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love-takes-work · 3 years

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Notes on SU Commentary Tracks

I watched the commentary tracks on the Complete Steven Universe DVD Set and I took some nerd notes.

The episodes with commentary tracks are “Reunited,” “Change Your Mind,” and “The Future.”

I’ll bold stuff that was maybe bigger news or more surprising for easier reading. And yes, some of this was already known from podcasts, other Q&As, or interviews, but I listed it if they said it again here.

Read on after the jump to read these and other highlights:

Steven’s original wedding speech

Older ideas on dialogue for Lapis when she came back to the beach

Scrapped concepts for the scene that ultimately included Steven communicating with the others in a mindscape

Discussions of earlier concepts for White Diamond having a power to “freeze” Gems into statues to make them perfect and having a gallery of them on Homeworld

Pink Pearl’s original fate

The translation of the writing on Obsidian’s sword

The origin of Pink Steven’s design

What Rebecca did to pitch the “SHE’S GONE” scene

Earlier plans to include Shep in “Change Your Mind”

An unused concept of how Steven feels about Biggs

The inspiration for the Heaven and Earth Beetles’ healed design

How Volleyball/Pink Pearl was almost a mini-villain

Discussion of how they did not get to share the origin of the Diamonds

Jasper’s scrapped participation in the movie

“Reunited” -

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

In 2015, an episode idea called “If You Love Yourself So Much” was discussed but rejected. It included some early ideas that ended up getting incorporated into “Reunited,” most notably Garnet marrying herself and putting rings on both hands.

The idea of the Cluster arm wrestling was planned for a long time. A scrapped idea of Steven banging his fist on a vending machine to get some Chaaaaps was supposed to visually parallel some of that scene, but it was axed.

When they got pushback on the wedding idea, they kept adding more and more “high entertainment value” items like a big musical number so the episode would be absolutely unmissable and appealing to everyone.

The song at the beginning of the episode was meant to check in with the entire cast and sort of remind you they exist and what their state of mind is going into the wedding.

Ian made a comment joking about “All 15 people in Beach City” being in the audience.

Just about everyone on the Crew touched this episode, despite that there are four main storyboarders credited for “Reunited.”

In 2016 Ian Jones-Quartey proposed marriage to Rebecca Sugar. They felt like the characters based on them (Sapphire and Ruby) HAD to get married in the show now because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. But then their characters got married before they did.

They really love the idea of having characters get married who have known each other for a really long time, versus the fairy tale trope of movies ending with weddings between people who have met very recently.

Steven’s speech as officiator at the wedding used to be longer in its first draft--it was described as being weird and full of jokes, and there would have been a scene with Pearl getting weepy and pulling tissues out of her pearl.

Ian mentions loving a joke Jeff came up with having Greg play one chord to make Steven fall asleep--it’s sort of a “dream” chord you hear in cartoons a lot before a dream sequence.

The Crew discussed what it might be like if someone had never seen the show before and started with this episode.

Ian really wanted Steven’s psychic powers to figure into the episode.

Blue using a sadness wave to attack the Gems was a very old idea they’d planned for a long time. So was Lapis’s arrival.

There was a discussion of having Lisa Hannigan performing her lines as Blue VERY early in the morning.

Ian was happy the sword got broken because it was so momentous but it was just a sword. And later appeared on a shelf in the house as an artifact.

Miki had drawn a torn dress for Garnet at one point so she could be shown fighting and moving around more accurately, and this led to a long discussion of whether Gem clothing can even actually get torn the way human clothes can. They concluded that no, it shouldn’t be torn, so they backed up and gave Garnet an open-front dress from the beginning so the fighting version would make more sense.

Lapis originally might have had a longer speech upon arriving back on the beach. They eventually decided to just have her say “Hey.”

The barn falling on Blue Diamond was an intentional Wizard of Oz reference.

They point out that Steven even once said “drop the barn on the beach” (in a previous episode, “Can’t Go Back,” which was also a Miki episode).

Destroying the house was a big deal, and they always thought they’d end up doing it but backed away from it until “Reunited.” They almost even did it back in “Coach Steven”! But it just ended up with a little damage to the porch.

The Crew thinks Miki is really good at drawing ensemble shots.

Rebecca was always overwhelmed whenever she got to have Patti LuPone record for Yellow.

Originally the giant figures of everyone’s statue bodies in the mindscape were too dark and had to be revamped so they could be seen.

An earlier idea of Steven’s “psychic-ghost-situation” had him as a ghost actually trying to interact with the other characters during fighting action, but it was pulled back to this mindscape so there wouldn’t be as much confusing action to keep track of and more focus on what Steven was doing to encourage his teammates and contact the Diamonds.

Hilary was glad not to have to block out a fight.

Ian mentions loving having Bismuth back in the group.

They originally wanted the “Diamonds sensing Pink’s energy” plot to happen when Steven was in the palace somehow, but everything got moved to this scene--which the Crew all agrees turned out incredible, like how cool it was to have Steven essentially reminding each character why they fight and summing up their whole arc in a sentence.

“Change Your Mind”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

They like to refer to this episode as “The movie before the movie.”

They loved incorporating “princess tropes” into Steven’s time on Homeworld, which is why there were so many references to “mice” (well, Pebbles) making clothes, being locked in a tower, being reminded of his manners, loving animals and freeing imprisoned pets, etc.

Deedee did the voice of the rainbow worm pet. She apparently didn’t find it memorable and was surprised when she was reminded she did the voice.

Rebecca was super excited for the confrontation with Blue.

There was some discussion of how Steven would have died of starvation if he didn’t have someone practical like Connie to remember to bring food.

They love working with the huge scale the Diamonds present.

The Crew always wanted to put someone in Blue’s hair loop. Originally they wanted Blue to tuck Greg in there when she kidnapped him, but they didn’t end up being able to do any hair-loop-carrying until this episode.

The Crew bantered back and forth about what the heck those Pebbles’ names were and how hard it was to track them.

They agreed that Paul draws the best Yellow Diamond, which makes sense since he also drew the first episode with Yellow (and her stink face).

The scene where Yellow asks Blue to stop using her powers on her and then realizing she’s crying on her own was one of Rebecca’s favorite scenes to get to finally.

Steven Sugar thought Gems would spend a lot of time in their own chambers/rooms just not really doing much of anything unless they had to fulfill their purpose.

Some of the Homeworld ideas were based on a Soviet artist’s concepts, Boris Artzybasheff, and also many ideas were inspired by Busby Berkeley regarding how people were objects and furniture.

The mech was an old idea. Once they had the hand ship from “Jailbreak,” they knew there had to be bodies somewhere.

They focused a lot about what could be the coolest and funniest way for something to happen. The concept of the yellow and blue spaceship arms appearing out of the sky to smack the White Diamond mech around was one of those.

Rebecca really wanted things to look more and more cartoony and bizarre as you get deeper into Homeworld.

They spent a very long time trying to decide on characters’ new outfits.

The trash can lid is said to be a reference to “a flying bear cartoon” and they dance around speaking a direct reference because they’re not sure they’re allowed to say its name.

In discussing the powers of the Diamonds, there were debates on what White’s power would be; with Yellow being physicality-based and Blue being emotion-based, they thought White as identity-based made the most sense.

Different ways to express this were played with before settling on the idea that she thinks she’s perfect and others’ colors make them less like her and less perfect. But then she becomes a hostage to her own beliefs about herself because if she does anything that reflects on everyone else, so it’s best to do nothing.

They had some cool earlier ideas of White’s powers making statues out of other Gems and having a gallery full of frozen Gems, frozen by White to make them perfect.

They also weren’t sure what fate befell the original Pink Pearl and discussed whether she might have been destroyed.

Rebecca discussed how creepy it was to have White Pearl speaking in Christine’s voice and not Deedee’s--that we should find it fundamentally disturbing at this point.

Tom Herpich came up with the crack on White Pearl’s face.

In real life, pink diamonds aren’t understood as well as yellows and blues. It’s more known what makes a diamond yellow or blue, and some of those facts Rebecca researched were originally woven into the speech White gave about their “impurities.” But it turned out to be too dry and most of it got cut.

Rebecca loves having Lapis with pants and sandals for easier cosplay.

Ian had to draw the scene where Steven is falling and fusing with inert characters--he wasn’t able to properly explain it to Rebecca so she had him draw it.

They really wanted Rainbow Quartz 2.0 to have a scarf, but they couldn’t figure out how to get that into Pearl’s design. They miss the scarf.

It was really important to have these Fusions display call-forwards of the Gems’ new outfits which we hadn’t yet seen.

Rebecca points out that Sunstone’s design breaks a design rule and she feels like Sunstone should have Garnet’s pant leg colors on their legs, but at the same time she understands the rule of cool and likes it like this.

It’s discussed how none of Steven’s fusion weapons are exclusively offensive weapons either.

Rebecca still really wants a suction cup Sunstone toy.

Sunstone’s ability to transcend reality and break the fourth wall was a joke that exploded in the discussion room among the Crew. As soon as the idea was pitched everyone kept coming up with ideas. Sardonyx’s fourth-wall-breaking is more snarky, but Sunstone’s is helpful.

Rebecca was disappointed that the rule about Steven’s clothes wasn’t always followed with having his clothes appear on Obsidian’s hand, but she was delighted that you could see them in one scene.

They spent a lot of discussion time on making sure Steven-Obsidian was different somehow from Rose-Obsidian. The hair is different.

Old versions of Obsidian were drawn with wrapped-together Twizzlers legs, which sort of is reflected in the present design.

The sword had been planned forever--and it first appeared in “Bubble Buddies.”

Miki worked on the Ninja Turtles show so Rebecca was really excited to see her depictions of Bismuth and Sunstone.

An early plan to have Obsidian draw the sword from their mouth was complicated because fusion weapons should be combinations, so they finally reached the solution of having them combine to make the hilt, then get the blade out of Obsidian’s mouth.

The blade of the sword is thought to say “We’ll always save the day,” but you’d have to ask Steven Sugar.

Another really old idea was climbing into the White Diamond mech eye.

Rebecca was disappointed that some of the merch made of White Diamond did not feature her cape sparkles.

There were many debates early on about where Rose might “actually” be. There were tons of references to this fundamental question throughout the show--introducing Lapis as a Gem trapped in an object, having Pearl ponder pulling Steven’s Gem out as a baby, straight-up wondering what would happen to him in “Bubbled” when Eyeball was trying to take his Gem, etc. They all decided Rose was definitely gone but that the idea of her possibly being inside him should be on his mind a lot, leading to disturbing images like dreaming about coughing up her hair.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond both challenged Steven about things he was very confident about, but White’s question of his identity got to him because he in fact is not confident about that.

The black and white eeriness of the fuzzy background and the other characters having their colors washed out helped make the scene in White Diamond’s head so disturbing and creepy.

The split screen showing Steven’s two perspectives was exciting to Rebecca, and was a pretty old idea. And she points out it sort of “breaks the show.”

The Gem Steven, Pink Steven, was represented by a slightly modified version of his model sheet. Everyone laughed when they saw what was getting used.

They decided that an earlier idea of Pink Steven looking angry should be replaced by an emotionless version of him. All the emotion should be with Organic Steven.

In the pitch meeting for this episode, Rebecca herself screamed “SHE’S GONE!!” and shocked the hell out of everyone. She pointed out how no one expected this of her because she’s pretty quiet, but she just wanted to shock everyone the way Steven would in the show.

They point out this is the first appearance of the geometric shield that got so much use in Future.

The fact that Steven is Steven is the ultimate reveal of the show. Usually in fantasy shows there’s some other kind of revelation, but Steven just being amazingly human and amazingly Gem and amazingly himself is wonderful here.

They like having the pilot reference with “What’s your excuse?”

If Rose had somehow still been alive in him, all of this would have been cheapened.

Ian loves that you can faintly hear Sadie’s concert from way out in space as the camera approaches Earth.

They got a lot more use out of the Beach-A-Palooza stage than they thought they would when it had to be designed for “Steven and the Stevens.” There was a joke about how at one of the conventions a real Beach-A-Palooza stage was constructed and they had a thought about how oh good, it’s getting reused.

Sadie having green hair in the finale was a late change but they liked showing her progression.

They had originally kicked around the idea of Sadie already having her new partner Shep at this point, but decided to develop that in Future instead.

They compare White Diamond’s stepping gingerly into the fountain to skeptically getting into a public pool.

Some silliness they didn’t get to use was that Biggs would be “beloved by everyone” except Steven. They never got to cover it, but originally Steven was just going to not really understand why everyone loves her so much and doesn’t personally much care for her.

The Heaven and Earth Beetles are based on the Mothra Ladies.

The healed Gems’ horns are supposed to be side effects of the corruption that they continue to bear in the present.

Larimar and Orange Spodumene ended up different in the ending scene than they became in Future. Many of the designs were retroactively pulled into this scene after being designed for the movie.

Rebecca wrote “Change Your Mind” as a personal song to express her feelings surrounding her fight for the wedding.

“The Future”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

The animatic for this episode ran SO long--they’re supposed to be just over 11 minutes but this one was 17 minutes.

Steven’s calisthenics routine, a callback to “Future Vision,” was on the chopping block to make the episode shorter but Rebecca wouldn’t allow it to be cut because she wanted to show that Steven’s been taking care of himself.

They were very excited to get a chance to cover some of the things in Future that they couldn’t squeeze into the original show, like the unbubbled Rose Quartzes, Volleyball, etc.

The new writers on the show also helped bring forward the idea of Steven finally making some of his OWN mistakes to fix.

This also helped construct the idea of Steven essentially being the “final boss” of his own battle.

Usually stories that involve someone being in a fight and winning don’t explore the effect just being in a fight has on a person, regardless of whether you won.

Rebecca really wanted to play Ocarina of Time after beating it so she could go back to all the places and see how people were doing. She wanted this epilogue series to explore that a little too.

Little Homeschool is sort of a Tiny Toons reference--older cartoons teach younger cartoons how to be cartoons, and this is Gems teaching other Gems how to be Gems on Earth.

Lamar came up with the silly joke about receiving that art set with all the different media types in it--the one artists are always getting from a well-meaning relative at holiday time.

A scrapped plot idea involved Volleyball/Pink Pearl as a sort of “mini-villain,” with a focus on her activating the un-activated Pearls.

There’s discussion of how victimization turns people into villains sometimes. But since showing that happening with Volleyball wouldn’t have served the interests of Steven’s arc, they couldn’t fit it in.

There was also a “very specific” Gem origin and Diamond origin story that’s quasi-religious in nature--it’s very cool and complicated. But they do not tell us what it is.

Ian and Joe both really wanted to have Jasper living alone in the woods and stacking rocks. They’re glad they got this series to do that with her.

There was originally an idea for a B-plot involving Jasper in the movie. They don’t discuss the specifics.

There were many ideas they didn’t get to work on because they would have started new arcs and Future was not about kicking new plots into gear.

“Mr. Universe” was the last episode they wrote/finished.

Miki really wanted to include a kiss between Connie and Steven to show their relationship was okay. Among the Crew everyone knew their relationship was basically eternal but Miki wanted to make sure WE knew that.

Steven driving conveyed momentum for Future; in the original show, we always came back to the laundry hand, back to home, but in Future that’s changed and home isn’t what it was.

They were really excited that a gourd family made it to the crowd scene in Future.

Thanks for reading!

Note: The movie had some commentary tracks too, but the one on this DVD set is the same as the one released on the original standalone movie DVD, so I did not outline it here. Here is my post about the DVD commentary from the movie.

#steven universe #steven universe future #rebecca sugar #crewniverse #my su analysis #myblog

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anarcoqueer1994 · 3 years

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No More Dates

It was the summer of 1933, and Steve had just turned 15 years old. He is sitting in his kitchen with his ma, as she cooks. He's doodling on a scrap of paper when behind him he hears the door open; Bucky. Sarah never minded the brunette busting in without knocking. She sees him like another one of her kids and loves that her son has such a good friend.

Steve hears Bucky walk up behind him, feeling Bucky's strong arm wrap around his shoulder. Steve has to focus on not blushing. Ever since his friend has started down at the docks, his already handsome body has taken on harder lines and muscles. It was not helping Steve’s massive crush on him one bit.

He is broken out of his thoughts when the other boy starts to speak. "Good evening, Mrs. Rogers." He smiles at the blond woman at the stove. She smiles back and waves slightly.

He turns his attention to Steve. "Hey, Stevie. What'cha drawing?" Bucky looks down at the paper which Steve tries to hide. He isn't quick enough. Bucky sees. "This is good." Buck beams at the hastily sketched lips on the page. Luckily for Steve, he doesn't realize those are his lips.

"Uh, thanks Buck." Steve flashes a little smile back before turning the paper over, giving his full attention to the older boy.

"So listen Stevie, want to go out with me tonight?" Steve's hands suddenly get sweaty. What does Bucky mean, out tonight? With him, like a date. They can't do this, two guys. Bucky sees Steve’s panic stricken face. He asks "What's wrong? Please tell me you don’t have a shift at Mr. Green's do you?" Mr. Green owned a grocery store where Steve would bag at, one of the only places that would hire him. Bucky continues. "Please say you don't, I got us two pretty dames looking for a good time."

Oh. Steve thinks. Of course Bucky wasn’t talking about going out with him. Why would he? He got them a double date. He doesn't particularly want to go. Over the last few months, Bucky has gotten them all these double dates. But they all end up the same. Whatever poor girl who is his date, politely conducts herself but she always is more enthralled with Bucky. Oftentimes the girl only says yes to a date with him so her friend could get a date with the other man, since Bucky has made it clear that he won't go out with anyone if Steve can’t come.

But Steve would watch as the girls would whisper between themselves, teenage girls tending to not be discrete. He would see them giggle and bat their eyes at his friend, when the most he would get is an obligatory smile. He can't blame them though, he wasn’t much to look at, not like Bucky. Steve swore Bucky was the picture perfect man. To be honest, he catches himself staring at his friend too, jealousy often washing over him when he would see Bucky's hand wrapped around a girl's waist, pulling her close. He wishes Bucky could hold him like that; wanted to hold him like that back.

"No, I worked this morning. But Buck...you didn't need to get me a date. You go on and have fun. Plus I promised Ma I would help clean the oven tonight." He lies lamely.

Bucky frowns but nods his head. "Alright, Stevie…" He sounds disappointed.

Sarah, hearing the lie, shakes her head, careful not to embarrass her son while still not letting him off the hook. "It's alright, Steve. I got the oven. Just go have fun, tonight." Sarah doesn’t want her boy sitting at home. She knows that her son is a little...funny. And she knows she will always love her son no matter who he loves. But their church and society could be mean. She didn’t want her Steve facing that. She hopes that with these dates he can find a nice girl.

Bucky's face lights up. "Perfect! Thanks Mrs. Rogers!" He smiles at Steve and heads to the door. 'Be ready in an hour, okay?"

"Sure Buck…" Steve says unenthusiastically as the older boy leaves. He sighs before putting his head down in his arm on the table.

"Steve…" Sarah says softly. "It'll be fun. Maybe the girl will be nice."

Steve picks his head up slightly to look at his mom. "Ma, it always is the same. The poor girl who gets stuck with me has no interest. And why should she? Look at me."

She puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Baby, you're very handsome and any one would be lucky to be "stuck with you."

"You have to say that, you are my mom. I look like those yappy dogs with the big head and tiny body. I am nobody's type." He mopes.

"Steven Grant Rogers, you stop that right now. You are going on this date tonight and you are going to have fun." She says sternly.

Steve knows there is not a use in arguing with her so he just nods and resides himself to his fate.

Sarah had pulled out Steve's dad's

old grey suit, insisting on dressing the boy well for his date. He felt ridiculous, everything slightly too big. He should be used to that, all of his clothes fit like that. He wore the jacket unbuttoned hoping it would be less obvious about how too big it was. His mother let him use some of the little colgne she had, stored away from her late husband. She said he was perfect. He knew otherwise.

He meets Bucky at the bottom of the steps of his tenement. Bucky, of course, looks flawless, hair slicked back, effortless handsome, with button down shirt rolled to his elbows. Steve thinks he is the most beautiful man he has ever seen. And then Bucky smiles. A smile Steve cherishes as it is just for him.

"Hey Stevie" he throws his arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a half hug. "You look great!"

Steve blushes. "You're lying but thanks, so do you, pal."

Bucky wants to argue. He wants to tell him he's wrong because Steve always looked great, always looked perfect to him but knows Steve won't back down. So, he just smiles sadly at his best friend. "What are we going to do with you, man?" He asks as they start walking.

Once they get their dates, they head to a dance hall. Bucky's date is a pretty blond girl with bright blue eyes, Margaret, and Steve's is a redhead with green eyes named Dora. Steve is polite and is surprisingly light on his feet. Dora looks like she is having a good enough time as Steve tries his best to small talk with her and enjoy this date.

But it's hard because it is obvious that they both want someone else. As they danced, Steve would watch out of the corner of his eye as Bucky would twirl and dip his date, then pull her oh so close. There felt like there was something pushing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He hated himself for hating that Bucky was holding someone else.

He tried his best to put on a happy face for his date, who had been nothing but sweet. But he noticed that she too was making eyes at someone else, a guy across the room right that she seemed to know, as he looked back equally as sweetly. Steve knew how it felt to want someone else, but unlike him, she had a chance.

He pulls her over to the table mid dance. "What is it?" She says softly.

"You're a very nice girl, Dora. You have been incredibly kind and I have had a good time. But I'm not the one you want to be here with, am I?" Steve asks nicely, careful not to sound accusatory.

She looks down before saying "Am I that obvious?

He laughs, showing her he is not mad. "Yea. Also... it looks like he wants to be with you as much as you want to be with him. So go and dance with him, have fun." Steve replies lightly.

She gives him a pretty smile before surprising him with a hug, which he returns. She whispers "Thank you Steve." She holds him there a little longer before whispering one more thing. "I know I'm not the only one of us sweet on someone else and for the record, I think he is sweet on you too." What Steve didn’t realize was that between his glances at Bucky, Bucky glanced back, an evening of missed gazes.

She pulls away and waves, without another word making her way to the other man. Steve is left dumbfounded, and terrified, and excited all at once.

Most importantly he knows he has to get out of there, a feeling a dread that he gave himself away as a fairy. He knows she won't tell anyone other than maybe her friend...but what if others do find out. Suddenly it is hard to breathe, as he rushes out the door.

He ends up on the fire escape outside Bucky's room. The lights are out in the Barnes' residence,indicating that the family was asleep. He comes here a lot when he wants to escape. He guesses he is not that great at escaping since he always ends up at the same place. He sits with his arms wrapped around his knees, eyes shut.

What did she mean he was sweet on me too? How can she know that? How could, Bucky, the boy who has been chasing skirt like it was going out of style the last few months, be into him? They were just best friends, and he was just a hopeless fool who wanted to much. What if Bucky turned on him when he found out that Steve liked other fellas...liked him.

The last thought made him shiver, made him sick to his stomach, losing the one man that means more than him than the entire universe. A tear rolls down his face, before closing his eyes again. He is so focused on his thoughts, he doesn’t hear the window open behind him and someone step out. It isn't until he feels an arm wrap around his shoulder and pull him close that he realizes he isn't alone.

