#And YES it makes perfect sense narratively for Connie and Greg to be his first and second human fusions

[crossover-enthusiast]

I feel like I'm the only person that thinks the human characters should have been in SU more

[faelapis]

what do you think of how lapis left the moon base?

i’m pretty happy about it! i was worried they were gonna have her decide that Friendship Matters Most, but they didn’t. they didn’t avoid her problems, and i appreciate that.

i’ve seen posts about how, if steven had hid his diamond dream from lapis, it would have all worked out. she’d come back to earth… but uh. that’s kinda the point? i don’t want steven to shield lapis from anything uncomfortable. he and peridot have already done that. a LOT. they’ve been so concerned with seeing her as the Traumatized Person who Cannot be Upset in Any Way, that they refuse to confront her with difficult choices. or admit her faults. or address them. so she can grow as a person.

it makes sense with the characters, yes… but. that’s why you need a payoff like this: steven, through his own mistake, sets lapis off and is explicitly told - by lapis herself - that she is not like him and his friends.

she is not going to fight for earth, even if she cares about him and peridot. her priority is herself. because - and this is the kicker - rather than helping lapis become a better person, peridot and steven both assumed she already was. they assumed challenging her would just Upset Her.

this is why peridot’s reform arc worked so well: there was a lot of gentleness, and a lot of hope. however. steven was honest when he was upset with her. he didn’t dismiss it when she did something harmful. a good example of this is “too far”: steven directly calls her out for hurting amethyst’s feelings, and - while we understand where peridot is coming from and why she acts this way - she is challenged as a character. she has to apologize.

that never happens to lapis.

not once.

even when she feels guilty about her actions, steven doesn’t say anything. he’s too scared. he doesn’t want to deal with lapis as a flawed person. he’s too hyper-fixated on her trauma to address her faults. he knows what she’s been through, and he’s gotten used to making excuses for her when she does harmful crap.

”the message” is a perfect example of this: greg has gotten his leg broken by lapis. she stole the earth’s ocean, for her own sake, and tried to kill steven and connie. most people would agree that - after all of that - he has the right to write her a diss track. but all steven heard were the words “super mean”, and he decides whooops, that’s too far.

his response song - “lapis lazuli” - is the embodiment of how he sees her: her motivation. her feelings. there is not a single line about her actions. greg’s trauma is secondary. the only allusion to what she did with those feelings was that lapis was “so mad, but then you came around to me”.

and that makes sense for steven! this isn’t a callout post for him - lapis was his first “project”. i think he attaches some of his own self-esteem to being able to handle her.

both times steven have set lapis off about a threat - the diamonds - it’s been through assuming lapis would be a lot more reasonable than she is. he basically saw her as a Crystal Gem Lite: someone with her own issues, but who would always save the day.

so… to hide his dream from her would have been to give lapis a freebie she didn’t deserve. instead of hand-waving her conflict - again, by having steven lie to her, for her own comfort, which was apparently a thing people wanted? - she is confronted with a choice. and she leaves.

because at this point, lapis lazuli is so emotionally volatile that even the idea of a threat sets her survival instinct off. this forces her to look inside herself and choose that her own survival is what matters most, even if that isolates her. and that’s a good thing.

because lapis should, yknow. have her flaws acknowledged. and it makes sense. it’s a direct consequence of not just what happened to her, but what she’s done wrong. how peridot responded. how steven responded.

at this point in time, she chooses survival over confronting her demons.

of course, i’m not saying that lapis is bereft of hope, or that steven is responsible for her choices. that would be silly. he’s just a nice boy who wants to help. it’s her, not him, and she’s coming back someday.

but the reason i’m often “harder” on her than on other characters is because she’s in a very unique position. for all intents and purposes - to steven - lapis is season one rose. she is someone he refuses to confront. he does not want to think anything bad of her. if someone suggests otherwise, they are Mean and Wrong, and should just hand the “phone” (narrative) to him.

for steven, lapis remains an idol of innocence. just as rose was. she just sits upon a throne of victimhood rather than a throne of heroism.

this is why she is not reformed yet. steven didn’t think she needed to be.

[aion-rsa]

Why Ares is the Perfect Movie Villain For Wonder Woman

With the news that Ares will likely be the main villain of “Wonder Woman,” the picture of the Warner Bros. feature is beginning to come into focus, and it all makes sense not only from the perspective of the iconic superheroine, but also from that of the DC Extended Universe to this point.

