doesn’t quite sit right with you, that didn’t look like some heart attack victim! Call Ren out on his lie- “He couldn’t have done that to himself.” The Fox-boy huffs in frustration saying that it was a mistake, Strade brought someone home, someone to hurt, and... they stabbed him. Right in the neck. But that still doesn’t explain the full story...

Ending 24:

Ask Ren about the gaping wound- “But his chest...” Ren looks at you with scary eyes (quite the disturbing look, I like it), telling you that he was already dead (yellow heart)!! You lean away from him as he continues. Ren wanted a part of Strade, after all the things that he did, Ren deserved a piece of him, an important piece! He just wanted a part of him to take with him, and Strade was still warm and... well, he cut him open. Pft, he was dead, not like he’d be in pain or anything. Ren cut out ‘the piece’ and ate it. Your eyes widen at the admission... ate what??? Ren snaps at you, he isn’t Human- he ate his heart, like an animal (well, beast-kin but close). You stumble backwards, scared... Ren sees right through you, he knows that you think he’s disgusting and terrible. You try to deny it but he shocks you, not wanting to hear anything else from you. Ren pounces on top of you and tears into your flesh. He’s so fast that you don’t even have time to scream, just wheeze as he rips into your tender body. (CG of Ren ripping away pieces of flesh and chewing on you) Died- Ren ate your heart.

Ask for clarification, “He... hurt people?” and Ren explains about how Strade believed that hurting people was the only way to really get to know them. So he hurt people, like Ren wanted you to hurt Lawrence. You recall all the stains in the basement... they make sense now. How many died down there??

Ending 17:

-Say nothing- because, what is there to say. It all makes sense now. Ren was a prisoner of Strade and was taught that pain = love, that pain is needed to connect and bond with someone. Strade made a mistake and got killed so Ren felt lost.... and he tried to replicate what he had, with you... Ren fills the silence as you piece together the story- he’s getting all worked up about the past when he has no reason to. He has you now, he can forget about Strade and you don’t have to worry about a thing. You won’t get to leave Ren because Ren won’t let you die. He’ll take care of you forever. Survived- Ren won’t let you die.

OR

Ending 26:

Wow, what a fucked up guy, no wonder Ren is as messed up as he is. Say what you’re thinking before you have time to stop yourself, “Sounds like he was a psychopath.” Ren bristles and defends Strade’s ideals- weak people die and strong people live! Quickly apologize, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way” it’s just... surprising, that’s all. Tell him it’s all in the past anyways. You reach out and pet Ren’s hair, which he accepts, and you assure him that you’re here for him. You like it here! Ren is surprised. Yea, you like it here and you like Ren despite the fact that he kept you in a collar. You promise to take care of him and he returns the sentiment. Survived- You’ll take care of each other

[lesbianmichelmishina]

okay so: here is my Big Post on Rewriting SU. this is super long like 7 pages in word so here it is under a cut, mobile users i am so sorry. the basic gist of it is to keep it as close to the original as possible while dodging character assassinations, giving underdeveloped characters some breathing room, sorting out the mess that is rose’s character, and so on.

season 1:

so before we begin, character design tweaks! i'm focusing on the main three gems here, who would all look more alien. sort of like they’re wearing alien battle uniforms. there's a reason for this. the exception would be amethyst who would be slightly more earth-y and modern. this would change as they get closer to the human race. the other big thing to mention is that the temple statue is now of pink diamond, not the all-CG fusion.

anyway, things would progress basically the same as they did in the original until coach steven. this episode needs to be HEAVILY altered to improve sugilite. first of all i would tweak her design to be less like a racial caricature. second of all, as much as i love nicki minaj, we should probably have sugilite voiced by someone less expensive. third of all, the issue isn’t that sugilite’s violent or anything – it’s that she just really wants to impress steven but is going completely the wrong way about it. at the end of the episode steven declares that he loves garnet, amethyst AND sugilite! hugs!

things stay a little more on track until we reach ocean gem. i would tweak lapis to look more like the actual gem for starters. what really changes in this episode is its effects: steven becomes curious about the gem homeworld, and about how all of these corrupted gems got into this state in the first place. to his surprise, the crystal gems don’t want to talk about it.

well, screw that! steven is going to investigate this HIMSELF. with connie because connie’s awesome and also pretty curious about an alien world and gem history because duh. they start with that mysterious gem inside lion’s mane – or at least they would, buuuuuut connie points out that she’s probably corrupted and wouldn’t be much help. so instead, they just go generally poking around.