Bucky's voice is gentle as he whispers "Why'd you leave, Stevie?"

Steve’s breath hitches in his throat as he feels Bucky's strong arm holding him there. He forces himself to talk "I...i just wasn't having a good time, I just wanted to leave…thats all."

Bucky's voice gains a level of worry as he replies "You wouldn’t be sitting here if that was all. Please tell me what's wrong...I would of left with you, Steve. When I noticed you were gone, I left immediately and searched everywhere for you. Your ma said you didn’t come home, so I knew you would be here. Why didn’t you get me?"

Hearing the worry and sadness coat Bucky's voice makes Steve feel terrible, unable to look up at him as he answers "Because, Buck, I left because of you…" another silent tear falls.

"What..." Bucky sound confused, voice broken as he instinctively pulls away from Steve, scared whatever he did, he is making worse. "What did I do?"

Steve lets put an unamused laugh, silent tears falling more freely now as he looks at Bucky, who's face is distorted with guilt and confusion. Steve just wants to reach up and smooth out his features back to the beautiful care free ones that typically live on his face. "You...didn't do anything, I did. I'm whats wrong here, Buck."

Bucky is torn between wanting to pull Steve into a hug and never let go and not wanting to scare away his friend by touching him, so he fidgets with his hands in his lap. "Steve that's impossible...you couldn't have done anything wrong." He sounds sincere, like he thinks Steve is perfect.

"You---" a strangle sob manages to escape. "You think to highly of me. I don't deserve it. Buck, remember when we were in school, and the other boys would call me a fairy because we spent so much time together….and I look like this?" Steve feels bad, Bucky would always stand up for him, the other boys always backing down. They never backed down when Steve would stand up for himself, often getting his ass kicked.

"Yea, those guys are idiots, still are. I work with some of them down at the dock." Bucky says plainly.

"No...they aren't, because they were right." Steve sound sad.

"What?" Bucky says again, confused more than ever.

"I'm a fairy...a pansy….I like fellas like you are supposed to like dames, Buck. And I'm so sorry….so so sorry. I'm so afraid of anyone finding out. It'll break ma's heart….everyone at church will hate me...God hates me….everyone will hate me. I'm disgusting…" Steve is shaking now, sobs freely escaping between words. He hadn't meant to say all this but it slipped out.

Bucky, unable to not do anything, throws his arms around Steve, pulling his head to his chest, gently petting his hair. "Shhh...shhh….its okay Stevie, s'okay." He repeats for awhile before whispering "If you're disgusting, I'm disgusting." Steve gets really still in his arms, before tilting his head up to look at Bucky. "What?"

"I said, I'm "disgusting" too. I...uh like ladies, I do. I just like fellas too...especially...one fella in particular." He answers shyly.

Steve’s heart feels like it is on a roller coaster. In the same breath that he found out Bucky was also a queer...he finds out Bucky has eyes for a guy already. Jealousy wells up inside of him, this somehow hurting more than a dame. Being a glutton for punishment, Steve asks "Who?"

Bucky laughs, arms still around his oblivious friend. "You, punk."

Steve’s heart is literally going to beat right out his chest qnd fly away. In disbelief he asks "Then why did you drag me on all those dates?"

Bucky takes a deep breath, steadying himself. "I thought it was easier this way...hide how I was feeling and get to spend time with you, thought it was a win-win."

Steve clears his throat, pulling away so he can look Bucky in the eyes, Bucky’s arms still resting on his shoulders. "Not...not for me. I...hated seeing you holding other people...that weren't me. Do you know how many times I wished it was me in your arms, slow dancing. Because…I really love you. And I know people say that you can't know love at 15….but I do….love is whatever I feel when I'm with you and---"

Before he can finish, Bucky pulls him in for a soft, chaste kiss. Steve practically melts. This is is his first kiss, and its clumsy and sweet and everything he ever wanted.

When they break away, both boys smile like love sick puppies. Bucky smiles "I love you too, Stevie."

Steve smiles back "No more dates?"

"No more dates." Bucky agrees.

#pre serum steve #pre serum stucky #stucky #bucky barnes #steve rogers #steve x bucky #fanfic #fanfiction #steve x bucky fanfic

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thadelightfulone · 3 years

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All I Want... 25 Days of Christmas Challenge, Day 3

November 20th

Two days later and DeeDee kept thinking about Erik and his note. She buried herself in work, taking over other shifts just to stay busy. Whenever her mind was not focused on a physical task, it shifted back to thoughts of Erik. It was bothering her how much the whole thing was occupying her every thought. Her girls hit her up for an impromptu night out and she jumped at the opportunity.

The ladies got ready at DeeDee’s place. Phyllis danced around the bathroom to whatever song played. Beverly was in DeeDee’s closet in search of an outfit. DeeDee sat on her bed, with balled up hands on her lap.

Beverly pulled out a cute purple blouse and some dark denim boot cut jeans. “What do you think?”

Phyllis slid out of the bathroom, “Doesn’t she have a dress?”

Ignoring her, Bev turned to DeeDee, “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s cute.” DeeDee replied.

“You gotta do better than that?” Phyllis walked into DeeDee’s closet. She pulled out a red dress. “Now, that is what I am talking about. Here.”

She shoved the dress into Beverly’s hands. DeeDee reached up to grab the other items that were falling.

“We want her to get a man.”

“Phyll, I just want to have a good time. I am not looking for anything.”

“And that is your problem.” Phyllis grabbed DeeDee and walked her to the bathroom mirror. “You are a gorgeous woman who needs to get her head out of the books and onto something more substantial, if you know what I mean.”

DeeDee rolled her eyes and walked away, “No, I don’t.”

While DeeDee and Phyllis bickered over the benefits of having a personal life, Beverly hung the dress and blouse up on the back of DeeDee’s closet door. As she put the jeans on the lounge chair nearby, she saw the notebook from the other day.

“Hey, did you ever find out anything about the guy who wrote the note?”

“What?” DeeDee and Phyllis asked together.

“Ya know, the note DeeDee found in the book.” Beverly lifts the notebook up to them.

“Oh.”

“Hmmph.”

“Well?”

“I did get his name and email address.” DeeDee offered.

“Ok, so did you email him yet? You know, present yourself as the woman he is looking for?” Phyllis cackled.

Beverly hit her, “Shut up!”

“I don’t know why I even told you about it?” DeeDee muttered. She grabbed the book from Beverly and tossed it onto the top of her vanity.

“Well, did you?” Phyllis fixed her eyelashes before she waved her tweezers at DeeDee.

“No, I have not.” She huffed out.

Beverly sat on the bed, “Why not?”

“I don’t know.” DeeDee started pacing the floor in front of her dresser, “I guess, I didn’t think I would get this far.”

“So, what are you gonna do?” Beverly asked.

“She’s gonna send that email. That’s what!” Phyllis said before she walked out of DeeDee’s room. “Come on.”

They all walk out of her room and to her home office in the corner of the living room. Phyllis pulled out the chair and DeeDee sat down in front of her laptop.

“Go on, and power this thing up. We got work to do.”

DeeDee logged in and opened up her email application. Under Beverly and Phyllis’ guidance, she was able to write something interesting. Phyllis bumped her from the seat, and while pretending to read it again for any errors, she hit ‘Send’ before DeeDee figured out what was going on. Beverly led a stunned DeeDee back to her room.

They got dressed for the night -- DeeDee in the blouse and jeans fit. Phyllis did her makeup and Beverly did her hair. Ready to go, they all headed back out to the living room. DeeDee stared at her computer, shook her head and walked over to shut it down. There is no time to worry about that tonight.

---

Erik was sitting in his home office, going through his emails when he received a video call from Marquis. He accepted it and smiled as his best friend and his youngest daughter, Jasmine, greeted him.

“Hey Jazzie! How are you?”

“Hi Uncle E. I’m good. So, when are you coming to visit?” Jasmine asked.

“Jasmine.”

“What daddy? You told me to ask him.” She looked back at her father, who grimaced as she spoke.

Erik laughed at her candidness, “It’s ok babygirl. I plan to be out there soon. I promise.”

“Okie dokie.” She smiled at him, her toothless grin visible.

“Ok, Jazzie bear. Time for the adults to talk.” Marquis lifted her off his lap. “Say goodbye to Uncle E.”

“Bye Uncle E.” She waved to him and bounced away.

“She’s getting so big.” Erik said.

“Who you telling?” Marquis laughed. “She’s been here before. I know that much.”

Erik laughed along with him.

“And you are just the person I wanted to talk to.” Erik nodded to him.

“Oh. What’s up?”

“Do you know what happened to the student that wanted my information? I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“Well, I gave it to her. I’m surprised that she hasn’t reached out, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, you right.” Erik masked his face at Marquis’ mention that it was a woman who was looking for him.

“Yeah, so anyway. I was calling because I found out that Dr. Bell is retiring at the end of the semester.”

“What? She’s finally ready to travel the world?”

“Yup, said her first trip is set for January.”

“Well damn.” Erik chuckled. “Good for her. So, when is the party?”

“During the annual Chemistry Department Holiday party. We have a few surprises for her retirement.”

“So, am I one of those surprises?”

“Yeah, I am sure she would love to hear from her second favorite student.”

“Second? Nigga, I am her favorite. Go on with that.”

They both laughed and told stories of who is really Dr. Bell’s favorite.

“Yo, just send me the details, I’ll be there.”

“You sure, it’s right before Christmas? I just planned to have you give her a video call or something.”

“Nah, that woman did so much for me while I was in school. There is no way, I am missing this.”

“If you say so. I’ll send you --”

“Quis?” Erik interrupted him, “Do you know a Deidre Chabert?”

“Deidre? Oh yeah, that’s the student who was looking for you.”

“Hmmm, ok.” Erik’s cursor hovered over the email that just popped up.

“I take it, she finally emailed you.”

“She did.” He opened the email, “Quis, how do you know her?”

“She’s one of my doctoral students.”

“And you said, she found one of my articles?”

“That is what I was told.” Marquis shrugged, “She is still studying, I figured she found the one about how chemistry works for us in everyday life.”

“Huh.” His mouth dropped as he read the message.

“E, you good man?” Marquis asked.

Erik looked back up at him, and shook his head. “Yeah, yeah. I’m good.”

“Ha, I know that look.” Marquis smirks at him, “Sounds like she asked some good questions. I’ll let you go. Look out for my email with the details for Dr. Bell’s retirement.”

“Sounds good. I’ll talk to you later man.” Erik ended the call and went back to the open email on his screen.

SUBJECT: ‘MgYHeArTaNdSOULa’

Hello Dr. Erik Stevens,

I apologize for the false pretense in which you are receiving this email.

My name is DeeDee Chabert. I am a student at Southern University.

I found a very personal note that you left in a textbook while you were here. I don’t know if you remember it or not. But I do hope that you were able to find what you were looking for. It sounds like your parents are definitely relationship goals.

Best Regards,

DeeDee

Erik inhaled deeply. His eyes kept going back to the subject line. My Heart and Soul. He never thought he would see that phrase written like that again. Erik only wrote it once. He remembered the day that he wrote it and left it behind.

He was taking a break from studying one day when his parents crossed his mind. He recalled how his father showered his mother with affection whenever possible. Little things like flowers delivered with her breakfast or a sweet voice message to wake up to. It would have his mother on cloud nine for the entire day. And she always gave as good as she got. A short hand-written note in his lunch or singing voicemail on his work line, wishing him a wonderful day at work.

Erik smiled at the memories of his parents and the perfect example of a loving relationship that they showcased for him. He knew from a young age that that is exactly what he wanted for himself. And that day, he finally put it to words on that piece of paper. And someone found it.

Not only found it, but she deciphered the note. She thought that the love that his parents had was aspirational. Relationship goals as she put it. He laughed at the sentiment that described it perfectly.

Erik stared at the screen. Should he respond? What would he say? Thanks for sharing, I never thought someone would find the note. Or does he address the comment about finding it for himself.

He got up from his desk and went to the bar across the room. Erik poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and looked out over downtown Oakland. The view of the night sky allowed him to take a few moments to think.

Erik knew that he wanted to respond to her email. It meant something that she went out of her way to track him down with just his initials to go on. But also, he was curious about her. What kind of woman found that kind of note, thought to find the owner and reach out? She could have just kept it for herself to cherish and no one would be any wiser.

Finished with his whiskey, Erik went back to his desk and set down the glass. He clicked on the reply button and started typing.

SUBJECT: RE: ‘MgYHeArTaNdSOULa’

Hello DeeDee,

Your email caught me off guard as I never expected anyone to find that note. But I do know what you are talking about.

Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate them. My parents definitely had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. I do hope that you find it for yourself.

I do have a question for you -- what made you search for me? Anyone else who read that note would probably think I was some nerdy virgin who needed to get laid. I am curious to know why it resonated with you.

Have a wonderful weekend.

E.S.

Taglist: @teakturn @ghostfacekill-monger @shaekingshitup @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @woahitslucyylu @ladymac82 @bugngiz @eyeknowmywrites @ajspencer1892 @arafatih @issimplyaamazinggg @tchallasbabymama

#25 days of christmas challenge #erik killmonger x oc #black panther fanfiction #bp christmas #all i want #thadelightfulone

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algernoninwonderland · 3 years

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Miraculous, intertextuality and why referencing other works all the time isn’t necessarily a great idea

TL;DR: Miraculous loves itself some pop culture references, they’re in the show all the time for you to enjoy, especially if you’re a big nerd.

Only, making a list of references and trying to replicate what other works did before yours doesn’t make your show good by association, and when it comes to Miraculous, these references seldom do these original works justice. Instead, it makes comparing these other works with Miraculous really easy, and the comparison is rarely flattering.

Miraculous would be a much better show if it tried to be its own thing, a few scenes are just that and they are great. It’d be a wonderful show were they not so few and far between.

Miraculous is made by nerds, as is the case with most cartoons. The show itself lets you know that right away. It’s a pastiche of magical girl anime and Silver Age comics, it uses a lot of their visual languages, and references its other inspirations a lot, for instance:

The name of its fictional locations, (Françoise Dupont is a regular kid with a masked detective alter ego named Fantomette, Marinette’s address is a reference to a French illustrator who often drew a talking ladybird)

The way its characters look (Master Fu is both Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid and Muten Roshi from Dragon Ball, when akumatised, Mme Couffaine becomes basically Captain Harlock and her houseboat becomes the Arcadia)

Sometimes entire scenes are references to other works (Aurore’s akumatisation is straight out of Utena’s Dark Rose Saga, “Gorizilla” has a King Kong pastiche).

You could fill an entire Wiki with all the references in Miraculous if you wanted to. If you paid me well, I’d do it myself.

Wearing your inspirations on your sleeves is a double-edged sword, really.

On the one hand, you showcase the things that inspired your creative process, a way to say, “hey, that show/film/book exists within a landscape, it’s the heir to such and such work”. You acknowledge that you owe a lot to your predecessors, you acknowledge that there’s no such thing as a 100% original thing. That’s a great act of humility.

And intertextuality conveys meaning, too! Let’s take a very mainstream example. When you notice that ha! The pod-racing scene in Phantom Menace comes from the 1959 movie Ben-Hur for instance, you get the sense that you understand the cinematic masterpiece that is Episode 1 a bit more. It tells you that your movie about space wizards owes a lot to other genres, and that it transposes these genres to another setting, space! “It’s Ben-Hur, in that that slave kid is pod-racing for his freedom, but I gave it my own spin,” George Lucas tells you. “Look, the funny Gungan stepped into that space cow’s poop! Haha, sure hope I’ll sell lots of toys and buy myself some death sticks!”

You feel really smart when you get a reference, too! “Hey, that’s a Dezaki effect right there!” “Wow, is that a robot from Castle in the Sky in Age of Ultron?” Likewise, if you don’t recognise the work being referred to, you might get curious about it! References send back to other things and your knowledge of these things and when you get it, it feels nice. Lots of people discovered Utena thanks to Steven Universe and that’s really cool, and these references add to the meaning of the cartoon! Folks who casually got into RWBY but didn’t know Soul Eater and Cowboy Bebop heard about those shows and many others while discussing RWBY and I’m sure lots of them got into anime thanks to RWBY!

On the other hand, by being so open about your sources of inspiration, you expose yourself to criticism, especially in the case of your work being compared with what inspired it: it might be seen as derivative, or even worse, unable to do these previous pieces of media justice by only retaining and replicating their most superficial elements without a great understanding of what made them work, gratuitous fanservice for nerds.

And I’m not quite sure where Miraculous stands. Oftentimes, it feels more like a Spider-Man/Kamen Rider crossover with bits of outdated shoujo manga and superficial wuxia sprinkled in there than a show at least trying to be its own thing.

And the problem is, Sailor Moon is better at being Sailor Moon than Miraculous could ever be, as it uses its visual language better, and it has a tiny thing called “the main character having a group of friends who aren’t props and a plot you can follow” that is the very reason why people liked the manga and anime in the first place. Miraculous only retains the very superficial aspects of the manga/anime and of the genre. Marinette still trips over a cat in the opening. Because that’s how it happens in Sailor Moon. Her characterisation as a civilian screams “Usagi Tsukino but more stressed out”.

Spider-Man is better at splash pages than Miraculous because ML’s CGI is pretty meh when it’s not in motion, these weird filter effects don’t look great, that only works when you’re Into the Spiderverse and have comic-book aesthetics. Queen Wasp has a whole sequence that is just that scene in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 only this time Queen Bee sabotaged a metro on purpose to stop it. It’s not an awful scene, it carries its point across rather well (Chloé is a selfish nerd who thinks she can be like these comic book characters but truly isn’t fit to be a hero) but the original did it better, it was more impressive, there was more tension to that original scene, some really interesting camera and foley work that made you feel the weight of that train. It didn’t feel cheap the way that scene in “Queen Wasp” did.

Utena’s Black Rose Saga explores the psyche of some of its secondary characters the audience is already familiar with, with problems we could already identify within them. It offers an examination of the storyworld from another point of view, and helps build it further. There’s always a proper buildup before these characters have a mental breakdown in an moody elevator with a butterfly pinned on the wall that turns back into a chrysalis, because the characters are going through a kind of regression that makes them easier to manipulate and turn into “villains” while acting out their true desires in a twisted way. “Stormy Weather” has most of that, an elevator with dramatic lighting, a butterfly and a mental breakdown, but the character is all new to us so it’s just not that impactful. Often, that one secondary character who’ll get transformed has had spoken lines, yes, but that’s only minutes before they get akumatised.

“Kinda the same but a bit worse and missing some of the key aspects of what made the original thing so good” isn’t much of a tribute, is it?

In an earlier post, I stated that Animaestro was basically “I have watched a lot of animated shows and I know how to mimic them, the episode”. It told us nothing about animation as a medium except that it’s cool sometimes and that you get to imitate other people who are much better at the things they do than you are.

It’s not a clever metacommentary, it’s just “me likey moving pictures”. Good for you, I guess… Did you really need an entire episode to make that point?

And then you’ve got all the bad outdated shoujo tropes with characters falling on top of each other, aggressive flirting (harassment, really) from Adrien portrayed as really sweet and romantic because it’s just like in the shoujo manga (which one?) you see… And that’s just not great, is it?

Miraculous is a much better cartoon when it doesn’t try (and fail) to emulate other shows and movies and comic books and manga. The only thing it tells us about these works is that That Guy and co really like them and that copy-pasting them is the best way they’ve found to show their love. Imitation and flattery and all of that I guess.

“Look, it’s like in that scene in the anime! Did you like the anime? It sure was a good anime, and if our show makes you think about it, then it’s also good, right?”

No, you guys, I’m sorry but no. If making references was all it took to be good, then gaming webcomics would be regarded as masterpieces.

Very often, the show seems interested in being anything but itself. And it’s a shame, because there are lots of ideas the show kind of brings up but never quite touches. Marinette is interested in fashion design? That’s great, show us more of that! Make it an important part of her character, and by the same occasion, make her creations look not-laughable. Miraculous could be the first cartoon to explore what it’s like to be a biracial kid with a Chinese parent in France (would that work with a crew of almost strictly middle-aged white men is another question to which the answer is a resounding “no”). The show is set in Paris? Cool, how about exploring the city outside of its landmarks every tourist and their mom already knows?

Inexplicably, in the middle of an episode when you expect it the least, you get brilliant bits of directing that aren’t references to other works. Alya becoming Rena Rouge and her first steps as a superhero? Brilliant, really immersive, loved it, not a reference. The sad car scene in Puppeteer 2? It’s really really good, not a reference either. All the unexplored lore? It seemed really promising and having more of it would help us understand things a bit more!

People don’t just like your show because it reminds them of another show. Why watch it if you can watch that original work in the first place?

Trying to make a superficial mashup of all things you think are great in other works is not the way to do these works justice, nor is it the way to make your show interesting, let alone good.

#miraculous #ml salt #ml writers salt #ml critical #ml analysis #longpost #rwby #star wars #spider-man #adrien salt

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world-of-socks · 4 years

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Chapter one: Spies are Forever (sorry I had to…*)

*If you don’t know what Spies Are Forever is please look it up. The full thing is on Youtube, you won’t regret it!!

(Got the idea from @steven-universe-au-prompts. I’m still working on concept art and stuff I’ll post that later. Anyways this was super fun to write and I hope you all enjoy this first look into hopefully will be a series that I’ll complete for once lol)

...

“Soldiers!” A pearl roared to the oncoming sea of quartzes and other miscellaneous gems and fusions.

Nobody was paying her any mind, the camp was full of excitement, everyone was talking to each other and conversing about the next move and where they were stationed. The air was so abuzz with different conversations that Yellow Tourmaline heard none of them. Nor did she care. She was here for one purpose and one purpose alone, and that right now, was to hear that renegade pearl speak.

“SOLDIERS!” she roared again.

A few looked up and then went back to chatting.

The pearl looked towards everyone’s leader, the rose quartz, who was speaking with a fusion, and then turned towards the crowd once more, “SHUT! UP!!”

Everyone turned to face her, and ceased their conversations. Yellow watched the pearl sigh, and then continue,

“We all appreciate you being here, your service is greatly needed in our fight to win back this wonderful planet. Though, we will need to have some form of organization in our camps, you will now hear a word from my general and yours: ROSE QUARTZ!”

The crowd erupted into applause and roars and cheers. These gems loved this Quartz, loved her more than any gem Yellow Tourmaline had ever seen. The Rose Quartz dismissed the applause, humbly, and then began to speak.

“You wonderful gems, you’ve worked so hard your entire life to please someone who doesn’t care about you, or your well-being. You’ve slaved away for the whims of a dictator who thinks you are a pile of sediment, unworthy. Those days are over. When you are under my command you are free to be whoever you want, and to fuse with whoever you want!”

There was another planet shaking roar of applause, Yellow just stood there, dumbfounded, she didn’t understand. The Rose quartz held up her hand to silence them once more.

“Though I would like to make one thing clear. There will still have to be a level of organization in my camps! You will be organized by your station, you won’t be shattered if you don’t listen, but if we want to do this properly, it would be preferred if you would do as I tell you. Though, all ideas are welcome! Pearl will continue from here.”

