The one I can't get over: Erica Luttrell, who plays Sapphire, also played Keesha in The Magic School Bus, which was an ENORMOUS part of my childhood.
The more time passes, the more I like how Peridot and Lapis made peace with each other offscreen. It's beyond our ability to dissect and judge because we weren't shown how it happened. Lapis is a very private person, so it makes some sense that we wouldn't know what she needed in order to settle things with Peridot.
.....except that as far as anyone sees, Peridot does a merry jig over Lapis' boundaries, and then is forgiven without any issue. Which makes it seem like everyone was right and Lapis was just being a big meanie-face for wanting some personal space and the ability to enforce boundaries, and should've just been following Peridot's narcissistic YOU HAVE TO BE FRIENDS WITH ME AND THAT MEANS TALKING ABOUT HOW GREAT I AM script the entire time. Imagine if Cry For Help had happened, then we'd spent 10 episodes seeing Steven mess around in Beach City, and the next time Garnet and Pearl show up they're perfectly fine and happy and trusting each other and yay what consequences?
We needed to see how Cry for Help resolved because it directly affected Steven's immediate family and his home. We always saw it from his point of view. With Lapis and Peridot's conflict, not so much. He was far removed from the resolution. I don't think you are giving Lapis enough credit when you assume that she just forgave Peridot of everything immediately and all was resolved. At the end of Barn Mates, she showed a tiny bit of concern for Peridot after Peri complied with her request, she was willing to give the roomies thing a chance in the end. Somewhere between Barn Mates and Beta, Lapis decided that she was going to be friends with Peridot, I don't think that choice was necessarily rushed or forced because we didn't get to see her make it first hand. They had possibly months to get to know each other before we saw Steven visit again. I also don't think that Lapis was portrayed as being a big meanie head by the show for being angry and upset with Peridot, Steven didn't exactly understand what he was getting in the middle of, but he's an EXTREMELY forgiving person who thinks nothing of everyone being in his business all the time. He asked Lapis to give Peridot a chance, and she decided that that was something she wanted to do. From what little we see of their friendship in Beta, They seemed to have bonded over art and fandom. Lapis feels completely comfortable telling Peridot no, and Peridot doesn't push the issue or throw a fit. Peridot spends most of her time trying to impress the guests (because that's what you do with guests) and Lapis casually goes along with it. Peridot was reluctant to leave Lapis alone, but she also didn't try to get her to go along with them. Between Barn Mates and Beta, she's figured out some things about Lapis' need for alone time and her personal boundaries, While Lapis seems to have accepted Peri's hyperactivity and lack of tact. There's a bunch of ways that Lapis could have put the past behind her without changing canon or assuming that she was stepforded into forgiveness for convenience sake. All we know is that the result was a giant hodgepodge house full of art installations and Camp Pining Hearts Memorabilia. The two now have made the leap from creating art to creating life, so it'll be interesting to see where they go next as a team.
Well yes that's entirely possible but it also makes it seem to the audience that, in fact, Lapis should never have gotten angry at Peridot for her fake apologies and self-aggrandizing and horrible behavior. If someone hurts you, then demands that you be their best friend, praise them, and when forced to apologize say that really you should be happy they did the thing that hurt you... that's fine, that's good, that's what friendship is and rejecting that is wrong and mean, since neither Peridot nor Steven ever figure out that Lapis was in the right. And it means that Steven never finds out that, in fact, he was in the wrong in that situation, which he was, because he never actually got why Peridot was hurting Lapis. Seriously if anyone did to me what Peridot does to Lapis in that episode, I would tell them to never speak to me again and avoid them wherever possible, unless they very clearly and obviously understood WHY I was upset. Which Peridot does not seem to, at all. And it is not very good writing to have a character suddenly make a 180 offscreen without even an indication of what might have caused such a switch.