this, unfortunately, leads them right into the path of the robonoids.

things change even more when peridot shows up. first of all, more emphasis is placed on her yellow diamond insignia – it’s this, not her presence alone, which causes the OH FUCK moment for the crystal gems. steven has many questions and the gems finally, maybe around the time of the test, tell him the truth: they were sent here by their people after a terrible war for the earth, in order to protect the human race from the corrupted gems and technology left behind. they don’t really interact with humans because they’re there to make sure the human race develops normally and with as little alien influence as possible.

the only problem with this is that there’s a really powerful gem called yellow diamond who really, REALLY doesn’t like humans, and wanted to take the earth for gemkind. in fact, that entire war they just mentioned was fought specifically to get yellow diamond off the planet. she was banished to her own corner of the galaxy with her followers and has presumably been brooding on the loss ever since.

and now a peridot with a yellow diamond insignia has just shown up.

well, that’s okay! says steven. surely we can just call the gem homeworld and tell them that yellow diamond is causing trouble again. right?

wrong. the communications towers got sabotaged, presumably by peridot. they can’t fix them. they’re cut off. if yellow diamond’s forces show up then they have to deal with it themselves and there is no way that they can fight off an army on their own.

cue the message. on her way home, lapis flew smack into a forward scouting crew sent by yellow diamond and now she’s their unwilling informant. all she can do is send them a warning and try to protect steven.

rose’s scabbard also changes so that pearl does try to catch steven when he falls, though she fails and he has to catch himself. everything else is the same after that.

season two

so, peridot is loose somewhere, and malachite’s totally a thing they’re going to have to deal with at some point. hooray.

first of all: sworn to the sword. this episode needs to be fixed so that we don’t have pearl emotionally abusing connie. i've written an alternative stts before focusing on garnet, but i'm actually going to leave this one with pearl in this rewrite. the difference is that it’s going to be about pearl overcompensating for not being designed to be the most martial gem. she overworks connie, connie calls her out on it, and pearl has an identity crisis because… maybe she really is just a glorified assistant. well no, she’s actually a pretty good teacher, she’s just being kind of overzealous! pearl apologises to connie and loosens up a bit.

the first major thing that changes is the week of sardonyx because SWEET LORD ALMIGHTY those episodes need a fucking facelift! peridot starts broadcasting from one of the towers she sabotaged in order to get yellow diamond to come pick her up. and yes, it is actually peridot doing it this time! not pearl! the titular cry for help, however, now belongs to garnet. she keeps having to fuse to fix this and while she LIKES fusion, she’s starting to get kind of stressed over it all. it doesn’t help that pearl reaaaaaally likes this, or that amethyst is getting super upset that it’s not HER fusing. eventually garnet just fucking loses it from stress. she doesn’t want to be seen as just a fusion and she’s EXHAUSTED from trying to lead the others now that rose is gone and everything is going to hell! pearl and amethyst rapidly realise that they’ve been super insensitive, but it’s too late – garnet fries the tower’s control panel because apparently she has to do everything herself.

keystone motel builds on this – steven and greg invite garnet on a road trip in order to help her destress. it doesn’t work. garnet falls apart from stress, quite literally, but ruby and sapphire aren’t doing much better. steven manages to reassure them and they refuse. garnet's still not doing great, but her head is a little clearer now.

onion friend and historical friction are more about amethyst and pearl realising “hey, we fucked up there”. they both come to the conclusion that they really need to make it up to garnet and fix this…

…leading into friend ship, where they’re BOTH going overboard on catching peridot! ultimately all three of them get stuck in the trap, and garnet finally lets it out that she CAN’T be the strong one, she CAN’T be everyone else’s foundation, she’s stressed and upset too. amethyst and pearl explain that they never meant to hurt her and that they only want to spend time with her, but that they’re sorry they DID hurt her and want to try to help her handle things. alexandrite triumphantly bursts out of the trap and subsequently fails to catch peridot… but that’s okay, she tried. and they’ll get her next time. TOGETHER.

then we go into the peridemption arc. and this is where things start swerving. i'm changing the cluster.

it's not a weapon because it’s going to crack the earth open. it's a weapon because when it activates it will release a song that will corrupt the remaining gems AND nuke the brainstems of every living thing native to earth. it’s a cleaning tool for yellow diamond’s new conquest of earth. see, earth is pretty awesome because its crust has a ton of minerals in it which could produce one heck of an army. it actually already DID! that's where amethyst and jasper came from! if yellow diamond can take back the earth, she can rebuild her armies and get her revenge on the other diamonds!