She then stepped away and resumed talking to the fusion, her pearl then started commanding everyone on where to go.

“The front lines will be stationed in the first two barracks, the blacksmiths will be stationed…..” her voice seemed to fade away.

After the meeting, Yellow knew exactly where she was to go, she was a general on the front lines (she had perfected the basic general appointment test) and would be staying with other generals in the barracks. She hadn’t met any of them yet, and wasn’t thrilled about staying a week with everyone else, but she knew she had to.

She pushed back the fabric of the tent and stepped in timidly, inside was a table with chairs and a few gems gathered around it, a few cots (she only recently learned what those were), and a weapons rack. As she walked in a few of the gems looked up at her, a few looked a little wary, but the others appeared friendly.

“Heya, we got a new one ‘ere!” exclaimed an Ametrine.

She got up from her table where the rest of the generals were huddled over a map, and approached her. Yellow backed up slightly, she wasn’t used to being interacted with in such a way.

“Ey, I’m not gonna ‘urt ya.” Ametrine gave her a pat on the shoulder, “I’m Ametrine, by the way, but you can call me Ame, everyone does.”

Ame looked her up and down to take her in, Yellow watched the evaluation process go on in her head, “Let’s see ‘ere, a newby most likely from, what, Yellow’s court?”

Yellow stiffened up, not used to the informal addressing of the name, “Yes.”

“Ah! rough, mate. I was too. She’s a bit cold, ain't she? Kinda emotionless, yeah?” Ame shook her head, hands in her pockets,“Yeah, I’m real glad I left when I did. I started feelin’ real low, always scared of gettin’ shattered, y’know? I’m feelin’ much betta’ under Rose’s command, though, no need to worry ‘bout little ol’ me.”

Yellow just gave a weak laugh.

“Ya don’t talk much do ya?” Ame remarked, “What’s ya name anyway?”

She straightened up, “I’m Yellow Tourmaline.”

“Do ya go by anythin’ shorter?”

“No.” she retorted simply.

“Well that’ll have to change.” Ame thought for a moment, “I’m sure durin’ trainin’ tomorrow a betta’ name will reveal itself.”

There was an awkward silence yet again, Yellow wasn’t very good at interacting like this.

“Lemme’ introduce ya to the team!” Ame said with fake or real enthusiasm, Yellow couldn’t tell.

“This is Black Opal, but we call her Bo. She don’t say much either, but she’s a great archer and an even betta’ general. Her surprise attacks are some of the best and smartest in the biz!” Ame pointed to a tall and darkly colored gem towards the left of the table, she looked up and simply nodded in greeting.

“Over there’s Emerald, but we just call her Bear. She got the name cuz’ we went on a scoutin’ mission, and ran across an earth creature, Rose said it's called a bear, and she got chased by that thing for hours! Once she got fed up though she stopped in her tracks and screamed in its face and scared it off into the woods! She’s more a bear than it was!” The Emerald rolled her eyes, she must’ve been used to the anecdote.

“There’s old Peach Sapphire over there, Bismuth, and oh that there’s Cat’s Eye, don’t mess with them, they’re a tricky one. I could tell ya a million stories about all these guys.” Ame laughed, but quickly stopped when she saw the unamused look on Yellow’s face, “Ah, but, I won’t… I won’t.”

Yellow strode across the room to the map on the table, and looked at it for a moment.

“Judging our strategies, are you?” Peach Sapphire retorted to Yellow’s glance at the map.

“Wha-... no.” Yellow lied.

“Ah well you were going to.” she mused.

“I thought only Blue Sapphire’s could predict the future.”she grumbled, realizing she had been caught.

“Hm, yes, and that’s where you're wrong. Blue Sapphires can predict the future more accurately than I, but no, they aren’t the only ones.” She sighed, “And if you’re worried that we won’t succeed without good incite on the future we have a rare Blue Sapphire on our team. She’s fused with Ruby, they go by Garnet by the way, she’s Rose’s lefthand gem.”

Yellow cringed slightly at the mention of fusion, “The Pearl is the right hand?” she clarified.

“Yes.” Peach sighed and looked back at the map, “Newcomers aren’t permitted to be strategists until they go through a week of training. Our apologies, but this war has been long and hard, I’ve lost friends, loved ones, excuse me if I don’t trust you right away.”

“I… see.” the room was silent, a distant grief hung in the air.

“I assume you aren’t one to sleep are you?” Emerald asked, breaking the emptiness, “The newbys usually aren’t.”

“No, I don’t sleep.” she replied.

“That’ll change!” Ame called from where she lay on her cot, her cap over her eyes.

A few of the other generals snickered.

“Well even if you don’t sleep I recommend resting on the cots until morning.” Emerald added kindly.

“Is there really nothing else I can assist with?” she asked, desperate, not loving the idea of being left alone with her thoughts, surrounded by strange gems.

“Not until we get a chore list, a training schedule, or a command.” Emerald replied.

“Or until Jasper comes in here and breaks something.” Peach muttered.

Ame laughed from her cot, even Black Opal snickered slightly.

Yellow sat in the cot the second closest to the tent opening. She lay down on her back stiffly, and closed her eyes, but when nothing changed she sat up and looked around. She hated the feeling of not being in charge, but she knew it was only going to have to be for a week.

After an hour or so of sifting through the pamphlets for newcomers, she was startled by a loud sound. The tent ripped open and a giant Jasper burst through with a terrified look on its face. Yellow jumped to her feet.

The Jasper ran over to where Ame lay presumably asleep and shook her violently.

“Ame! Ame!!” she cried, “You gotta wake up! Please wake up!”

“Wha-... Jazz what’s,” she yawned, “What’s goin’ on ya loon.”

“I was just-...I was just!” she panted and stuttered, “I was just-... practicing my acting! Free acting lessons with Jazz as soon as the sun goes down!”

“Nobody needs ya classes Jazz, not in this war. Besides no non-sleepin newby would ever join.” Ame muttered readjusting her cap.

Jasper stamped her foot, “Yeah, but MORALE! Ya know?” she turned excitedly to Yellow who felt more uncomfortable than ever before, “Hey, would you wanna join?”

“Uh… no.” She answered, Jazz frowned, “Uh I mean- no, not really.” she stuttered.

“Dang,” Jazz mused, “This one IS new. Welp, they're always open if ya ever change your mind.”

Jazz crashed onto an empty spot on the floor which had blankets, that were probably chipped in from the other generals, for her to lay on. Yellow hadn’t noticed the broken cot pieces before.

Yellow resumed her sitting position at the end of the makeshift bed and continued looking through the pamphlet, more to look busy, she had already read the entire thing. After an hour or so the other generals retired, save for Cat’s eye who, without a word, glided to the tent entrance and stood guard.

Once she determined it wouldn’t be awkward to stop reading, she layed back down, this time on her side. She stared at the dirty tent fabric.

It would just be for a week, then she could transform back into her usual form, get into her ship, and drive home with whatever plans she could find. Nobody would know, not even the others on homeworld. She could finally end this fight once and for all.

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medea10 · 3 years

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Medea’s Worst Year of All-Time Anime/Game Superlative

Nobody saw this year coming…except for maybe Barbara Walters! Who could have predicted that this year would bless us with Australia burning, the entire west coast of the U.S. set on fire, stupid people setting fires because they wanted to reveal a baby’s gender, murder hornets, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying, an almost war with Iran, serial killer mascots arrested, policemen killing unarmed black folks for having a counterfit $20, policemen killing unarmed black folks for breaking up a fight, policemen killing black folks for holding sandwiches, policemen killing unarmed black folks for fucking sleeping, a wide variety of “Karens” coming out of the woodworks, the end of Bojack, the end of Steven Universe, the end of Empire, and a pandemic so huge it’s killed the economy, canceled fun, and given the U.S. president the dumb-fuck idea of injecting bleach to kill the virus!?

SERIOUSLY, WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED ALL OF THIS WAS GOING TO FALL IN OUR LAPS LIKE HOT COFFEE ON THE CROTCH?!

At least there was anime this year.

…

At least there was SOME anime this year.

…

Biden won the election and Vickeblanca came out with Black Catcher this year.

Hey internet, it’s Medea here to give you her trashy opinion on this years anime and games that she’s watched or played. Because for some reason, my loser-ass loves to do out-dated as fuck memes! I shouldn’t complain, this shit brings a lot of attention to my page every year when I do this. Yes, 2020 was a complete dumpster fire so large that Domestic Girlfriend is crying foul. Many of us had to go on lockdown and ended up binge-watching the entire 957+ episodes of One Piece. I did no such thing. I am one of those “essential workers” so I didn’t hunker down for 9 months straight. But when I was home, I was watching anime. Actually, I would have done that even without the pandemic. I’m an introvert and find the human race to be deplorable.

You all know how this goes. I go over the best this year had to offer me. I had to search really hard to find the good in this year, especially in the anime world. Many things had to be put on hiatus or were delayed to a later date. Just a reminder, I don’t discriminate in what year the anime or game came out. If something came out in the happier times of 2007, that anime or game counts! Let’s get at it!

First Fandom of 2020: Interspecies Reviewers

Did anyone expect a fan-favorite of 2020 was going to be a hentai? Did anyone have on their batshit 2020 bingo card that a hentai was going to grab everybody’s attention? At the beginning of the year, my mind was set on the Railgun sequel and Eizoken. It wasn’t until licensors, streaming sites, and TV stations in Japan dropped this series that I started to pay attention. And got immediately hooked! It’s about three men going to different brothels and reviewing their time with the ladies. And these ladies are of different species! So with every bang comes possible enlightenment, new kinks, or a night of having your dick sucked off more than humanly possible. This anime blew away all of my skepticism and first impressions right out the window. Maybe it’s because I’m a degenerate and am often curious about sexual content, but this was a guilty pleasure of mine this year.

Favorite Main Character of 2020: Moroha from Yashahime

I know the majority of this story is going to revolve around Towa and Setsuna, but can we please focus a little more energy on the spunky, quarter-demon girl?! I know they’re pitting Moroha as the comic relief, but I’m hopeful that she’s going to surprise us one day. We fans of InuYasha would spend the past decade and some change wondering what InuYasha and Kagome’s daughter would be like. This year, we got our answer with Moroha. She’s got this wild side to her, probably due to the fact that she’s spent her entire life on her own. And while she’s silly at times, she can get down to business in a pinch. She has her father’s sense of smell. She has a sword. She’s able to shoot sacred arrows much like her mother. And to top it all off, she has this special rouge that if she puts it on, she’s able to unleash that ¼ demon power inside her and become Beniyasha! Yeah, I know the power only lasts a minute, she’s only 14, give her a break! I will gladly go through another week scratching my head at the confusion this story gives me if I get to see one more second of Moroha and her crazy antics or her bad-ass slaying.

Favorite Villain of 2020: The Devil Believers from Black Clover

This was one hell of a year for Black Clover. It would have been an easy choice to pick the devil and possible super devil that appeared during the elf fight. But I’d like to give a nod to the filler arc villains. And you can’t blame this group for wanting the power of the devil. They’re literally the bottom-rung of the Clover Kingdom and ones with little to no power or mana. So I can agree with why they would want the power of the devil. For one thing, they’d have more power. And for another thing, they’d be able to exact revenge on those who have wronged them. On some occasions I agree with exacting revenge and when it comes to the nobles and some characters in Black Clover, some folks do deserve death. I mean, have you met the king of the Clover Kingdom? Plus, this town and many other poorer towns get looked over by the kingdom. Peasant uprise! Anyways, I thought these people were really crafty in their crimes. I mean, they were able to knock Asta out on his ass with specially made poisons. I was actually hooked to this story of Black Clover (despite it being a filler arc). I know we’ll never see them again as they have been exiled, but it did have me semi-rooting for them.

Favorite Video Game Character of 2020: Honey from Pokemon – Sword & Shield (Expansion Pass)

Sorry Raymond from Animal Crossing!

Honey is the saucy wife of Mustard…I did not expect that to come out the way it did, but here we are! She has one hell of a team you can fight once a day. She looks out for her husband, the dojo, and the students of the dojo like they were her own children by providing food, drinks, and others. However that does come at a price as you do have to give up a sizable chunk of your watts that you collect in raid dens. I’m sure a bunch of MILF chasers were more than happy enough to give her all their hard-earned watts just so they can have their one-on-one moment on the beach with Honey.

What won me over was when that one guy from a rival dojo bad-mouthed her husband’s dojo and she…I think she kicked this guy’s ass herself. I don’t think she used any of her pokemon. Game Freak won’t show it, but we all know she kicked this guy’s ass to a point where he’s begging for mercy.

Honey, for the win!

Favorite Game of 2020: Animal Crossing New Horizons

This game was just Zen for me. I know the release of this game came with some controversy like Gamestop saying it’s an essential business and will remain open for people to get their copies of the game. Hell, I was one of those assholes in line waiting to get a copy on March 20th. Did I predict that a pandemic was going to rage out of control when I got a prepay copy of this for Christmas 2019? NO! I only predict political things, not deadly pandemics! The good news, we social distanced, didn’t catch the covid and got the game.

Anyways, this game has been a non-stop calming and fun ride. I can even forgive their botch-up of Bunny Day. They even have events for holidays I never thought they would ever touch. I mean, does anybody know when Museum Day is? Probably not until Animal Crossing had an event for it! I’ve been able to let my freak-flag fly with designing my island. And this goes way beyond New Leaf for the 3DS. I can make a sign post with the words “Fuck Trump” on it and post it in my yard. I can dig up trees and plant them elsewhere. I can poop in a toilet. I can craft furniture and put my own design on it. My furniture can have Tracey Sketchit’s beautiful mug on it. I can sit on Tracey Sketchit’s face. I am a sick fuck and I don’t care. I can give Raymond and Bob maid outfits. Magical time in my game! My hopes for next year…I don’t know, get the Festivale furniture, get Papi and Olivia to join my island, maybe visit Danny Trejo’s island, who knows, sky’s da limit!

Favorite Het Couple of 2020: Nasa and Tsukasa Yuzaki from Tonikawa

This is one of the most unorthodox marriages I’ve ever seen. But in this 90 Day Fiance world we’re living in, I shouldn’t pass judgement on these two getting married in episode one and not knowing much about each other. Nasa meets Tsukasa as he was about to be plowed by a truck. Tsukasa saves his life. Nasa says she’s beautiful. Tsukasa says she’ll be his girlfriend if they get married. He agrees. She disappears. Four years later, Tsukasa appears in front of Nasa’s front door with a marriage registration form. Congratulations buddy, you’ve got yourself a waifu! In some way, this felt like watching Yamato and Takeo from My Love Story. I was fascinated with them progressing through their relationship. The only difference is that Yamato and Takeo took the old-fashioned route. This couple did everything ass-backwards in terms of having a relationship. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Nasa and Tsukasa’s relationship during each episode. I find them cute.

Favorite Yuri Couple of 2020: Karin Asaka x Emma Verde from Love Live Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

AAAAAAAAAH! I’M IN IDOL HELL AGAIN! Yeah, no kidding! I came this close to putting Miu x Nicole from that abomination 22/7. But thank God for Love Live! There’s no telling if any of the girls from the Love Live franchise are confirmed to be lesbians. But fuck it, all of them attend all-girl schools, no males exist anywhere, and Sunshine gave us Kanan x Mari! Yeah, you know Kanan and Mari is canon as fuck, don’t at me. So naturally, I found more third-years to ship in the new Love Live series. Now I know I should have put up Ai x Rina or Ayumu x Yuu. Especially the latter due to recent events! But Emma x Karin is my OTP.

Now Emma is an exchange student from Switzerland and in coming to Nijigasaki, she first meets Karin and they became instant friends. When Emma said she wants to become an idol, Karin helped her quite a bit. Even though Karin had no interest in being an idol as her modeling career is starting up, Karin would occasionally help Emma out. And surprise, surprise, Karin ends up fascinated with the idol world and Emma helps her come to the light to be herself there. Okay, I’m totally reading this in some fragmented way, but I’m currently playing Love Live School Idol Festival All Stars and the app game has a lot more stuff involving stuff the anime has yet to talk about. Confirmed or not, Karin x Emma for the win!

Favorite Yaoi Couple of 2020: Eiji Okumura x Ash Lynx from Banana Fish

It took me a while to get here, but I finally made it to 2018’s overlooked gem. Forgive me for not being fully caught up, but from what I’m watching at the moment, I’m sticking to my guns and supporting the hell out of this. I mean, I could have mentioned The Titan’s Bride here…but fuck no, I ain’t goin’ down that mess! Ash has gone through a lot, I mean a helluva lot in his past. His cute boy looks have made him a target on the streets of New York, with mafia dons, and with prison inmates. But dude can kill if you mess with him. Then you have Eiji, who is just a literal example of a “pure cinnamon roll (until episode 8)”. These two are as opposite as you can possibly get. Ash is from New York and Eiji is from Japan. Ash likes hot dogs with everything on it. Eiji likes grilled fish and natto. Ash spent the majority of his life killing on the streets. Eiji was a track superstar. You get my meaning. But when we got these two together it’s quite adorable. Ash is really able to change when he’s around Eiji. Ash isn’t some heartless killer on the street about to kill a thug with prosthetic fingers. When he’s with Eiji, he’s a joker that can easily get scared of pumpkins. And even in later episodes, you got these two acting like a husband and wife.

Fandom That You Didn’t Expect to Get Into: Les Miserables – A Girl Named Cosette

Let me explain a little something. Les Mis! I have never seen the play, watched the movie, or read the novel prior to picking up this anime. Not a single one of those! And that’s a bit of a head-scratcher when you realize I was a bit of a musical theater nut in my teenage years. But one thing I do like is when Japan does an anime based on plays or historical events (like Romeo x Juliet or Rose of Versailles). The second I popped in Les Miserables the anime, I wanted to binge watch the whole 52 episode series. It is by no means a perfect adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel. Several key players end up surviving all the way up to the end of the story! But because this was my very first viewing of anything Les Mis, I took to the story of Cosette and was eager to see what was going to happen next in her tale. Unlike the movies and play, Cosette was the main focus of the story besides Jean Valjean and Javert. And thanks to watching the unfortunate stories of Cosette, Jean Valjean, the Thenadiers, Javert, Marius, and the rest, I thought it was time to watch the OTHER adaptations to Les Mis.

…

Russell Crowe sucks.

Fandom That Made An Unexpected Comeback: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni

Higurashi or When They Cry is one of my favorite fandoms of all time! So naturally when we heard that it was making a comeback, I was excited. It was also very odd that Higurashi was given this sequel or reboot. Ahem! There’s another franchise that needs a face-lift. Umineko still deserves a better treatment. Plus, now that this series was out of the faulty hands of Studio Deen, Higurashi will get the special care it deserves. Believe it or not, it wasn’t just the anime that made a comeback for me, but the manga as well. Since 2009, I’ve read several volumes (out of order) and would every now and then come back to read the story. Back to the anime, this reboot or sequel…you know what, I’m gonna call it a “rebooqual”! This rebooqual sucked me back to the town of Hinamizawa and all the murders. Every week, I find myself comparing the current episode to one from the 2006 version. But then the fourth episode of each arc seems to catch me off guard.

Where are they going with this story and these twist endings to our favorite arcs? I did not expect Rena to turn a simple attempted murder into the end of School Days! I didn’t expect Rika to die in the most disgusting fashion they could think of. Could someone kill Teppei fucking Hojo? I will pay ¥5000 for someone to do that job. So yeah, because I know how much of this plays out and who does what, I’m usually watching and reading while making wise-ass remarks. But I still have fun with it.

Fandom That Inspired the Most Crack: Konosuba

In a year where I caught up with the popular Isekais like Shield Hero and Re:Zero, I found the wacky misadventures of Kazuma Satou to be amusing as all get-out. From the first 5 minutes, I found myself laughing at Kazuma’s misfortune. Seriously, how the fuck do you mistake a tractor for a car, have a heart attack, piss yourself, and fucking die in the first couple minutes to the series? You can only get away with this shit in gag animes! But it’s not just Kazuma’s dumbass, there’s a mage who only does explosions, but loses all her energy after one blow-up. Then there’s a busty, blonde who gets turned on by getting hurt and can’t strike anything with her sword. Anime’s biggest masochist or Cheryl Tunt incarnate, I haven’t decided which one to believe! Then you have this loud, crazy goddess chick named Aqua. She’s also useless about 86% of the time! Watching their unfortunate missions is all the crack that I need to get through this year. Seriously, Darkness is just all kinds of fucked up, but we love her.

Last Fandom of 2020: Yashahime

That’s right, the InuYasha sequel gets top spot here! Even though week after week I find myself asking more questions than when the episode started, I’m still hooked. If you’re like me, you watched and fell in love with the series InuYasha. So if they’re doing a sequel, you’re expecting to see all of your favorite characters from the prequel like InuYasha, Kagome, Miroku, Sango, Sesshomaru, Koga, Rin, and the rest. Actually, no! Quite the opposite! We’ve got Sesshomaru’s daughters, but no Sesshomaru. Rin is sleeping in a tree we think! We’ve got InuYasha and Kagome’s daughter, but they’re M.I.A. None of the girls even know a thing about their birth parents.

Now are these new characters a catch like the ones from the previous series? Some are! The three main girls, yes! Especially Moroha! I’ve already praised her name earlier in the superlative. Towa and Setsuna do take on some personality traits from their parents. Setsuna is definitely serious like Sesshomaru and Towa sometimes has a carefree yet loyal aura to her like Rin. I know I’m always skeptical when a series gives us a sequel featuring the offspring of the main characters. Especially when you’ve got some lame examples like Boruto and Eureka Seven AO (I might retract my diss on Boruto later)! As each week gives us a new episode, we’re unraveling new clues into a lot of things involving our old favorite characters, as well as the new ones. So I have high hopes for Yashahime for the time being!

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moonlightstars16 · 4 years

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A Brief Moment

It was the stereotypical Sporty Jock falls for the Nerdy Girl. Well sort of.

Steven Universe transferred at the beginning of the school year. While he wore varsity jackets and was on the baseball team, he normally just kept to himself. Was a friendly towards others? Definitely so. However after a certain incident involving a family secret, he became more cautious with who he allowed into his life. Even had meetings with the school counselor on occasion during his 'Study Hall'. Just to help keep him 'stable' from the haunting memories and traumatic experiences he went through. Though a lot was vague, these conversations helped him get out of his head. Soon he hardly had a need for it.

Connie Maheswaren was intelligent and excelled in all her classes. In fact she was not just intelligent but also athletic. In her own sort of way. Taking private fencing classes her parents signed her up for. She was a bit shy, but knew when to reach out and be there for others. Even if they were just strangers. Her compassion overflowed. However she also had a tendency to be a bit sassy when certain situations appeared. Just because she was a female, doesn't mean she was going to be treated like some 'toy'. It also helped to ignore the comments when she was so focused on a good book. Reading was more of an escape or a hobby. It was her life.