It's a little strange, but the point of all of Peridot's activities was to make herself more palatable to Lapis. When Peridot told Lapis that she would do anything she asked, Lapis didn't demand an apology, she could have, but she didn't. Gems are much more literal minded than humans, we see that very pronounced in Peridot, but the others show it too at times. She wanted Peridot to leave and Peridot did so. I don't think she demanded that Peridot leave because she failed to apologize or understand Lapis' plight. Peridot was still a stranger and an enemy. She literally wanted her to leave, full stop, no conditions or exceptions, and Peridot complied. I also get the impression that Lapis was not looking for an apology, given how she reacted at the very end. This is in contrast with Too Far where Peridot betrayed Amethyst's tentative friendship by saying hurtful things. In that case, Steven encouraged Peridot to apologize. There has to be a difference between those two instances, otherwise he would have done the same thing. The biggest difference is that Peridot and Lapis were enemies and strangers. I don't think an apology would have meant anything to Lapis while she still regarded Peridot in that way and Steven may have been able to sense that. Also, Lapis might work differently then you do. I know that I have family members that hate verbal apologies, they regard them as hollow and an easy way out. Some people are going to value changes in behavior above words. I don't know if that's necessarily the case for Lapis, but Peridot did change her behavior toward Lapis by the time Beta rolled around. I guess what it comes down to is that Peridot's behavior may have been a deal breaker for you, but it wasn't for Lapis. She may have seen Peridot's behavior in a different light. She may have not felt personally hurt and betrayed by Peridot, but rather by her society as a whole. She may have been more understanding of where Peridot was coming from. Lapis may have been so done with anger and grudges at that point that she was more willing to put the past behind her and move forward. Like I said before, there's a bunch of different ways to look at the situation because we weren't shown what happened afterwards.
Even if Peridot's activities were to make herself seem more appealing to Lapis, she fundamentally didn't understand WHY Lapis was mad at her, or anything about Lapis at all given that little rant at the end. Also, how she reacted at the end made NO sense to me, like, that blush seemed like it was tacked on to be 'oh hey all is fine now forget the entire last 10 minutes it doesn't matter anymore it's ship time now' regardless of the fact that nothing had been resolved. ...and what in the world would have made her stop feeling hurt by Peridot? Peridot didn't even understand why 'gosh I'm sorry I hurt you it's just that I really wanted to do it and you should feel flattered that I did' wasn't acceptable. like. at the end she has changed none of her behavior. so... it really seems like the situation of 'Peridot hurt Lapis and doesn't recognize that, and so her continued trying to make Lapis be her BFF hurts Lapis' is resolved by 'Lapis should just get over the very bad thing Peridot did to her and do whatever Peridot wants.' eta: i dunno it just seems like you're going 'This isn't a problem because all of this stuff absolutely happened offscreen, and I know it happened because this would all be really bad writing if it didn't' disregarding the possibility that it could just actually be bad writing, and that that's headcanon. and that's probably really uncharitable towards you but this is an episode that has consistently bothered me because of the way Peridot and Steven treat Lapis and are vindicated by the episode and makes me annoyed so I have a hard time having calm debate about it so yeah. sorry.
tiny quibble: I don't think Peridot said "I'm sorry I hurt you but I really wanted to" and I don't think she meant it that way either. Peridot's place in society is tech stuff and, in this instance, getting information out of Lapis because she needed to find out things relevant to 'who is messing with my tech stuff'. I don't think she wanted to do it. I don't think she had any particular feelings either way about wanting or not wanting to do it. I think she just....did it. the way Gem society is, if you have a purpose you can serve, you do it and it happens and that's it. that's how Peridot viewed getting the information. maybe she was ordered by YD to do it. maybe she wasn't. but either way, her view of this wasn't "I want to do this thing", it was "this thing is necessary for my task to move forward", so she did it and then didn't give it a second thought. her apology was worded as "sorry I interrogated you. you were just full of such useful information. that's a sincere compliment." like, she doesn't phrase any of that in a way that makes me think she wanted to do it. she just....saw it as necessary to move forward in her job. and from what we know of Peridot, she's not exactly cunning or manipulative. she's straightforward when she talks to people....so I think she actually believed 'you were full of useful information' to be a compliment. not something trying to tell Lapis to feel flattered Peridot interrogated her, necessarily, but more meant as "please be happy that you were useful!" and...if you think about Gem