Finally watching Steven Universe!

[conuly]

Lars of the Stars

0. I like this already just based on the name.

1. I'm already weirded out by the mention of Lars' parents just... accepting this weird, weird situation?

2. Connie already has that huge sword. Why is she ALSO carrying the backpack? She's your friend, not your packmule!

3. Right there with you, Lion is adorable.

4. I am so glad I wasn't spoiled for this, because that would've ruined the effect of them popping out of Lars' head straight into a space battle.

5. But where did he get the cool cape?

6. Hey, Steven wants to know too!

7. Yes, Sadie is happy without you. And you're happy without her. That doesn't mean you don't care about each other. Don't lose any of this hard-won maturity/coolness, Lars!

8. Aaaaand it's gone. Insecure Lars is the worst.

9. Hey, it's Stevonnie! "An Experience" indeed! I forget, has Lars met Stevonnie before?

9. There's the useful Padparadascha we've been waiting for! Not sure I spelled that right, not willing to Google.

10. Way to ruin the fun, cliffhanger!

**********

Jungle Moon

1. Yeah, that'd be what's wrong with the ship.

2. What the hell happened to the planet!?

3. I'm with you, Stevonnie. It's too cute to eat.

4. A gem outpost. How surprising.

5. WHY IS THE FIRE BLUE?

6. Hello, weird dream sequence!

7. That's not her mom, is it?

8. Do gems... grow, like human people do? Because Pink Diamond is acting like a young child.

9. What happened to the colony? It doesn't seem to have been successful.

So that was good. We had a fun, goofy episode and a question-raising episode. And Lars is... well, he's Lars. Thinking on this a bit.

Comments

[heron61]

8) I know, it looks like pink diamond was relatively young (or at least notably younger than yellow diamond) when the events in the dream occurred. I'm assuming that at minimum, newly emerged gems are inexperienced.

9) I'm not sure, my guess is that the destroyed world above the jungle moon is what Earth would have looked like if all had gone as planned for using it to create lots more gems.

[conuly]

The thing is, we saw the plan for Earth. It was a lot more... orderly than that.

[gingicat]

Maybe this was a child’s mistake.

[conuly]

Maybe. Pink Diamond clearly had a temper.

[frayadjacent]

Wait, are we meant to think that Pink Diamond was also involved in the destroyed planet that Stevonnie sees? My interpretation was that the planet was destroyed in the nice orderly way as intended for Earth, and then left to sort of decay. Though it's probably only been 6,000-10,000 years (presumably the dream was not long before the colonization of earth began, maybe it had even already started under Yellow Diamond and then was transferred to Pink Diamond) which is nothing on geologic time scales.

[conuly]

I don't think so. I think this is just about how she ended up with Earth?

[frayadjacent]

yes that's what I thought as well.

[gingicat]

One of the things Rose said to Greg, back when they first fell in love, was that she envied humans their ability to grow up. (It was the episode where Greg was babysitting tiny!Sour Cream and Rose let the baby crawl up the roller coaster.)

And now, Steven has Pink’s memories, it seems :)

[conuly]

We already knew he could tune into Diamond dreams, as well as... watermelon dreams. Apparently, half of fandom is convinced this means Pink Diamond isn't *really* shattered.

[gingicat]

Including my husband. He pointed out the similarities between Rose’s face and Pink’s face. And the CN mobile app is showing the episode where Amethyst tries to reimagine herself.

[conuly]

Oh, everybody and their sentient pumpkin has thought for a long time that Rose Quartz is Pink Diamond, even though that theory makes, like, no sense.

[gingicat]

It makes more sense if Pink is actually Quartz-sized.

[conuly]

Not that much sense.

[konsectatrix]

I've only watched the bits of the show that W shared so far, but do the gems consistently work like real life gems? Because that would be awesome at least that would be a clue. Amethyst, citrine, or ametrine would make sense as they're all quartz, but definitely not diamonds, pink or otherwise.

[conuly]

Not enough information to determine that, I'm afraid.

[frayadjacent]

I'm not sure if I understand your point correctly, but they do use real and folklore gem qualities, but only as needed. For example, rose quartz, amethyst, and jasper are all a type of quartz, and they all seem to occupy similar social positions (soldiers/officers). Some folklore says rose quartz has healing powers. Etc.

I really don't think Rose Quartz is Pink Diamond. It doesn't make sense or line up with things we know. Also, I for one would be pretty disappointed if it turned out to be true. It's so much more thematically satisfying to me to have a rote soldier turn rogue than to have it be a leader.

[zesty_pinto]

There is some basis behind that. Amethyst was commented as being a sort of quartz by Peridot, which is a soldier class. Jasper is remarked as (according to wikipedia) an "aggregate of quartz," so it makes sense in that sort of logic.

Also another odd bit of logic:
Peridot is known to be confused with emeralds.
Emerald, as we saw, is a leader of sorts, but also apparently enough of a tech head to value her beloved ship. I guess there's some parallel there?

[erinptah]

There's a lot of weirdness in what Beach City residents find confusing vs. what they're willing to accept as totally normal.