One day they met during theater class, a requirement for a passing grade. Connie assumed her role was apart of the tech crew. She knew her way around these things and thought it would've come in handy. However, when she landed the 'mysterious club singer' role in her audition(it was a play but had a couple numbers involved during the production), she was surprised beyond belief. She didn't even sing. Although the majority of this was purely in conversations so it was not impossible. Not the leading lady in it of itself but an important one none the less. Steven had landed the leading male role of course he fit the role perfectly. He seemed to be equally surprised but rolled with it naturally.

At one point he had come up to her after the class and asked for her help memorizing his lines. Connie had a small reputation for memorizing things in less than minutes. So it was only a matter of time before he asked. However he was new there and she understood the feeling of being 'a fish out of water'. Agreeing to help they met every day after school to work on homework and the play. During the time they grew closer and closer. Becoming friends much faster than the speed of light....well perhaps a bit less with a sort of rocky start. Still they became each others 'besties' and it was amazing.

Even having nicknames for each other. 'Biscuit', for Steven and 'Strawberry', for Connie. That was the snack they devoured on there first study session. It was a long day for them both and each were starved by the days end. After exchanging numbers and shared experiences with many of each others interests it became clear that the two were inseparable. Steven in return for her tutoring, helped her practice the song for the production. Connie was a bit nervous to sing around him, well anybody really. However she soon relaxed into it and even was surprised with how okay she sounded. Though Steven insisted she had an angelic voice.

The night of the production came and he gave her a quick squeeze of the hand three times for good luck before heading out onstage for his cue. Connie just breathed and cleared her mind and focused on becoming the character and leaving her old self behind for a moment. Just like in the rehearsals and private study sessions. To say the entire audience was captivated by her performance and his in the scene they shared together, was an understatement. Connie poured her all into the song and the scene. It truly felt like Steven's character was her 'Only Hope' in that moment. Or maybe it was the real Steven after all. Once she sat back down and finished her number, Connie wasn't expecting what happened next. Steven leaned over and gently pressed his lips onto hers.

That wasn't apart of the original script.

Improvisation works but this was completely by surprise. In fact they curtain came down ending the scene after the fact(was going to come down anyway after her song finished). Leaving them both staring at each other briefly. Utterly speechless as the darkness of the absent spotlight appeared. After that it was a bit awkward. Though not terrible. A small smile spread across her face moments after the kiss. Letting them both know that the feeling was mutual though a bit taken aback at the moment.

They agreed to sneak away from the cast party later that night to talk about it more. Connie went to change out of her beautiful costume into a long flowy skirt and beautiful blouse with a long sweater. A pair of black ballet flats were heavenly once out of those awful heels. Her hair was curled and came down just below the shoulders for her character and she decided to leave it as is. Just like her makeup. It was a tab more dramatic than normal but it was the theater and she didn't care. The party was in the gym and as she stepped out into the halls she was greeted with applause and flowers. But all that was all on her mind was the kiss. It made her a bit twitterpated from the moments so she didn't mind the attention that was given.

Until she entered the gymnasium. Everyone had eyes on her and she was confused as to why they were all looking at her and snickering. The confusion replaced her previous emotion as her gut told her something was off. One of her cast mates who seemed sad and looked with empathy, hesitantly pointed to the projector and what was being displayed on one huge side of the room. Connie turned and instantly everything around her seemed to stop. Her breathing became more jagged and her heart pounded in her ears.

Someone decided to use a dress rehearsal photo of her in all her makeup and hair. Photo shopping it onto a picture of a very scandalous woman showing off way more than the average swimsuit model. on the side it had a question in bold print. "Virgin Mary?" A nickname they used to tease her about being a 'goody-goody'. Now weighed more of an insult to her. It struck her right in the gut as she felt the tears gather in her eyes and the roaring laughter's deafening her ears. Gulping she raced out of the room as quick as she could. Tears blinded her so much that she didn't realize she bumped into Steven. Until she felt his familiar embrace and his calming voice.

"Woah! Woah, woah, hey..." Holding her shoulders and rubbing her arms gently he leaned closer to wipe the tears from her eyes. "What happened?" All Connie could do was shake her head and point to the gym. Covering her face as the utter shame she felt set in. Steven looked over her shoulder through the window and gasped at what he saw. Giving her a comforting squeeze on her shoulders he let go and slightly rushed into the gym. Connie walked afterwords and stopped right outside the door.

Seeing everything that happened through the windows. Steven punched a guy, named Kevin who apparently was behind all this, right into the tables and then turned off the projector. Destroying it in the process as the one girl, who gestured about the picture to Connie, gave Steven Kevin's laptop. Which he deleted the picture from existence before crushing the laptop in a sphere of sorts. Connie's hand went over her mouth for a moment as he walked back towards her and held a hand out for her own.

He took them to where the director and principal was before explaining everything. Steven being his honest self confessed what he had done. Connie waited outside after his confession, telling them all she needed some air. However being in the halls, feeling completely exposed as she walked towards a more secluded bathroom in the backstage theater. Looking at the mirror her face was truly messed up from her crying. Makeup smeared all over as her hair was a bit more humid looking since she didn't use that much hairspray.

Using some makeup wipe and face wash she removed all her makeup and cleaned herself up. But as she dried her skin, her eyes landed on her true self. The image of herself flashed through her mind. Was this how they thought of her truly? Even so it still hurt and she found herself gripping the skin, slowly kneeling to the ground as she bent over in shame. One hand gripping her arm the other trying to wipe away the tears that just kept coming.

It felt like hours as she sat there in the bathroom light. Crying her eyes out. That is until she felt once more the familiar pair of arms holding her close. Pulling her into an embrace as one hand stroked her hair and the other around her waist. They stayed like that until her sobs became nothing more than slightly hiccups and shaky breathing. Though she assumed it was from the dehydration she was slowly feeling. Steven handed her a water bottle since he figured she would need it. Connie couldn't even look at him yet. Or anybody after this entire ordeal. And just thirty minutes prior she was feeling amazing and in high spirits. Not she felt the rocks on the lowest she felt she could be at the moment.

"Let's get out of here." He whispered softly as she nodded in agreement. Helping her to her feet, he kept his arm around her and her hand in his free one. Quickly taking her in his Dondai supremo and playing calming music to help ease the tension. He drove her to his home, far away from the town and of course the school. Explaining what happened. How Kevin got everyone in on this awful idea of a prank. They were going to punish him greatly for it. And how he himself got suspended for a day for the punch and destroying of another persons property. "I don't care if they expelled me."

"Steven" Connie spoke up a bit softly than usual. He might not care but she did.

"Connie I would much rather know you are okay than my own education. Sure I will pay for the actions later but I would not ever change a thing." Pulling up into the driveway he turned the Dondai off and turned a bit more to face her. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Don't leave me alone...please..." Connie finally looked him in the eye after a brief moment of silence. Her voice a bit louder than before. "I-...I don't want to be alone right now..." Steven smiled, reaching out and gently caressed her cheek.

"I won't leave you alone. ...Not unless you want to be later." Connie nodded with a soft smile before feeling all the emotions rise within her and holding a hand over her mouth to keep from crying all over. Steven stepped out of the car and rushed to her side. Helping her down the Dondai steps before carrying her in his arms. All the way up to his home loft where the roof retracted so they could see the stars. Blankets, snacks, waters and hot coco(currently after he set her down on the couch bed). Both of them cuddled under the stars.

"How long?"

"How long what, Strawberry?"

"How long have you felt this way...for me." That last part she spoke a bit more softly.

"You still want to talk about it?"

"I rather keep my mind focused on other things right now... But even so, I do want to know."

"Okay.... I knew when we first began your voice lessons."

"So it was my voice?"

"Oh no- well it's part of it but it was because of your smile. You just seemed so happy with everything and so passionate in all that we discussed. I've never seen you so excited like that before. So full of happiness.... That's how it began. The more I saw of you being happy...the more I got to know the real you... I just... fell." They let his words sink in as the stars twinkled across the night sky.

"Steven...oh my gosh..." Connie exclaimed with a small giggle.

"There's the laugh I love to hear." He whispered kissed her forehead gently. Her head resting upon his chest as his arm secured her in his embrace.

"I figure you want to know how I feel?"

"Well I can wait till your ready."

"Well what if I told you that I am because I feel the same way. Except I-...I kinda need to confess this one thing before I do."

"Oh?"

"I kinda had a crush on you ever since I saw your audition. Also how you encourage the one before and after you during said time." She sighed and looked into his eyes. "Your friendly but in a way no one else can ever recreate. There's your own unique flair in every kind action you give. Never once did I see your pride or arrogance take over who you are. You are the real you... I love getting to know you as well."

"Ah... so that smile was a victory in the back of your mind?"

"I suppose you can call it that." They laughed briefly before sharing a moment of silence. "Steven...I-... There is not enough words to express how much I really am great full for everything you did tonight. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't-..." She could've even finish the thought as he held her tighter and she gripped onto him in the same fashion.

"Connie, I would do anything for you. I'm glad we became friends and....more..."

"So would I, I'm happy your in my life and our relationship we share. Can I stay with you for the night...please..."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." They talked more into the night until a certain question pulled them into the new reality, both realizing they now get to live together in.

So can I officially call you boyfriend Biscuit Steven?"

"As long as you allow me to call you girlfriend Strawberry Connie." They laughed once more at the cringe they both participated in. But the implications did not go unnoticed. Though the night was shadowed by the horrible event from earlier, their happiness for one another comforted them like the warm blanket they laid under. Falling asleep in each others loving embrace. Enjoying the moment of right now and for the happy days to come.

#connverse #connverse one shot #steven universe #steven universe future #steven and connie #stevenxconnie #connie maheswaran

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isaacthedruid · 3 years

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Steven Universe’s Representation and Music: an informal essay

As the first animated Cartoon Network show created entirely by a woman, Steven Universe’s run lasted for five seasons, a movie and a sequel-epilogue series. The show was far from perfect and its fandom wasn’t the best either but there is something so special about a show that followed lesbian space rocks and a young boy saving the world.

More specifically Steven Universe is about a young boy named Steven, who is half-Gem, half-human who protects the town of Beach City from evil. Gems are a kind of alien who take on the form of pastel-coloured women, to better assimilate with the rest of the world.

Rebecca Sugar, the creator, explains her colourful characters in a behind-the-scenes promo:

“I always dreamed of making a show that would have this mix of fantasy and reality. So, I wanted to make these fantasy characters that enjoy being with Steven as much, if not more than they enjoy being fantasy characters. The characters aren’t perfect and that’s what makes them so great.”

Steven’s family are known as the Crystal Gems, a group of rebels who fought against their government thousands of years ago and now live on earth. Steven’s mom, Rose Quartz was at the forefront of the fight, she did extremely terrible things and when she gave up her gem—-so Steven could be born—-she was left unable to form a body ever again. Steven, with only his dad and three alien women, must attempt to fix her messes and deal with the repercussions of his mother’s actions.

One of the main mechanics within the series is known as fusion, in which two or more Gems become a single being who is stronger and more powerful. The fused form takes on the physical, mental and emotional aspects of those who are part of the bond. As mentioned and discussed many times within this blog, fusions are a physical embodiment of different kinds of relationships. And for a show starring a primarily female cast, they do not shy away from using this mechanic to tell queer stories.

So explicitly that in 2018, the show had the first-ever lesbian wedding in a cartoon. Of course, representation wasn’t always as accepted in Steven Universe. Just two years before the big wedding, higher-ups at Cartoon Network told Rebecca Sugar, they not happy with the multiple queer relationships, so much so that they were ready to threaten cancellation.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she expressed:

“If this is going to cost me my show that’s fine because this is a huge injustice and I need to be able to represent myself and my team through this show and anything less would be unfair to my audience.”

Being LGBT herself, identifying as bisexual and non-binary, representation is important to her. For many queer people, especially grown-ups, they hope to see themselves represented in kids’ media today as they never had growing up. They want nothing more for children’s shows to say that being “different” or not fitting in with our heteronormative society is actually normal.

Within Steven Universe, you can find woman-loving-woman relationships, non-binary and intersex characters, woman-loving-non-binary relationships, asexual coded characters and basically every other letter in the acronym.

Rebecca Sugar even acted as the exciting force for LGBT inclusion within Adventure Time, originally working as a writer and storyboard artist before leaving to create her own show. She pushed for making the ex-romantic queer couple to be canonically part of the story and for it to not just coded into the dialogue.

A few years later, she returned to the show, multiple times, to compose over 20 songs that would air over the series 10-year-long run such as, “I’m Just Your Problem” which had lesbian subtext that would be confirmed later.

Some other iconic songs including “Fry Song“, “Remember You“, “Good Little Girl“, “Everything Stays” and even the finale song, “Time Adventure“.

Much like the show as a whole, there is something so special about the music she writes. In total, there were over 160 songs written for the franchise, some being short little tunes, no longer than a minute while others were full-blown musical numbers. No matter, all of them have their place within the show. Often when the character can’t express lines through speech, music is utilized to provide a more raw and poignant portrayal of their emotions.

Why Steven Universe is so widely loved is due to the music, as the overall story is not even close to perfect. Yet, everyone can agree on one thing, the music is unbelievably good. What is interesting is the different styles of melodies and backtracking used in the various songs, even more impressive is that every character has their own instrumental motif.

Steven’s motif is the ukelele as he is often seen playing the instrument himself, performing short little melodies and even writing the in-show version of the theme song. Additionally, Steven’s music uses a large amount of Chiptune synth, electronic music which is created using a programmable sound generator. Both instruments have a very childlike feeling to them, Chiptune especially as it is normally used in video game music like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, one of the main musical inspirations for the show. As Steven is the lead, most of the music has Chiptune somewhere in the score and fun fact, the first song in the show, sung by Steven, “Cookie Cat” was actually written on an old Gameboy.

Amethyst is very loud and fun, her motif is electric drums which is extremely reflective of her character. As she can be angry from convincing herself that she is not good enough to happy and giggling from pranking Steven, her instrument can be used in so many ways as she is not a simple character. No matter what, for the few songs Amethyst has on her own (or in the score), her drums provide such an interesting emotional response to the situation.

Garnet is a fusion, so her motif is actually the combination of two instruments. Ruby is a drumbeat as she is a fiery and loud character, she is chaotic while Sapphire is her opposite. Sapphire is calm and collected, she has ice-related powers and is represented by Synth music. The characters together have a perfect unity, expressed by Garnet’s synth bass sounds, she is the equilibrium of two very contrasting characters. The music associated with Garnet, uses primarily the synth bass but Ruby and Sapphire’s individual instruments can be heard throughout her music. All three instruments are also heavily representative as Garnet’s main dancing style is Hip Hop which clashing with others’ softer dancing styles.

Despite, not being alive during the show, Rose Quartz still has her own musical motif as she plays a large part in Steven’s growth throughout the series. As well as being in many flashbacks, she is represented with strings, more specifically, the violin. Rose’s story is rather sad which quite is visible within her associated music, yet, she was also an extremely powerful character as she led the fight against the Homeworld government. Her strength can be heard with strong uplifts and swells in the music. She is never seen playing an instrument unlike the rest of the main characters but one person who plays hers is Pearl, a character Rose was possibly in love with.

For the complex and beautiful character, Pearl, her motif is classical and swing piano. She is visually represented as a ballerina for a large majority of the series, dressed in a leotard, a small skirt and ballet shoes. Apart from Garnet, she is one of the calmest characters in the show. She is a perfectionist and is knowledgeable on many topics. She has a dark past and her fair share of trauma, all of this is wrapped up in her music. From her traumatic past with Rose Quartz, the violin had been heard throughout her music, yet, when she finally dealt with everything, the violin was lost. Swapped out for a new instrument, a bass guitar which she learned how to play at the end of the series. Pearl is a character who has been through a lot and her music reflects it. As she grew, her music changed with her, becoming her own instead of something built off of Rose’s.

My personal favourite song is “It’s Over Isn’t It?” which is this heartwrenching and emotionally painful ballad sung by a broken woman. Pearl was in love with Steven’s mom. Yet, the feelings were not mutual or at least ended being reciprocated as Rose left her for Greg, Steven’s dad. It hurts because Rose didn’t just leave her, Rose Quartz also passed away. As the song goes:

That they didn’t really matter until you I was fine when you came And we fought like it was all some silly game Over her, who she’d choose After all those years, I never thought I’d lose … You won and she chose you and she loved you and she’s gone It’s over, isn’t it? Why can’t I move on? … Who am I now in this world without her? Petty and dull with the nerve to doubt her What does it matter? It’s already done Now I’ve got to be there for her son

Without Rose, Pearl has lost her place in the world as all she ever knew was her. Yet, now she is left to help raise a half-human baby and go on with her life. It makes it more difficult as this baby is the product of Rose and the man that she left Pearl for.

Pearl doesn’t want to hate Greg, she is angry at him but she doesn’t have hatred towards him. They may not be the best of pals at the start of the series but in the song called “Both of You“ has Steven, finally, begging for Greg and Pearl to just talk to each other.

Why don’t you talk to each other? Why don’t you talk to each other? Just give it a try Why don’t you talk about what happened? … You might not believe it but you got a lot in common, you really do You both love me and I love both of you … I know you both need it Someone who knows what you’re going through

An interesting thing about this song is that Steven is this to them, the person with Rose’s gem is singing to the two people who fought over Rose. It makes me wonder if this could be Rose speaking through Steven to her two loved ones. Whether it is or not, doesn’t really matter to the overall story but it is a fun idea to look at.

Overall, these songs are a literal representation of dealing with ones’ emotions in a healthy way, something that Steven Universe actively tries to teach their younger viewers about.

To say Steven Universe is a good show only for its music would be a false statement, it’s one of the strongest aspects but without the story or the characters, the music would fall flat and not have any of its passion.

#isaac rambles #steven universe #lgbt #steven universe music #cartoons #cartoon network #rebecca sugar #cartoon review

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thevirtualcanvas · 4 years

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Steven’s Lament

Just a little fic inspired by @taikova ‘s illustration of Steven lying in bed. So please enjoy C:

12:46

Maybe a cup of green tea would help?

1:32

Alright. Two cups.

3:12

Three cups, stargazing, phone scrolling and staring up at the ceiling and – nothing. He knew he was exhausted, he knew he should sleep. But what was the point? It's not like he had any responsibilities any more, or any friends thanks to his latest gem-related screw-up.

The back-light of his phone seeped through his covers, bouncing off his gem and reflected a soft pink light into his room. Pink. It was his entire problem. The tarpaulin that covered the front of his broken house rustled in the sea breeze; mixing with the sounds of Lion's snoring, it was driving Steven crazy. Though a lot of things did these days. He tapped his fingers against his chest and groaned, he should just get up. Lying in bed was pointless. Maybe he could go sleep with Lion for old times sake, or he could throw his head in Lion's mane and just be done with it?

Yikes. That was a dark thought.

Steven threw back the covers with a heavy arm, swung his legs around, and sat upright facing his sliding door. The gems hadn't spoken to him in days, well, more specifically, he'd avoided them. He'd let them orchestrate the rebuilding work with Bismuth and her team and kept out of the way. He couldn't stand to look them in the eyes, all those awful things he'd said and Cactus Steven had told them everything – each dark and personal thought and worst of all at the time, he'd meant it.

He rubbed at his tired eyes and played with the phone in his hands, rubbing his thumbs over the screen. Steven yearned to talk to someone and no one. Pearl had sent his Dad over the day before as he'd sat in the greenhouse atop the warp pad, sulking. But he couldn't tell him how he felt, how could his Dad possibly understand? In the end, he brushed his Dad off with a half-assed smile. I'm fine, it's just Gem stuff.

Greg Universe sighed, looked at his son, more worried for him than he'd even been (even when he had been kidnapped by home-world gems and oh boy did some hair fall out then) and said,

“Stuball. Gem stuff or not, just know we all love you, and when you're ready to talk, we're ready to listen.”

Why did his Dad sound like him? When did everyone else start to take his job? He helped, Steven Universe, helper of the galaxy. Capable of solving anyone's problems. Except for his own.

“Fuckkkkk.” It slipped from his lips, reactionary. Lined with utter frustration and barely an utterance but he surprised even himself. He remembered that time Pearl went mental at Amethyst for using it in the temple around him. Amethyst simply shrugged, winked at Steven and told him to save for it a special occasion. Was the end of himself as he knew it a justifiable special occasion?

A tempestuous snore from Lion pulled him from his thoughts, yup, he needed to leave his room. Taking his phone with him, Steven dragged himself to the greenhouse. Bismuth hadn't started work in there yet, and a massive hole graced the peak of the dome. He'd cleared up the shattered glass, and floated up to cover the top in plastic, just in case it rained, apart from that the room remained the same. He'd even left the cardboard box he'd kept Cactus Steven prisoner in exactly where he'd thrown it, a monument to his own failure. Pale moonlight danced across the petals and leaves of each flower in the room. The warp pad hummed in the center giving off its own soft glow, waiting on standby for Steven to use it.

“Hey everyone,” he laughed with insincerity to his home-grown friends. Of course, they didn't respond, they were just plants. The real versions of his friends were out doing amazing things; Steven had done his amazing, now he was stuck, stagnant in Beach City. “Hey, Connie, how are you doing, smarty?” Steven walked over to the delicate blue flower, it's violet petals almost seemed to shine brighter in this light. His fingers caressed the underside of the velvet-soft flower and it made him miss the real Connie even more.

“I've messed-up, Con,” he told her as he sat crossed-legged on the floor underneath the flower pot. “I've done and said some terrible things recently and every time I do all I can think about is her...”

The plant sat silently, almost as if it were listening.

“I'm so angry – all of the time. I'm doing things and finding out things about my gem self that I never knew I could do and I don't know if I want to... because the more I do, the more I become like – ” Steven paused. Throat closing, eyes threatening to tear. He was scared. Not that he'd turn into his Mom; Rose Quartz had spent thousands of years repenting and paying for her actions, but Pink? She'd done so much damage, ruined so many lives including that of a son she'd never know she'd have. “I don't want to be Pink Diamond, Connie. She was selfish, destructive and so out of control! I don't want anyone to look at me and see her anymore!”

Pink Diamond took his childhood. Pink Diamond took his identity. Pink took everything.

Purple petals turned pink and with a gasp, Steven realised he was losing it. He could see his reflection on the glossy floor and it terrified him. Pink. Eyes. Hair. Skin. Everything was glowing pink. The colour made him sick.

“See?” He sobbed. “There I go again. Turning into her. The one thing they all hate above everything else.”

Large tears stung as they fell down his face, his body shook as he pulled it as close as he could. “And you know what, Connie,” he laughed to himself almost manically. “I hate her too.”

Steven howled, months of pent-up anger and rage, flowing freely as big pink tears. He shook and shook, holding himself tight, wishing someone else was. The plants, the tables and the gardening equipment rattled around him. The power that sat within him, poured out, raw and emotional. It wasn't sharp, like The Reef, or purposeful, like his fight with Jasper. His power lamented, wrapped sorrow around every living thing, and forced his emotions through it. Flower Connie wilted, but he didn't even notice; too busy drowning in guilt and a host of other negative emotions he was allowing himself to feel.

Steven didn't notice anything. Not the ambivalent roar of Lion. Nor the sound of a portal opening up. The urgent steps. Or the greenhouse door opening with a hiss.

“Steven!”