…OTHER diamonds…?

oh yeah, there’s four total, or at least there were. this is about the point at which we get to the answer, which has to change heavily for one big reason: blue diamond is not a villain any more. spoilers! trust me, i have my reasons.

anyway, ruby once served yellow diamond, whose forces had intercepted a ship sent by blue diamond to earth during the war; a ship which carried a sapphire seer who was going to assist pink diamond. sapphire saw this whole thing coming, naturally, and she knows that when help – in the form of pink diamond’s most elite military unit – arrives, they will be shattered and pink diamond’s side will take a terrible blow. ruby, meanwhile, is also having a bad time of it – she feels outcast amongst her fellow rubies because she actually doesn’t want to fight the other diamonds. she doesn’t like any of this, but she follows because she sees no other way out.

pearl and rose show up to raise hell. sapphire just sighs because she knows this is it for the earth, but ruby refuses to accept it. she makes the split-second decision to push sapphire away from ruby’s own comrades, creating garnet. AND EVERYONE FLIPS THEIR SHIT. this has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. what the fuck?! well, whatever it is, yellow diamond’s forces are HORRIFIED and decide to just shatter their own treacherous ruby. pearl and rose, meanwhile, are like “lolwat”. ruby panics, but sapphire grabs her and hauls her to an escape pod while the cgs distract the others by running away themselves. (“cross-gem fusion?? this was not in the plan. WE’RE OUT OF HERE. and maybe we can make the guards go after us instead of those two while we’re at it.”)

now the episode plays out a lot like it did before, with ruby escorting sapphire to a communication hub and the two falling in love along the way, until the end. ruby and sapphire have created an entire new way of being. rose is fascinated and excited, pearl is like “holy shit lmao you’re awesome let’s be friends”, and when they get in contact with blue diamond to explain what happened to the mission, garnet declares that actually, she kinda wants to stay on earth and fight with the crystal gems. ruby doesn’t want to go back to yellow diamond and sapphire doesn’t want to leave ruby. blue diamond is just like “…well… okay then?? i mean i have no idea whose court you belong to any more so i guess you get to pick! and you picked pink!”

things play out the same from there for the rest of the season.

season three

things immediately derail.

they don’t beat malachite. yeah, that pep talk in the ship was cool and all, but alexandrite is still kind of a mess from stress and internal disagreements. the melons do manage to chase malachite off, though. now, they do get the cluster to shut down… temporarily. they can’t outright deactivate it yet and if more of yellow diamond’s forces show up and reactivate it there’s not much they can do!

oh, and while trying to recuperate after the malachite mess, five rubies show up and play baseball with them. their orders are to shatter peridot and recover jasper. forget about lapis she’s not important. steven persuades them to go to neptune. now they have four problems: internal disagreements and tensions, malachite, the cluster, and more of yd’s armies showing up any day now. AND THEY STILL CAN’T CONTACT HOMEWORLD!

now then, i'm going to nearly completely abandon the previous episode structure and go for something different entirely. i'm not going to point out particular episodes to be replaced, just general trends. here we go:

bismuth the episode still has to happen, but it’s going to change. first of all, bismuth doesn’t get re-bubbled at the end. secondly, the reason rose objects to the breaking point is pink diamond, because pink diamond was assassinated and rose objects to any more true deaths. bismuth points out that they can’t just shoo yellow diamond off and expect her to behave. even if they win, she’s going to come back! she’s not going to stop trying to take the earth and impose her own order onto the universe! she wants to put all the gems into boxes, instead of letting them decide their own paths, as the others had begun to. AND OH LOOK, GUESS WHO WAS FUCKING RIGHT?! the episode ends with steven accepting the lie his mother told and telling the gems the truth, beginning the process of the crystal gems breaking away from rose.

i would put bismuth near the beginning of the season, actually.

peridot, being the expert on the cluster, is the one who leads the efforts to try to destroy it permanently. the breaking point just isn’t enough to save those forcibly fused gems, though it HAS proven effective at breaking apart the smaller ones. in the process, steven, peridot, connie and bismuth make an effort to find out how exactly the song works.

