Steven Universe

Lion got exhausted by jumping to the moon - intergalaxy might be beyond him.

 

Spoiler

i swear to fUCC if i get another '''su critical''' telling me that padparadscha is Badly Written bc she has a delayed reaction time, im going to print the concept of delayed mental processing on a sticker and slap it on their face

ALSO!!!! we know she can only predict things that have already happened, but is it restricted to things she WITNESSES or can she give them time delayed updates from outside the off colors cavern?

 

Spoiler

POLYPILLAR GRANDMA! POLYPILLAR GRANDMA!

 

Watching Wanted for the second time; some thoughts:

Spoiler: waaaaaaaatch ouuuuuuuuut, my diiiiiiiiiiiamoooooond!

I don't think Yellow Diamond shattered Pink; while Blue Zircon definitely raised some interesting points, all Yellow's potentially suspicious actions in the courtroom can be easily explained in other ways (wanting to rush through the trial is consistent with her "bored cranky politician who doesn't have time for this nonsense" persona, poofing the Zircons could be outrage at a lesser gem daring to accuse her of a crime). Honestly I don't want it to be her; I found the portrayal of her repressed grief compelling on its own and I would be sad if that turned out to be fake.

I find Blue Diamond's attitude very interesting. While Blue Zircon was building up to accusing the Diamonds, Blue was leaning forward in rapt attention; BZ was raising points she hadn't considered. When BZ actually accused the Diamonds, Blue didn't seem angry about it. She wanted the trial to continue and yelled at Yellow for wanting to stop it. She was willing to seriously consider the possibility that a Diamond was responsible. If it turns out that Yellow or White did indeed orchestrate Pink's death, I find it hard to imagine that Blue will forgive them. Could we have a Homeworld civil war on our hands? (This also gives me hope that Blue Zircon will actually be okay; Yellow might want to execute her for insulting the Diamonds, but Blue might want to keep her alive to help investigate Pink's death.)

I'm not sure how to read the Pearls' responses to the mention of Pink Diamond's Pearl. I think it's likely that PD's Pearl was in fact our Pearl; iirc there was a line in Light Distortion that heavily implied the same.

Even if Rose didn't shatter PD... she never denied to her followers that she did so. The theories about White Diamond or another gem using memory-altering or illusion powers to make it look like Rose did it would explain why eyewitnesses like Eyeball believe that it was her... but could someone have made Rose herself think she did it when she didn't? Or did she claim credit for propaganda purposes, or get coerced into accepting blame by whoever was really responsible?

 

Spoiler

if pearl was used to shatter pink diamond, i can definitely see that as leverage someone could use over rose to get her to accept the blame, whether she knew pearl yet at the time or not.

 

Spoiler: spoilers

yeaaaaah i REALLY dont think PD's pearl was our pearl

look at her color in the answer, once you take out the blue tinting from the setting shes pure white, and ALL the pearls are color-coded

additionally pearls gem is in completely the wrong place for pink. all the pearls (including rhodenite who's garnet colored but clearly made out of a ruby and a pearl [meaning the pearl must be blue] has her pearl in the same place as blue diamonds gem

shes gotta be white diamonds

 

@autopsyblue Alright, cool.

Personally I'll say: honestly I'm happy if some people are happy about the Lars/Sadie gap. Seeing you be like 'it makes me feel like that's cute' is good to me imo.

Now, for some personal thoughts.

If the relationship is just a small margin in years apart it doesn't change my opinion on them. I see them as... a dynamic where Lars is ungrateful about a lot of things, is unfair about to Sadie about a lot of things, and the majority of where the relationship falls flat comes from his end of the deal. Regardless of anything, this is true. Realistically... the two remind me of a relationship I've had in the past, so when I point out Sadie's faults it's not like... shunting the blame onto her, but I think I just feel like... I see where she missteps in a kind of uncomfortably familiar light. I mean, never trapped anyone on an island, but hey (imo that's Sadie's most uncomfortable gaff, but everyone on SU makes an uncomfortable gaff at some point, they're all people). Anyway Sadie is... focused on Lars becoming a better person than he is, and is upset when the dude keeps failing her in the same, predictable ways. Sadie's flaw, I guess, is watching this dude and just... trying to get him to act different by nudging him in certain ways.

