#*points at u* can YOU spot the symbolism and the fun meanings in this comic?

[phoenix-before-the-flame]

hello i had an idea once. Here is ur explanation for it

Ok goodbye

[dimonds456]

Gem Steven’s gem is flipped upside-down. (Theory/Speculation time!)

SPOILERS FOR @spudinacup’s SU AU “Gone Wrong”!

Also WARNING: long post!

So recently, someone pointed out that Steven has a scar on his torso going across his gem’s location, which I found interesting in and of itself. Makes sense, since he wasn’t able to heal it since he DIED and his gem was shoved out of his body before it got the chance to heal him. That slash mark is there now. Wow, neat! Nice detai-

Wait.

Hold on a sec.

Is his gem... flipped upside-down? Well, it’s been like this for a while, maybe it’s just a creative choi-

...oh.

This is VERY intentional.

So I did some digging, and found much more symbolism and possible foreshadowing, and now I want to throw out my theory about Gem Steven here, including his potential arc and character development. I’ll try to keep everything brief while still blowing your minds, and I’ll try to get across what my jumbled mind has come up with.

Spud please notice me.

I will not be uploading photos to go with everything I say (go reread the comic after this and verify for yourself what all I’ve said), but I’ll show visuals when they’re necessary. I do not claim ANY of this art as mine (I wish my art was this good ;u; ), all of it belongs to Spudinacup and their SU AU, which has all kinds of hidden symbolism, foreshadowing, and visual cues we haven’t picked up on yet, as I’ve just learned while researching this theory. This ain’t your run-of-the-mill AU, everything in here is intentional. Scott Spud doesn’t do coincidences. So I’ll point out that stuff in screenshots.

Okay let’s go.

SO! To begin with, let’s talk about why his gem may have flipped, and to realize that, we have to know when. We don’t see the gem much, but we do see it constantly through Chapter 1, where it is normal. The pentagon is pointed upward. However, in Chapter 2, this is where we see it flipped upside down. When did that happen? We didn’t see it. I believe it happened in that first scene in the bathroom, right after we left. The butterflies were swarming angrily, and Steven was very lost in thought.

Notice whenever those butterflies appear. They seem to show up every time he thinks about who he is. Is he still Steven, or is he someone else now? Steven is dead. Everyone is mourning him, trying to heal him, but Gem is still here. So if Steven is dead, but Gem is still alive, that must mean he isn’t Steven then, right? But then that undoes everything we learned in “Change Your Mind.” He IS Steven. He’s always been Steven. But that’s when they were together...

...And so the butterflies swarm.

Notice how the first one shows up when he looks at himself in the mirror. When you look in a mirror, you should see yourself, right? But who IS he? In the show, butterflies represent thoughts and ideas, mostly dark ones, disturbing ones, or ones you don’t want to think about. Well, he already spent WAY too long proving who he was, so now to do it again sucks.

But he isn’t Steven anymore. He’s on the couch being mourned. But he’s already proved he IS Steven before, and it’s this uncertainty that is making his mind swirl. I believe this is why he flipped his gem. Just upside-down, so it’s a small thing no one will notice, while he tries to figure it out. In doing so, he’s separated himself from “Steven”, as they’re not one and the same anymore, and the flipped gem shows this. He’s someone else right now. Maybe. He’s not sure.

So what do we call you for right now? Steven. He already proved he was Steven, so until he’s proved otherwise, Steven it is. Now he just has to figure out what exactly that name means and wether or not he still fits that quota.

Flipped gem/Pink Diamond imagery is EVERYWHERE, mostly hidden in drastic shadows or in panels. It’s things you don’t notice at first, until they’re staring you in the face. See if you can spot them from the 3 screenshots below.

There’s probably more hidden throughout the comic, these are just the ones I’ve found that I feel confident enough to show as hard evidence.

So, what does it all mean? We’ll talk about the screenshots in order, left to right.

First, the Diamond is hidden as the panel in the center. In it, Human Steven lies upside down while the gem-panel is technically upside right. This can be interpreted in a few ways, but what that means to me is that something isn’t right here. If you flip Steven back around so he’s upside right, the gem is now upside down. Notice Gem Steven looking towards his human half on the bottom panel there, clutching his shirt over his gem. It’s a motion we’ve seen Steven do a TON throughout the show, anytime he’s thinking about Rose/Pink, who he is, or complicated gem stuff as a whole. Because early on, his identity was always shrouded in shadow. THAT is Steven, on the couch, without his gem. So for Gem Steven to call himself Steven is inaccurate, but also not at the same time. It’s all swarming in his head, and thus, the gem is flipped.

