Oh hey, so, in Sworn to the Sword, there is a bit between Pearl and Steven Pearl: You're too important! Steven: No I'm not! And normally I could easily say that this is Steven saying that he's not too important to not be on the frontline, and certainly isn't too important to not support his friends, but it reminded me of one of his lines in The Return: Steven (to Lion): Stay here. If anything happens to me, Dad'll get a new son. And that is just - a horribly sad thing? And it's so quick, and just UGH. Steven is a happy nice kid but sometimes you just get glimpses of this mess of sadness and self-worth issues.
Yeah Steven seems to have a lot of melancholy and self-worth issues for a kid his age and its very concerning :(
I just caught up and I have emotions about sworn to the sword. like, YEAH, pearl's behavior towards Connie is damaging and she could generally use some parenting tips, but that does not stop me from feeling sad on her behalf. Spoiler: spoilerz The way she half-heartedly corrected herself after her outburst about WHY WONT YOU LET ME DO THIS FOR YOU, ROSE was really sad. I am sort of impressed with how quickly she acquiesced to Steven! Seems like improvement.
This was the first episode I managed to catch as it was airing I. was not prepared for that. Spoiler: SO I guess this adds some more meta on fusions and home world gems, and what happened to Rose's army. Not even kidding though, I shouted "WHAT THE FUCK" when the body horrors started dropping from the ceiling. Poor Garnet. She probably knew these gems too, and they became ...those things, because they are trying to make some kind of artificial fusion out of their corpses.
Spoiler: New ep spoilers oh wow this episode was. It was not okay. Poor Garnet. And yeah she had to have known them- she knew they had been crystal gems. I need to go rewatch secret team again now, since there were gem shards in that one. Come to think of it wow, I think gem shards are going to be kind of a big thing- first the Frybo incident, then Secret Team, and now this. Oh, oh! This was forshadowed in a way, way back in the Frybo episode holy shit. It was hard to get because Steven wasn't paying attention when Pearl was lecturing, so her voice was kind of muted, but she said something about the gem shards having a powerful partial conciousness that gems used to create semi conscious drones capable of following simple commands. But they became disobedient over time, something something.... Could become a monster. Btw um, did we see what Peridot was after or have a reasonable guess? Sorry, I came into the episode a little late, right before Peridot tried scaling the wall.
Spoiler: peridot They thought she was there to re-activate the kindergarten which would end up wrecking the earth's crust but in actuality she was there to perform "fusion experiments" with the shards of dead crystal gems. and/or she was there to scare the bejeezus out of the Crystal gems because she said she got what she wanted... after setting up barrels full of these abominations around the place. People are now crying that peridot is pure evil an irredeemable but I believe in Steven. Yes this was extremely evil but Peridot was clearly born after the war/is a very young gem and home world gems are all basically sociopaths. It's a long shot but I not think ANYONE on this show is ever meant to be "pure evil and completely irredeemable".
Me, watching Keeping It Together: What the fuuuuuuuck, what the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK?! AUGHAUAUAUGGHHH!!! D8
SAME. This is why we need filler episodes like Rising Tides/Crashing Skies (I really hope tomorrow's ep is cute and heartwarming)
Spoiler: spoipers ...Well, I'm gonna have nightmares tonight. Worth noting: Fusion is generally portrayed as romantically, sometimes even sexually, charged in some way. And then there's Garnet's "this is wrong, this isn't fusion" comment. The experiments seem like a symbolic rendering of sexual assault and/or domestic abuse in a lot of ways as a result, and...Christ, it's chilling. (And here I thought Malachite was the most fucked up fusion thing possible...) On a lighter note, this episode gave me a whole new level of respect for Garnet. I liked her fine before but I found her a bit dull compared to Pearl and Amethyst, but this really gave her some added depth in my eyes. (Not that she was a shallow character before or anything, but yeah.) The part with her talking to herself was heartbreaking--really the whole episode was. Seeing her friends and allies like that was bad enough, but given the context...poor Garnet. Poor EVERYONE. :(
Ooh, boy, this episode sounds like a real humdinger. Gonna get some icecream and warm blankets in preparation for this. Spoiler: fan theorists must be going nuts There's already been oodles of speculation to the effect of "Jasper is a composite of gem fractions", and if what I'm thinking is correct, people in my neck of the woods are gonna be just about foaming at the mouth. But oh wow, nothing beats frankengems, how utterly and completely fucked up. I'm so looking forward to this.