society, which is still pretty heavily ingrained on Peridot, that actually makes sense as a genuine compliment. in Gem society, you're supposed to be useful. if you're useful, you're supposed to be happy. so to Peridot, informing Lapis she was useful should have, by all rights, made her happy! thus, a compliment. Peridot apologized for interrogating her (the offense) but also told her she was useful (compliment). in Peridot's mind, that should've been enough. I mean, if you think about it, Peridot's apology to Amethyst was phrased in terms of Gem society ideals! her apology was about how she was no better than the others, similarly defective. considering someone defective at all is Gem society stuff. it just happened to address Amethyst's problems in a way that didn't require Peridot to try and wrap her head around non-Gem-society ways of thinking. which absolutely isn't to say it's a good or acceptable or understanding apology that Peridot gave Lapis--apologizing for traumatizing someone and then immediately going "but hey the trauma was worth it in the end because you were useful! that's great, right?" is not an apology by any stretch of the imagination. (and yes I consider Peridot's interrogation re-traumatization of Lapis. SHE SPENT AGES IN A MIRROR HAVING QUESTIONS DEMANDED OF HER YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT ANOTHER INTERROGATION WOULD NOT BRING ALL THAT RUSHING BACK.) and I think that needs to be talked about, or should've been talked about, that Peridot's apology, while framed in "what Gem society would consider good", wasn't a good apology because Lapis doesn't think of things the way Gem society would, or even the way Peridot still does sometimes. but I also don't think Peridot wanted to do what she did to Lapis, and I don't think she understands why her apology was bad. I also feel like Lapis wasn't particularly charitable towards understanding Peridot's mindset when Peridot was trying to apologize, but I wouldn't be either, personally. the thing to do, imo, would have been to have Steven explain to Peridot the flaws in her thinking, that Gem society's way of viewing things isn't a good way of viewing things for apologies, which are not about function and use but about feelings and understanding. and maybe they did talk about that at some point and maybe Lapis seeing Peridot being searched for actually gave Lapis pause and made her consider that even though Peridot still seemed to be thinking in terms of Gem society, she was trying to think that way less and wasn't aligned with their values as much anymore. but the fact that all of this seems to have happened offscreen is kind of giving me a lot of Issues around handling it. (edited because when I posted this, instead of two long paragraphs, it posted as WALL OF WORD so I added an extra space)
idk if this is even allowed but I have this thing where I like to novelise like scenes or episodes from shows or movies, as a writing practice. I've done a few SU ones as of late, so I'll put the ending part of Jailbreak here (I wanted to do the whole episode but musical numbers are REALLY FRIGGING HARD TO GRACEFULLY RENDER AS TEXT) --- Spoiler: Jailbreak act 3 And after the song, after the fight, after the Hand ship crashed on the beach like a forest falling, Lion ran amongst the wreckage, searching and listening. Once it had found the hum of five gems and one human heartbeat, it braced back and roared, eyes aglow, blowing the rubble from the precious cargo inside. Steven's bubble – pink and round and utterly safe, popped the moment they were free, and deposited all four of them on the sand: Steven in Garnet's lap, Pearl and Amethyst sitting back the moment they had space a little. “Nice one,” said the tallest of them, and Steven beamed up at her. “Ohmigosh, I can believe you're a fusion all the time!” he laughed. It was the best thing to come out of this mess, he thought – not just that Garnet was Garnet and had always been, but that she was a relationship, an – experience, like Stevonnie. Amethyst almost flipped over in her excitement. “Wow, you MET Ruby and Sapphire!?” Pearl, as ever, was more concerned. “Oh no, we were going to introduce you - Garnet, your plan...” “We were waitin' for your birthday.” explained Garnet, a little sheepishly. “We can still do it!” Steven protested, half-laughing, as they all began to stand and dust themselves up a little. “I'll just pretend I didn't know! There were smiles all around, right until there was a crash as Jasper heaved herself out of the rubble like a titan being born. She stumbled a few steps, and fell to her knees, snarling, all fury and humilated rage. “Don't think you've won~” she rasped. The fires glinted in her orange gem and eyes, making them amber and bestial. “You only beat me because you're a fusion, if I had someone to fuse with I'd- huh?” Another rattle of broken ship part, and between the Crystal Gems and Jasper, Lapis Lazuli crawled out from underneath a slab. This close to the sea, though, and escape was easy, she didn't have to have any part of this, wings formed and she leapt into the air- A broad quartz hand caught her by the ankle and yanked her back to earth. “Come here, brat!” Jasper had her forearm trapped and she dangled by it, half-dazed and increasingly tired of fighting. “Aww, don't fly off so soon!” “LAPIS!” Steven cried, and tried to lunge forward only to