Next, he’s just broken the rejuvenator. This was probably the hardest to spot of the three, but if you look at the panel where Bismuth asks “feel better?” you will see, in the background, a white line cut through the soft pink hues. Look closer. It’s the outline of the gem, but it’s flipped correctly this time. This is because Bismuth seems to be the only person NOT saying Steven is dead, and treating his gem half one and the same. Is she unnerved? Yeah, but who WOULDN’T be? This is still Steven we’re talking about, as emotionally blocked as he is. He’s aware of why everyone is being weird around him, so to see Bismuth trying her best to treat him with familiarity instead of a completely different, new, dangerous stranger is really calming and helps to calm the storm a bit.

Notice the gem is flipped correctly. This is because he feels like Steven right now. Bismuth has been constant confirmation that he is still Steven, no matter the circumstances. Notice how his eyes dialate back to a larger size. They do that a lot in the comic, articulating his emotions without changing the rest of his face. It’s a clever detail to keep track of. His eyes grow more relaxed, dialating bigger when she pats his shoulder, asking if he feels better after destroying the weapon that killed him. It’s a huge relief for him to hear. So, the gem is correct.

Finally, we see Bismuth telling Greg that his son is dead, which is very contradictory to what Bis was saying earlier (in Steven’s eyes). Where is the gem on that frame? Look at Steven’s shadow. There it is, facets and all. To us, the gem is correct, but think about it this way: if Steven were actually replaced with the gem in that frame, what would it look like, Pink’s or White’s? That’s right. The point is coming from his feet, meaning it would look more like White’s, meaning it is back to being flipped upside down. Again, Bismuth just said Steven is dead, meaning he’s back to questioning his whole entire identity. So it’s back to being flipped upside-down.

It seems that the orientation of the symbolic gems hidden throughout panels show quite clearly where his head is at in terms of who he is. If it’s upside down, he’s separating himself from the cold meatball on the couch, whereas when it’s normal/upside right, he is associating himself WITH the cold meatball on the couch.

Notice he’s been grabbing at his gem a lot recently, too, all things he does while in turmoil over who- or WHAT- he is. He cannot heal right now. He can’t use his powers. Some powers are new and unfamiliar (see the more recent pages where Lapis struck out with water and he blocked with those hexagonal shields/walls). “Steven HEALS people.” He can’t, so who is he?

This is something he’ll need to have an answer to by the time the comic is done, and this is a mission for Gem Steven and Gem Steven alone. If his human half were alive (and content without his gem), he’d probably call himself “Steven” no questions asked, since he GOT his answer already, two years ago. But Gem can’t do that, not when everyone keeps drawing all these lines between the two. He needs to learn what being “Steven” means, and know that he is a part of a greater whole, but on his own, he is STILL Steven. Everyone else needs to realize this, too, and stop separating the two. It’s gonna be rough, since it may feel like replacing what they lost, but is it really? It’s going to be a tough road to trek, and I don’t know what anyone’s answer is gonna be (that’s the big mystery here, after all), but I’m here for it.

Remember, all of this has been speculation on what may happen based on facts and clues Spud has presented us with. I’m not claiming to know how Gem Steven’s arc will end, but I am throwing my hat into the ring on where I THINK it will go. Either way, the foreshadowing, symbolism, and unspoken characterizations here have been excellent, and I’m looking forward to seeing everything play out. Spud, your mind is incredible, and whatever you’ve got planned over there, I’m confident the answer will be satisfactory.

I’ll shut up now. Thank you for reading this huge meta post, and go read Spud’s comic. You can find it at @suaugonewrong or on Spud’s Tumblr, which was linked above. If you think I’m wrong or have a counter argument, bring it. Let’s talk, cause this is genuinely interesting and fun to dissect. I wanna talk about it OwO

Thank you. You may now continue scrolling.