meanwhile, the main three gems are still after malachite, and are trying to work through thousands of years of issues at the same time. pearl wasn’t a slave this time around, but a secretary of the worst stereotypical kind. if she wasn’t happy with that, but can’t win as a warrior… who is she? garnet's still stressed from having to lead the others, and these revelations about rose aren’t helping. there's a thousand ways this could go wrong and she has to be prepared for all of them. amethyst is struggling with her own self-esteem, especially after meeting jasper and learning that the person who valued her the most – rose quartz – was actually kinda dubious herself.

the fight to stop malachite takes a turn when to everyone’s surprise malachite doesn’t want to keep fighting. oh, lapis doesn’t want to be a prisoner again, and jasper would like to get off this planet tyvm, but malachite? she’s TIRED of this. so tired. she's got all three of the main trios’ issues at once: she doesn’t know who she is, she has to keep fighting when she doesn’t want to, and she REALLY hates herself.

in the meantime, team cluster find out more about pink diamond herself from bismuth. the four diamonds had different views on humans. yellow wanted to destroy them and use the earth, blue wanted to leave them alone and see how they developed, white was in the middle of yellow and blue, and pink wanted to co-operate with humanity. she was born on earth too, y’know!

…which leads to the big change: the humans get actively involved in understanding and fighting the corrupted gems. greg gets some better gear with his new cash and starts trying to make a song that can take on the corruption. kiki gets her hands on magic gem artefacts and starts learning how to use them. the cool kids lead the frontline efforts to protect the city, while mayor dewey organises things. onion’s capacity for mayhem, egged on by his parents, proves an effective anti-ruby deterrent. sadie still has her fish-murdering skills. lars gets a reality check and starts trying to use his experiences of being angry and bitter to relate to the corrupted gems. (lars the gem whisperer. everyone is stunned.) ronaldo’s blog becomes useful as he starts collating information on the gems and the things left behind. connie, who has the most gem experience, is working on the cluster but does help to rally the others.

ultimately, the endgame of this season occurs when malachite brings the three groups together by accident. this is when THE BIG REVEAL occurs about pink diamond.

pink diamond had herself martyred on purpose. blue and white weren’t coming to help, still too divided over what the proper thing to do with the earth was. she was desperate. she wanted to protect her planet. and so, she asked her greatest warrior to do something utterly unthinkable, something which would save the earth but at a massive price.

pink diamond asked rose quartz to kill her. to shatter her. to pretend to betray her and go over to yellow diamond. pink diamond’s death would get her sisters’ attention and pink diamond was willing to die for this belief in the potential of earth. but rose refused. she wouldn’t do it. she would not become a killer to save the earth. pink diamond pointed out the consequences if “winning peacefully” failed, rose quartz still refused. all life has value! but what about the lives of the humans, of all the other living beings of earth? rose, personally, refused to kill.

so jasper did it instead. that’s why she hates herself. rose quartz threw her under the bus, and she’s spend five thousand years working for “the enemy”, seen by all gems as the greatest murderer in the galaxy. and she can’t believe she did it, and regrets it every day, and has come to LOATHE the earth in response because it’s the only way she can cope with the guilt of killing her diamond.

ultimately, the cast face a revalation. a huge, horrible one. malachite actually finally defuses solely from lapis’s shock at the truth about pink diamond’s assassination. jasper is fully expecting to get shattered now. it's over and she can’t even be upset about it. she’s so upset, she loses control and starts to corrupt.

“…thanks, sis.”

jasper looks up from where she’s fallen. amethyst is there.

“okay, so… you did something horrible. something you feel so bad about, even to this day. and i totally get why! but, like… if you hadn’t done that, i wouldn’t be here. steven wouldn’t be here. none of these people would be here. and i know i'm super tiny and puny, but honestly? i’m glad i exist.”

and jasper just. looks at her in disbelief.

and one by one… all the gems there come out with their reactions to this mess. they all know that it’s wrong to kill, that jasper shouldn’t have been in this situation and neither should rose or pink diamond, but DAMN if the secrecy and lies that rose has spun around her to protect her own image aren’t rocking them right now. like, what the hell?!

but… jasper saved the human race, even if it was at a terrible cost. so the human race want to save her, too.

the first gem to be fully saved from corruption, through steven’s healing powers and the song that greg, connie and sour cream play, is jasper.

onwards?

beyond this, the focus of the show shifts. the crystal gems have reached a turning point – to be open with each other, to be honest, and to co-operate with humanity. i would just generally scrap s4 as is and focus on how the humans and gems come together to protect the earth and each other.

