Steven Universe

It occurs to me that what happened to Rose Quartz (I'm going with that since it's the name she chose for herself in the end) might be the closest thing to a true irreversible death a Gem can experience. Even shattering a gem seems to leave some traces of the original Gem's consciousness (as horrible as the experience is for them).

Disgusted, but not surprised

I've been thinking about how season 6 will pick things up from here:

• It starts off like the first season, where things go back to the normal "adventure/story of the week" format (but with a new status quo of the newly reformed gems in Beach City) and the new arc is slowly revealed over time
• The movie is the start of the new arc and season 6 starts from wherever that goes
• They just do a full on timeskip
• Season 6 actually the final season, and the entire season is devoted to wrapping up any remaining plotlines and character arcs

Edited by dmysta3000 on Jan 22nd 2019 at 11:12:18 AM

I just realized why the Diamonds used the fountain pool to heal the corrupted gems. Not just to get a lot of them at once, but so they'll have a supply stored up for whatever corrupted gems are still at large.

---

Joe Johnston posted some stuff:

• On Steven's gem hole, or lack thereof.
• On Obsidian's pronouns.
• Storyboards: Steven's nightmare, Pink Steven vs. White Diamond, Miscellaneous
• Production video from April 2017. I'm guessing this scene was animated earlier than a bunch of other scenes before it, but even then it's kind of crazy the very last scene was nearly done 21 months ago.

Nicole Rodriguez has been holding onto this Peridot as Kamina pic (animated by forosha) for a year.

Well, the ending shots have been foreshadowed by the opening title since... geez, season 3 or something? Which was pretty cool.

It's been fun.

@dmysta: That reminds me: now's a good time for ideas or bets to place in the Steven Universe — Betting Pool for season six.

The second opening started in "Sworn to the Sword" early in season 2. It's been used for the majority of the show since "Steven's Dream".

Edited by thatother1dude on Jan 22nd 2019 at 10:23:03 AM

I don't have the pic but Obsidan's sword can be seen underwater as early as "Bubble Buddies"

Edited by dmysta3000 on Jan 22nd 2019 at 11:29:41 AM

You can never see it clearly, but can make it out (especially the hilt) if you look closely.

The dry ocean bed gave a better view.

Edited by thatother1dude on Jan 22nd 2019 at 10:44:02 AM

That thing got some distance on it, huh? I wonder what happened.

...Actually, wait a minute. Is there anything to suggest that the Obsidian Temple was constructed on Earth in the image of the Crystal Gems, and isn't the corpse of a giant Obsidian?

It's been fun.

Since when do gems leave physical corpses?

The Obsidian temple has five Gems. Gems don't have conventional corpses. And it's impossible for it to be another Obsidian fusion, given that Obsidian is a fusion that contains Pink Diamond.

The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.

I wanna see fusions involving the diamonds.

A while ago I saw something on Tumblr that was a Green Diamond. I was avoiding spoilers, and Tumblr is shit on that, so I just figured that was Blue and Yellow fused instead of something fan-made.

It's kind of interesting how this show built up how miserable Gem society is. First it was established that the Gem society was miserable towards non-Gems/organics. Then it was established that is was miserable for those who chose to love or act outside of Gem's standards. Then it was established that it was miserable for lower class Gems. Then we find out that there are people who are just born "wrong" by Gem standards, and of course it's miserable for them too.

All of these come with the assumption that the people at the top are comfortable on the backs of all this misery. And then here we find out that even they aren't happy. Everyone in Gem society is miserable.

Even White is miserable. She copes by trying to make everything perfect, and deludes herself into thinking that perfection works. But everyone fails to live up to her standards so much that she hides herself away from society and never interacts with anyone, except to throw the occasioan control freak fit.

No wonder these guys needed Steven so badly. Jeez.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

So I loved it while watching it, few issues afterwards.

The diamond redemptions did feel rushed. I'm not surprised it happened as forgiveness and redemption is this show's whole thing but they were full-on dictators so it feels kind of hollow.

This feels too conclusive; anything else is definitely a post-script season, though there could be some promise in slice-of-life episodes in the new status quo.

Loved Obsidian. I guess we called it? The weapon being a hilt they turn into a sword was a really nice design choice, as the fusion weapons were getting overcomplicated but it would have been disappointing not to get one.

Hopefully we get full Rainbow 2.0 and Sunstone focused episodes down the line.

Here's something I'd need to rewatch to confirm, but is it possible that Pink Steven's body was made entirely out of his diamond rather than being a hard light projection like the other Gems' bodies? I wonder if that's why he was so much more powerful than even White.