[jeonjeonggukenergy]

Anti-Hero

summary ~ in search of wine at a party that’s so not your scene, you run into jungkook, the weeb from your film class, and become determined to learn just how much he lives up to his big reputation.

pairing ~ jungkook x reader

genre ~ fluff, light smut w/ more to come - college!au

wordcount ~ 1.7k

warnings ~ light smut, drinking/partying, mentions of dick?, basically just making out, feat. long hair jk :)))))

a/n ~ this is my first time posting a fic!!! costume idea inspired by @ddaenggtan‘s iconic weeb-ass jk in chasing butterflies lol, and I got the idea to write this in general from wondering what a scenario like @joonbird​‘s literally flawless fic passionfruit would be like from the opposite perspective bc I kept reading it (and rereading it...and rereading it...) and loving the connection but I’m much more like joon in that au than the reader oooop. anyway thank you to all the writers on here whose work i have loved and my friends who have encouraged me and made me bold enough to embrace such a fun new creative outlet xxx u know who u are :’)

next: chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 (coming soon!) 

~ read on ao3 ~

CHAPTER 1 ~ dress up

You never intended to end up at this Halloween party. You didn't even know who to expect to see here, other than your roommate's friend from high school, the host, who had invited y'all as a package deal even though she knew you didn't really do parties. At least not ones like hers, where every bedroom ended up occupied by the end of the night and nearly no one went home alone. Thrilled to break out of your lame group of friends for a taste of flirtation and fun, you tried to relax into the scene but the unspoken expectation of casual sex intimidated you the tiniest bit.

Speaking of casual sex, there was Jungkook.

Used to admiring him from afar in your "14 Films To See Before You Graduate" class, you paused to take in the sight of him in what you supposed was a more natural habitat. Everyone knew Jungkook got girls, thanks to the rumor his first freshman-year hookup had started about his seriously impressive dick. He had a beautiful body too, carefully crafted muscles obvious even beneath his usual baggy black clothes, so as the more intimate rumors spread and various co-signers confirmed every detail from length to curve to (you had always hated this word, but...) girth, getting a piece of all that became a badge of honor among the girls in your grade. You had never really understood how the awkward boy who hid manga under his desk in class could supposedly be such a sex symbol, but you almost felt bad for him. That kind of reputation following you around everywhere couldn't be all fun and games. If anything, though, it had intrigued you even more about the rest of him, all his little weeb quirks and the way he debated your points in the discussion boards like he actually cared. He wasn't exactly studious in general, but he clearly loved film and you enjoyed speaking up in class just to see how he would jump off of your observations. You hadn't really talked to him other than that, but he didn't seem to be talking to anyone else tonight either. From the corner, you let yourself appreciate the way his nervous hands tugged at the skinny black tie of his costume, freeing more of his throat from a thin yellow button-down shirt.

At least you no longer felt overdressed in your Nancy Drew outfit. The retro headband, brown loafers, and bookish plaid knee-length skirt set a much more sophisticated tone than most other ensembles you'd seen, but Jungkook's weeb ass had basically worn a full suit to channel Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. With his grown-out hair tousled and a navy pinstripe jacket cinched tight with two strips of electrical tape over his tiny waist, you couldn't deny that he rocked it. He leaned against a long plastic table left in the hallway, bobbing his head to the music in the next room and adjusting the too-slim suit pants around his thick thighs. His translucent cup stayed hidden behind a hip until he raised it quickly to his face for another sip of...red wine? Probably Franzia, knowing tonight's crowd, but anything was better than beer. You made a beeline for the one boy with taste at this party, your sole mission now to get wine drunk, sneak some Usher throwbacks on this playlist, and drop it low enough to leave some dude hard on the dance floor. #wastehistime2019, yknow.

"Hey!" You got his attention, grabbing the hand with the cup before he could lower it out of view again. His eyes grew comically wide and his mouth formed an "o" in shock before you demanded "Where is the wine?" and he pressed his lips back into a line, stuttering.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I just brought a bottle because the beer here sucks but I think it's all gone by now, I tried to hide it but yeah anyway you can have the rest of this one if you want though." Wincing at his own ramble, he ruffled the retro pouf of his hair with one hand and proffered the plastic cup in another. Both actions highlighted how pretty his hands were and you were just slightly tipsy enough to thread your fingers over his in the also-pretty black waves falling over his yep-still-just-as-pretty cheekbones.