Steven turned to the sound of his name – shocked by the owner and relieved all at once. “Connie?! What are you doing here?” He hiccuped between the tears.

Connie was there. The real Connie, not the plant version he'd been speaking to for months. Stood in the doorway in her pajamas, looking at him. Hair ruffled, cheeks rosy from running so hard and a dressing gown haphazardly slung over her shoulders. Lion was behind her, whining and nudging the base of her back, urging her forward. Connie rushed across the greenhouse, throwing herself at him, joining him in his pity party on the floor. She launched herself; landing in a mess of limbs, tangling her arms around his neck, burying her head in the crux of his shoulder, pressing the rest of her as close as to him as possible. They'd never concerned themselves with personal space in the entire time they'd known each other, she wasn't going to start now. Not when he needed her.

“Why didn't you call?”

Connie. His Connie. She was really here, warm and bright, He buried his nose into her dark hair, pink hands coiling into the thick strands, the cool scent of lavender and juniper filled his nostrils.

“I didn't want to bother you,” he whispered feeling the sweet heat of her lips against his neck as she spoke.

“Steven,” she spoke sternly, but with an undeniable love, just like her mother. “You could never bother me.” Connie pulled herself back to look at him, on her knees between his thighs, and hands cupping his still round cheeks. Rich eyes drew him in, oh how he'd missed seeing her face. “You can talk to me about anything. Or cry. Sit in silence. You even have a temper tantrum if you need to. Just don't keep me out. I've missed you, Jam bud.”

Above him, plant Connie's petals rustled, springing back to life. Steven could feel the pink fading as real Connie took his hands in hers; they were so warm, and small – but he loved them. He loved her.

“I'm sorry Lion woke you up,” he apologised as he pried his back of the floor and sat up.

She squeezed his chunky hands, and rubbed the back of them with the pads of her thumbs. “I'm not. I couldn't sleep anyway. Something felt off – now I know what it was.”

He cringed, embarrassed by the outburst, and the way his Gem powers amplified every emotion he had. “I wish you hadn't seen that...”

Connie scowled at him. “I'm glad I did – you don't need to hide anything from me. I'm not here to judge you, I'm here because my best friend in the whole galaxy needs help.”

Steven bit his lip. “But what about your parents, aren't they going to be upset you're gone?”

“I think Lion gave the game away. I have my phone, my Mom knows where I am.”

“But what about school?”

“It's fine.”

“I don't want to take you away from your work Connie, you've been working so hard!”

“Steven –”

“We need to get you home! There's still a couple of hours until sunrise and I – ”

“Steven!” Connie shouted and then took a breath, bringing their hands to her lips. “I'm fine. It's the weekend, we're going to look after you. You've spent so long looking after everyone else, you don't know how to take care of yourself. C'mon, let's get out of the greenhouse and go to bed.”

As she brought him to his feet, Steven realised how right Connie was. Without other people's problems, Steven only had his own, and he couldn't cope with that. His legacy, his history, his Mom, it was defining him in a way that sat wrong and made him feel awful. Every moment you love yourself, that's me, loving you. Well he didn't, right now hated himself, what he felt like he was becoming, what he felt like he was lacking. He had two worlds and he didn't fit in either of them; everyone changed despite him. What was he going to do?

Connie led him by the hand slowly, taking their time as they took the wooden boardwalk back round the house. Seagulls had already begun to rise, cawing out into the cove as the inky night began to give way to a new dawn. As they entered Steven's room, Lion was lying at the base of the bed pretending to be asleep. He gave Steven and Connie a delighted chirp as he bed down, pink tail waggling in demure happiness. Steven noted mentally that he'd drive out to the supermarket to get Lion some ice-cream later as a thank you. Connie sorted out the covers and led him by the hand into his side of the bed while she settled next to him on the other.

“Connie...” Steven trailed off, looking at her as she pulled the covers over them. She hummed in response, once again taking one of his hands in hers. “Thanks, for coming over. I've missed you too. “

She gave him a smile, and if he was feeling himself it would have left him weak at the knees. Now, broken and confused, it made him feel safe and loved. “I'll be here whenever I can Steven, although next time, maybe give me a call first?” He nodded, yeah, that was fair. Lion huffed over the edge of the bed, he thought he'd been helpful. Wasn't his fault Lion's couldn't use phones. “Sorry, Lion you were great,” she said with a coo. “And let's not tell my Mom I stayed in your bed, again.”

“I should maybe get you your own bed,” he thought out loud. “Don't want Dr.Maheswaren to get annoyed.”

Connie wriggled over, planted a kiss on his brow with the lightest of touches and laughed. “Steven, that's sweet but I'm perfectly happy here, with you. Besides, what my Mom doesn't know won't hurt her. Now get some rest, we'll talk more tomorrow.”

His head felt warm and fuzzy, it did every time she kissed him, he couldn't help but crack a smile. He suddenly felt overcome with fatigue, between Connie next to him and Lion at his feet, Steven had felt more comfortable than he had in weeks. This might not fix his problems, but with Connie's support, he could get the ball rolling, apologise to the gems – and his Dad for starters. He had a lot to apologise for.

“Connie,” Steven said with a yawn. “Thanks for being the jam to my biscuit.”

“Thanks for being the biscuit to my jam, Steven,” she said with a sleepy smile as he squeezed her hand.

Lion yawned, his mouth opening wide, tongue curling inside his maw.

“Goodnight Lion!” They both said in unison and drifted off into an easy sleep.

#steven universe #suf #steven universe future #fanfic for fanart #steven universe fan fic #connverse #connie mahaswaren #lion #pink steven #post prickly pair #angst with fluff

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bucketsofgiggles · 4 years

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To Be There

Steven Universe Future fanfic, a missing scene from "Growing Pains", from Greg's POV. Greg tries to be the best father he can, considering the circumstances, as he also grapples with the idea he hasn't been the best father. AO3 link in the reblog.

As Steven shrunk back down to normal size, Greg quickly reached out to pull his son into an embrace. He's relieved when Steven accepts it readily, considering what he had just recently been through. And there was clearly much more going on that Greg wasn’t aware of.

“ How am I supposed to live my life when it always feels like I’m about to die? ”

Those words kept echoing. What exactly had led Steven to feel such a way? How had he, as a father, not noticed such a drastic change in his son?

There’s a quick nock on the door, which causes Steven to tense in his arms. Rubbing his son’s back, Greg turns his head to see who walked in. Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran stands just inside the room, shutting the door behind her, a stack of papers in her arms. She meets his eyes as the door shuts and the initial look of fury the doctor gives him makes Greg jump. While her professional face slips back on quickly, Steven still notices.

“You okay, Dad?” His voice is muffled in Greg’s shoulder and he spots Dr. Maheswaran’s eyes soften at the question.

“Yeah, Schtew-ball, it’s just Dr. Maheswaran.”

“...Without Connie?”

Yeah, that’s gonna be a sore spot for a bit. “Yep, just her.”

She doesn’t move when she speaks up. “Take all the time you need, Steven.”

Steven takes a few more big, shuddering breaths, squeezes his father tightly for a second, then breaks away. He rubs his eyes slightly as he looks around Greg for Dr. Maheswaran. “I’m ready now.”

She nods in response. “I have some questionnaires I need you to fill out. Please answer them honestly,” She states, crossing the room to Steven and hands him the papers and a pen. “I’m going to speak to your father in my office for a bit, so please wait here until we return. Feel free to put your regular clothes back on.”

Steven nods and heads over to a desk in the corner of the room, gabbing his clothes along the way. He glances over the top sheet of the stack. Greg didn’t get a chance to see what kind of “questionnaires” they were exactly.

With Steven’s back turned, Dr. Maheswaran levels Greg a withering glare. Whatever she wants to speak with him about in her office, it can’t be good. Greg swallows hard as he turns to follow her out of the exam room. He turns back in the doorway.

“Steven, please text me if you need anything, okay?” He glances up from the papers, and gives his dad a ghost of a smile as he nods. Greg doesn’t miss the way his face falls as he turns back towards the papers, his narrowing eyes storming as he reads.

Following Dr. Maheswaran to her office, he is very much reminded of his school day trips to the principal. But there are two very different factors now: A. Greg hasn’t the foggiest idea why Dr. Maheswaran is so angry at him and B. His son is involved somehow. Has Steven been hurt? Was someone hurting him? Why didn’t Steven tell him? Or the Gems?

They walk in, Dr. Maheswaran shutting the door behind him, and silently indicates for him to take a seat. The office is just as meticulous as Greg expected, with not a single piece of paper or chart out of place. The filing cabinets are clearly labeled, the textbooks and journals on the selves are in alphabetical order by author last name, and her screensaver is the same family picture from the Maheswaran’s New Years card. The only personal effects are her medical degrees and licenses hanging on the wall and a few framed pictures of Connie and her husband on her desk. She quickly sits down behind the desk and tents her hands, obscuring her mouth but leaving her furious eyes well exposed.

“So, uh,” Greg desperately tries to break the tension. “How did your exam go-”

“Greg Universe, please explain to me how your teenage son has never been to a doctor before?” She doesn’t yell, but her tone is withering. Greg feels himself slide down in his seat in shame.

“Well, uh, the lack of health insurance sure didn’t help.”

“There are programs to help with that, especially for single parents.”

“Yeah, but how was I supposed to explain Steven to any doctor? You gotta realize he wasn’t born in a hospital, or even in a…” Greg fumbles on his words, cursing the way his cheeks burn with embarrassment. “You know, typical way.”

“Well that’s why he seemed confused when I asked for his social security number. Does he even have a birth certificate?”

“No…”

“Has he even been vaccinated?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe in them! But with his physiology, I had no idea how they would react-”

“ Greg Universe ”

“Look, things were chaotic! My wife was dead, I had a newborn son who isn’t even fully human, I was alternating living out of my van and crashing on a friends couch, without health insurance! And do you think if I had taken him in and said ‘Hey, here’s my newborn son with a gemstone stuck in his naval. His mother was an immortal alien being who fought a war to defend the Earth thousands of years ago, and died to give birth to him. I’m raising him alongside her fellow alien friends who also have gemstones stuck in their bodies. Oh, and I didn’t even have the type of gemstone right at the time because his mother lied about who she was to escape her horrible home planet! ’ How would you have reacted?”

“It did take me witnessing Steven in action to fully believe it," Dr. Maheswaran shrugs a bit, her face relaxing slightly.

“Look, I did strongly consider it multiple times, but I was afraid of how they’d treat him. Plus, Steven never got sick or injured. Never. Not even those non-stop sniffles little kids get. Not a cold, not a fever, not a stomach bug; he was exceptionally healthy his entire childhood. Heck, he never even scraped his knees!”

Dr. Maheswaran sighs at that. “That actually leads well into one thing I found that we need to discuss.” She turns towards her computer screen, shakes the mouse to wake it up, and starts typing and clicking rapidly, leaving Greg clueless as to what she meant. Did Steven get hurt? Was he sick? After all these years and all the various incredible things he’s done, it seemed almost comical.

Then Dr. Maheswaran turned her screen around, and any thought of this situation being a comedy died. It's an x-ray of an upper body labeled “Universe, Steven ''. He didn’t need a doctor’s trained eye to see the various cracks and fracture lines running throughout Steven’s skeletal system, spiderwebbing through his ribs, spiraling down his upper arms, and some truly large and painful-looking breaks to his face.

“H- how?” Greg sputters, though he knows the reason - Steven’s healing powers.

“It seems that Steven’s Gem half is able to instantaneously heal any physical injury, major or minor, he experiences. The bones set and re-heal from the moment they break.” She hits the arrow keys and a few more images scroll past: His arms, legs, back, close-ups of his face, hands, and feet. All of them have some healed fracture lines on them, evidence that despite him never saying a word, Steven had been getting severely hurt for years. His son was getting this badly injured and Greg never noticed. Despite the horror gnawing at his gut, he couldn’t look away.

“Now, this is unprecedented in the medical field. Miraculous, even. And every test I ran on your son came back negative. Steven is physically a perfectly healthy teenage boy, even with his injury history.”

“Well then, that’s good, right?”

Dr. Maheswaran sighed. “These kinds of injuries...some of them only occur in cases of severe physical trauma. And Steven listed for me a number of incredibly severe, repeated instances of traumatic experiences he went through as a child. And then he indicated to me that that wasn’t all of them. I know his upbringing and heritage is...unusual, but he still has human anatomy and a human mind. And any human, especially a child or teenager, who went through that number and level of traumatic experiences for as long as he did is going to experience some mental effects.

“The questionnaires I gave Steven before we left the room were diagnostic screeners for Adverse Childhood Experiences, Major Depressive Disorder in teens, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in teens. And I might not be a psychiatrist, but I can say, based on my exam and conversation with Steven, that I am 98% certain of the PTSD diagnosis and 95% on the depression diagnosis. Those screeners are just a last bit of confirmation, as well as further evidence for his chart. Mr. Universe, your son is experiencing major mental health challenges.”

Greg stares at the doctor, slack jawed. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he feels a tear trace down his cheek. He goes to brush it away, and finds his hands are shaking. “I-I don’t...how did I not see?”

Dr. Maheswaran gives Greg a look of sympathy for the first time. “Honestly, I don’t think Steven even realizes just how much an effect all his traumatic experiences have had on him. That’s not at all uncommon, especially in cases like his where multiple traumatic events were experienced.” Greg groans, and Dr. Maheswaran pulls a box of tissues out from behind her desk and hands them to him. “Steven has experienced so many traumatic events that his body and mind have almost gotten used to being in mortal peril. But now that he no longer isn’t experiencing that, his body isn’t used to dealing with much more minor forms of stress, so it does what it’s used to; preparing for a potentially deadly scenario.”

And Steven’s words finally make sense. Steven has spent years realistically believing he might die, and now it’s all he’s ever known. All those Gem missions, over all the years… Greg had let him go. Greg had allowed Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl to take his son out on various dangerous, potentially deadly missions multiple times. And he stayed back, not wanting to get involved in a world he didn’t belong to. And even when he began to express concerns about it, Steven and the Gems all reassured him that things were fine. Steven had seemed fine . And Greg knew in his heart that if he pulled Steven away from Crystal Gem business, if he forbade him from going on missions, Steven might not have forgiven him.

Greg wonders now if he should’ve risked that anyway.

“So, what do I do now?”

“We can help your son. Rest assured, you are not alone in helping Steven deal with this. I will take on the role of Steven’s general practitioner. There is an excellent child psychologist in this hospital, Dr. Jeanne Greenlow, who I will refer Steven too, and I will make sure she fully understands his...unusual background. Unless something is indicated on the screeners I gave him, I expect that Steven will go home with you today.”

Dr. Maheswaran stands up, walks over to Greg, kneels down so they are at eye level, and places a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes have softened considerably, and the touch on his shoulder is fully comforting. “What you can do for Steven, right now, is take him home and be there for him. That, as his father, is the best thing you can do for him at this moment.”

Greg can tell that in every aspect of Dr. Maheswaran’s behavior, from her posture to her expression to her vocal tone, she was not speaking as a doctor, but as a fellow parent. Some of the panic that’s in him dies down as he meets her eyes. “I will, I promise.”

She nods, then stands up. “Let’s go see if he’s done.” Greg agrees, getting up and following her out of the door and back down the hospital hallways. His mind still swarms, but he pushes it all aside for now. He needs to focus on Steven, on what he needs, on being the best father he can be. Which is apparently going to have to be far better than what Greg has done so far.

As they approach the exam room, Dr. Maheswaran stops, spins around, and gives Greg another hard look. It’s not nearly as severe as some of her earlier ones, but it still makes him shudder a bit. “You need to discuss this with the Gems. Promise me you’ll do that.”

He blinks, slightly shocked. “Of course, I promise.”

She spins back around, takes a deep breath, puts on a much more soothing face, and opens the exam room door. Greg follows quickly enough behind to see Steven, now dressed in his regular clothes, sitting on the exam table, phone in hand. When his eyes meet Greg’s face, his pupils shrink and Greg realizes it’s obvious he’s been crying. Another pang of guilt hits him for making Steven worry again, so he puts on a smile as he walks over to the table and sits next to Steven. Almost instinctively, Steven scooches close and Greg puts his arm around his son. Knowing the news Dr. Maheswaran is about to break to him, Greg figures more hugs are better.

“Did you finish the questionnaires?” She asks, her tone far more gentle than anything she used with Greg, which does not at all make him angry. If anything, he’s grateful to Dr. Maheswaran for how well she’s handled this situation. Steven nods, handing her the stack of papers. “Great, give me a few minutes to put your answers into the computer.”

As she heads over to the desktop sitting on the corner desk and begins typing, Steven lays his head on Greg’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” His voice is whispered, creaking slightly.

“Don’t apologize for anything, Steven. Absolutely none of this is your fault.”

“It’s not good news, is it?”

Greg sighs. “No, but it’s not the end of the world either, kiddo. We’ll get through it. I’ll help you get through it.”

They sit, silent only for the sound of typing. After a few more minutes, Dr. Maheswaran gives a little hum at whatever pops up on her monitor, then turns towards the two of them. Her eyes are soft and full of sympathy. Greg pulls Steven closer as she approaches, sits down close to Steven, and begins to explain the diagnoses. She tells him everything she already told Greg in her office, and that she’s already sent his chart with a referral note to Dr. Greenlow’s office.

“Once the referral is processed, your father will get a call from her office to schedule an appointment.” At this, Dr. Maheswaran gives a pointed look at Greg, with the unspoken and he will pick up that phone call and make the appointment clearly in her gaze.

“Wait, why does Dad need to make the appointment? I could do it.” Steven asks.

“It’s protocol, as you’re still a minor in the eyes of the law.”

Greg can see the refutes brewing in Steven’s brain, up to and including his dismantling of a millennium-long, multi-galaxy, tyrannical rule, but he’s clearly too physically and mentally tired to make the argument.

At the end, Dr. Maheswaran gives Greg a polite handshake, and then, after a moment's hesitation, pulls Steven into a hug. Though she whispers, he can still make out the words she says to Steven. “I know things between you and Connie are...difficult right now, but she wanted me to tell you that she’s ready to talk whenever you are. She’s okay with waiting because she wants you to be comfortable first. So, don't push yourself, okay?"

Steven pulls away, wiping a tear from his eye. “Thanks, Dr. Maheswaran.”

“Of course, Steven. Feel better, and please, reach out if you need to see me again.”

Greg and Steven agree and they leave the room, Greg grabbing the duffle he had dropped outside the exam room when he spotted Steven through the window. It had just a few days worth of clothes and essentials, but he had more of his stuff still at the car wash, and he could use Steven’s washer and dryer for laundry. He had to leave the van with Sadie and Shep; they had dropped him off in front of the hospital and went on, the tour still tentatively on unless they heard otherwise from him. He would have to call them, but decided it could wait until tomorrow.

Steven pulling the Dondai keys from his jacket pocket answered the question of how to get home before Greg could ask it. But as they got to the parking lot and approached the car, Steven stopped short.

“Do you want me to drive?” Greg asked.

“...Yeah, I’m a bit tired.” Steven said, handing the keys over.

Greg got the car unlocked so Steven could sit down, threw his duffle in the trunk, then got in and began driving back towards Beach City. The ride starts silent, Steven staring out the window blankly. Greg has never been the one to ride in silence; it makes him uneasy to not have some music in the background. After checking the tape deck and finding it empty, he fiddles with the radio until he finds the radio station Shep had stumbled upon, which plays a lot of soft, acoustic music. It had been good post-show calm-down tracks, and Greg feels that it would be best after everything that had happened. He knows he’s right when he glances at Steven and sees him smiling softly, fingers tapping along on the window.

They approach the house, and the pair get out of the car, Steven grabbing Greg’s duffle for him. The two enter, Greg calling out a “Hey, we’re home. And by we, I mean I’m here with Steven.”

“The Gems aren’t here,” Steven says behind him. “Little Homeschool field trips, they’ll be back tomorrow."

“Well, then it’s just you and me, lil man. Like the old days.”

“Yeah, like the old days…” Steven replies, a little wistful. “You sure you’ll be okay on the couch?”

“Yeah, my back ain’t that old yet,” Greg states, but the little pang that he feels when he says that argues otherwise. But Steven doesn’t need to know that; the last thing he needs to feel is guilty.

“Okay. I’m gonna uh…” Steven starts as he climbs up the stairs, but his voice trailing off soon turns into a groan.

“What’s going on?”

“I forgot I left my room a mess.”

Greg climbs up the stairs, and manages to push down the sound of shock he feels climbing up his throat. While not meticulous, Steven did like to keep his space orderly and clean (although Greg figures Pearl had no small part in that). So the complete mess - cartons of melted ice cream, dirty bowls stacked on top of each other, clothes strewn about, bed unmade - of his son’s room was quite shocking. Greg only feels more guilty at not noticing something sooner; the seriousness of this was made all the more clear.

He spots Steven’s shoulders sag as they take in the state of his room, and Greg knows he needs to make things as easy on him as possible. “Hey, don’t worry about it, Schtew-ball. I’ll clean this up. You go grab your pajamas and go downstairs to get changed.”

“But, Dad, it’s my room and my mess. I should handle it.”

“Steven, it’s okay, you’ve had a long day. I don’t mind helping you out a bit.”

There’s a few seconds before Steven sighs, telling Greg he’s won. “Okay, but let me take the bowls downstairs and wash them, if I’m going to head down anyway.”

Greg decides not to argue, knowing Steven will feel better by helping a little bit. He was never one to let others do a job he felt responsible for. As he grabs his pajamas and the bowls and heads back downstairs, Greg wonders if that’s partly what led to all of this. The task of picking up the room allows him to not dwell on that thought.

Once he’s done, Greg heads downstairs, Steven’s bedding in his arms. As he turns the corner into the living room, he sees Steven on the couch, scrolling through his phone, the bowls and spoons lined up perfectly on the drying rack by the sink. “Hey, the laundry room’s still on the hand with the warp pad, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Figured it might be good to give your sheets a wash, but if you gotta warp me up there-”

“No, no, that’s okay. Honestly, they probably need it.”

They quickly head up to the laundry set-up outside and throw Steven’s bedding in the machine. When they warp back down, Steven’s stomach rumbles.

“Been a while since you ate?”

“Yeah, and it was mostly ice cream…” Steven says, making his way over to the kitchen. Greg follows as Steven looks through his cupboards and fridge, shoulders shagging as he mumbles different meal options under his breath, accounting for prep and cook time and if there’s enough for two.

“Hey, Steven,” Greg finally interrupts the third time Steven debates the box of pasta. “Let’s just call Fish Stew Pizza for dinner and have a pizza-and-a-bad-movie night, like we did when you were a kid. Sound like fun?”

Steven glances at the cupboard again, then grins at him. It’s not nearly as large as Steven’s typical smiles, but it’s the largest he’s given today and Greg’s heart is full.

Steven goes back up to his room to go through his movie collection while Greg calls Fish Stew and places their typical delivery order. As he finishes, the ordering process elongated by Kofi getting on the line and catching up, Steven returns downstairs with one of the Boomerang Blade movies. Greg would’ve gone with whatever Steven wanted, but he definitely can’t say no when he sees the smile still on his son’s face.