jasper and amethyst develop a sisterly relationship, and work through their self-esteem issues together. lapis seeks out a place in this new world and finds one, dealing with her trauma in her own way, and helping out with the defence effort because she is NEVER going to be a prisoner EVER AGAIN. peridot at some point obtains new limb enhancers and works with bismuth on making things to protect the town. (i would also throw in ame/dot after too far, BUT i am chill with anything that isn’t jas/pis or the godawful “canon” version of lapi/dot.)

the rubies show up again, and come to like earth too. from them, we get a perspective on yellow diamond’s regime from the very bottom – a place where no one can be themselves or express themselves outside of their caste. the rubies get a taste of freedom and go for it.

pearl moves on. if last one out of beach city happens, it’s not with someone who looks that much like rose. garnet doesn’t have to be “the strong one” anymore and can embrace who she really is. amethyst ditches her kayfabe to be a real hero this time. steven works through his complicated feelings on his mother alongside greg, and while he still loves her and believes in the peace she fought for, he is NOT gonna be like her. connie becomes independent and really, truly “grows up”.

the corrupted gem episodes change focus to dealing with the internal issues of each gem and healing them with the song they made. eventually, this can get upscaled to the cluster itself. that, along with desperately trying to contact homeworld, would be the plot of s4.

the gang do make it to homeworld, but in a different context. first of all that godawful zoo does not exist. secondly, blue diamond is far more sympathetic for a good reason – she’s heartbroken still about pink and is horrified to learn of what really happened to her sister. but hey, looks like pink was right about humans and gems working together. blue diamond – and eventually white diamond – agrees to send aid. help is coming, just hold out! that would likely be the s4 finale.

s5 is the war against yellow diamond. now, how they’d actually handle yellow is a bit awkward because we can’t ask a fourteen-year-old to kill someone and making someone else do it just repeats the problem with jasper! instead, steven is upfront about the fact that actually killing someone DOES sound really horrible in practise, and everyone’s sympathetic to his point there.

ultimately i would have an impaled on her own sword sort of affair. blue and white show up to help and yellow is pretty much outgunned. they tell yellow to stand down so they can sort this out, but yellow refuses and tries to attack with her own version of the breaking point or w/e. steven jumps in to protect whoever she’s attacking, and the shield makes the weapon rebound and hit yellow in the gem, shattering her.

the division of gems is over. blue and white will mourn both of their sisters, but will take yellow’s armies under their wings themselves. lapis returns to homeworld, FINALLY, but agrees to visit every so often because she’d miss her friends. the former corrupted gems spread out across the earth to spread the message: humanity has friends in the stars. we are strong, but you have an imagination and a capacity for freedom which we adore.

but there’s still some gems still corrupted, and a lot of the gem tech is still unsafe, and the second battle for earth caused a lot of damage. don't worry, though! because there’s a team of alien warriors who have dedicated themselves to protecting this planet in one way or another. they will be the bridge between humans and gems.

that’s why the people of this world believe in garnet, amethyst, pearl, peridot, bismuth, jasper…

…AND STEVEN!

[lorax177]

ok i got 2 theories

pearl was very likely either pink or white diamond’s pearl (tbh i think white diamond bc of her skin and gem placement but then again her hair is pink so who knows) before defecting n joining rose quartz. Or she was Rose’s pearl and rose freed her. either way she could have very easily disguised herself as a diamond’s pearl and asked pink to come out. What if the other cgs poofed themselves, pearl bubbled them and stored them in her own gem, then once she got pink out she extracted the bubble and popped it, allowing Rose, Garnet, Bismuth, and the others to reform and take her down.

OR, pearl shapeshifted into white diamond to draw pink out and get rid of the enterouge while allowing the other cgs to get close (maybe in an ‘im taking these prisoners to see pink’ kind of situation) so that rose could shatter her.

Either way, it would involve Pearl shapeshifting, which is something we haven’t seen her do yet. Whenever she is encouraged to do so, she scoffs and says she could but she won’t. Now we know that whenever a character in su is not seen doing something for the whole show, they often end up only breaking it out in a truly exceptional situation. Like how Amethyst isn’t shown bubbling anything until she bubbles Jasper’s gem, or how the first time Garnet smiles wide is when she re-fuses on the hand ship. I think that shapeshifting could be really difficult for pearl to do now because it reminds her of that moment.