"Aw, it's okay, I don't want to take your wine. No more liquid courage for me," you grinned, dotting the lightest kiss on his nose. It was an innocent gesture, but as your face naturally lowered so your noses touched, leaving your lips centimeters away from each other, something snapped—in him.

His wine discarded on the table, a hand curled around to clutch your ass and you practically felt his tongue before you felt his lips. Slamming your body abruptly into his, he nudged a thigh between your legs to grind it up on your center and as your arm got caught between your bodies, the tension you sensed filling his frame gave you pause. You pushed him away gently but firmly with the hand already flattened against his rock-solid abs. Looking down at the slight space restored between y'all, you removed his hands from his hair and your ass and laced them in yours to guide him back against the wall.

"I...what was that?" you almost giggled. You definitely weren't trying to laugh at him, but you couldn't hide your surprise at this first potential proof of his fuckboy reputation.

"I'm—" his whole face crumpled, both from the simple sting of your seeming rejection and the possibility that he had broken a boundary or forced himself on you against your wishes, which made him so sick he could barely face you. Squirming under your light hold but not quite resisting, he rambled again: "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to force myself on you or anything, don't worry I would never try anything if you didn't want to, I just figured we might as well get to the point if you did because, uh...when girls touch me like that or even talk to me at these things it's pretty much always just because they...want to."

"Jungkook," you breathed, pulsing your hands over his in reassurance. He squeezed his eyes shut, still distraught, and when they opened, you had craned your neck to meet his averted gaze.

"I never said I didn't want to."

His eyes widened again. "Uh...uh...then..." he trailed off, never having needed to directly proposition a girl like this before. He really had been inexperienced before the rapid escalation of college, and was at a loss for how to get to the good stuff from here via anything more eloquent than a rushed "Wanna fuck?" You shook your head silently, nose grazing his again, and let go of one hand to cup his face with care, like he was something precious you were scared of breaking.

"What? You want to get right to fucking me?" you murmured into his ear. He shivered at hearing you curse for the first time, freed from the constraints of class discussions and closer than he ever guessed you'd get to him. "Is that really what you want? Or is it what you think I do? Because if it's alright, I think I want something better. For you."

You pressed a new kiss to his nose, only slightly stronger than the one that had started all this. He held his breath and his untouched, open mouth trembled as you scattered soft introductions of your lips across his forehead, to his temples, over the scar that sliced his cheekbone. Finally inhaling a skittery heave of your shared air as you passed closer to his lips, he forced it back out in frustration when you ducked away to nudge under his jaw instead. Returning your hand to his hair, you grinned, enjoying the spike in his pulse under your thumb and skipping the tip of your tongue lightly over his neck right up to the earlobe. You lifted the choppy ends of his waves away from the dangly silver hoop they hid, tensing the strands just slightly between your fingers in an inability to hide your glee. Something told you this was going to drive him crazy.

Taking a slight detour to suck his pierced lobe between your lips, you responded to Jungkook’s low moan of surprise by wedging your tongue through the first oversized hole and letting your teeth clatter over multiple rings of metal. He was trying so hard to stay pliant under you, but the tease of slight pain in a new and unusual spot made him want your mouth more, anywhere he could get it. No one had ever spent this much time tracing so few inches of skin.

And so many girls had buried his face in their necks, craving evidence of an encounter with the Jeon Jungkook, that a strange kind of empathy caught him off guard when you showed him how good it could feel to receive. You connected your lips to the hollow right under his ear, feeling the tendons stretch as his head lolled away from you. Working him through a cascade of light gasps, you stepped away satisfied once you had sucked a dark bloom to the surface. He watched you leave with his mouth agape and chest heaving, unable to believe you could just walk away with a wave and a "See you in class!"

But you did, and he would.

"Shit!" he swore, a shaky hand darting straight to the spot. Now he had to keep his hair long for at least another two or three days. If he showed up to discussion on Monday and had to watch you admiring your work on his skin, he would probably just die on the spot. And that would not be very Spike Spiegel of him.

next chapter

[arenatechgq-blog]

Tech regret: most exceedingly bad devices we at any point purchased Close experiences with mechanical abominations.

