Regarding "Other Friends", that's amazing! But also not surprising. I've listened to it multiple times and had stuck it my head for the last two days. Electro swing is such an underrated genre...
Edit: while looking through the wiki's image gallery to see if someone made a transparent Steg yet (the answer is yes
◊ by the way, though he's missing an arm), I found picture of the butterfly
◊ and I remembered it wrong; it first appears after Steven waves Connie goodbye, and sticks around until he re-exits his house, flying off while Steven approaches Greg and Pearl.
Also looking at the uncorrupted Gems and wow a lot of them changed between "Change Your Mind" and the movie, some really drastically. Watermelon Tourmaline also has at least one extra arm for some reason.
Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Sep 4th 2019 at 3:37:29 PM
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢My only complaint about the soundtrack is that some of the songs are too short. I want more of certain songs to listen to.
People talking about how Steg looks like a Jojo character got me thinking about the two series, and then I realized that Steven in the movie is a year older than Giorno Giovanna.
Btw if there was any doubt that Lets Go Into The Garden was made for Spinel, here is a quote from rebecca about the song.
"This song is based off an early memory of losing a stuffed animal, a black rabbit. I found it a year later, laying on it’s back in the garden. The sun had faded it’s underside, so that it now had a white belly. It wasn’t better, or worse, just different. It was the first time I realized that things will change no matter what, even if they’re left alone, and stay completely still. "
Edited by CountofBleck on Sep 4th 2019 at 3:37:02 PM
That's amazing...
A great song can some up 2 characters who aren't at all the same.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.It's funny to rewatch the Other Friends scene from Pearl's perspective. The whole time she's just baffled that Pink's little playmate is back, and that she's apparently evil now, what? My favorite part is when Pearl says "It really is her, but she can't be serious" and you learn later that Spinel is normally never serious and definitely not normally ever a threat.
Ya know, I kinda don't get what is up with Steven Universe fans who don't like redemption themes.
I mean... That is like the whole point of the series. It would kinda break the message to go "Nah, sometimes you just gotta shank people". Even putting them in space jail would kinda be against idea of solving things through talking since this hasn't ever been series about justice and stuff
(plus it IS for kids, it doesn't have to be a thesis that covers all sides of a subject)
Its kinda like if they complained about show using lot of pink color. If they don't like color pink, it kinda feels weird they continue watching it expecting it to be less pink?
Yeah, that's about what I feel too every time I see complaints about that. I've seen people argue against those complaints by saying that not every villain gets redeemed, which is... true (like Eyeball, for instance, or Navy), but honestly, who cares? What's wrong with the series redeeming all its villains? That is kind of the general theme of the show, change and redemption and stuff. And, I dunno, I like that a lot, personally. I've always loved that, at the end of the day, what solves the conflicts in this show is compassion, and not superior fighting ability (even if there still is plenty of that in the show, haha). Not that I don't watch shows that prefer to beat its villains rather than redeeming them, but that's not what I watch this show for.
When we're done, there won't be anything left.I loved how Spinel took Steven Universe's normal issue with Your Size May Vary and just completely threw that out the window in-universe with her wacky shape-shifting. Her default height seems to be slightly shorter than Steven, but she casually bounces between that and Pearl's height constantly, and when she wants to be intimidating she can be taller than Garnet.
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I think it's like, more of a reaction/expectation based on other cartoons and other properties in general. There's always that one villain, that one Complete Monster, or even just a general jerk with no positive qualities who the heroes will defeat, kill, or just never make peace with. Steven Universe is one of the few, maybe even the only, work that shows all its antagonists are redeemable, or at least somewhat sympathetic.
...Though, technically, now that I think about it, SU does have its own irredeemable, not-at-all-sympathetic villain; Marty.
Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Sep 4th 2019 at 5:12:39 AM
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Kevin has Hidden Depths and Navy was stranded in space. What she did to Steven and co. was justified, if cruel.
I think the aversion to the redemption thing is kind of a reflection on our current times, where a lot of people are being reminded of or finding out for the first time that a lot of people IRL are just genuinely terrible and even if they wanted to turn a new leaf the things they've done are still essentially unforgivable and just something they have to live with.
It's that last point in particular that rubs people the wrong way about the diamonds. They're all pretty terrible people responsible for some deeply heinous things in the setting, and a lot of people see the parallels to our reality and feel that their treatment in the show comes across as far too forgiving. I get that space politics aren't the point of the show but I think it's ubderstandable to feel a bit displeased.