It’s very likely that pearls are designed for intense loyalty. We know how loyal she is to rose quartz, and how loyal blue and yellow diamonds’ pearls are to their respective diamonds. It seems like a key trait for a pearl to have, as a personal servant to high-status gems, and as many have pointed out it seems like pearls are inherently incapable of spilling the secrets of their masters (re: pearl physically struggling to keep her hand from covering her mouth, and her saying ‘there are things that are impossible for me to explain, but i want to’) which indicates that a certian amount of intrinsic loyalty, even against the individual pearl’s desires. Furthermore, peridot states that pearls are made-to-order servants, indicating that pearls are custom made for the individual high-strata gem that will own them. Could it be that not only are pearls predisposed to intense and unwavering loyalty, that loyalty is directed at one specific gem? So if Pearl belonged to pink or white diamond, going against her master, even for a cause she believed in, even for the gem she loved, even to free herself and all other lower-strata gems from the tyrrany of the diamonds, it would still leave some lasting psychological scars. Maybe she feels guilty. Maybe she was traumatized. Maybe she swore to never use shapeshifting again.

If that is true, it also sheds a new light on how badass pearl really is. She managed to overcome what’s probably one of her most basic instincts by sheer force of will. She was so dedicated to the crystal gems that she went against the person she was literally designed to obey. Of course that loyalty was then shifted to rose giving rise to the unhealthy way that pearl continually sacrificed her own safety just to protect her, but even then, she insisted upon being treated as an equal with every other gem. And overcoming not only her innate dedication to her master, but also what was likely many thousands of years of trauma-bonding and internalized abuse and believing that she deserves to be in perpetual servitude of her diamond--that’s going to be traumatic for anyone. And the pinnacle of that trauma is the role that she played in Pink Diamond’s demise. Even knowing how tyrranical and unforgiveable the diamonds are, even being completely dedicated to rose and earth, she probably still feels guilty about it. And she feels guilty about feeling guilty. And whenever she tries to shapeshift, she’s brought right back into that spiral and flashing back to that moment so it’s no wonder she doesn’t shapeshift. It’s no wonder she treats it with distain.

It could be that she’s unable to shapeshift bc she’s a pearl (being second-class citizens it could be that shapeshifting was deemed unnecessary and too much of a risk for pearls to have) and that she just tries to make it seem like she can so that no one will see her as lesser, which is what I had originally thought. But after seeing how big a deal it was that Peridot couldn’t shapeshift (and how it was due to her being a later model so to speak, whereas pearl is arguably the oldest gem in the current cgs) it seems like amethyst would have drawn a parelell between pearl and peridot, though there is a possibility that she had never seen pearl shapeshift and always assumed it was because she thought it was uncouth. We do know that amethyst does believe that pearl can shapeshift, because in secret team she tells pearl to do it. But I feel like that would be less relevant/compelling than her avoiding it because it reminded her of what she did, and it seems like we’re past the point of ‘hey did you know pearls can’t shapeshift and pearl feels bad about it’. We kind of did a whole arc on the whole ‘these are important aspects of how the main cgs are made up and how they differ from most of gem society’ wrt garnet being a fusion, amethyst being off color, and pearl being originally a servant (plus peridot got one too with the ‘peridots dont have powers’ bit). so it seems redundant to have that here, it feels like we’re past that point.

anyways, i can’t wait to find out more about this incedent, and about what pearl was trying to say, and about homeworld and the diamonds in particular, and who those other gems in the flachback were, and who’s going to run the big donut after lars is gone and sadie quit, and whaat’s going to happen with lapis, and literally everything in the show aaaaaa

[shinneth]

The Gem Ascension Reference Tour 1: Fatal Frame series

The above is referenced in what I consider to be GA3′s signature scene (or one of them, definitely a top 3), which happens very early on in the chapter (as early as page 33 can be considered for a 299 page part). I had a surprising number of Fatal Frame references in the series overall, so let’s go into detail further down.

Since Tumblr apparently ignores time stamping, the relevant bits for this top video start around 4:07.

Fuyuhi Himino’s unfortunate unintentional suicide in Fatal Frame V is very similarly in an early pivotal moment of GA3, as it directly causes Peridot to let down her guard just enough to allow for White Diamond to put a cap on her willpower, which allows her to succeed in making Peridot ascend to Chartreuse Diamond soon after. Very very similar scenario, though in Peridot’s case she’s directly resisting a giant blade of energy coming for her neck, but like Fuyuhi, she only has her bare hands to intercept the threat. 