When was Padparadscha useful...?

Different chemicals burn in different colors, so presumably the blue fire has something to do with the mineral content of the moon.

Gems don't grow or change, no. If Pink Diamond was "overcooked" like Amethyst, maybe it stunted her emotional development as well as her size?

I think the colony was successful by Gem standards. There was at least one time we saw the Gem plans for Earth (projection? dream sequence?), and once all the Kindergartens had been installed and depleted, it would've looked just as gutted and destroyed as this planet here.

I'd love to know whether there are recognizable differences in Gem temperament based on what planet they came from.

[conuly]

When was Padparadscha useful...?

She acted as a sweet little exposition fairy, telling us that Emerald deliberately didn't destroy the ship. A few more insights like that and she'll have earned her pay for reals!

Gems don't grow or change, no. If Pink Diamond was "overcooked" like Amethyst, maybe it stunted her emotional development as well as her size?

Well, they do change - I mean, we've seen Peridot change, for one, we know the Crystal Gems (excepting Amethyst) have changed over the centuries, and obviously if their entire society has changed rapidly since the last time Lapiz was there then individual Gem behavior changes too sometimes.

But they don't change that much, maybe? You're right, though, in making that comparison - Amethyst is great, but she's definitely immature under the best of circumstances.

once all the Kindergartens had been installed and depleted, it would've looked just as gutted and destroyed as this planet here.

Yeah, but in a more orderly fashion, wasn't it?

[erinptah]

But Lars saw it coming, and then Emerald confirmed it in her dialogue, so Pad was still ultimately redundant...

I mean Gems don't go through developmental changes, they don't start out as children (even mentally) and experience rising maturity levels. The changes we've seen are all adults forming new opinions and viewpoints based on having new experiences.

Found the image!



Those holes are still pretty random. Not dramatically lopsided like Mystery Planet, but that could just mean Mystery Planet's mineral deposits were less evenly-distributed.

[conuly]

1. True, but it's a sign of her potential in the future. She's not just a sweet but useless side character!

2. Thanks, I remembered the earth-colony-future as being more orderly than that.

[frayadjacent]

2. Thanks, I remembered the earth-colony-future as being more orderly than that.

Same -- I must have been conflating this image with the image of all the structures.

I think the reason Pink Diamond appeared small in the dream was because the dream was still sort of conflating her with Stevonnie, just like it continued to conflate Yellow Diamond with Dr. Maheswaran (she continued to have brown skin like Connie's mom throughout the dream). I don't think Pink Diamond was that much smaller than Yellow Diamond in real life.

[conuly]

No, we saw where she'd punched the glass. It was at Stevonnie height - not Yellow Diamond height.

[zesty_pinto]

Thanks for pointing me to this!

re: The costume, I hope you realize it's an obvious homage to the Japanese anime featuring another space pirate, "Captain Harlock."



1. To be honest, I think Beach City in general is just very meh about it. They had people stolen by aliens for god's sake and instead of pointing fingers at the gems, they're pointing at the mayor. It made me think of that failed DC show "Powerless" where there's collateral damage everywhere, but people just grumble about how they're going to be late for work.

2. Come on, it's Connie, she prepares for everything! Though a return of Cheeseburger backpack would be awesome, I think it's to reflect he's grown past that now that he's useful in his own way.

I thought it was interesting how Sadie is Lars' rock. Although he never likes to talk about it, although we all knew even back when he was some nobody, he always knew to depend on her.

WHY IS THE FIRE BLUE?
Chemicals! Although the real answer is "it looks cool!" but "chemicals!" is my preferred answer.

Do gems... grow, like human people do? Because Pink Diamond is acting like a young child.
Foregoing the idea that Pink is Rose (I still think this is the case), if this world shares some logic with the rest of gems in terms of properties, then Pink could share some of the same abilities as other quartzes, including shape change. As a new gem, she could probably learn to change shape but for now this is her initial design.

I am tempted to think that Pink is a "flawed" diamond as well, just as Amethyst is a flawed quartz, so her appearance could reflect that.

[conuly]

My knowledge of anime begins and ends with "That yellow thing is from Pokemon, right?" so.

I am tempted to think that Pink is a "flawed" diamond as well, just as Amethyst is a flawed quartz, so her appearance could reflect that.

Her diamond is oddly shaped.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Y'know, your subsequent post here (https://conuly.livejournal.com/2646730.html) doesn't allow for comments on Livejournal, only through OpenID.

Speaking solely for myself here, I will never use OpenID, because using it means having to fight with the damn CAPTCHA and other obstructions to commenting.

It's pretty-much moot in this case, because I don't watch TV shows and thus have no opinions on this one, but... just saying.

[conuly]

It's not supposed to allow comments at all. I wanted people to go over to the comm, not to comment about it!

[conuly]

(There's actually a few posts like that in the past week, every time I've directed people to a fandom thingy or whatever. Weirdly, every time I do that somebody PMs me anyway, and I'm never sure how to say "If I wanted comments...." without sounding like a jerk.)