I still hate that the diamonds all got redeemed. I get that it's supposed to be an uplifting message that there's some good in everyone... and I can accept that idea, but I can't accept the idea that everyone will always act on their better nature if you just manage to reason with them. It's a moral that I find both naive and potentially destructive.
Thinking about this subject and how Steven Universe handles it has, weirdly, given me increased appreciation for How to Train Your Dragon 2. That movie got criticized for having the Family-Unfriendly Aesop that no, you can't just get the psychopathic murderer to turn good if you reason with him hard enough. A cynical message, perhaps, but it at least has the benefit of actually being true, in contrast to Steven Universe showing an immortal, mass-murdering dictator completely turning over a new leaf the instant her belief system is challenged.
In regards to the movie (which I did still like), I'd add that the Diamonds being redeemed also kind of creates a Just Eat Gilligan situation where it's not very clear why Steven doesn't turn to them for help. I think he brings up the possibility early on, but he never really gives much of a reason for why he doesn't. You'd think they'd easily be able to deactivate Spinel's device given that it's one of their old war machines.
I appreciate the themes of this series, but I don't necessarily agree with them.
I understand the series is heavy on idealism, and I respect it for sticking to it's guns under scrutiny. But it's kind of a harmful message to say that anyone can be redeemed just by talking with them. You can certainly de-escalate situations with words, but some confrontations are unfortunately unavoidable.
I'd probably prefer it IF they only resorted to force after they exhausted every other possible option.
Now granted, the antagonists of this series aren't really evil, they're just misguided or naive. But then you could argue that takes the bite out of the conflict.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I think White Diamond, at least, came off as pretty darn evil up until the moment she suddenly wasn't.
The thing is, though, I don't exactly take issue with the redemptions themselves on a case-by-case basis. Spinel's redemption was fine and relatively non-contrived, even if it was highly predictable. The reason I can accept most of them is because most of these characters are depicted as victims of a system that's beyond their control. Peridot, Jasper, Topaz, Spinel and others are characters who have been forced into playing a particular role within an oppressive hierarchal system that is obviously not designed to make them happy or let them enjoy their full potential. That's why one can have a degree of sympathy for them even at their worst, and be happy when they break away from the roles the Diamonds have set out for them.
That's also, I think, part of why White Diamond's (and to a lesser extent, Yellow and Blue's) redemption falls so utterly flat. Because she's not a victim in the way that the others were. She's the person who's created and perpetuated the system that was creating all this misery, for her own benefit and self aggrandisement. For thousands of years, I'll add.
I can see if a method is constantly used that people can grow bored with it. However, sometimes winning through force literally can't work. I think talking someone to redemption was the only way the Gems could even hope to defeat Yellow and Blue. Their (at the time) best fusion was defeated in a second, Rose's sword was caught and snapped like a twig, all their combined attacks was only enough to knock Blue to her knees (and really only after Steven hit her), a spaceship fell on her and she only had messy hair after that. Even Lapis with the ocean right there was completely straining just to hold Blue back. And this is before Yellow, who is assumed to be the better fighter due to her status as head of military, even got into the fight. And then Yellow comes in, does one move to a fellow diamond and knocks Steven out.
That's probably why Steven's goal was to talk to White as from past experience with Yellow and Blue that an actual fight was impossible to win. And it appears he had no plan after that if talking failed.
But it looks like most Gems are easily swayed by talk and emotions in general. Pearl and Amethyst hated each other for many years, they have a brief talk because of Steven and soon they are friends who can fuse on request as opposed to needing a dire situation. Gems feel like machines: change something in the procedure and they will follow that, acting like the previous procedure didn't happen.
-Witty line-In fairness Steven’s acceptance of the Diamonds is very very conditionally based on the idea that they need to fix the shit they broke. And even then he finds them a bit unbearable to actually be around
And the Diamonds have been stewing in their version of grief over Pink’s ‘death’ for six thousand years so once Steven proves his bona fides AND tells them ‘if you want me in your life you gotta shape up’ they Make The Attempt
Plus as Rebecca Sugar said, it’s a fantasy world where you can reason with your enemies
Forever liveblogging the Avengers

With the other characters, they've clearly been established elsewhere, but their character as relevant to the plot is self-evident. That's why most of the townsfolk go unvoiced and don't have their names mentioned even when they're not just in the background.
Even a lot of the times previous events did come up, it's in a more stripped-down way. For instance, Steven shows Amethyst all the paintings of her, but never brings in or even mentions Vidalia.