Being a gem, of course, this doesn’t spell the same consequence for Peridot as it does for poor Fuyuhi, but it does kind of fuck her over for life. Since Peridot’s got a hard light body, this isn’t actually physically hurting her unless it hits her gemstone - and doing any lasting damage to Peridot is counter-productive for WD since she’s wanting to make a diamond out of her. Even the “superfluid light” I describe in place of blood from the reference, and the pain that comes from Peridot nearly getting her fingers chopped off by continually resisting this blade, is visual trickery on WD’s part to make Peridot believe it’s real. So, a Your Mind Makes It Real trope, as Peridot does feel a great deal of pain from this. Then again, gems can’t bleed and that was purely for visual effect to instill panic in a gem trying not to get her neck lacerated with something that’s big enough that looks more like it’d behead her. 

Peridot’s been resisting WD for almost a week at this point, mind you, so she’s been worn WAY down to the point where she’d actually fall for this. And how Peridot ultimately succumbs to getting her neck “sliced” is just like how it happens to Fuyuhi: the latter has a very close friend named Haruka who’s gone missing. She’s SUPER adamant about finding her, even if it means traipsing about in a mountain infamously known for being a popular suicide spot with regular hauntings. So this mirage Fuyuhi sees of Haruka in the distance makes her so relieved and happy, she completely forgets a ghost is this close to possessing this girl’s knife-holding hand into killing herself. So the moment she lets her guard down, Fuyuhi ends up slitting her own throat on accident. And it turns out it wasn’t even really Haruka at all; kind of a plus that Haruka (who at this point in the game WAS still alive) didn’t have to see her friend die like this directly, but it’s a pretty shit deal that Fuyuhi ends up losing her life over nothing.

In GA3, of course, it’s Steven (or more specifically, the imaginary Steven built from Peridot’s subconscious who gets to feature in all her daydreams about him) who takes up Haruka’s role. Peridot specifically told ALL the Crystal Gems not to go back for her if she’s the only one left behind in the mission. She’s had no way to gauge how much time has passed since they were forced to abandon her, and after 6 days she’d be considering the possibility that they listened to her if she knew that for a fact, but her gut tells her they’re not going to ditch her. And they don’t, of course. Unfortunately, it’s implied this happens literally hours before the Crystal Gems land on Homeworld for their Peri rescue mission, if not sooner. So yeah, this all could have been avoided if the CGs just took off a little bit sooner, but of course they had no way of figuring out what was going on in Homeworld while they prepared for their trip back. It’s all just one big unfortunate mishap, and it’s sort of to drive home the point that Steven, despite being the source of Peridot’s strength and resolve in the story so far, can just as easily become her biggest weakness under certain circumstances.��

This scene is later showed to Steven when he does reunite with Peridot later when he’s aiming to fix her since WD sealed away the sharpest bits of her wit and willpower (which consequently made Peridot and the initial Chartreuse Diamond pretty gullible fools, prone to panic and indecision, as well as self-doubt and greatly lowered self-esteem). He needs to see exactly how WD pulled this off to get an idea of how to get the 100% Peridot back, which meant he pretty much HAD to see this scene. While later the CGs are also “treated” to this when Peridot catches them up on the plot later, it traumatizes Steven. The moment Peridot slips up is replayed constantly in his head and not even closing his eyes can make him un-see it. It’s a pretty reasonable thing to get someone riled up about, especially if it’s a loved one (and even though they’re not officially a couple yet by this point, they become one very soon after this, if that’s any indication of how hard Steven really takes this) and it just keeps playing in your head and you can’t make it stop. It actually triggers a mental civil war in his head where part of Steven just wants to forego his morality and kill the shit out of WD for this, but there’s still the part of Steven who won’t let go of his pacifism no matter what. But no side is really gaining on the other, so it’s an endless fight while this clip keeps playing in Steven’s head. 

It has adverse effects on his human/gem hybrid body, inducing a growth spurt on said body so that Steven actually looks his age and various traits of his Pink Diamond part trying to dominate his body and power him up, because HE IS PISSED. This kickstarts the alternate form Steven can later take in Pink Diamond 2.0, where visually it looks like a fusion between Steven and the Pink Diamond iteration of his mom, but it’s not a fusion at all and is more of Steven’s “fully awakened” Diamond form where he can utilize 100% of his potential. It basically replaces Pink Steven from the canon finale, since GA is supposed to be a “Bad Ending AU” version of Change Your Mind where Yellow/Blue/White don’t survive and not every single loose end is neatly tied up.