As much as we adore innovation, it can likewise be a killjoy. With each awful contraption buy, however occasional, we're reminded that chip-based living things are frosty and unconcerned. A touchscreen demands you tapped a full inch to one side from the symbol you intended to hit; a tablet turns up its fan as the hard drive declines to yield a Word archive; a voice recorder depletes its 4 AAs, spots the edges of its lips, and kicks the bucket for the third time today.

Contraptions that willfully decline to work the way the manual, promotions, bundling, or imperceptibly capable business people said they would ought not be endured peacefully. Here, we exorcize the mechanical devils that have brought us genuine contraption torment in the course of the most recent couple of decades.

The 3Com Ergo Audrey, via Sean Gallagher

About a similar time 3Com was setting itself up for the scrapheap of history by turning off its Palm division, the organization chosen to get into the Internet "apparatus" business. Its first and final endeavor was the Ergo Audrey, an adorable little Internet terminal styled like a retro-cutting edge TV, finish with a translucent stylus that stuck in the highest point of it like an antenna.The Audrey was an endeavor to bring what the organization called the "Internet way of life" to the kitchen counter—giving occupied families a place to match up their Palms, check email, leave jotted electronic notes, and by and large live as any millennial rendition of the Jetsons would, short the robot pooch and house keeper. I never met any individual who really lived like that in 2001, which may have been an indication that the Audrey was stuck in an unfortunate situation.

As adorable as the thing seemed to be—it arrived in a palette of kitchen-accommodating hues that included "daylight" and "knoll," and was wipe cleanable—it was especially futile for something that cost nearly as much as a genuine PC. When you paid $60 additional for the USB Ethernet connector to get it snared to broadband, it had one USB port left for a Palm or an extremely select arrangement of perfect Canon printers. It had a Compact Flash port, however that couldn't be utilized for capacity. Its email customer couldn't deal with anything more than 400k. It had 32MB of RAM—and that was it. There was a handle on the front for Web "channels," sites worked by 3Com's companions at ABC and different organizations who were by one means or another persuaded to arrangement them only for the Audrey.

Luckily, I recovered mine in the container to 3Com preceding they euthanized the entire line only seven months after dispatch. You can even now discover them for $50 or so on eBay in the event that you need to take a gander at what the future used to resemble. Be that as it may, even the equipment programmers have become worn out on them at this point.

Broderbund U-Force NES controller, by Kyle Orland

The TV ad was gravely lit and amazingly anxious, yet in the wake of watching it about one million times amid reruns of Wild and Crazy Kids, eight-year-old me was almost certain he could tell that the U Force was the best thing at any point concocted. See, that person's holding his hands like a controlling wheel to control Rad Racer! See, he's really punching the air to make Little Mac punch in Punch-Out!! Despite the fact that Back to the Future revealed to me I shouldn't need to utilize my hands, and the U-Force obliged you to utilize your hands, I could tell this was the eventual fate of computer games.

It cost me $60 of remittance cash (which changing for child recompense swelling is worth around 10 bazillion dollars today) to discover that notices don't generally speak to reality totally precisely. No doubt, I could hand the auto over Rad Racer, however just on the off chance that I held my hands amazingly still before me and moved them right when I needed to turn. Better believe it, utilizing genuine punches in Punch-Out!! was fun, yet the controller was far too ease back and finicky to take into account dependable avoiding, even against a regrettable adversary like Glass Joe.

Besides, waggling your arms to do each easily overlooked detail in an amusement was entirely tiring and irritating. In any event with present day movement controlled amusements for the Wii or Kinect, fashioners know this and can attempt to plan around it, ideally with regular breaks. With the U Force, I discovered that recreations intended for steady catch crushing don't act too when each catch press require a gigantic arm development.

I'm almost certain I tossed this in the junk not long after my first play session, which is somewhat of a disgrace, on the grounds that eBay venders are obviously approaching $90 for units in "great" condition. Trust me, that offering cost would have been the main genuine esteem I escaped the buy.

IBM Thinkpad, by Matthew LasarIn the mid-1990s I bought an IBM Thinkpad. Everybody was raving about them (and heaps of people rave about them still). Be that as it may, for reasons unknown, mine was just about the most exceedingly bad Tablet I have ever claimed.