Spoiler: And worse Those shards all came from buried Crystal Gems. Garnet probably knew some of them, and maybe even helped to bury them.
Spoiler: More ep spoilers wait.... peridot mentioned this in the past saying "we have to check on the cluster/s" to Jasper in Jailbreak. I think most people just assumed that it was another term for the kindergartens, but fuck she probably meant gem clusters. That was probably what she wanted out of the kindergarten in the first place: she had to activate it to get at the clusters without actually being there, but obviously there was also a way of doing it manually too.
Spoiler: Way off topic and ranty, sorry I feel like this is probably super irrational and maybe bad, but it really bothers me when people talk about the Jasper/Lapis fusion dance as Lapis being utterly and completely victimized. I guess the way I feel about it, Lapis chose to fuse, and it was coercive and she didn't want it, but she chose to do it for the express purpose of turning the tides on Jasper. I like to think of Lapis as someone with the strength of will to force a weaker minded gem into staying in a fusion she didn't want to be in. Cause she is? And, she way outclasses Jasper! She's physically smaller, but she held back all the Crystal Gems by herself, while also holding up the entire ocean! Jasper got beat down by Garnet alone. It reads to me as at least a little malicious, which, I mean, Lapis is angry! She's been trapped for thousands of years against her will, and the home she longs for no longer exists, and now she's someone's prisoner again, and it sucks and she has every right to be angry! And it feels wrong to act like that anger does exist, that all she is and all she does is just her going along for the ride, getting beat down and hurt by outside forces. Like she's got no will of her own and can't make decisions for herself. Like all she is is getting hurt and all she needs in Steven and the Crystal Gems there to pull her over to their side, and all that anger and hurt will just disappear and she'll be all for the people who knowingly kept her enslaved. I dunno. I'm an idiot, and this probably doesn't make any sense and/or is a super awful thing to say.
@tinyhydra absolutely on topic! This is a Steven Universe thread, not just a new episode reaction thread. c: and I absolutely agree, Lapis is not some poor helpless victim and I hate it when people try to spin it that way. Like, Lapis is a tragic character, yes, but she's also a fucking badass. I really felt like her fusing with Jasper was a way for her to take some real control over her immediate fate, and possibly to get revenge on someone who'd hurt her(that's mostly speculation tho and I'm happy to admit that). Plus, water is her element- the ocean is probably the closest to home that she has left. And there's no way the crystal gems would have let her just go off into the ocean if they'd been able to have any say in the matter. Really, I feel bad for both of them. As far as we know Jasper was just doing what she was ordered to by Yellow Diamond as far as Lapis went, and then she went out of her way to try and bring them to Homeworld for trial rather than just killing them and going on to check the clusters like they'd been ordered to. She was being almost unnecessarily kind in a way, and she thought thought Lapis was on her side, probably thought Lapis should want to help as a way to help atone for her treason(see: warning Steven and co. of Peridot and Jasper)- being turned on completely blindsided her and she was forced to stay fused and was dragged into the ocean.
Spoiler: Lapis stuff Hell yeah to all of that. I;ve always read Lapis as passive, but vindictive. Fusing with Jasper was not her first choice (which was to run away) but she seized the opportunity to flip the power dynamic of the situation and become the one who imprisons. Lapis is not weak and in that moment she chose fusion she was decidedly no longer a victim. Seriously. Moral of the story isn't just "aww poor Lapis can never be free :(" it's "don't fuck with Lapis SHE WILL WRECK YOUR SHIT IF YOU ARE ON HER BAD SIDE"
Yeah, Lapis turning into Malachite was pretty clearly her taking control. I mean, her line right then: Seemed pretty blatantly 'Lapis is mad as hell and not going to take this anymore.'
Spoiler: more new episode stuff Also, it it just me, or does it look like Steven might have talked to Peridot since Jailbreak? What with his apologetic shrug when she asks if the other Crystal Gems are there. Also, looks like I was right about Kindergartens needing an inhabited planet, what with "sucking the life right out of the ground"
People think of it as her just being victimized? Huh. I read it as her definitely taking charge and choosing to do a tough strong thing on her own fucking terms. It just also happened to be self sacrificing.