They move Steven’s bedding to the dryer and start the movie, curling under blankets at the foot of his bed. About 20 minute in, there’s a knock at the door.

“That must be the pizza, I’ll run down and get it,” Greg says as Steven reaches to hit the pause button. He makes his way back downstairs and opens the door for Kiki, holding the extra large box in her hands.

“Hey, Mr. Universe! Didn’t believe you were in town when my dad mentioned it. What happened to the tour?”

“Oh it’s still going on, but uh…” Greg glances up the stairs. Steven certainly wouldn’t want Greg telling Kiki, or anybody else for that matter, about his PTSD diagnosis without his permission. “Steven had something come up so I decided to pay him a visit and help.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” She says as Greg hands her the money. “Tell him I said hello!”

“Will do, have a good night!”

Greg makes his way back up the stairs, balancing the box in one hand, and spots Steven’s eyes the moment he re-enters his room. There’s a level of fear and embarrassment in there. “Was that Kiki?” Greg nods as he sits back down on the floor, putting the box between them. Steven grabs a slice and stares at it a moment. “Did she say anything about you being here?”

“Yeah, but I just said you had something come up, so I decided to visit.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope,” Greg pauses as he takes a slice of his own, and takes in the concern on his son’s face. “I won’t tell anyone about the PTSD or anything else that happened today without you being there or without your permission. But,” he interjects when the relief starts to flood Steven’s face. “Dr. Maheswaran wants us to tell the Gems. And honestly, I agree with her. At least Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. They raised you, they were around you for a lot of what you went through, you still live with them. They need to know what’s going on.”

Greg holds his breath while Steven processes what he just said. He hates pilling it all on now, but it needs to be said and discussed and the conversation led there naturally. With the Gems out until tomorrow, they need to plan out how the conversation will go.

“You’re right,” Steven finally says. “They need to, should, know what happened.”

“Right. So, how do you want to handle it? Do you want to do it on your own, do you want me to do it?”

There’s another pause as Steven thinks. Greg hates putting stress on him, especially after everything, but it’s better now than throwing him into a situation tomorrow he’s unprepared for. “Can we both do it? Together?”

“Of course, Schtew-ball. I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

There’s another small smile, and it stays as Steven turns back towards the TV and unpauses the movie.

They go through the movie and the pizza, Steven taking care of more than half the box himself. Greg lets him; that Gem-stress response looks like it took a lot of energy. Once the credits roll, they venture back up to the laundry hand to grab Steven’s bedding from the dryer, then warp back downstairs. As Greg passes the kitchen, an idea comes to him.

“Hey, do you mind making your bed? I’ve got to do something real quick.”

“Uh, okay, sure.” Steven says, then heads upstairs. Once he’s around the corner, Greg runs to the cupboard, rifling through and- Ah ha! He thought he spotted the hot cocoa packaging. He grabs a mug and some milk, warms it up, and stirs the cocoa and marshmallows in until it looks perfectly soothing. As quickly as he can without spilling, he makes his way up the stairs to see Steven smoothing the corners of his duvet.

His eyebrows raise at the mug. “I still have hot cocoa?”

“I spotted the box while you were looking through earlier. A hot drink never made anyone feel worse.” There’s a little grin as Greg approaches the bed and Steven climbs in, old routines coming back despite the years. Steven sips and they chat a bit more about the day and what has to come tomorrow. Soon, Steven starts slipping himself more under the covers, his blinks becoming longer.

“Get some sleep, Schtew-ball. You’ve had a long day.”

Steven makes a noise of agreement as he fully lays down and rolls onto his side, facing away from Greg, and it’s like they had just done this yesterday. He carefully reaches a hand out towards Steven’s curls, and rubs them as he begins to sing softly. Comforting nostalgia fills him as the time passes Steven’s breathing becomes more even, both slipping into a routine from way back when he was really little. Even if his son is older, and bigger, bringing peace to galaxies, the curly haired teen sound asleep in bed was still Greg’s little boy. He would always be there to support him, to love him.

Guilt pangs deep in Greg’s chest. He didn’t support him, not enough, not this time, not so many times before. Steven might be calm now, but there was tomorrow to face, and the days after it. There were so many unknowns and how to handle them seemed insurmountable if Greg thought about it too hard.

Who knows how challenging they must feel to Steven, who responded to stress as though he could die.

But those were all tomorrow things. So all he could do now was reflect on the awful father he had been.

Years, years, of unending trauma had been inflicted on his kid and he hadn’t noticed the effects, hadn’t even stopped to really ask if Steven was okay. He acted like he was doing fine, and Greg had believed him. And after everything he’d been through over the past six years, Greg had left his son alone so he could, what? Relive his glory days traveling the country? What kind of a father was he?

Greg groaned as he recalled his earlier phone call with Steven. He had probably called to reach out, to talk at least about his failed proposal to Connie, and what had Greg done? Ignored the strain in his voice and joyfully talked about the tour being extended. Made his son feel that pulling him away from the tour would be burdensome. Gave him another excuse to not talk about his feelings. Took away another social support, and left him to face this alone.

How was he going to make all of that up to Steven?

He couldn’t believe Steven wasn’t angry with him. He would be if the roles were reversed. But Steven had been so relieved the moment Greg walked into the hospital room. And he had given him some genuine smiles throughout the evening, and seemed to enjoy everything Greg had done. What Dr. Maheswaran had told him, speaking parent-to-parent, went through his mind again.

He looked back down at Steven, still soundly asleep. Greg knew his son well enough that he’d forgive his father’s mistakes, tell him it wasn’t a big deal, that he should forget about it.

But Greg wasn’t going to forget his failings, nor forgive them quite just yet. He hasn’t yet done enough for forgiveness. But he will. To be the father he promised Rose and himself he would be before Steven was born, he will be there for his son. He won’t let his son face this alone anymore.

“ How am I supposed to live my life when it always feels like I’m about to die? ”

Greg Universe was going to help his son live again.

#Steven Universe #Steven Universe Future #SU #SUF #Steven Universe fanfic #Steven Universe Future Fanfic #SUF fanfic #Growing Pains #my fanfic #i've been a fan of SU for 5 years and this is my first fic for it #this was initially a drabble but i wasn't satisfied with it #too much telling over showing #so i told and now it's my longest one shot whoops #long post

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ravenwolf1132 · 4 years

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Steven Universe Headcanon Thingy.

Ok, so I sent an ask to @spudinacup about this and in it I said I'd make a seperate post on my thoughts. Now, I don't have a lot of proof for this, it's all speculation, but hear me out. This headcanon actually stems from an episode of Game Theory I watched for Petscop, and it basically got me thinking "What if Steven's gem half worked like a Darwinian Guided Learning Algorithm?"

Now for those of you who don't know, or haven't watched Game Theory's episode on Petscop; A Guided Learning Algorithm, or Supervised Learning Algorithm, is a computer programmed AI built to reconstruct a mathematical model of a set of predetermined data that contrains both the inputs and outputs of a desired outcome. The data is known as training data, and consists of a set of training examples. Types of supervised learning algorithms include active learning, classification and regression. Now, most of that scientific/mathematical mumbo-jumbo was copy and pasted from Google, but look up any video on YouTube about this stuff and you'll get a much more in depth explanation.

But, to but it simply, let's take a quick example. Let's say you have a set of 500 candidates in one generation of the Algorithm and their goal is to get from one side of a room to the other side while avoiding objects. Now, most of these candidates are bound to fail, but the strongest of the generation are naturally selected to "guide" the next generation. The next generation follows the previous generation's attempts and learns from their mistakes. This continues until the Algorithm has successfully completed the goal of crossing the room without bumping into anything, and just like that the Algorithm has evolved. This is why it's sometimes referred to as a Darwinian Learning Algorithm. Using terms like "generation", "natural selection", and "evolution."

I believe that this is how Gems, which are essentially AI, learn and grow. Let's take a quartz soldier for example, it's the easiest way to explain. Let's say a quartz soldier has just emerged and already has the information required to do her job efficiently, so this quartz soldier is not a first generation algorithm. The quartz then gets into a fight with, let's say, another gem, likely another quartz, and gets poofed. While the quartz is recovering inside her gem, the algorithms that make up her AI are processing what happened and are making patches to her programming in order for her to react accordingly. When she reforms and fights the other gem again, she wins, her gem then keeps the patch as a successful correction to her programming. Each time a gem poofs, they have made a jump in generation. This process is constantly happening, but only shows on a gem's form when they poof and reform.

This can also be shown in Rejuvenated!Amethyst, mainly her mimicry and copy-cat nature, as well as her "missing piece" which helped her regain her memories. As a gem that has been so overcooked and no longer had Peridots looking after the Kindergarten, she in turn no longer had a purpose either. She was essentially a blank slate, having to learn her surroundings by stumbling around and making discoveries and of course mimicking things around her in order to understand and learn from them. She's only following her programming, adapting to her situation like a soldier would, but since there's no fight going on, at least not immediately, she uses her shapeshifting to learn from her surroundings just like how a guided learning algorithm would.

Now this makes sense for the gems, being sentient supercomputer polymorphic sparkly rocks, but what about Steven? Steven is half human, so change and evolution come naturally to him, to his human side at least. For his gem side, he'd be dependent on Steven for emotions and goals. This explains why the first time we see Pink Steven, he's a blank slate. Completely devoid of emotion and unable to comprehend his surroundings, very much like Rejuvenated!Amethyst. But when they refused, all seems to be well, but Steven is no longer one cohesive unit anymore, he's now split between his gem half and human half. Not physically mind you, nor consciously, but subconsciously. This can easily be shown when Steven was being needy for attention and can be chopped up to his human half's needy desires for human connection and companionship, and whenever he lost control over his powers and felt like he needed to have a purpose was because that's what his gem needs, to be needed, to have a purpose, if they don't have one, they lose control while looking for one.

Now, let's take another example of an algorithm. In this one, there are strong candidates in a generation that was relatively far down the evolution line, so the candidates are used to and understand and know their terrain and situation. Now let's say that something drastic happens in between generations 170 and 175, relatively qiuckly the entire situation and familiar surroundings change. It's struggling to keep up with the changes and a lot of the once strong candidates die off so the Algorithm has to start from the beginning, where nothing makes sense and it takes a while for them to adapt to the drastic change.

Steven's world is so drastically changed that both his human and gem sides are struggling to keep up. His human side was traumatized by all the life-threatening adventures he's had and his gem was trying to compensate for that, responding to Steven's situation. When Steven needed to defend himself, his gem gave him a boost in power, when he felt like his life were in danger, his gem reacted to his distress, and when Steven felt like his friends were slipping away or he no longer had a purpose, his gem responded in kind. His gem was only trying to help, as it learned from Steven's helpful nature. That's why he comes to the conclusion of "I can just keep messing things up and fixing them over and over again and no one would even know!" His gem was giving him things to fix by reacting to his stress and causing problems, his gem was trying to find a purpose for them. Like I said, when a Gem no longer has a purpose, it does everything in its power to find one. Like how Jasper felt so lost and alone without her diamond, or even Amethyst's entire existence. Hell, even the whole point of Little Homeschool is to help Gems find new purposes, the school itself is a Guided Learning Algorithm with humans as a template training example.

That's the gist of it. Steven's Gem is a Guided Learning Algorithm that responds to Steven and his situations. Steven's Human side is dependent on his Gem side to keep him alive but his Gem side is also dependent on him for goals and a purpose. It's like Left Brain and Right Brain. His Human side is the Right Brain, controlled by emotions and human relationships and connections, while his Gem side is the Left Brain, controlled by numbers, problems, goals, inputs and outputs. Just a lot more literally.

That pretty much sums it up, if you have any points to add, feel free to do so. Let me know if I messed anything up, I do NOT claim to be an expert on this stuff. Like I said, look at any YouTube video on this stuff and you'd get a much better explanation.

#i wrote this while i was supposed to be doing homework #so im gonna get back to that #steven universe #steven universe future #steven universe headcanons #tw: long post

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honestlyhufflepuff · 4 years

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Mr. Universe Breakdown

I just had a lot of feelings about tonight’s episodes, so come with me while I attempt to process them.

Ice cream and pie for dinner is great, but you can kind of tell Steven is eating it more for his dad’s sake than his own.

The entire "Dear Old Dad" callback is so sweet, imma cry.

I love how Steven is this nearly adult drool-snoring with his mouth wide open in Greg's van and Greg still looks at him like he's the cutest child ever.

Alright, this expression with that weak laugh was the first hint we get that Steven is not totally into this. He's trying, but it's getting wearing.

Trying on tacky convenience store sunglasses and Greg noping out of the bathroom were peak moments.

Matching icons, anyone??

Greg, you live in a van, how are your standards that high?

Also, I wasn’t expecting Guacola to have a callback. No redemption arc for that abomination of a beverage.

“Dad, you’re rich, you don’t have to steal!”

I love how Steven just immediately assumes his dad is taking him to steal stuff. I’m doing this react on my second watch through, but I immediately knew this was the house Greg grew up in.

There’s a picture of the barn in the hallway! And a “Love Lives Here” sign. Oh no, is that this Universe’s equivalent to “Live, Laugh, Love?” Here I thought Greg avoided his parents because they were toxic or abusive, but it turns out they’re probably just super lame and cramped his style.

“Sorry for breaking into your lovely home. You seem like such nice people, with excellent tastes.”

First watch through, I totally thought this was a sarcastic little teen snark comment. Because come on. This decor is the quintessential representation of dated-grandparent-mild-hoarder-chic. On my second watch through, this seems utterly genuine. This house represents a peaceful, happy, stable life that Steven’s never known, and that he thinks he never will. He has so much longing to take in every single detail, before he even knows the people who live in that house are related to him. I had to take a break after writing that sentence because I got emotional.

He is more than strong enough to forcibly stop his dad from “stealing,” or to demand an explanation from him, but instead he goes off to write an “i’m srry we broke into ur house lol” note. Seems like he wanted a justifiable reason to explore this house.

Steven thinks later in the ep that Greg rejected a perfect life, but why would the parents not open any of Greg’s letters? Do they know about Steven? Do they care? It seems like they would care quite a bit, given that all of Greg’s memories have been preserved throughout the house, and yet no pictures of Steven, which tells me they don’t know about him. It’s not lost on me that Greg uses a PO box so they can’t find him (also because he still lives in a van). Is Greg repeatedly sending them checks so he feels he doesn’t owe them anything, and they are just refusing to cash them? I have so many questions.

Alright, so Steven is SO EXCITED to see Greg’s childhood memories. So excited to see his roots. To see his own connection to his human heritage. And Greg just shuts it down.

Way back in “Gem Harvest,” Greg saw how desperate Steven was to make a relationship with Uncle Andy work. And yet Greg did nothing to expose him to other human relatives.

In his attempt to grant Steven “freedom,” he just bound him and lived through him in a different way than his own parents did. If Steven’s upbringing was really about freedom more than Greg projecting his own issues, then Steven would have been given the option to have grandparents in his life. He would have gotten to decide if he liked meatloaf every Thursday and been given the chance to take road trips to their warm, lived in little house. It is a huge, glaring mistake that Greg never gave Steven that chance, especially after seeing how much he loved Andy.

“Leave that junk behind.”

Greg found the one memory he was looking for, and paid no attention to what Steven was drawn to.

“I get it, Steven. When I was just little Gregory Demayo I was going through the motions. Doing what everybody else wanted.”

And yet that’s exactly what he’s having Steven do. He’s literally having Steven walk in his footsteps to find himself in the same way he did, and he’s so lost in his own nostalgia that he’s not understanding that the reason that path worked for him was because he chose it. Steven’s way of breaking free and finding himself might end up being horribly boring and domestic to Greg, since that was something he never knew growing up.

This song is pretty tight, but Steven is not feeling it. Read the room, Greg. It’s like that “who wants to go a ROAAAAD TRIPPP??” line all over again.

“I don’t need this song, I need what you had...they can’t have been worse than mom’s family. I went half way across the galaxy for them, and THIS was right here??”

PREACH, Steven! He has always been so desperate for family. I’m getting so frustrated with Greg for denying him that choice because of his own hangups with authority figures.

Steven: You’re just like mom!

Greg: You grew up with actual freedom!

Steven: I grew up in a van!

Oh geez, stuff is about to go down. The leak did not prepare me for this moment.

“My problem isn’t that I’m a gem! My problem is that I’m a UNIVERSE!”

And here we see Steven shift from blaming his mom for everything, to blaming his dad for everything. And it’s so cathartic, honestly. It’s hard to be mad at Greg because he’s just so sweet and gentle, and rarely gets angry back at someone even when they are angry at him. And he genuinely loves the crap out of Steven. Even with all that, however, he is not blameless. And Steven has a right to call him out on that.

Scene breakdown: The driver’s side is totally crushed. The impact is enough that Steven was unconscious while Greg pulled him out of the car, and while he called for a tow truck. Think of all the impacts Steven hasn’t been knocked unconscious for, including all those hits from Jasper in the very next episode. If he was a normal human, Steven would have died on impact here. His gem probably was working overtime rapidly healing multiple fractures and internal bleeding in his brain.

And here’s where Steven starts to tune Greg out. I can’t help but see a parallel to when Aquamarine/Bluebird gets so annoyed with Steven’s relentless positivity.

I guess the talent of delivering all those cheesy motivational pep talks came from Greg. You know what, though? Forced positivity is just widening the divide between them at this point. Steven is not in a positive place right now, and he did his best to express why, but instead of owning up to anything Greg is just chalking it up to him “going through a hard time right now.” On the surface he appears sympathetic, but his response is ultimately condescending and invalidating.

And in the background he just talks about eating ice cream for more meals, like that’s going to fix everything. Like Steven didn’t just tell him that was the opposite of what he needed.

Even at this moment Greg never offers to connect him with his human family, when Steven has very clearly stated that’s what he wants.

I never would have thought a simple scene deleting a photo would be so tense. The building music, continuing to make Greg seem further away. The tired, bitter look in Steven’s eyes. This is like a villain origin story wtf.

Steven is slowly running out of people who he feels he can connect with. At the start of SUF it was the gems, and then it was Connie, and now it’s Greg. With that deleted photo he’s decided that Greg is no longer worth confiding in. He’s just another person who won’t listen.

I thought this scene would be the most painful one I saw tonight, until I saw Fragments...

#mr. universe #suf spoilers #su meta #su analysis #su reaction #steven universe

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andrewmoocow · 3 years

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Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 5: Snow Day (originally published on January 4, 2021)

Author's Note: This will be the second to last chapter before we really start breaking off from canon and go off the rails with my ideas. Just a chill little episode, nothing truly special, just some cute fun. Now then, happy 2021 and, let's hope it won't be as much of a travesty as 2020 was.

Synopsis: The Gems try to cheer up an overworked Steven.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl

Aimee Mann as Opal

Nicki Minaj as Sugilite

Alexia Khadime as Sardonyx

Rita Rani Ahuja as Alexandrite

Charlyne Yi as Ruby

Erica Luttrell as Sapphire

Michelle Maryk as Larimar

Ian Jones Quartey as Snowflake Obsidian

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon

Jennifer Paz as Lapis Lazuli

On one freezing winter's day in Beach City, snow began to fall from the sky at Little Homeworld, marking another snow day for many of the Gems living there and the first for those just joining Little Homeschool, including one Gem in particular.

"Hey, what's with all this white stuff that's got so many Gems excited?" Teal Zircon wondered, reaching out to try and grab some snowflakes in her hands. Unfortunately for her, the snowflakes instantly melted with her touch. "Aw!"

"That's what they call snow TZ." Little Larimar informed her fellow corruption victim as she helped Snowflake Obsidian build an igloo. "It's what happens what water in the clouds gets super cold and drops from the sky like rain. It's where Snowflake here gets her name from."

"Hey, snowball fight!" Snowflake cried out as she bundled together a large amount of snow to make into a snowball, and she tossed it straight at Teal Zircon. "Oh my gosh, are you okay?"

"Okay?" Teal asked as she slowly emerged from the giant snowball. "I'm better than okay!" She then began to form a snowball of her own from Snowflake's snow to make hers. "I wanna fight!"

Unfortunately, TZ's snowball was incredibly poorly made and fell apart when she threw it.

"Come along; I'll show you how to make a good snowball." Larimar said to the Zircon. "But in the meantime, I have my own battles to fight."

Larimar picked up some snow of her own to form into projectiles, and manically tossed them everywhere with a creepy grin on her face. "YES! YES, TREMBLE BEFORE MY SUPERIOR THROWING SKILLS!"

Elsewhere, Steven woke up from a good night's sleep and turned off the alarm on his phone. "All right, Little Homeschool, what's on the itinerary today?" he muttered while picking up his phone and examining the schedules he had lined up. "Let's see, Gem-Teacher Association meeting this evening from 4:00 to 5:00, clinic tomorrow at 3:00, interpretive dance class today at noon; might have to find someone to cover for me there, baseball practice tomorrow morning and volleyball game next week."

After reading off the schedule, Steven gave himself a good stretch before getting out of bed. "You can do it!"

After getting dressed and heading downstairs, Steven immediately got to work on preparing for his day by pouring some water when Amethyst came strolling in with fried eggs over her eyes.

"You really gonna skip the most egg-ssential meal of the day?" Amethyst cracked a pun while pointing to the eggs.

"Of course not." Steven stated, barely even noticing her joke. "I've got all the nutrients I need in my protein shake."

As Steven walked away, Amethyst sadly poked at the yolks on her face. "Dude, you're making me sad."

"Steven," Garnet called with a backpack shaped like a cheeseburger in her hands. "I packed everything you need for today in your old cheeseburger backpack."

"Uh, I don't really need that thing anymore." Steven abstained from taking his childhood bag while presenting the satchel he packed. "Besides, I already got one."

"At least pet this cat." Garnet replied, cuing her one-eyed Calico Cat Steven to emerge from the backpack with a meow.

"Why was I going to need-" Steven began getting more miffed before stopping himself. "Never mind, I gotta go."

"Hold it!" Pearl stopped Steven in his tracks while gazing at her phone. "According to my weather application, we're expecting quite a bit of snow today and tomorrow." She revealed while showing the current temperature off and held out some winter clothes to put on him. "You're going to freeze if you don't put on a puffer, a hat and two scarves. Okay, maybe three would do."

"Pearl, I need to go!" Steven muffled beneath the scarves, preventing Pearl from wrapping a third one around his neck.

"But classes don't start for another couple of hours." Pearl said.

"Wait for us." Garnet suggested as she took the scarf from Pearl and wrapped it on her neck. "We can come with you."

"Why even take that old Dondai when you can just use the Warp Pad?" Amethyst pointed out as she slurped the eggs off her face.

"Because I have errands I need to run before class." Steven revealed. "Now then, can I please go now?"

"You got it." Garnet beamed before putting a hand in Steven's hair. "Go get 'em, champ."

"Yeah, see you soon!" Amethyst and Pearl said in unison while putting their hands in Steven's hair as well, much to his chagrin.

As Steven finally left the beach house and drove away, the Gems took a few moments to talk as they gazed out the frosted window.

"Hey guys, you think Steven's become kinda boring lately?" Amethyst asked Garnet and Pearl.

"It must be because he's got so much to do." Pearl suggested morosely. "How about we surprise him when he gets back?"

