also, my brother has a really funny metaphor when it comes to another gem joining the crystal gems (he really doesn't want peri or lapis or jasper or anyone else "joining" the crystal gems, obv) he compared it as. . . "it's like, when you have a full team of pokemon, right, all six slots filled, and you come across this really neat one but it's a BITCH to catch, and you want to catch it and have it join your team, but you also already have six!! so you don't really know what to do with it, you want to catch it just to say that you did but there really isn't much to do with it" and i honestly dont know how i feel about that viewpoint but i thought his comparison was hilarious and thought i'd share
I just really love the fact that most of Peridot's insults involve calling people dirt, basically. Because Gems. She's basically calling them not-actually-gems, just lumps of dirt Idk for some reason that really amused me. Maybe because it feels almost like worldbuilding? Like, that sounds like the kind of insult gems would use, tbh. EITHER WAY IT'S GREAT.
@raginghearts WHOA I DIDN'T REALIZE Spoiler: Also That was an incredibly-handled "you fucked up and I didn't react well" conversation and I am so happy. Things aren't perfect, but Pearl knows what she did wrong and Garnet knows she doesn't have to be the perfect emotional rock (ha) for everyone anymore. Also Amethyst keeping track of Steven was A+
Honestly, Peridot is my favorite character, just cause she's so cutennoying, like a stupid fluffy lapdog that won't stop squeak yapping but at the same time is so fluffy that you want to cuddle it. Also her stupid little m frown, aww.
She's such an obnock, it's the absolute best. Especially given how many DBZ themed jokes were being made with her as the stoic scary Vegeta to Jasper's loud idiot Nappa. Which was always weird to me, but now, now it is completely and utterly debunked. >:D
I'm honestly hoping for an outcome like I saw in one tumblr comic post.. like Peridot just becomes completely irrelevant in comparison to other bad stuff happening and the gems learn she is completely not a threat anymore on earth so they just kind of ignore her while she tries to get their attention by doing dumb shit and acting like she's some super awesome villain. Or just become like The Monarch in The Venture Brothers.
I don't know if I especially want Peridot to JOIN the crystal gems and I love her silly villain self but I think it would be cute if there came a point where, because of something Steven did or said to help her or just his Steven-ness, she's like "wait I...I don't think I can kill this Steven? I think I.....care about it????" Also sorry to keep hammering this point but "steven, an actual child, as opposed to all those fake children running about."
Liking a character means thinking they're perfect and pure, this news update brought to you by tumblr.com, your source for histrionic handwringing over fictional characters.
What annoys me about that line of thinking is that it sounds exactly like what my mom thinks. In her mind, if you like a character that is bad in any way then you are advocating for their behavior and possibly wanting to imitate said behavior. For example, she got super indignant when she found out one of my friends is a Slytherin, even going so far as to imply "why are you even friends with that person, Slytherin is bad" So yeah. Liking a character =/= supporting their actions, despite what tumblr and my mom think :/ in my opinion, doing that actually loses a lot of nuance! Like, even bad people can be fun, and even good people can be bad sometimes.
People who can only engage with the media they consume on such a superficial level are seriously missing out. People, real people, are neither good or bad. They're multifaceted, with tons of motivation and reasons and perspective, and if you dismiss all of that in a well-written character that happens to be in the role of antagonist, you're dismissing the chance to consider things about yourself and the world around you.
I wonder why people keep harping on the child bit when we're not entirely certain that the average gem understands what a child is. Amethyst's hole in the Kindergarten was exactly the same size as she is now, so we can be reasonably certain that Kindergarten gems at least pop out fully formed. And Ruby and Sapphire are fully grown gems who are as small as Steven is, so how in the hell could the Homeworld gems be expected to know that Steven is a kid as opposed to a smaller gem, or just a human, which Peridot sees as vermin anyways, so. Why isn't that a thing people care about?
@tinyhydra Oh no it's fine to have liked it. Normally I get a bit weird about people liking my horrible misery posts, but that's only when the horrible misery is actively in action really. Because whooooooo emotions make me stupid and bitchy a lot of the time. But that was fine. Liking that post. Anyway. Every time people in fandom go "THIS PERSON IS IRREDEEMABLE" I just. Sigh. Heavily. Then I see it applied to real people and sigh even more!
I cannot relate as I am a dirty 'Lol I exchange my pokemon team members all the time for cuter ones' pokemon trainer and do not subscribe to such pedestrian believes about full pokemon teams :P
also speaking of pokemon Peridot seems like she could end up being kind of like Team Rocket eventually. She just tries so hard and never succeeds actually doing harm and sometimes she rescues Steven because like, he isn't half bad, and like, her life would be boring without the crystal clods... But I don't actually think she is a "serious" antagonist.
http://the-twili-twit.tumblr.com/post/124421729411/malachite-madness-voiced-by-me-the-twili-twit I'm just gonna leave this here....
I love how the fandom has basically decided that Jasper is angry gym geek who calls people really obscure insults. If she doesn't make at least one pushup joke in canon I will be so heartbroken.
I'd argue that it's not quite the same. Lapis' ONLY goal was to go home after who knows how long spent trapped in a mirror. She was completely single-minded in her goal, and the Crystal Gems and humans were "in the way," so she did some fucked up stuff (which fans seem to ignore because sympathetic goal, but which was still Unambiguously Bad Shit). Peridot came to Earth voluntarily, in order to check on the Clusters. Her initial goals were pretty unambiguously malevolent, IMO, whereas Lapis' goals were selfish but theoretically harmless. She's not imprisoned, either--she's just stranded. It's the difference between a door jamming and trapping you in a room by accident and someone intentionally locking you in the room, basically. So while she IS stuck there like Lapis and wants to go home, the circumstances are very different. Basically, Lapis did bad things in the process of attempting to achieve a neutral goal; Peridot did bad things because her goal was to DO them. At least initially, anyway. I do think the "Lapis did nothing wrong and Peridot is Actually Satan" attitude is ridiculous, though. I'm just saying that while they were both very real threats, I think Peridot is more of an outright villain.