It's been fun.

It's more like his body was obviously made of light unlike most other Gems (and more like White Diamond herself).

Pink Steven is the raw power of a Diamond without anything holding him back. It's a good thing that Pink Steven's only concern is to reunite with his human self.

Edited by M84 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 6:34:03 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

@KnownUnknown: We started getting the impression of that all the way back during the Zoo Rescue arc when Yellow Diamond basically lectures Blue Diamond about how a Diamond's purpose is to rule, and she's shirking that by endlessly mourning for Pink. That being said, IMO of the Diamond Heel Face Turns Blue is the only one that really felt reasonably natural to me.


That initial arc firmly established that she has a massive soft spot for Pink, feels some degree of pity (albeit in a Condescending Compassion sense) for organic life, kept a bunch of off-color Quartzes in service in defiance of Homeworld's otherwise unyielding orthodoxy.


Then in The Trial, she's actually interested in finding out the truth once it becomes apparent something is seriously off about the official narrative of Pink's death, and scolds Yellow for summarily poofing the Zircons. Come Reunited, she remarks internally that she's getting no pleasure from hurting the Crystal Gems, and feels worse rather than better with revenge so close at hand, and in the next episode she immediately agrees to try and help Steven heal corrupted Gems while Yellow is questioning him, and in Familiar and Together Alone, there's a sense that she's torn between trying to be more accommodating towards "Pink" and ensuring she lives up to White Diamond's standards. I can definitely see Steven managing to talk her down like he did.


Yellow in contrast, while she had moments where it was clear she didn't have a heart of stone (pun intended) felt somewhat rushed; I feel like she wouldn't have caved immediately to Steven's Armor-Piercing Question, but might have instead just glowered at them while they made a run for the landing pad, unwilling to bring herself to further harm her sisters.


Then there's White, and that feels like it could've taken a whole 'nother season. It'd be easy enough to rewrite Change Your Mind for a 6th season too. Have Bismuth bring Lion with her, then have her, Peridot, and Lapis show up right as White is about to remove his gem, causing white to be distracted and drop Steven, who hits his head; while White is busy possessing the "new" Crystal Gems, Steven goes into psychic ghost mode and is able the break White's control over the OGs, who manage to escape from White's head ship without being possessed by White a second time. Steven wakes up with Lion offering him his mane and gives his heartfelt gratitude to Lion, promises he'll come back for him, then takes the gems through lion's mane to Lars, just in time for him to return to Earth. Bingo bongo, you now have the gang back on Earth with a way to get back to Homeworld when the time comes, and it's entirely believable with Blue and Yellow out of the picture that White wouldn't pursue Steven.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 23rd 2019 at 6:30:27 AM

And now this has got me thinking; if White really did create the other Diamonds by shedding parts of herself, did she look more like a "normal" (for lack of a better term) Gem before doing so?

I also just realized that White's surprisingly plain, translucent clothes were most likely foreshadowing her shallow nature and quickly broken way of thinking.

Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢

An interesting perspective on the show having no irredeemable villains.

But yeah, I do still agree that White Diamond's redemption was a bit too quick. Though Blue's and Yellow's redemptions made sense to me since we got to see the cracks in their masks and stuff over time, with White it was a little weird because just as soon as we saw her at her full villain potential, she then gets redeemed because of showing one emotion. Wasn't enough to detract from the episode for me, obviously, there was a lot of good in it, but that was strange to me. That could be an interesting alternative way of handling White, I think.

Edited by DeathsApprentice on Jan 23rd 2019 at 8:15:25 AM

Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.

@Known Unknown: Not all Homeworld gems are miserable, though the ones that aren’t tend to be comfortably dumb like Peridot was.

It’s just that showing having authority on Homeworld makes society just less oppressive, not great.

The Kindergarten Kid Corrupted Gem is most likely okay.

Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢

That's what I've been saying all this time! There's no way they'd leave a bubbled gem in the barn

I've always imagined after Lapis saw the bubbled gem she sent on to the temple

New theme music also a box

"and of course it's miserable for them too."

Understatement of the year.

I'm starting to think that I would have preferred Obsidian being formed by Sapphire and Ruby in the dance instead of Garnet. While the gems form the door layout during the fusion, I think it would also look nice with each gem starting the dance in the star shape. Plus, give Ruby and Sapphire more dance screentime.

-Witty line-

I kind of assumed any corrupted gems that weren't in the Temple (see also the ones Jasper found) were gathered off-screen anyway.