Steven Universe Season 1B / Nightmare Fuel

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Space Race

The rocket ship's explosion near the end. Pearl may have had good intentions to show Steven the universe, but we cannot forget the fact that they both could have died a fiery and painful death by explosion in the reaches of space, far away from friends and family. Greg's screams for Steven as it all unfolds just makes the whole thing more awful.
As bad as we feel for Pearl in this episode, it's unsettling seeing how she acts. She asks Steven if he wants to go for a "little test drive" while Greg's asleep after he told her no. Then she offhandedly states "I'll bring him back in fifty years!" as they take off, even though she knows Gems and humans age differently. And when Greg tries to tell them to come back over the radio, she casually turns him off while humming. Even Steven is worried at this point, but she just says "I'm going to show them to you".

Secret Team

During the episode, some of the Gem Fragment limbs try to strangle the internal organs of the Crystal Temple.

Island Adventure

The fish surrounding the island that Steven, Lars, and Sadie are marooned on turn out to be willing and able to drag people off the shore into the water, presumably to eat them.

Keep Beach City Weird

Keep Beach City Weird!

The episode reveals that Ronaldo isn't just a spacey conspiracy-theorist, but a dangerously deluded and narcissistic Psychopathic Manchild. He believes himself to have supernatural powers, goes into a deep depression when he learns Beach City's happenings aren't focused around him, and when Steven puts on a shoddy costume to cheer him up, Ronaldo bludgeons him with a potato and kidnaps him while still spouting his delusional snake people theories.

Fusion Cuisine

The dinner scene shows that Alexandrite's face is nothing more than just a mask. Then she opens a second, monstrous mouth along her jawline and Amethyst's voice says "I'M HUNGRY!" Pretty creepy. Since the more human-looking one was capable of speech and eating, it'd make perfect sense for a Fusion as unstable as Alexandrite to have more than one mouth, considering past Fusions have had things like four arms and five eyes.
When the Gems lose control of the fusion, right before Alexandrite unfuses, her face cracks.
Alexandrite's second mouth is seen again after Steven and Connie decide to run away by getting on a random bus and seeing where it will take them. All of a sudden, Alexandrite can be seen running after the bus, easily grabbing it and lifting it into the air (with Steven and Connie still inside), and then roars "STEVEN!" in a Voice of the Legion.

Warp Tour

Steven almost suffocates when he finds the thing traveling between the warp pads. And he is fully aware that his "victory" in proving he was right leads to nothing other than him dying in the void. Thankfully, Garnet saves him.

Future Vision

The entire episode is full of psychological horror about how you could suddenly get killed in several different ways, and how you're risking your life by leaving your house.
To say nothing of the psychological horror of being able to see detailed information on the various ways a person you love can die or be traumatized. Garnet has it rough.

On the Run

Whatever the hell a "Kindergarten" is, is enough to terrify Pearl. Considering that there's thousands of Gem shaped holes in the face of the mountain, and dozens of those machines, it was obviously nothing good. Then there's the drill machine, its appearance gives it the look of a giant virus. There's a panel on the side showing what looks like an organic heart and viscerae inside, and when one of them fell down, the container broke leaving a 'reddish' puddle. The fact that the whole place is a visual homage to The Enigma of Amigara Fault. The dialogue doesn't help.
Amethyst: (Sliding into her hole) It's me-sized!
It's basically implied that the Gems were killing an unknown number of humans and probably other life forms to mass produce more Gems, to the point that they could have wiped out all life on Earth.
- When Steven and Amethyst arrive to the Kindergarten, there is a glaring constrast between the green-field prarie and the desolate gray wasteland. Life on Earth has always come back from distasters like major extinction. So the idea that life has failed to reclaim the Kindergarten even after thousands of years shows the amount of damage the Gems were capable of bringing to Earth.
Amethyst's speech to Steven, considering there's implied Sanity Slippage in it. It's easy to forget for a brief moment that this is essentially one of Steven's mothers and that she could be a very real threat to him.
Steven: Pearl? Was Amethyst really made here?
Pearl: How much did you tell him?
Amethyst: What? You mean about the bad thing? How this bad place is where bad Gems came to grow more bad Gems? Is that what you're talking about?
Steven: They grew other Gems here?!
Pearl: Amethyst, he's not ready!
Amethyst: (smiling creepily) Oh, but don't worry, Steven. Everything's just fine now.
Pearl: Amethyst.
Amethyst: It all worked out. We won!
Pearl: Stop.
Amethyst: (gets closer and closer to Steven) And we shut this place down so the Earth would be safe from parasites like me!
Pearl: Amethyst! That's enough!
The ending. Pearl and Amethyst reconcile and everyone happily warp home, leaving behind a shot of the Kindergarten... suddenly, the lighting shifts, and the drill machines and thousands of drill holes on the walls become incredibly pronounced. For just a few notes, the music becomes tense and very threatening as the episode suddenly cuts off.

Horror Club

The Gem's attack on the group is pretty terrifying, especially as it uses Mind over Matter to attack the group and sucks Sadie through the floor, culminating in a giant mouth appearing in the basement wall!.
- Ronaldo reaches his Rage Breaking Point, picking up Lars and throwing him into the giant mouth. The dialogue Ronaldo has in this scene doesn't help, as it makes him seem even more Ax-Crazy.
Ronaldo: Spirit, I deliver the package of darkness! Return to us the innocent Sadie!
Lars: H-hey, come on, man! We used to be friends!
Ronaldo: And you THREW ME AWAY! (throws Lars)

Winter Forecast

The final vision, in which the Gems try to use the Shooting Star to destroy the Galaxy Warp and keep Earth safe from the Homeworld Gems, only for Steven's return to distract them and make them drop it, causing an explosion that apparently destroys the temple.