be held back by his teammates. They couldn't lose him. He couldn't lose her. “Lapis, listen – fuse with me!” she turned back to Jasper, eyes opened wide. “What?” The quartz grabbed her jaw, forcing her to look into that grinning, tigerish face. “How long have they kept you trapped here, on this miserable hunk of rock?” She dropped her, abruptly, and Lapis tried to get up again. Stars and water she was dazed and tired. She just wanted to go home, be free, be anywhere but here. Jasper was still talking, as she scrambled to her feet. “These Gems – they're traitors to their homeworld! They used you! This is your chance to take revenge!” The undersized Amethyst clutched Steven and glared at them both. Steven – silly Steven, fun Steven, kind Steven, beach summer fun buddy, the only person to be kind to her in centuries- he looked like his heart would break. Jasper grinned. “C'mon, just say yes.” “Lapis,” Steven pleaded, “Don't do it.” Lapis thought about Jasper, huge and heavy and malicious behind her. She thought of Steven, who was good and kind and all that was worth protecting in this sorry universe. Also, she thought of the clean cold vastness of the water just behind her, the sheer crushing weight of it. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathed out, then offered her hand to Jasper. Jasper grinned like a row of gravestones and grabbed it in return. It was a clinical, perfunctory thing, their dance. Distantly, she heard Steven cry out in despair, and knew he had misunderstood. But it was enough to make each gem blaze – a teardrop smooth as water the colour of what little light filters through the abyss, and a rough triangle of polished orange-yellow - and blaze enough to consume Jasper's triumphant smile in white light. Light poured up and up and up and a quartz's mane brushed back from a green swirled face and one two three sets of arms no legs at all just malicious laughter that went on and on and on. Malachite reared up on her two backmost set of arms and reached out to the water, still laughing. The water became a club, then a hand – - then the hand slapped down onto Malachite's wrist and became a shackle. The laughter stopped. More watery chains joined the first – around the other arm, around her torso, and as the onlookers stared in mute horror they began to drag the great fusion backwards down the beach as she strained and struggled against it. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” roared Jasper-that-was, the upper set of eyes wide with shock. “I'm DONE being everyone's prisoner!” Lapis-that-was sceamed back, exhausted and defiant and hauled harder with the water to bring their fusion down. “Now you're my prisoner, and I'm never letting YOU GO!” On the word 'GO' a second pair of watery hands caught Malachite's backmost wrists dragging them, finally, and swiftly out into the deeper water. Malachite-Lapis just needed one last look towards the beach, as he cried out her name. This is for you, Steven. “Let's stay on this miserable planet – TOGETHER!” she gasped at Jasper, one final snarl, and then Malachite vanished beneath the waves. The four of them, not counting lion, just stood and stared for a very long minute. What the hell could you even say after that kind of thing. Garnet adjusted her visor. “Yikes. They are really bad for each other.” It had been a very, very long day. --- Basically if I started putting these in like a gdoc when I've done them, would people be interested? (I'm def doing some scenes from the latest StevenBomb soon, and I miiiight do the whole of 'Alone Together' because that is an extremely good episode with no musical numbers XDD)
finally started watching SU again for self care and i'm on gem harvest and Spoiler: liveblogging re: uncle andy wow yes, definite conservative-coded relative, pings all of my mild excalibur face buttons, b/c some of the shit he says makes me think of my family issues and also my family in general, which. is not a good thing (he reminds me of a bunch of the things i specifically do not like about my family, that is). also i have no idea why it didn't occur to me that greg had a name that wasn't his stage name. just. no idea. annnnd ep is finished! i like that even the characters who ping all of my nope buttons are still treated as complex individuals, so as much as uncle andy was ehhh for me at first, i also see him as a real person who has things and people he cares about. SU does really good stuff w making its characters believable. EDIT: added conclusion bc i finisheed the ep
Am I the only one who thought of the Blue Meanies from the Yellow Submarine movie when BD was first talking to Greg? Something about the way she moved...
i am all caught up and holy shit. this raises even more unanswered questions. Spoiler: spoiler for all eps up til that will be all like we still don't know how tf rose shattered pink diamond, since pearl and garnet are being so cagey about it. it also seems like pearl could have possibly been pink diamond's personal pearl due to her hesitation before saying who she had served before, but i could also be jumping to conclusions. also: it's been said, but i'd really like to know what's up w steven's crying whenever he sees blue diamond. i hadn't considered a psychic link, but what with him connecting to people in his dreams, it's possible that he connected with her. there are just so many questions!
