Finally got around to watching those Steven Universe episodes!

[conuly]

I'm not going to break it all down, I just have a few thoughts:

1. Padparadscha is adorably awesome.

2. Steven is quite right. He stumbled upon the off-colors within minutes of escaping custody. Either coincidence is a much stronger narrative force than anybody wants to admit, or Homeworld (not to mention other colonies) must be positively swarming with rejects. Which would explain why they come down so hard on them, actually.

2a. But I'm a little surprised that even our true off-colors (that is, not fusions) had heard varying stories of Rose Quartz. When would they have had a chance to hear these stories in between being created and going into hiding?

3. Steven narrating his own letter to Lars while poking out of Lars' hair was hilarious. Great reveal.

4. Is it just me, or does "No, Pink Diamond is definitely, definitely, 100% dead, your mother made sure of that" sound less and less convincing each time somebody says it? It seems the obvious follow-up is "So... you saw her get shattered? You were right there, right?" but Steven doesn't ask that, probably because the answers would raise still more questions.

5. KITTENS.

Comments

[erinptah]

Maybe there's a stage in Gem-formation when they haven't fully popped out of the ground yet, but they're able to hear and process information?

Pad also could've heard the story before the nature of her disability was discovered. And any of them could've heard stories from someone else who went into hiding later in life but got zapped before meeting the rest of the group.

Or it could be as simple as, sitting around in tunnels for your entire life is pretty boring, they have plenty of incentive to sneak upstairs and listen to gossip or watch GemTV in shop windows.

Steven did ask Garnet "why did I have a Pink Diamond dream if she's dead? Could that be a sign of something?"...but Garnet shot the idea down pretty firmly. And it takes a lot for this kid to get worked up into "stop it, I know there's stuff you're not telling me, I don't accept that answer" mode.

[conuly]

Pad also could've heard the story before the nature of her disability was discovered.

She's orange. It's pretty visible!

but Garnet shot the idea down pretty firmly.

Though illogically, not that Steven seems inclined to chase that. If his powers are so unusual, and we know gems don't know everything about how their powers work (see: Peridot) then who the heck knows what's going on with his empathic ability? But maybe it DOES work only on the living.

[erinptah]

Orange is the normal color for padparadscha sapphires! The disability is that her future-vision works backwards. And given what we've seen of our Sapphire in Homeworld flashbacks, there could've been long stretches of time when nobody asked her to use it.

[conuly]

Yes, it is! But I think that being padparadscha is the disability...?

[erinptah]

I figure the writers just made her the special variety so she would have a unique name, and they weren't stuck juggling two semi-main protagonists named Sapphire.

[conuly]

And I thought she was literally "off-color", and possibly being literally off-color is the most common form of non-fusion outcast on Homeworld.