So yeah, it’s a very pivotal scene for the protagonist and her late-game deuteragonist (since Steven had no role in GA1 and a pretty limited role in GA2, and there isn’t really a main character at all for the side-story). Still surprised one of the overall story’s pivotal moments comes from a relatively minor early plot development for Fatal Frame V. 

Speaking of the side-story...

Fatal Frame I & II

The tragic story of Fluorite when the Crystal Gems discuss gems prior to Peridot emerging with heterochromia naturally is a mish-mash of Kirie from I and Sae Kurosawa from II. More leaning towards Sae since it involved a friendship that many identified as twin-like and Fluorite’s described maniacal cackling comes from this little lady. This is the shit most gems on Homeworld heard right before they got shattered during the Lone Twin Massacre. Sae’s tragedy that led to the obliteration of her hometown and everyone in it (save for her twin, ironically, who escaped and never came back and had her own life and family... then ended up dying a few decades later via hanging, which is how Sae died) doesn’t exclusively have Sae’s missing twin Yae as the cause, though it is a prominent one. Long story short, hometown needs ritualistic sacrifices every decade or so that specifically require one twin to kill another - somehow this has worked in the past, don’t ask how. Still fucked up enough for one set of twins to try running away from this fate, but only one makes it out successfully. So the hometown is on the verge of collapse and they still have the twin who was set to be sacrificed anyway, so hoped they could salvage the situation by hanging Sae, but the Pits of Hell are PICKY and this results in Sae’s vengeful spirit killing indiscriminately. But she is REALLY fucking hung up on her twin sister never coming back for her. 

Of course, in GA the twin of Fluorite wasn’t that much of a savage - the diamonds just dragged the twins apart since one was special and the other wasn’t, and later the diamonds had the not-special twin killed off behind the other’s back to put an end to the distractions. 

That all lines up more with Kirie’s backstory, where in a mansion built over ANOTHER Pit of Hell, there was a scheduled sacrifice that started with rounding up girls to play demon tag, and the winner gets ripped from her family to become the head family’s rope maiden where she’s completely cut off from the outside world and not allowed to partake in anything that might give her a connection to worldly things, since a maiden sacrifice requires said maiden to be completely detached from earthly desires. Somehow Kirie got out for a short period of time not long before she was scheduled to be sacrificed and met a young man who she quickly fell in love with . The family caught on to this; after Kirie was solidly back in custody (I don’t think she ever actually tried escaping; she just somehow found a way to get out of the house for the first time in 10ish years), the man was killed in secret and tossed in the river. Kirie was never told about this, but she suspected it and had sixth sense-like feelings that he was murdered. She wasn’t able to maintain her maiden duties since she now had an earthly attachment to the man, so when she was finally sacrificed at the altar, her blood-soaked ropes weren’t enough to quell the gates of hell, and Kirie came back as a vengeful spirit who drove the head of the family insane and let him kill every single member of the household for her. And she would go on to kill anyone stupid enough to step inside the house after the fact. This one can be solely faulted on one singular incident, so GA Fluorite was basically the Kirie backstory, but Sae’s mannerisms, savagery, and the twin factor was also in there.

Fatal Frame III

Time Stamp: 038

There’s actually not much from Fatal Frame III to take away from this, save for the final line in the scene where Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-9FC is shattered while in the middle of brutalizing our Peridot. Once Peridot’s not only seeing her assaulter get brutally murdered right after being beaten within an inch of her life, but the remains of 9FC land right on top of her as well as the limb enhancers.

It’s an echo to the aforementioned times Peridot mentioned casually no-selling brutal shatterings that happened right next to her in her early Homeworld days where she’d just shrug off any gem chunks or dust that got on her.

It turns out present-day Peridot is extremely bothered by this and went into catatonic shock after the narrative expresses this desire that paraphrases one of Reika’s noteworthy lines:

“I don’t want to see anymore.”

Which Reika rightfully expresses when her lover who finds her doing her maiden duty (her backstory is heavily similar to Kirie’s) gets killed right in front of her and she’s forced to look at his dead face for all eternity...

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to see anymore either, would you? Let’s leave off on a fun clip that demonstrates how fucking batshit Sae was and I’ll readily admit she scared the shit out of me as a teen.