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Ares has been a Wonder Woman foe right from the beginning, more than 75 years ago. While that history is important, what’s more significant is what Ares represents from a narrative standpoint. Before we get into that, however, let’s first refresh everyone’s memory about just who Ares is in conjunction with the Wonder Woman story.

There are basically three distinct Ares over the years.

The first debuted in 1942’s “Wonder Woman” #1, although he went by his Roman name Mars, and played an instrumental role in the creation of the Amazons, as he and Aphrodite basically warred against each other, with him using men and Aphrodite using women. It was Mars who was responsible for Hercules conquering the Amazons.

However, interestingly enough, this original view of Mars was dropped pretty much after the first issue, and from that point forward, he was more of a traditional supervillain, who even had a base on the planet Mars.

Following 1985’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” however, when George Perez, Greg Potter and Len Wein rebooted Wonder Woman, Ares was a major villain and this time, he was more of a behind-the-scenes mover and shaker. In the first major storyline in “Wonder Woman,” Ares pushed the United States and the Soviet Union toward war. Ultimately, Wonder Woman revealed to him the folly of his ways in “Wonder Woman” #6 by using her Lasso of Truth to show him what the end game was for his way of life.

After seeing how awful things would be if he ever actually succeeded, he then insisted that Wonder Woman serve to avoid that fate at all costs by making sure that the world never falls into a world war. So yes, the god of war actually demanded that Wonder Woman keep the world at peace! With that said, though, as the years went by, he slid a bit from that initial position and he became more and more of a thorn in Wonder Woman’s side, to the point where, during writer Gail Simone’s run on the series, Wonder Woman even ended up killing Ares!

Finally, there’s the New 52 version of Ares courtesy of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang. Here, Ares is a mentor to Wonder Woman and specifically chose her to carry on as “War” once he was finished.

As the end of their run, that’s exactly what happened: Wonder Woman became the goddess of war.

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Now, when looking at the upcoming “Wonder Woman” film, we can probably discount the Azzarello take on Ares, However, surprisingly enough, some of the reports make it sound like the Golden Age Ares might actually play a similar role, in the sense that he may have been indirectly responsible for the creation of the Amazons, as a response by Zeus to his initial creation of the god of war. In other words, Zeus is displeased with what happened when he made Ares, so he created the Amazons to be better versions of his initial approach, and Ares has vowed revenge on them ever since. That’s an interesting take on the old origins of the Amazons, and a clever twist on one of the best aspects of Wonder Woman’s mythos, which is the way it is connected to Greek mythology (this is a link that’s lasted throughout all the various incarnations of Wonder Woman over the years, albeit in different forms).

While that aspect of Ares might be part of the film, it’s the Perez-era incarnation that seems most similar to the one that will appear in the film (as portrayed by Danny Huston): someone who’s working behind the scenes to make sure that World War I becomes much more than just the “Great War.”

That manipulative, war-mongering Ares is the one that really works well for the character of Wonder Woman. When you have someone considered a champion of peace like Wonder Woman, then having her foe as the god of war is a perfect contrast. It was a brilliant innovation of Perez, Potter and Wein to present Ares that way in post-“Crisis” “Wonder Woman,” so we hope that’s how he is portrayed in the film (not that we would object to seeing Huston take Ares from behind the scenes to the forefront in a scene or two, wearing his famous armor, of course).

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However, even more specifically, up until this point, the DC Extended Universe has followed a basic argument of “the only way to defeat war is with more war.” That’s not abnormal for superhero films, of course, as most of the Marvel Studios feature follow this path as well. In other words, the bad guys cause war, but the only way to defeat them is to use a war of your own. Zod declares war on Metropolis, Superman declares war on Zod. Hydra declares war on S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. declares war on Hydra. Here, however, if the villain of the piece is the idea of war itself, we might see the rare superhero film where war is not simply answered with even more war (“Doctor Strange” and its classic final victorious negotiation is another rare example of winning without escalation). Of course, since we know that Wonder Woman has pretty much given up as a hero by the time she shows up in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which is roughly a hundred years after the events of the “Wonder Woman” film, it is likely that whatever approach that Wonder Woman used during World War I did not end up with her in a good place. Hopefully, though, it is not a message of “peace cannot stop war.”

Therefore, with the use of Ares as the film’s villain, the movie gets to use the Greek myths as a significant backdrop for the film, while also pitting a hero of peace against a villain of war, all the while making the film stand on its own footing against all the other standard superhero plots that we have seen over the years. That is why Ares really works as the perfect villain for this movie.

Directed by Patty Jenkins, “Wonder Woman” stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, Lucy Davis, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Saïd Taghmaoui and David Thewlis. The film opens June 2.

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