"I think I know just what to do." Garnet stated coolly.

One of Steven's errands took him all the way to Little Homeworld. What he was unaware of, however, was the massive snowball fight its inhabitants were waging, and now he was going to be caught in the crossfires.

Upon stopping his car and setting a foot outside, Steven was immediately pelted with snow from all sides. "Whoa guys, settle down!" he cried out while protecting himself from the cold onslaught with his shield. "I said, settle down!"

However, not a one was paying attention to Steven, and they were too busy having fun to notice he had arrived.

"Uh, can I have your attention please? Anyone?" Steven began getting more desperate for someone to notice him while watching Lapis heave an entire pyramid of snowballs with her water powers at a few of the Quartzes, which gave him an idea. "Okay, you all tried my hand."

Steven picked up some snow of his own and formed it into a ball of his own, which he used to throw straight at Snowflake Obsidian.

"Ooh!" Snowflake grunted as she felt the snowball hit her back, and turned to discover that Steven had thrown it. "Steven! Sorry, I didn't see you there."

"Just wanted to get someone's attention." Steven admitted before Snowflake turned to her fellow Gems.

"Hey everyone, Steven's here! Let's get to class!" Snowflake announced.

The moment everyone else realized Steven had come, they slowly stopped their snowball fight and began preparing for classes.

"Hey, you don't need to stop what you're doing." Steven tried convincing them otherwise. "I'm only here for a few errands. Besides, classes don't start for another few hours."

However, nobody listened to Steven, and they continued preparing, just as he decided to continue on with his errands.

That night, Steven had finally returned home after a long day and was ready to eat dinner, go to bed and prepare for tomorrow. But when he turned on the house lights, he found his three guardians all sitting on the couch, anticipating his return.

"Surprise!" the three Gems cheered.

"We were sitting in the dark!" Amethyst admitted in addition.

"Hey, everyone." Steven greeted the trio. "Uh, what are you all so excited about?"

"Guess what we got lined up for tonight?" Amethyst said, holding a DVD in her hands. "Pupcopter's Sky-High Adventure!"

"Sheet masks with cute animal faces!" Pearl added, demonstrating the masks by putting a panda one on her face.

"And most importantly, pizza." Garnet declared as she opened up a pizza box with a pie inside. "Straight from Fish Stew."

When the Gems expected Steven to be all over these activities, he was a bit more reluctant. "Uh guys," Steven said. "I've been a vegetarian for six months, Pupcopter is for six-year-olds, and I got a skincare routine now. You all should've known by now. Anyways, I already ate, but it's cool you want to have fun. Later."

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were left disappointed as Steven walked upstairs to his room.

"Well, guess we can watch the movie with Cat Steven, if that counts." Amethyst said.

"My bad." Garnet apologized as she examined the pizza and then dumped it in Amethyst's mouth like the smaller Gem was a trashcan. "I thought we were in the pepperoni timeline."

The next morning, Steven was woken up by his phone once again. When he raced down the stairs to start his day, the Gems were sitting around the table with waffles covered in whipped cream, syrup, popcorn, and a strawberry on top.

"Look Steven, Together Breakfast!" Pearl called to Steven, in an attempt to bring his attention to a familiar food. "Just like old times."

"Too much sugar for me, but thanks." Steven hurriedly stated as he opened the front door. "See you at work guys!" But surprisingly for Steven, a massive pile of snow dropped down on him. "Okay, just gotta take the warp then."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Amethyst cautioned Steven as he made his way to the Warp Pad, and just like the door, he was greeted by snow covering him from head to toe by the warp tunnel.

"Looks like we have to cancel Little Homeschool for the day." Steven realized. "Pearl, can you send everyone a mass text?"

"Already on it!" Pearl declared as she whipped out her phone to give everyone at the Gem village the news.

"Hold up!" Amethyst yelped. "Are you basically saying we get the day off?"

"Great, we can re-read No Home Boys!" Pearl replied, excitedly looking up from her phone.

"And I can do the voices again." Garnet added.

"No, I don't need anyone reading to me right now." Steven said firmly while taking out a notebook. "If anything, I need to get the calendar organized. This snow-mageddon is definitely going to put a damper on third-quarter plans."

As Steven got out his calendar, some post-it notes, and a pen to organize plans for Little Homeschool's third quarter, Amethyst sat down at the same table he was working at across from him. "You used to have a better work ethic when we were constantly at risk of Homeworld and the Diamonds attacking Earth." Amethyst remarked. "Now, with Era 3 in full swing, you've become kinda boring."

"That was then Amethyst. This is now." Steven responded without even looking up from his work. "And what makes you think I'm getting boring?"

"Well, I mean, you didn't eat Together Breakfast with us, didn't laugh at my egg pun yesterday, and didn't want to put on your cheeseburger backpack." Amethyst listed off. "I get that you want to be more responsible now, but sometimes it's fun reliving old memories." Suddenly, a great idea flickered to life over the purple Gem's head. "Hey, you know what we haven't played in ages?"

"I don't know, what?" Steven asked before Amethyst abruptly shapeshifted into his 14-year old self and jumped onto the table.

"STEVEN TAG!" the now Steven-like Amethyst yelled and attempted to tag Steven, much to his alarm.

"Amethyst, what the heck?!" Steven cried out.

"You know the rules buster!" Amethyst cackled. "You get tagged; you have to turn into Steven! Or, in this case, Classic Steven!"

"Wait, Classic Steven?!" Steven said incredulously before he started running from the pursuing Amethyst all around the living room. But even when Steven rushed into the bathroom for safety, Amethyst was still on the hunt.

"Steeeeveeeen, come out to plaaaaay!" Amethyst laughed as she began clacking glass bottles together. "I always wanted to reference that old movie."

"I'm not playing!" Steven insisted as he blocked up the bottom of the door with a towel and sat on it. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Dangit, got me with the towel one-two!" Amethyst groaned as she failed to break into the bathroom. "Fine, maybe we don't always need Steven to play Steven Tag."

As Amethyst seemingly walked away in defeat, Steven peeked out of the bathroom to check if she was truly gone. While he sneaked out into the living room hoping to get some work done, Steven instead found Garnet looking around on the floor.

"Hey Garnet, lose something?" Steven asked the perma-fusion.

"I've been looking for Cat Steven." Garnet answered. "Haven't seen her all morning. I think she may be in the cabinets."

"Like, in here?" Steven asked as he pointed to one of the cupboards.

"That's the one." Garnet cheekily replied while she held Cat Steven in her arms. As Steven opened the cabinet, Amethyst leaped out at him, still in the shape of Classic Steven.

"GET READY FOR STEVEN TAG!" Amethyst yelled in another attempt to tag Steven, but she instead tagged Garnet by accident.

"What an unexpected turn of events." Garnet flatly declared as she laid on the floor, and obediently turned into Classic Steven as well. The two Gems stared menacingly at Steven, who was trying fruitlessly to escape.

"Uh, see ya guys!" Steven stuttered before making a run for it, but then accidentally tripped on a pillow. As Garnet and Amethyst leaped up and prepared to tag him, Steven prepared a bubble to protect himself from them.

"You can't hide in there forever!" Garnet yelled as she prepared to break the bubble open with a punch. Thinking quickly, Steven got up and began running towards the temple gate, accessing the cloud-like room that his mother once used when she was alive, and tossed the pair inside before making his way out.

"That should keep you guys busy for a while." Steven huffed as the door closed behind him, and he returned to the calendar on the table. "Now I can finally get these schedules done in peace."

However, Steven was quickly proven wrong as Garnet raced out of the nearly empty Burning Room, with Amethyst in hot pursuit.

"Thank you so much for helping me shovel off the snow Lapis." Pearl thanked Lapis at Little Homeworld as they finished work on cleaning all the walkways.

"No big Pearl, it's just frozen water." Lapis remarked coolly. "Anyways, how's everyone doing back at your place?"

"Well, Steven said he wanted to get some scheduling done for Quarter Three with all this snow, and-" Pearl answered, but then felt a disturbance somewhere. "I feel like my Steven Sense is tingling."

"Your Steven what-now?" Lapis asked with an eyebrow raised. "I get that you're essentially a mom to Steven, but what's that for?"

"Feels like something's happening back home." Pearl realized as she marched back to the Warp Pad with snow shovel in hand. "Anyways, thanks for the assistance; I'll see you all again soon!" she said her farewells before the Warp Pad took her back to the temple.

When Pearl returned home, she found Steven in a panic as he was being chased by Garnet and Amethyst shapeshifted into him. "Steven, what are you doing? Has cabin fever took you over already?!"

"It's Garnet and Amethyst!" Steven answered hastily as he continued running from the aforementioned Gems. "They're only playing Steven Tag to mess with me!"

"Steven Tag?" Pearl began to reminisce. "That sure takes me back to the old days. I'm sure they-AH!"

Before Pearl could finish, Garnet officially tagged her, and she began to keel over.

"Ha, the joke's on you!" Steven yelled. "Pearl doesn't like to shapeshift!"

Unfortunately for Steven, he was instantly proven otherwise as Pearl began to glow, and her shape changed into that of Classic Steven.

"The power of Steven Tag COMPELS ME!" the now Steven-esque Pearl declared, sparking delight from her fellow veteran Gems as they giggled and tossed her into the air.

"Wow, good for her." Steven chuckled, just as proud of this big step for Pearl. But when the three Gems all leered at their ward, Steven finally realized how outnumbered he now was.

The Steven-resembling Crystal Gems chased the prime Steven all around the house, from his bedroom, to the conservatory, to the stairway, and then back to his room. In his bedroom, Steven thought of a way to distract Pearl by tossing his old shirts on the floor.

"No Steven, I just folded those!" Pearl yelled as her motherly intuition began to take priority over playing, and she tided up the shirts as Steven fled.

With no other option, Steven was forced to flee into the freezing cold outside, his body temperature be damned. "They can't hold those forms forever." He panted. "I'll just wait until they give u-"

Just then, a massive fist dropped from above and smashed the snow behind Steven, and he discovered none other than Sugilite, the fusion of Garnet & Amethyst, standing on a cliff above him.

"Missed me little man?" Sugilite, also in the shape of the younger Steven, asked confidently as she whipped her flail above her head.

"Wait, you fused?" Steven gasped and began running again. "When was the last time anyone has seen Sugilite?!"

"Come back here, kid!" Sugilite snarled eagerly while Steven used his shield as a sled to escape.

"Seriously, this is dangerous!" Steven panted before he was barraged by a rain of snowballs, all courtesy of an also Classic Steven-like Sardonyx.

"Aw come on, don't be so cold!" Sardonyx joked before preparing more snowballs. "Now stay still, I got you in my sights!"

"I'm still not playing!" Steven shouted as he swerved his shield away from the snowballs, only to lose control and disappear behind the temple's discarded hand.

High above on the rooftop, Opal stood ready to fire Garnet with her bow. "Target acquired!" she exclaimed, pointing the other Universe-looking fusion at a figure resembling Steven. "Now!"

When Garnet was propelled at what she thought was Steven, it was instead a snowman wearing his jacket. "Curses, foiled by a snowman." Garnet overdramatically declared, followed by a very monotonous "Noooooooo."

Faraway from Garnet and Opal, Steven was finally free after distracting them with the snowman, but he was very cold too.

"They won't stop until they make me play." Steven declared boldly, that is until a massive shadow loomed over him. Just like all the other times before, it was a fusion taking the form of his younger self. But this time, it was Alexandrite. "Oh geez!"

"You're looking cold." Alexandrite boomed before launching a giant fireball from her mouth at a panicking Steven, who formed a bubble to shield himself from the fire.

"I really didn't want to do this, but you all forced my hand!" Steven shouted while the bubble disappeared, leaving him surrounded by a ring of fire. "I'll play your game!"

Alexandrite grinned eagerly as Steven leaped to her head and bounced off it to the beach house. The massive three-Gem fusion attempted to catch Steven in her hands, but he quickly dodged the attempt and just as quickly tried ascending to the top of the lighthouse.

"There's no way she can catch me!" Steven said to himself just as Alexandrite made it before him and un-fused into Ruby, Sapphire, Amethyst and Pearl. Everyone except for Sapphire proceeded to bombard Steven, but he had just about had it as he leaped towards the three Gems with bubbles forming around his fists.

"ENOUGH, IS, ENOUGH!" Steven yelled as he punched Ruby, Amethyst and Pearl away in rapid succession, and then leaped up to the top of the lighthouse in triumph. "You shouldn't have messed with me." He said menacingly, just as he realized he forgot a Gem.

"Tag." Sapphire declared as she snuck up and tagged Steven from behind, ending the game and sealing her as the victor.

"OH NO, IS THIS THE END OF MY ADULT LIFE?!" Steven cried as he fell off the lighthouse onto the ground below. Back on solid earth, Ruby, Amethyst & Pearl checked on Steven while Sapphire returned downstairs to meet them.

"Sapphire, you did it! You're the best!" Ruby cheered for her blue bride before they kissed and fused back into Garnet.

"You've been tagged." Garnet confidently stated.

"You gotta turn into widdle ol' Steven now!" Amethyst jokingly taunted.

"You did set the rules all those years ago." Pearl added.

"No!" Steven refused with a fold of his arms.

"DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!" the Gems chanted excitedly. Cat Steven suddenly appeared to agree with them with a meow.

"Et tu Cat Steven?" Steven asked his feline friend, who responded with another meow. "Okay, I'll do it!"

Then, in a flash of light, Steven reluctantly turned himself into a child to match his guardians, to the point where his clothes barely fit him anymore. And they were happy.

"HE'S SO CUTE!" Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl cooed at the younger Steven, to his disappointment.

"No, I'm not!" Steven yelled, his voice now matching his current state. "It's tough for me, y'know? I feel like no matter how much I grow, how much I try to mature, you'll always just see me as a little kid."

"Buddy, we just wanted to spend time with you." Amethyst shrugged.

"Yeah." Pearl agreed with Amethyst. "Just like when you were-"

"A kid?" Steven finished for Pearl, eliciting many frowns. "I really didn't want to disappoint you guys, but I'm not the Steven you babied so much anymore." He proclaimed while returning to his original form. "Please, I need you to see me for who I am now."

This prompted the Gems to tear up and finally hug Steven. "Please forgive us." Garnet sobbed.

"We didn't mean to hurt your feelings!" Amethyst said just as sadly. "We didn't realize we were kinda acting like kids too."

"We just miss you Steven!" Pearl said. Soon, Steven began to cry as well as he looked down at the sad Gems.

"We're sorry!" the trio apologized in unison.

"I missed you guys too." Steven accepted the apology while the chilly weather began to take effect on him. "You know, it was pretty nice to spend time with y-ACHOO!" Without even being asked, Amethyst extended her arm to fetch Steven's pink jacket for him. "Thanks Amethyst."

"Steven, we're very proud of the person you've become." Garnet complimented her ward.

"Yeah, that's why we wanted to hang out with you so much." Amethyst stated.

"But if you want to go back to work," Pearl added. "That's okay with us."

"Well, I can't." Steven answered confidently as he put his jacket back on. "Because TAG!" he added by tackling Garnet. "You're it!"

"I guess we have to update the game." Garnet realized before transforming to match Steven's age. "To this."

And so, Steven Tag began anew with Steven and Garnet chasing Amethyst and Pearl down the mountain.

The next morning, Steven woke up once again. But this time, he was feeling more cheerful and had the Gems by his side.

With his winter clothes on, Steven hopped into the car with the Crystal Gems, also in winter gear over their regular forms, and they shared a laugh until the car set off for Little Homeworld.

So ends Snow Day. We're getting very close to the end of Part 1, and next up is my favorite episode of Future, Why so Blue, too. But after Why so Blue, things will start to get a little different. Perhaps pertaining to a certain Off-Color fusion between a Ruby and a Pearl, or the mystery Gem we've been foreshadowing since Cracks and Buds. Anyways, Happy New Year readers and see you next week!

#steven universe #steven universe future #fanfiction #steven universe alternate future #steven quartz universe #garnet #amethyst #pearl #opal #sugilite #sardonyx #alexandrite

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Mortal Kombat: An Ode to Johnny Cage and His $500 Sunglasses

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It might be the highest moment of tension in 1995’s Mortal Kombat. While the video game movie positions a wonderful, scenery-chewing Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as its big bad, I doubt many feared how Robin Shou would handle him in the ring. But Johnny Cage fighting Goro? It’s B-movie actor Linden Ashby playing B-movie actor Johnny Cage, and both the performer and character are entering the arena with a six-limbed demon—a bellowing banshee who just murdered a dozen other token “good guys.” The beast even has the cojones to steal Johnny’s signature sunglasses before the bout and crush them in his hand. How scary is that?

Not very, as it turns out.

As soon as the bell rings, Johnny pulls an honest-to-Raiden split, just like he’s Jean-Claude Van Damme, and punches the stony monster directly in the loincloth. At least in ’95, director Paul W.S. Anderson understood the assignment when it came to adapting video games to live-action, and Ashby’s Johnny Cage rocked that interpretation with real movie star charm.

Twenty-six years later, we’re about to see a new Mortal Kombat reboot on HBO Max and in theaters, which is exciting. As much guilty fun as the original movie is, it’s not exactly one of the 1990s’ sacred cows. And the mythology that video game developers have built around what was once just an arcade beat ‘em up is dizzyingly complicated these days. So there’s plenty of new material to mine—as well as the chance to refreshingly put Asian voices and actors front and center. It’s likely for these reasons the character Johnny Cage is apparently not featured in Mortal Kombat (2021). Plus, where would there be room for him? Judging by the trailer alone, the modern filmmakers are going for a more somber, gritty aesthetic.

All of which is fine. Still, without seeing the movie, I can’t help but wonder if they might be losing something without Johnny Cage and those ridiculous shades. Goro certainly felt lost when, in the first movie’s best scene, he followed Johnny from the ring to a cliffside. It was there Cage shouted, “Those were $500 sunglasses, asshole” before kicking the monster ass-first into the sea.

I can personally attest that back in the mid-‘90s, there wasn’t an eight-year-old who didn’t think that this was cinema at its finest.

In the original Mortal Kombat movie, Cage technically isn’t the main hero, nor should he be. Cage is essentially the plucky comic relief, with the film belonging to Liu Kang (Shou), the descendant of a long line of warriors who each generation must fight in the Mortal Kombat tournament to save Earth from being absorbed by the evil dimension of Outworld. If the plot of the games and movies are a goofy rip-off of Enter the Dragon, then Liu Kang is our Bruce Lee. He must be the stoic hero who saves us all.

And yet, given the fighting game source material, filmmakers Anderson and his screenwriter Kevin Droney needed to build a whole ensemble of likable heroes and evil sorcerers. The film handles these requirements serviceably well on the whole, minus the complete sidelining of Bridgette Wilson’s Sonya Blade to damsel in distress status during the third act. Otherwise, Mortal Kombat ‘95 strikes gold by taking the Johnny Cage character from the game—a martial arts movie star who hilariously enters a life and death tournament to prove he doesn’t use stuntmen or trick photography—and turning him into a scene-stealing quip-delivery system.

Ironically, it’s a role that would’ve been perfect for Jean-Claude Van Damme, a star of Hollywood cheesefests who really could do those oh, so impressive splits but got lumped into the company of Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris. And unfortunately for him, Van Damme had already starred in a video game movie, with Capcom convincing Universal Pictures to cast the Belgian with a thick accent as their all-American Army hero, Col. Guile, in Street Fighter (1994). Maybe something got lost in translation during those boardroom meetings?

In any event, it worked out in Mortal Kombat’s favor where instead of casting a star of bad ‘90s martial arts movies, they hired someone who inadvertently could satirize them. Technically, as a Kung Fu flick, Mortal Kombat is damnably guilty of the criticism Johnny Cage is trying to avoid: It relies quite a bit on stunt doubles and tight editing for many of its fight scenes. While Robin Shou indeed kicks ass in his own stunts as Liu Kang, let’s just say that quick insert shots don’t make it any more believable that Ashby did his own split in front of Goro. Nor does The Immortals’ awesome “Mortal Kombat” techno mix hide how choreographed Wilson’s clothesline punch might be.

Yet it should be noted both were game, with Wilson doing all of her own stunts, and Ashby doing so much of his own in the Scorpion bout that an unexpected axe kick to the kidneys left him peeing blood for a week.

Luckily, his Johnny Cage is so damn delightful through all of it that none of those backstage traumas mattered on screen—especially for the film’s target audience of teenagers and elementary schoolers. Full of mid-‘90s arrogance and cockiness, Johnny could easily come off as a dated cad, and maybe does when he cracks to Sonya that “it’s a man thing” about why he and Liu feel the need to insert themselves like the Scooby Gang into her investigation of Shang Tsung’s island.

But his energy is ultimately irresistible in a movie this wacky. Indeed, it’s a tricky proposition to put on a straight face while selling lore about lightning gods and ninjas descended from dinosaurs (Google “Mortal Kombat” and “Reptile”). The 2021 approach is admirably ambitious, but at least for 25 years ago, leaning into Johnny’s sideways smirk was more than the right impulse; it let the movie get away with almost anything. It also gave permission to the audience to bask in the film’s otherwise wonderfully over-the-top set design.

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Interestingly, much of this winsome humor was either improvised or written on the spot by Ashby and Christopher Lambert, the latter of whom played Lord Raiden. According to Ashby in a 20th anniversary interview with THR, it was even during these late-in-the-game brainstorming sessions he came up with the line, “Those were $500 sunglasses.”

“We worked hard on it” Ashby said, “We didn’t write Hamlet or anything, but we had a lot of fun with it.”

And through that fun, Johnny becomes both superhero and Greek choir. He’s the guy who even after hearing the fate of the entire planet rests on his martial arts skills can still be more concerned about getting his luggage into the ancient rowboat than working on his Karate chops; he also lets the nonsense of this movie roll off the viewers like so many popcorn kernels. As the character insists, “We’re standing, they’re not. What more do you want?”

Other than that awesome techno beat, not a whole lot. Johnny is the safety valve for Mortal Kombat’s lethal levels of absurdity, which inexplicably makes him as compelling a hero as any of them. When he walks into the ring with a giant hexapod ready to stomp on his eyewear, he’s been told he’s the most egotistical, self-deluded person we’ve ever met.

“Yeah, well you forgot good-looking,” he shoots back. After seeing him kick Goro off a mountaintop, you believe him.

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love-takes-work · 5 years

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Steven Universe Podcast: The Fantasy of Steven Universe

This is an outline of the Steven Universe Podcast regarding “The Fantasy of Steven Universe”: an issue of the podcast in which the creators and writers discuss a multitude of deep issues, along with some Q&A from both fans and insiders. No volume number or episode number was given for this one. The official description:

It's the last new podcast episode of the season and we asked the cast and Cartoon Network Executive team to submit questions to Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar and former Executive Producer Ian Jones-Quartey! They tackle everything from design to wormholes to escapism to advice to your younger self and dreaming big. Then former writers Matt Burnett and Ben Levin sit down with Rebecca to discuss lessons learned, achieving goals, and what they hope people take away from the show. And finally, Kat Morris and Joe Johnston return to answer a last batch of Fan Q&A!

