Steven Universe

Well, the catfingers ep wins the award for most adorable body horror. Also, its probably my favorite episode so far.

Generally, I love how he can HAVE LITERAL CATS FOR FINGERS one day, and the next day people are like "phf, whatever, you don't have a pet lion" like somehow that's even remotely bizarre compared TO CAT. FINGERS.

 

also VERY perplexed about Steven's father's mysterious tan-burn-line

 

Cat Fingers was where I started to like Steven!

any boy who can turn his fingers into cats and then take care of the cats that are his fingers is a keeper

 

I love how he decides to make more cat fingers simply because the existing cat finger seemed lonely to him.

Like, that is the exact mentality I had as a kid (and still kinda have tbh)--I couldn't just say goodnight to ONE of my plushies, I had to say goodnight to ALL of them so that no one would feel upset or lonely. (I eventually just took to saying "goodnight, y'all" because I had way too many plushies to do it individually. #weirdkidlifehacks) And I'm pretty sure that if I just had one cat finger I'd feel super bad that he didn't have any other cat fingers to play with.

Steven is precious.

 

i was really exited for the whole show from the pilot & utterly charmed by steven from pretty much the get-go (he is such a dear, sweet boy & he reminds me a lot of how i was when i was a kid) but for me the moment the show really got me hooked was probably Giant Woman. that episode is still one of my absolute favs.

i'm curious, when did everyone get super invested?

 

I think I really got hooked around Mirror Gem/Ocean Gem but I can't really remember. I do know that Sworn To The Sword was my first new episode (and remains perhaps my favorite), though.

 

...I think it was Bubble Buddies? Hm.

 

Tiger Millionaire, when Steven imitated Garnet. That was the moment when I was sold.

 

i thought the show was sort of entertaining for awhile, but i never got emotionally invested until Rose's Scabbard. and then it was all over for me, i love these space rocks so much now but my favorite episodes are always the one where pearl does things.

 

Together Breakfast. I am the secret dad it is me.

 

i think it was also rose's scabbard for me.

 

For me it was Laser Light Canon. That hit a perfect balance of jokes, character building, and hints and teases at the bigger picture, and it only got better form there.

 

I think the body horror of Cat Fingers won me over, and the general adorableness of Bubble Buddies sealed the deal.

 

I think I was hooked from the get-go with Gem Glow, because Steven was just so in awe of the Gems and respected them so much. Cat Fingers cinched it, though, because wow body horror that's truly frightening to the main characters. Also Rose's Room, again, because horror.

 

I got struck by the Gotta at Giant Woman, as well. I also remember that Laser Light Cannon, specifically the moment where the cannon fires and you see Rose in the beam, was where I realized that this show was gonna get intense and i should stick with it even though i didn't like steven yet. i had that impression at first glimpse of the temple statue, because IMO anyone who can design a background like that and not make a big deal out of it has some seriously My Jam As Fuck stuff up their sleeve.

cat fingers was great too and made me decide steven wasnt so bad. i was instantly won over and officially in love with him when he held the door for the crab. parenting done right.

 

THIS. It's just such a sweet and adorable thing to do. (It was the "After you, sir!" that made that scene for me, honestly. XD)

 

Regarding the Parent Points thing: Lore actually recently retired the system because there was so much drama surrounding them. Which I think is for the best, honestly, since he does have some definite biases. (I was more annoyed that Amethyst lost so many during Maximum Capacity than anything else--while her actions in that episode were EXTREMELY fucked up, she also had no clue, at the time, that Steven was watching, and I don't see how it reflects on her as a guardian. Shruuuuug.)

I'm actually genuinely enjoying his liveblog, though, all things considered. And I think it's wise of him to have both a "favorite episode overall" list and a separate set of lists for his favorite episodes by season, especially since the early episodes, while good, are nowhere near on par with some of the later stuff (for the most part).

And I'm really excited to see how he reacts to Sworn To The Sword, since he's a big fan of both Pearl and Connie and it was boarded by Liu and Johnston, who seem to be his favorite storyboarders so far. Hoping that there's not Drama like there was with Rose's Scabbard, since he admitted that the drama marred his enjoyment of the episode somewhat.

Speaking of, I kind of have mixed feelings on PearlRose, especially as of Back To The Barn. I love the ship, but I can't see it being even remotely healthy for either of them, especially not for Pearl. Namely, her devotion to Rose crosses the line into something incredibly unhealthy, and I honestly feel that a romantic relationship between the two would end really, really badly for Pearl. But I like it a LOT in AU settings, and I'm not even opposed to it having been canon at some point in the past (since hey, fucked up ships can be really intriguing). I just ship it more in theory than in practice, if that makes sense.

Finaly, I have to ask: is Fusion Cuisine actually as unpopular an episode as it seems to be? I'm wondering since both the responses to Lore's blog and the TVTropes Best Episode Crowner page both seem to indicate that it's widely disliked, and I personally disagree with that assessment. I can understand why people wouldn't like it (Connie's parents being dicks being a major one), but I found it to be really enjoyable for the most part.

 

@Acey Fusion Cuisine is my dad's favorite episode, so you're not alone in not disliking it? XD I am sort of neutral to it, I liked it okay but it was kind of slice-of-life-y and I am not a big slice-of-life stories fan.

 

Hmm, I like parts of it, but I recall being somewhat annoyed that Connie's parents were, IIRC, treated as being correct in their overprotectiveness. Like, Connie very visibly mode-switches on the phone, and calls her mother ma'am and that's never mentioned as being Not Okay, or particularly brought up as being a bad thing? IDK.