No problem! ^^ Btw did anyone notice that mistake where Ame was in her old outfit for a moment? I was pretty surprised that got through, since it was an error in both drawing and coloring.
i'm really getting sick of pearl's shit tbh. steven is not rose and he will never be rose, pearl, stop asking children to deal with your adult feelings
I mean, it's not as though it was on purpose, and I'm really glad the episode ended the way it did. Pearl is very much Not Over the war, in similar ways to how Amethyst isn't over her life in the Kindergarten. Sadfeels aside, I am just so happy about this damn episode. As a violinist who swordfights the opening scene with Connie slashing at the seagulls with her bow had me jumping up and down in my chair like OMG I DO THAT TOO and then the (really well-animated, what) combat scenes and Connie's style being different from Pearl's and aaaa *flaps excitedly*
@lvkz what? No, that doesn't make any sense- she's shown in both outfits, it switches for a brief moment. Plus Garnet is also in her new outfit. Edit: my bad, for some reason I was thinking Secret Team was Reformed lol. But still, both of Ame's outfits are shown.
I just realized that Pearl would make an awesome Elf. The best Elf. She is prime for fucking Elf Depression. Pearl is a space Elf as a friend of mine said. THIS MAKES HER THE BEST GEM EVER. Though she was that to me already but now I am going to think about Middle-Earth AU. Little Avari Amethyst. Noldor Rose and Pearl. Garnet can be. Noldor too. Yes. and greg wooing noldor rose with his charming skill in both his native tongue and the elvish languages
@Alska lol my bad @prismaticvoid pearl seems to understand most of the time that steven is not rose, but it's almost like, whenever she needs rose, she expects him to be that for her. like yeah cute sad gay alien rocks and whatever but that girl needs an intervention and not from a child she's supposed to be taking care of and the whole thing with "your little human life" and expecting connie to throw her life away for steven to somehow act out her relationship with rose... noooo pearl what are you doing. do not leave pearl alone with the children
@lvkz yeah, I get what you mean, and I really hope they continue to address that. Pearl knows she needs to be there for Steven but there are definitely still some mixed feelings there, I think, and it's gonna continue to be a source of conflict until it's confronted directly. Edit: ooh you added more! Yeah, that line skeeved me out and I'm glad Steven called her on it. She got so swept up in this idea of dying gloriously for Rose that she forgets she isn't at war anymore, and even if all of them have to fight they need to do better than War Boy mentality.
I am so ready for it to be confronted directly. SO READY. Partly because Pearl getting better and partly so I CAN HAVE MORE PEARL MISERY.
I really wanna see Greg or even Connie give Pearl a talk about how humans work and show her some respect for humans, it's like she doesn't want to believe that Steven is not just a Gem and not just another regen of Rose and is constantly looking for some bit of Rose that is 'in there' waiting to come back instead of seeing Steven for the human being (and a fucking CHILD) that he is like this is honestly one of the most upsetting things on the show for me tbh b/c of pedophilic undertones
I also just love that Steven's first instinct is to protect. There's something that will always endear me to characters whose primary weapon is a shield.
On a slightly different soul-crushing note: Steven's face and instinctive fear of Connie fighting holopearl. Spoiler: Tldr: Steven bottles his trauma up, is gonna get ptsd Swordfighting is rad but oh my god, watching your too-mortal best friend go up against a source of trauma for you, willingly facing a blade you saw your birbmom die on (even tho it was only a poof, not a real death)... No wonder Steven looked pretty disturbed well before he put a stop to it. But he really doesn't seem to have a... A way to open up about the things messing with his head in times when it's not being brought up? He's been through some truly heavy shit, but he only talks about it when it's prompted. He's tough, but that may just be because he's shutting the trauma in the basement. We know he's had flashbacks, and he's displayed hypervigilance during Warp Tour. How long until he's got ptsd and doesn't know how to talk about it?
I mean, this wouldn't be the first kid's media I consumed where the kid soldiers start having nightmares and vivid flashbacks and overreact to stimulus, but hid the unnamed ptsd from their families, desperate to keep it unnoticed. Animophs will fuck you up fyi
Not related to the actual episode, but am I the only one who doesn't care for the new theme song? The instrumentation feels weird to me and I can't explain why but This Bugs The Acey.
@Acey it feels different, and I haven't decided yet whether I like it or not. The new animation that goes with it is cute as hell though.
the new theme song sequence does sorta ping as Wrong to me, though i'm not sure whether that's 'cause it's new and i'm autistic, or 'cause there's something i actually don't like.
Exactly! I'm not sure if it's General Brainfuckery at play or if it's just a preference. But like, somehow the instrumentation sounds...fuck, how do I put it? Stop-and-start. Choppy. I dunno. Seconding @prismaticvoid re: the animation being hella cute though.
@Acey well it was definitely stop-and-start/choppy at "we are the crystal" *ping* "gems," though i dunno about the rest of it. i dunno what i think of the animation. i mean, i sorta like it, i definitely think it's pretty cute, but... part of my brain is like "no no no."
I was pretty thrilled with the new opening, but that might be in part because I got a bit swept up in the new animation for it. But listening to it again it doesn't bug me. I think it might be choppy or weird sounding because next season there will be more added to it, like how the ending song has changed over time. Anyone else think that the enemy shown in Pearl's hologram looked a LOT like Jasper? I definitely think that was intentional, but I'm unsure of how to take it. It could be that her, Rose, and Jasper all fought on the same battlefield at once, or it could be taken more metaphorically as Jasper and Rose more representing sides in the war. Either way, I'm wondering if part of why Jasper respected Rose's tactics was because she thought Rose had ordered Pearl to sacrifice herself like she was shown doing. Would kind of make sense, since to Jasper she's weak and defective, but she could at least make herself useful as a literal shield.
Welp, I got misty eyed at a children's cartoon today. That was a thing that happened. Steve and Connie are best jam buddies and Pearl please don't holo-project your issues on the children.