She kind of has the feeling of someone's who's... long sufferingly been trying to subtlely encourage someone to change. Their first two major episodes of focus are Joking Victim and Island Adventure.

I think earlier on, Sadie has a difficult time talking about what she thinks, but frustration builds to the point where she's... more aggressive and more ready to snap at Lars later on. But early on from her side of the relationship, there is this sort of? Gentle manipulation (it is well intended from her side)? Where she... she works hard on her side to be Good as Good as she can be to make up for the ways in which Lars Isn't Good, and there's this building anger/frustration at him when he fails her, when he's an ass about or something, fails to reciprocate it, like he tends to.

(Joking Victim)
"...Lars may come in late... and leave all the really hard work for me... but" (but I care about him)
"He's burned me before... Just once, I'd like to burn him back."

Like, I think the thing is... Whether you think it's justified or not, Sadie can be a bit passive aggressive imo. The whole doughnut scenario is her being aware that Lars is lying to her, and instead of openly confronting him about this she puts up a steely resolve through his continued play acting and pushing the doughnut in front. She wants to hurt him like she's been hurt. Or, we have, her hiding the portal in their next big episode together and comforting him through this - but it turns out she hid the portal because she figured he wouldn't give it a chance in the first place. Which, it's like, she might have been right about that but now we have the scenario of someone knowing and getting closer to someone while they don't know they can leave.

As for their romance... they're not actively in a romantic relationship? but they're both... seemingly aware of romantic feelings and there seems to be a big tug of war back and forth between them about it. I remember Sadie's mom commenting on their relationship? They make out, they hold each other in lingering ways, have this thing where... they both seem aware that their relationship could be construed a certain way. I'm actually not sure what to call their current relationship in simple terms, but it's a 'relationship that has involve make outs, handholding, and explicitly romantic actions while it is not official' I guess.

Anyway, the relationship just gives me a different vibe if Sadie is older. And my thing is, if she is an adult and Lars is a teen I don't know by how much this is true. I can't say whether or not Sadie is 25 and Lars is 16 or Sadie is 22 and Lars is 18-19. That is, I don't have any arguments for this being true, I'm just left with a vague age gap where I feel uncomfortable about all the possibilities when I think too hard about them because I don't truly know. I do feel different about the passive-aggressiveness and anger Sadie has towards Lars for the ways in which he fails to be honest with his feelings if there is such an age gap. In that case, it's like... I don't know, I'm left with the feeling that it's weird for her to rely on him so much and have such a complicated relationship with him. I mean... there's gaps between them that bother me and ones that don't, but it's just opened this kind of doubt passage for me in the first place where now I'm thinking about a wide range of possibilities I guess.

 

building upon that since i actually am squicked by a possible age gap!

Spoiler

now i see lars as.......maybe not UNDERAGE perse? theres a chance that he is an adult, but a very young one. maybe 17-18

whereas sadie comes across as early twenties at least. i dont really have a lot of backup for why she pings me as such, just the few clues weve been given about her age (her being definitely 18+, her having gone to prom at least three years ago, her having a managerial role at the big donut, etc) and the fact that she seems to be more mature in general about things

i honestly dont think i would care about the age gap if it WERENT for their issues? because 17-18 and early twenties can be a perfectly healthy relationship, but lars' and sadies' is clearly........not, and if lars was a few years younger than sadie it would be a big explanation for WHY it isnt working out

because sadie continually gets angry at lars for.....doing stuff thats pretty much just dumbass immature teen stuff and not picking up on her cues. its like shes expecting him to act like an adult when he really ISNT an adult and things would be improved if she just waited a few years

on the flip side, if they ARE actually the same age, it turns the dynamic into 'act your fuckin age you dweeb' which is much less scary for me than an older person expecting a younger one to have emotional maturity they just arent developed enough for

 

Spoiler: wanted speculation

I'm thinking that Rose's sword was used to poof Pink Diamond, but not actually shatter her, remembering Bismuth's line about how her sword was designed to cut through the body, but never to shatter the gem. It seems really suspicious that they'd go out of their way to include that line, then have Blue Diamond go 'YOU SHATTERED HER WITH A SWORD' - especially when Steven brought up the Breaking Point specifically. I'm pretty sure there's something here, at least.

 

Ahhh, pretty!, someone made this neato VHS effect N anime plus chill music edits with clips from The Trial

Here!

Very cool!