How could it come up short? Give me a chance to tally the ways. Programming would not introduce on the Windows-fueled machine. Despite everything I have 3.5 inch circle loaded memories of more than once attempting to get MS Word to stack up on the gadget, with strange disappointment messages that drove me insane. Whenever, bafflingly once more, the product did at last introduce, my bigger records perpetually smashed, the OS whining about lacking memory.

Despite the fact that my agreement asserted to incorporate specialized support by means of a phone number, the refined man logician with whom I talked was evidently paid not to help me with this issue, but rather to offer me sympathies. "It may be the equipment," he pontificated. "It may be the product."

"On the other hand, maybe the air is to be faulted," I snapped, before hanging up the telephone.

This was just the start. The modem bombed, so I took it over to that most perilous of spots: a PC guarantee repair warehouse. That shop was claimed by, tsk-tsk, Computer City, destined to be gained by CompUSA. After three weeks I got the machine. The modem worked fine; shockingly, the printer and outside speaker at no time in the future worked.

I considered bringing the clunker back, yet by 1998 the chain's new proprietor had covered around 50 Computer City stores, including the one I managed. The time had come, I closed, to proceed onward to my next huge equipment experience.

Nextel i30sx, by Casey Johnston

It's sheltered to state now that Nextel, as a system, had for all intents and purposes no saving graces from the begin, which is the reason it doesn't exist any longer. Be that as it may, one of its most unpleasant perspectives was its handset offerings. Because of conditions outside my ability to control, in 2004 (t-short three years to the iPhone), I was honored with a mobile phone that was very unequipped for sending an instant message: the Nextel i30sx.

Up until I was 16, I didn't have a wireless. I wasn't generally craving for one, even as my companions moved on from playing Centipede on their Nokia piece of candy telephones to taking the soonest wireless pictures (sexting, luckily, presently couldn't seem to be imagined by our more youthful siblings and sisters). In the fall of junior year, my folks gave me an i30sx. I was spurned by its outline: revolting and thick, with rubbery keys, an extending reception apparatus, and monochrome screen.

To be consummately fashionable person y about it, content informing was not yet A Thing in 2004. Be that as it may, I had general telephone discussion nervousness, so content was (and is) a perfect medium of expression. Sadly, dissimilar to each other phone in I found in my associates' hands, the i30sx couldn't send instant messages. Peculiarly, however, it could get them. I couldn't exactly trust my own particular memory this was the situation, however the telephone's manual (PDF) ends up being valid—some board of trustees configuration group really thought one-way informing was a totally down to earth highlight.

I worked out a framework where I could content companions' telephones from AIM, and they would react to my Nextel telephone number, however that was excessively firm. A couple of months after the fact, I dragged away to the AT&T store and purchased a Sony Ericsson pay-as-you-run telephone with my well deserved, supermarket checkout dollars. Finally, I could send all the instant messages I needed—for 10 pennies a pop.

ThunderScan, by Nate Anderson

In the mid-to-late 1980s, when I was a small fellow with an Apple IIGS and a duplicate of Publish It!, I supervised a distributing domain that produced sci-fi stories, a sci-fi pamphlet, and comical sci-fi themed sees for the way to my room. (I know...) They all spilled, line by sluggish line, from my 9-stick, dab network ImageWriter II.

My distributing domain had a lot of yield, however information was another matter. I had a console for content, obviously, yet what's a self-regarding distributer with no pictures? I persuaded myself—and after that my father—that I severely required a scanner.

Presently, kids today don't see how hard scanners were to return by then, or the amount they cost. In any case, there was one alternative that may conceivably, with enough dissensions about how gravely my production was enduring according to its 15 perusers, be reasonable on our tight family spending plan: the ThunderScan.

The ThunderScan was astounding. It supplanted the print head in an ImageWriter II with a little optical scanner. Pages to be examined were sustained through the printer and the filtering head moved back and drive over the page, developing a picture that was exchanged to the PC by a link trailing out of the machine like a tail.

Shockingly, not being a marvelous craftsman, I didn't really have my very own lot work to filter, and the apparatuses for controlling pictures were primitive at the time. At that point there was the bother calculate. You needed to remove the scanner from the case, supplant the print head, and module the link each time you needed to utilize it, then start up the checking programming that may or won't not push my PC to the brink of collapse. Moreover, the ThunderScan reclassified "moderate." As early Apple build Andy Hertzfeld reviews.