Maximum Capacity

The teaser poster for the episode is creepy in a Nothing Is Scarier kind of way, showing a TV with a static-filled screen in total darkness.
Greg and Amethyst's argument grows worse until Amethyst uses her shapeshifting to make herself look like Rose, disturbing Greg, Steven, and the viewers. Seeing her look like Rose, but with obvious differences... And it's implied that either Greg had Amethyst do that to unhealthily deal with Rose's death in the past, or that Amethyst had done it before in another argument.

Rose's Scabbard

Garnet explicitly says that War Is Hell, and that many Gems died during the Great Offscreen War that occurred 5,000 years ago.
Steven nearly falls to his death chasing after Pearl. Pearl doesn't bother to help Steven up, completely at odds with her usual Team Mom personality.
Pearl's glare at Steven◊ is one of the creepiest Out of Character actions in any show ever. It's not particularly scary like Garnet's glare in Mirror Gem, but it's unsettling because, well, this is PEARL glaring at STEVEN. In context, it's even worse, because it seems like Pearl is truly angry at Steven for existing and taking Rose away from her (who was who Pearl cared about the most). O.O.C. Is Serious Business indeed.

The Message

The content of Lapis' message to the Gems and Steven. Not only is Homeworld so advanced and alien to her that she's just as terrified there as she was on Earth, but the Homeworld Gems know that the Crystal Gems are still alive, and they are not happy about it at all. Also, there's the confirmation that Peridot is coming after them, and she isn't coming alone.
The ending music to this episode starts out normal, but is abruptly interrupted by the sound of something massive and ominous landing, followed by static.
This sound piece that was released after "The Message" aired, you can only hear a woman in pain in the static.
Later episodes bring in the massive amounts of parental concerns that Greg has to deal with. The horrifying war his beloved wife told him about is not only going to happen again, but his son is going to be right in the middle of it.

Politcal Power

Continuing from the Last Note Nightmare from The Message's end credits. The end credits to this episode start out as nothing but static followed by a low, ominous note...

The Return

The tone of this entire episode. Everyone is tense and on edge, faced with an utterly hopeless situation. The background music is melancholic as all hell as the town evacuates, but becomes intense whenever the ship comes into view. Not to mention that the sky slowly turns from dusk-red to a sickly green as the ship nears. Everything in this episode radiates nothing but dread.
The hand-shaped spaceship. It's mysterious, impervious to most of the Gems' defenses and something about the way it looks and moves is just so... eugh...
Peridot's blank and emotionless face as she tries to murder the Crystal Gems. The only reason this didn't work was because Steven summoned his shield in time.
Jasper. A Blood Knight obsessed with beating Rose Quartz this time around, and who takes a distressing interest in Steven after recognizing his shield, mistaking him for his mother.
- Watching her cut down poor Garnet, literally bisecting her in the process. And we get a lovely close-up of Garnet's face after she's been sliced through. It proved to be too jarring for the Gems as Amethyst became astonished, Pearl screamed in outright horror, and Steven does nothing but watch with a great look of shock on his face.
- Seeing her headbutt Steven with enough force to knock him unconscious is jarring.
- The truly scary thing about Jasper is that, despite relishing battle, she is NOT a mindless psycho: she doesn't carelessly charge into battle, she evaluates the situation, stays focused, doesn't let enemy taunts affect her decisions and makes sure to end fights in the most quick and efficient way possible. She is not an out-of-control attack dog, she is a professional soldier, and as seen in the next episode, as such she will do everything to complete her mission.

Jail Break

The climactic sequence following the jail break, where Jasper decides her best chance of beating the Crystal Gems is Fusing... with Lapis, whom she grabs and hauls in for a Breaking Speech, offering her a chance to get revenge on her former captors. Which leads right into Malachite's debut (which is clearly inspired by Ursula's infamous giant scene), with her towering over our battered heroes and gloating about her newfound power.
- And then Lapis takes control of the Fusion, using her hydrokinesis to submerge Malachite into the ocean. The way the Fusion submerges as it yells is pretty disturbing.
  (Malachite laughs triumphantly, but stops as water-chains suddenly lash themselves around her wrists and torso)
  Malachite (Jasper): Huh? What? ...What are you doing?!
  Malachite (Lapis): I'm done being everyone's prisoner. Now you're my prisoner, and I'm NEVER LETTING YOU GO! (starts dragging them toward the ocean as Jasper struggles, trying to take back control of the fusion and causing Malachite's face to momentarily split apart)
  Steven: (desperately) Lapis!
  Malachite (Lapis): Let's stay on this miserable planet...together! (they disappear beneath the water)
The several Slasher Smiles that Jasper displays in this episode, especially during her Breaking Speech to Lapis, and when they fuse into Malachite. *Shudders* Each and every one of those smiles falls right into Unintentional Uncanny Valley, as her teeth are drawn very realistically, unlike the more simplistic, block-like teeth rows most of the other characters have.
- And the look of discomfort that Lapis has as she and Jasper fuse... The dark undertones of this are bound to make one squeamish.
"Come on... Just say yes."
- Some of what Jasper says is eerily reminiscent of an emotionally abusive partner, essentially telling Lapis that she's weak without her and physically needs her to achieve her goals.
Garnet: (after Malachite has been submerged) Yikes. They are really bad for each other.

Nightmare Fuel / Steven Universe Season 1B

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