 

@GlassesBlu I'm not sure why but I'm such a sucker for edits like that, thanks.

Also I saw the new episodes

Spoiler: Trial, etc spoilers

Out of all the new episodes The Trial is my favourite? Imo YD is a red herring but I'm curious to see if that holds up or not.

I'm... curious if Pearl was involved, or White Diamond, or if not our pearl than A pearl.

 

They do? I don't remember this.

Bleeeeeeeh see to me I see the "I'm uncomfortable with a potentially wider age gap" as like... disrespecting the concept of an age of consent. I'm not saying you're being disrespectful, it's more that it's a thing I see floating around in our culture. Like we recognize that 18 year olds should be able to have sex without getting thrown in jail, but we still want to control and shape who they're with, you know? But honestly at 18 I was so ready to have sex, I was probably ready to have sex at like 14 honestly, I was a relatively mature teenager. And someone coming in and saying "You don't know what you're doing because you're 18" would have felt like a complete fuckin insult. "You don't know what you're doing cause you've never dated anyone before" would have been, tbh, entirely accurate in retrospect. But "You're not old enough to control your sexuality yet"? No.

Which is a kinda personal way to say that I think teenagers should feel like they have control of their own sexuality, especially cause a lot of people are trying to control it then. And under that perspective if Lars is 18 or 16 I'm not sure it really matters what age Sadie is, like, at all. They're at different places in their life, sure, but that's also true of adults who are the same age. So I'm not.. really sure it's unreasonable for a 25 year old to expect a 16 year old (though I doubt he's actually that young) to be more emotionally mature than Lars is. And.. if it is unreasonable I think that makes it more interesting, not less, because it becomes less about Lars learning how to person and more about Sadie learning to manage her own expectations and understand where Lars is coming from.

I also think Sadie's thing where she tries to push him in a certain direction and is passive-aggressive is honestly pure female socialization, and that's interesting to me too. You get taught a lot of bullshit cause you're AFAB and it's interesting to me to have that get in the way of something genuine and then have to sort that out. That matters to me too.

Ooh cool that makes a lot more sense to me actually, esp. the part where you wouldn't care about the age gap if they didn't have issues. I'm not sure I agree with you either, but I do understand better now.

 

more of a smooch but island adventure

edit: dont watch that video i didnt go thru all the wAY its just a john cena jumpscare

 

heres an actual clip

 

i love this face

 

How do you jumpscare someone with john cena

 

its loud and sudden as fuck my dude

 

@autopsyblue Well, it's a personal thing.

As I said, some people could take it as a personal challenge in writing the characters to incorporate Lars being that much younger and have Sadie manage her expectations around that. I could conceive someone playing with that in an interesting way! It's more that it's a personal squick of mine?

Like, hm, I'd agree that when I was 16 I thought I was very... aware of everything and would've been angry if anyone implied I wasn't. Not with sexual experience because I am sex-repulsed (moreso to the idea of being personally involved than talking about it generally speaking) but. I was online since I was a little kid and was precocious and thought I knew everything. People often called me an 'old soul' and very mature, etc... Adults often pressed the idea on me that 'of course I'd end up with someone older' because I was mature. I don't think that's a good idea to impress upon someone, but regardless... As an adult I'd be more protective of a younger me, and I think a younger me almost landed in a lot of very bad situations. I had friends in highschool who dated adults and imo... there was a lot of uncomfortable relationships. Looking back... I guess I think... Even though I have some of the same issues on a lesser scale, a 16 year old me who had the issues I had has had very little opportunity to think of themselves as someone with the independence of an adult, or try to sort out the intense peer pressure of a school environment, or various things etc etc. I think there's a certain bar for me where it's like... 'this character at the very least, has had this many chances to try and gain this much knowledge/maturity for themself, they've had this many years'. Those issues can persist into adulthood, but I suppose there's just something uncomfortable about leaning on a teen for emotional/romantic support or... being upset a teen has lead you on? Idk.

Imo, Sadie's passive aggressiveness is one of my favourite things about her because... being taught to act that way is relatable. But it's not a good relationship solver. Not blaming her tho because really, it's not made easy for her at all either. It's just complicated.

Edit: But adding on to that, that being said, I'm more uncomfortable with the implication he could be as young as 16 rather than him being 18. Misplaced some numbers, but an 18 doesn't bother me as much.