This is a long podcast with a long summary, so as usual I will give you a bulleted list of highlights, followed by a detailed summary.

Highlights:

Many of the show’s themes and important elements were there right from the beginning--all the way back to the pilot.

Rebecca Sugar comments that she didn’t really learn how to have fun until 2016.

Figuring out how to pace the show out and reveal each piece of information at the right time so it could support another later revelation was very exciting to the writers. They had the pieces laid out like a puzzle on their table.

Mostly self-contained episodes still gave the audience a piece of information or represented growth for a character. The less “plotty” episodes helped keep the energy up.

The Crewniverse knew that their titles were sometimes trollish, but Ben was honestly surprised that people expected apocalyptic happenings for “Last One Out of Beach City.” It was just a Less Than Jake reference.

Rebecca really enjoyed getting the chance to “damsel” Greg for the Zoo arc; she really wanted to use a lot of princess tropes, even that one.

Viewers should take away from the show messages of compassion, self-love leading to ability to connect with others, ability to understand and listen to others, and opportunities to see themselves as well as to see others.

Rebecca has drawn all of Fluorite’s component Gems, but all she’ll say is “they’re fun.”

Lars and Lion are not immortal, but they will live for a very long time and have slowed-down lifespans. Kat Morris says Lars may have no sense of taste; that if he eats it’s just for sustenance.

Lars has all the same powers as Lion. He can indeed do a sonic blast and make portals and walk on water. They weren’t able to work this into an episode we’ve seen, but Rebecca assures us that Lars will discover his abilities and it will be “really funny.”

The Crew had specific voice actors they wanted for the Diamonds. They got who they wanted cast by writing excited letters. Susan Egan’s was particularly weird because she had to play Tiny Floating Whale first.

Blue Diamond was the most difficult Diamond to design because her hair was hard to decide on. Rebecca’s influences for her were Martha Graham’s “Lamentation” dance and Fruma Sarah’s ghost from Fiddler on the Roof.

Yellow Diamond was mostly directly inspired by Patti LuPone’s performance as Evita.

White Diamond was influenced by many old-timey vibes, including Hedy Lamarr in Ziegfeld Girl and the artistry of Nell Brinkley. She had heavy eyelashes and fingernails--lots of design elements they did not incorporate into other characters, so she could adhere to old, “stifling” beauty standards.

Rebecca was disappointed that reveals of Pink’s full jester-like outfit got out before we saw it in the show. Her hair was originally higher in early designs, which contributed to her mural having spikier hair.

Greg is based almost entirely on Tom Scharpling; Rebecca was comforted by his voice when she had upheavals in her life. There’s also a little bit of inspiration from various Crewniverse dads in him.

Another Gem could have a hybrid child like Steven only if they had enough power to do it and the complete commitment to the idea that Pink had.

Steven and his “Gem self” are not really separable and can’t exist independently of each other. His Gem half will not remain if his organic half dies. They are one being. He will likely have a very long life because of his Gem powers, but (though the Crew agrees this is grim), he will probably die before the Gems do.

The Jade Fusion won’t be in trouble anymore once the Jades come out of their bubbles; in Era 3, the act they were punished for is no longer disallowed. However, the trauma of being isolated and then punished as soon as they felt it was safe to fuse may require some healing. Rebecca assures us they should be able to have the opportunity to heal and be okay.

Obsidian definitely has future vision powers. In fact, they’re expanded to the point that the noise is difficult to interpret; very powerful, but difficult to get anything useful with them.

Pearl became a more maternal character because of her voice actor, Deedee Magno Hall, being “such a mom.”

Zach Callison as Steven was so genuine and professional to work with, and the vibe in the booth with regard to him was closely mirrored in the show.

Sometimes Deedee’s or Michaela’s ways of interacting with Zach would influence how Pearl or Amethyst would interact with Steven.

People would give lots of space and reverence to Estelle when she was reading her lines, which parallels how the other characters treat Garnet.

Only Steven can take anyone or anything through the pink space connected to Lars’s hair and Lion’s mane, but yes, Steven could take Lars through Lion’s mane, and if he stuck his head out, there’d be infinite Larses sticking out of infinite Lars’s hair until he pulled his head back in.

Designing new characters requires lots of back and forth and hundreds of drawings. Rebecca asks “why,” not “what”--why are you including something in a character’s design? If it doesn’t contribute to who they are, why is it there?

Influences on the show that may have been missed by some fans include G.I. Joe the animated series, Future Boy Conan, and Mr. Bug Goes to Town.

In response to Deedee requesting a fusion between Pearl and any of Rebecca’s childhood favorite cartoons, she suggests maybe either Bart or Detective Conan, then says she’ll have to think about it and get back to Deedee.

Advice Rebecca Sugar might have given her younger self was that it would be okay and she’d get to tell the story she wanted to tell--but also that she should eat, drink water, and exercise.

One profound thing Rebecca learned while working on the show was that she can be out and bisexual regardless of who she’s with, and that it DOES matter.

One profound thing Ian learned while working on the show was that the story you want to tell doesn’t have to be constrained by the medium--and your fantasy story isn’t necessarily someone else’s fantasy. You can tell your story.

The detailed summary is below!

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

McKenzie kicks the podcast into gear and starts by asking Rebecca Sugar, Matt Burnett, and Ben Levin about the intentions for the show: what did they think it was going to be, and did it end up being that?

Ben shares an anecdote about how their agent seemed to have thought Steven Universe was based on Rebecca's comic Pug Davis, but then they saw the animatic and it was completely different from what the agent described. Matt felt that the themes and certain important elements of the show were already there from the animatic at the beginning. They were excited to see the show even if they might not end up getting to work on it, and they could tell just from the pilot that there was a lot of mythology to be unearthed. One of Ben's expectations that did not pan out was that he thought there would be more dungeon crawling episodes, but that was not the reality because . . . it turns out episodes like that are really difficult to do.

As for Rebecca, she says she had many goals for the show, and one thing she likes to do with projects is make them about something she hasn't truly figured out yet. The big thing for Steven Universe in Rebecca's mind was the issue of gendered cartoons for children. She felt uncomfortable growing up, because socially she was expected to like what girls like but her favorite things were "for boys," while "girl" cartoons did NOT appeal to her. She felt guilty and weird about it, and so with her cartoon she wanted to attack that at first, use and scramble the language others had used to put her in that position. As she worked on Steven Universe more, she realized that some of the things she wasn't allowed to love as a kid were things she DID love. Learning to understand herself better allowed her to build a better relationship with the symbols and elements of children's cartoons that she could have authentic feelings about. She feels she learned a lot.

Next, McKenzie wants to know which episodes were the most fun to write (or throw ideas around for).

Rebecca quips that she did not learn to have fun until 2016.

Ben says he and Matt had fun though. Their job was to take Rebecca's ideas and figure out how to squeeze her thoughts into 11 minutes. Ben thought it was important to reveal something new about a focus character in each episode. Rebecca thought it was exciting to pace out what to reveal when; she says all the elements were on the table "like a giant puzzle." They had to carefully place when we would understand each thing as the audience before they could do something that built on it. She felt it was "like painting a picture across time." You couldn't do something like "Change Your Mind" at the beginning--you needed all those pieces to get it at all.

Putting yourself in the audience's mind as a writer is important, Ben says. Infodumping doesn't work, and laying the groundwork before you start a story isn't the best way to make a story meaningful. Matt thinks the big story payoffs at the end of season 5 were discussed in the first two weeks of planning, and they all thought it would be so cool to finally get there.

The things that were the most fun were actually the deviations from those stories, though they kept with the themes. The "random idea" episodes that felt more like one-offs were responsible for keeping the energy up, according to Matt. "Steven and the Stevens," for instance, was pretty self-contained (and needed a diagram to keep it together). Rebecca points out that "self-contained" episodes were mostly the goal, but you'd still see a change in the character or get an important piece of information in each one. Steven is LITERALLY not the same character anymore after "Steven and the Stevens."

Weaving the "infodump" stuff into Steven's personal growth was important for the type of story they were writing. They also joke about how certain episode titles were very trollish, like "Last One Out of Beach City" and "Rising Tides, Crashing Skies." (Both of those were definitely NOT "apocalyptic" at all.) They were aware that titles could send a message, but Ben was actually really surprised at the expectations surrounding "Last One Out of Beach City" because for him it was just a Less Than Jake reference. ^___^

They also enjoyed getting to do whole new environments with mini-worldbuilding, like the human zoo. The zoo arc comes up and Rebecca remarks on how much she enjoyed "damseling Greg." She really wanted to do pretty much every princess trope in some way, even that one, and she just loved having the opportunity to have Blue carry Greg away "just like Peach."

McKenzie next asks the group what's something they want people who have watched the whole show so far to come away with at this point.

Ben says he's not sure about others, but he feels the show lets us take home messages of being in touch with your genuine feelings and expressing what they are. Matt agrees with Ben about how the show helps viewers learn to see others' perspectives. They hope people had the opportunity to see themselves represented on the show, and that some people got the opportunity to see representations of people they'd never seen before--and that those people who were newly exposed to folks they'd never thought about before would learn to be more compassionate.

Rebecca wants people to come away with the notion that they must learn to love themselves. That it is close to impossible to connect with others if you haven't learned how to love yourself. Kids deserve to be able to express themselves as long as they aren't destroying themselves or others in the process. She thinks sometimes kids are sent destructive messages about how it isn't okay to be themselves, and that people they trust might be shutting them down, but this show is a message to say it's wrong of them to do that and they deserve the freedom to be who they are and say so. Being allowed to talk about how you feel shouldn't be some kind of fantasy. It should be reality.

The next segment of the podcast involves Kat Morris and Joe Johnston answering fan questions with Rebecca Sugar!

Q: Has there been any thought as to what Fluorite's Gem components are?

A: Joe just immediately says "NO" and Kat teases him, but Rebecca speaks up and says of course she has drawn them all. She gave it to Colin and then says "I don't know where it went." The only thing Rebecca is willing to say about it is "they're fun."

Q: Are Lars and Lion immortal now? Or is their aging process just extremely slowed down?

A: Kat agrees that their aging process is just slow. About as slow as Lars's heartbeat in "Lars' Head." Kat points out that she and Joe have disagreements about what Lars's life is like. She thinks Lars probably lost his sense of taste and only just eats occasionally to sustain his body. Rebecca says "they'll live a really, really long time," and Kat says "longer than they'll want to."

Q: Can Lars do the Lion roar warp thing, or does he have his own power?

A: Kat says he can! They tried to write stories around it but never quite did it. Kat jokes that he can do it if maybe he gets tickled or something. Joe says he can make a warp and he can make a sonic blast with his voice. When they discuss whether he's figured that out yet, Rebecca replies that he WILL figure it out at some point, and when he does, "it'll be REALLY funny. Don't worry about it." They speculate that maybe that's how Lars was getting around doing space pirate stuff (infiltrating the Citrine asteroid and the Cosmic Jubilee), but there's also the fact that he doesn't have a Gem and can't be scanned. They also specify that Lars can indeed walk on water.

Q: Does Lion have the ability to sense Steven somehow? Or did he find Watermelon Steven some other way?

A: Rebecca claims they're in tune, but you can't really pinpoint whether it's magic or whether it's just that animal sense some pets have.

Q: How did you pick the Diamonds' voice actresses?

A: Kat says, "begging?" Rebecca says they knew who they wanted and they agree they wrote passionate letters. Rebecca tells the story of bringing Susan Egan in to do Rose's voice for the first time, but the first time you hear her voice was coming out of the Tiny Floating Whale. Susan did the little "ooo!" noise for it as well as the one line that's spoken in "Rose's Room." She had to explain that Rose was very important later, but for now she just wanted Susan to come voice the whale.

Q: Which Diamond was the most difficult to design? Which was the most fun to design?

A: Rebecca says Blue was the most difficult to design. They took a long time deciding on her hair and what would be "inhuman" about her, and there was a lot of trial and error involved. They actually revealed her cloaked form in "The Answer" before they figured out her hair. Rebecca feels that White might have been the most fun because they had to incorporate so many influences. They're all really influenced by tons of things though: for instance, Blue is influenced by a Martha Graham dance ("Lamentation") and the ghost (Fruma Sarah in a dream) from Fiddler on the Roof.

Yellow is very inspired by Patti LuPone in Evita.

White is inspired by Nell Brinkley and Hedy Lamarr (in Ziegfeld Girl)--the aesthetic of the time, really.

White has many design elements that other characters don't have. The heavy eyelashes, the fingernails, the "perfect thigh gap"--she's supposed to be very different from the others, with "beauty standards" that you haven't seen on other characters, meant to be read as stifling and old. She's even on an actual pedestal with shoes that are actual pedestals.

For Pink, Rebecca describes it as "kind of devastating" that even though we'd gotten the first reveal of Pink when she punched a mirror in Stevonnie's dream and was "contorted with rage," the audience got to see her on a model sheet with her full outfit "looking like a little clown" and people kind of got it instantly. Designs for the Diamonds go back to 2014, though Pink's hair was a little different and "looks like a Truffula tree" according to Rebecca. (Joe says that's why her mural looked spikier, because the early hair designs for Pink were higher.) Rebecca was really excited when they nailed down Pink's hair to look like Steven's hair. Rebecca was excited but Kat was scared.

Q: What inspired you to make Greg?

A: Tom Scharpling! Rebecca used to always listen to Tom's radio show (The Best Show) toward the end of college and she based Greg's character on him. She says Tom is currently doing a thing where he's reviewing every episode of Friends. She felt that during a tumultuous time in her life, moving from New York to LA and being apart from Ian, Tom's voice was a constant and a comfort. On his show, Tom is "more cynical" than Greg, but she describes him as only being mean to meanness, and that even when he's mean it's a "force for good in the world." Being angry is fine as long as you're directing it at other things that are mean, helping to cancel them out. She finds Tom inspiring, and thinks Greg is sort of the result of that cancelled-out meanness. Rebecca also adds that Greg has a lot of her own father in him, and she believes the other Crewniverse folks probably pull in elements of their own dads to write him.

Q: Would another half-Gem/half-human fusion like Steven be possible for another Gem besides Pink Diamond?

A: Pink Diamond couldn't fuse with humans--Steven's unique that way. Pink obviously created Steven (not through fusion), but now Steven is the result of that process and he exists sort of as a bridge. He can fuse with humans because of his humanity, not because of his Gem. He would actually be able to pull other humans into his Fusions with Gems, but he'd have to be there to preserve that connection.

Joe interprets the question a little differently, saying he thinks they're asking whether another hybrid might be possible, and Rebecca says it'd be possible only for a Gem as committed to it as Rose was. She specifies that Rose obviously had the immense power of a Diamond as well as that dedication, so if some other Gem that had a similar level of power and a similar interest in creating an organic child wanted to do it, okay, they could.

Q: If Steven were to die of old age, what would happen to his Gem half?

A: Joe hates this question. Rebecca agrees "that's so grim." She says that Steven is Steven, and he is NOT Steven when he's broken into two pieces. There isn't one without the other. Kat thinks Steven wouldn't die unless he chose to (and might do that if everyone he cared about was gone). Joe apparently hates existential questions and Rebecca sort of comforts him saying the Gems will live and live and live, and that Steven will probably die before them so he won't have to be stranded alive with no friends left.

Q: Is the Jade Fusion from "Together Alone" okay?

A: Yes, she's fine! Rebecca says she got poofed like many other characters have been before, and probably bubbled for what they were doing, but in Era 3 what they were doing is no longer wrong. They will emerge and be allowed to be themselves. Rebecca says, though, that there's also a question of whether they're okay as a person, and that what they went through is really hard to go through. She felt so isolated all that time, and then as soon as they got the courage to emerge in front of other people for the first time they were punished for it, so in that sense she's really kinda not okay. She will have opportunities to heal from her traumas, though, and her future is bright.

Q: Does Obsidian have future vision powers?

A: Rebecca says "Yes" decisively. The others chime in to agree. Rebecca says Obsidian's powers are overwhelming and difficult to handle all at once, though with many components they also have support handling it. The future vision Obsidian experiences is so overwhelming it's almost worthless because it's like noise--it's expanded and cacophonous.

Next, Ian and Rebecca are answering questions submitted by the cast and Crewniverse!

Q (from Zach Callison): What aspects of the characters are inspired by the voice actors?

A: Rebecca says the biggest one is how Pearl became more maternal because of Deedee's influence. She's "such a mom."

The interaction of the cast in the room worked its way into the characters' interaction. She also says Steven's growth from childish to mature for his age came from Zach growing up with him. She describes him as professional, insightful, thoughtful--enough such that adults could take cues from him or aspire to be like him. Ian thinks Zach was really interested in the process and very open to learning from other actors. Steven as an empathetic character was enhanced by Zach's genuine personality. Others who worked with him would be inspired and excited by him, which worked for the authenticity of Steven's vibe too.

Rebecca also noticed that sometimes Michaela or Deedee would cheer Zach up or egg him on, and the way they did those things differently also informed the characters of Amethyst and Pearl when they'd be in similar situations with Steven. They also noticed that if Estelle was there for a recording, everyone would stop and give her space to do her thing, which turned out to be very appropriate for how the others act with Garnet sometimes.

Q (from Matthew Moy): Can Lars go through Lion's mane and vice versa? Would they just fall right back out if they entered?

A: Rebecca points out that she actually answered this recently on the Reddit AMA! First, she wants folks to remember that Steven is the only one who can bring anyone or anything through mane space. Yes, Steven could take Lars into Lion's mane and go over to Lars's tree, but if Lars were to stick his head through the grass there, Lars's head would come out of his own hair. But this would cause infinite Larses to come out of infinite Lars's Heads, until he pulled his head back out.

Q (from Estelle): When you come up with new characters, how much time do you spend revamping the look of each?

A: It's a lot of time. Hundreds of drawings. Ian describes a process of coming up with early characters who didn't have a spot in the story yet, and they'd come up with random looks for them, and then they'd narrow down what specifically that character would need when they learned where they would go. Elements that mean something are retained and elements that do not mean anything will be swapped out. Boarders and designers would all take a crack at the design afterwards. Rebecca says that by the time boarding is happening, they need the character's "shape language" to be nailed down. Rebecca also mentions that many designs just get shelved if they're not really working, like some of the designs for Sardonyx did from before Rebecca realized Sardonyx would be a bombastic nerd, not a stoic and imposing presence. Even after they discovered that, though, the tooth gap was a later addition. Rebecca finds it helpful to ask "why" instead of "what" in design. Why is someone designed the way they are? Everyone will work together to create a design that blends form and function. She usually starts with rough sketches that they'll build off of as a starting point.

Q (from Michaela Dietz): With all the references to other shows (Gurren Lagann, Adventure Time, Revolutionary Girl Utena, etc.), what's a reference fans may have missed?

A: Since they pull from SO many places, it's hard to say, but Ian points out Future Boy Conan (Rebecca identifies a scene where the Quartzes run through Pink Diamond's body as a particular scene that's similar), and Rebecca says the rainbow worm from the Kyanite Colony is inspired by Orbitty (from the 80s Jetsons) and other ugly aliens from the time that were influenced by E.T. Rebecca points out Mr. Bug Goes to Town, an obscure film that nobody really watched because it came out on D-Day. Then Ian mentions the G.I. Joe animated series, how they referenced "It's all a fake-a-roo!" from that. And "Frybo" was a reference to The Thing.

Q (from Deedee Magno Hall): If Pearl could fuse with one of Rebecca's childhood cartoon favorites, who would it be, what would their weapon be, and can we see a drawing?

A: Rebecca says this is REALLY hard because she liked so many cartoons, but she just throws out Bart. Their Fusion would have a skateboard with spikes on the front. Maybe the Fusion would be named Part or Bearl. Or maybe Detective Conan; the Fusion would have all those gadgets. She decided she'd have to keep thinking about it and she'll give Deedee an answer.

Q (from Conrad Montgomery): If you could go back in time to give yourself a bit of advice as you started on "Gem Glow" and the rest of the series, what would it be?

A: Rebecca says she would tell herself to drink more water and exercise, and don't forget to eat. She thinks maybe she would tell herself it was going to be okay, because she didn't know that at the time. She says it may have been helpful at the beginning if she could have known she'd get to finish the story she wanted to tell. She was always anxious that her show would be yanked and she wouldn't get to finish what she'd dreamed up, but she did. She also feels like she was so young at 25 to be doing what she was doing, and maybe she'd like to just turn herself into a 31-year-old.

Ian thinks the show became what it was because of what they were learning along the way, though. If you really could tell people ahead of time what the things they're making are going to turn out like, you don't get to understand the process of something coming back wrong and learning how to deal with that. They feel that created a lot of what was good about the show, the debates and discussions. Rebecca is not sure she would have just said "trust yourself" because sometimes she trusted her team and was grateful for it.

Q (from Rob Sorcher): What is the one most profound thing you learned about yourself as a result of making the series?

A: Rebecca says she didn't understand she could be bisexual and be out. She thought declaring your orientation was about who you were with, not about who YOU were. So even though she was telling stories that spoke to feelings she'd had about partners or potential partners who were NOT Ian, she didn't realize she could claim that and care about that, mostly due to the fact that she'd been repeatedly and strongly told it did not matter. But it does matter. How you feel about yourself and how you experience attraction is a relevant and important thing to be able to embrace. She felt like she was "insane, all the time" because she wasn't supposed to talk about it or was told it wasn't interesting. She was floored when people she had connections with still wanted to be friends with her after she started talking about it, and being open about this aspect of herself has made being alive much easier.

If something matters to you, it matters, period. In terms of cartoons, the incredibly gender-segregated way they were doled out to kids in the 80s and 90s had an effect on Rebecca, and for a long time she didn't know why she so desperately wanted to "scramble" that. She finally found ways to discuss how uncomfortable she was being told that she had to be a woman when she was not. She realized through making her cartoon that though she had plenty of wells to pull from, this particular well was one she hadn't been able to speak about, so she did it through this medium and chose this as one of her stories. It's certainly not the only one she has to tell. She reiterates that she is bisexual and nonbinary, and though the language for that might change in the future, "that's what's going on" with her.

Ian's "profound thing" was that he realized you can share a message without being limited by the expected confines of your medium. For example, he knows that if he claims to be making a science fiction/fantasy cartoon, people will have preconceived notions of what that means, but maybe for some people, a major fantasy is just being told it's okay to be who they are, or living in a world where being who they are is okay. You don't have to worry about whether your reasons for making this art will satisfy someone else's reasons for watching it. Rebecca agrees, and says other people's "escapist" fantasies seemed really one-dimensional to her, never satisfying what SHE would like to escape to, but she realized she'd been holding contempt for escapism in general because of that, which dissolved when she was able to explore hers. There is a place for her, there is a dream she can have, and she no longer resented other people for having theirs. Sometimes a fantasy is about even getting to dream in the first place instead of just being fed these ideas of what you're supposed to want.

Everyone should get to have a dream and say it out loud.

[Archive of Steven Universe Podcast Summaries]

#steven universe #steven universe podcast #long post #mckenzie atwood #rebecca sugar #ian jones-quartey #kat morris #ben levin #matt burnett #joe johnston #myblog

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