#Watermelon discourse has been going on and I want to let people know where I stand.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wei Wuxian eats a watermelon. Yep!

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Adventure Time Reviewed - Season 1 Episode 6 to Episode 8

From The Jiggler to Business Time

S1E06 The Jiggler

This one is about the cautions of adopting cute little forest animals. I wonder why Finn and Jake are covered in so many bite marks? Why was that kingdom on fire? What was going on? How much trouble can one watermelon get into? Anyway this is the first episode to feature Finn’s autotune voice. I can’t remember the last episode he said something in autotune - there was the s6 finale, then a few scenes in season 7. 

When they take the Jiggler back home, they Get Creative and escalate until they destroy their entire house interior. I think Princessss made an AMV Nightosphere gag about this.  I love how chiptune noises play every time the Jiggler moves on day 1. 

I always loved this episode. I thought it was very disturbing when the Jiggler gets sick, and then explodes. It reminds me of failed attempts to save birds or insects after my cats have gotten to them. I can relate so much to Finn and Jake here. Poor Jake having to keep himself together and look after his traumatized little bro.  I love the OST of this ep. The soundtrack was uploaded to soundcloud once, along with Ricardio the Heart Guy. I love how artistic this ep is with the edible drawings and the painting of the jiggler’s mom. Very bright and colourful. I always found the momma jiggler’s cry to be... weirdly genuine. 

S1E07 Ricardio the Heart Guy

This ep starts with Finn saving PB from Ice King, who humorously kisses Jake’s butt. PB gives Finn a kiss on the.... neck? hat? as thanks, and Finn’s crush truly begins. Oooooh boy.  I always wondered in hindsight why Pb let the ice king roam free to begin with. That question is raised later in this season. Ice King kidnaps dozens of princesses daily and roams free, but Princess Cookie starts 1 hostage situation and is locked up forever. In the ep What Have You Done, it’s reasoned IK can only be punished for recent crimes, but... ehh, there are a few reasons. Pity? Old ties? Maybe she doesnt want to lock up a pathetic old man forever.  There are some really funny statues of Finn and Jake in the castle, they look buff. I wonder who made these? PB commissioning them makes a lot of sense. Hey, it’s Peppermint Butler’s first speaking lines!!!  “This style of massage is called Best Friend Massage. Because it can only be done for friends. It is completely consensual.” Well the first line from Ricardio the Rapist Stand-in is already incredibly sus. What’s even more sus is he’s apparently friends with LSP.  I find it interesting that Ricardio is so intelligent. This must have been one of the motivators behind making Simon really smart. Ricardio is his heart, at the end of the day. Oh, Simon at the end of the show still has maracas in place of a heart. I wonder if that has health complications? 

“I hear you appreciate ancient technology.” This is foreshadowing of MULTIPLE things now. One - Ice King being pre-war. Two - PB building everything out of pre-war technology. Three - The fact there was a war to begin with!!!! 

Jake is trying to help Finn deal with his new emotions of jealousy (burning low war flashbacks) and he’s once again trying to make him happy, Jake never once considered the logistics of whether Finn and PB would ever actually go out, because it was far more important to him that Finn grow up and have the courage to listen to his heart. Jake encourages Finn’s crush to a fault, and provides lots of support to him when he’s heartbroken later on. 

I love how PB and Ricardio were talking about dangerous micro-organisms and poor Finn has no idea how to approach the topic. I love how Zanoits are actualy dangerous and Ricardio uses them as a poison later.  Anyway even PB can tell Finn is jealous. Finn is of the idea that she has no idea of his crush on her. Of course she knows. But from her side it’s exactly the same as Baby-snaps wanting to be a princess, or every other candy person doting on her - she thinks it’s adorable and completely fails to take the other person seriously. At least, until Braco comes along. Then you realise it’s a good thing she didn’t take Finn seriously, because she might have done something ridiculous like make him a robot clone of herself.  

Holy shit, the duck from The Vault!  I just made a post about it. 

Anyway this ep provides a challenge to Finn or a test of his character, ironically through his own test of Ricardio’s character! Finn gets obsessed with proving Ricardio evil to the point that he gets easily baited into punching him, and doesn’t care that the Ice King is basically dying. Poor Ice King. At least Jake is here to approach the situation with a level head. 

I was wondering as of late, with all the post-Obsidian sexuality discourse (in no way ignited by that one towel scene), whether PB was interested in Ricardio during this ep. It’s possible, and in the past, I thought “maybe”? But upon rewatch? No. She is only interested for as long as she can have scientific discussions with him, and as soon as his knowledge becomes lacking she has already used him for all hes worth. SAVAGE. But not as savage as him trying to rip out her heart. Ew, creep!!! 

I should say that Ice King wanted to cast a spell that would force PB to fall in love with him. He’s NOT safe, he’s dangerous. He’s especially a danger to PB. He does kill her twice at the end of season 2, after all. Once again I don’t know why she hasn’t locked him up LOL. Anyway, even if he did cast a love spell, she wouldn’t change any of her decisisons. It’d just make her sad, like it did at the end of The Suitor.  There was that one time PB tried to make a love potion but we don’t talk about that.  Ice King does demonstrate some concern for Bubblegum’s welfare when he reveals Ricardio’s plan to literally murder her. Ricardio’s plan here is pretty slapstick violent, and it’s funny watching Finn beat him up, but when he returns in season 4, it’s far more... personal and insidious. As in, here he could be seen as a jokey stand-in for a predator creep, but in that later episode he 100%  sexually threatens her and forces her into a non consensual relationship, making it very satisfying when PB beats the shit out of him instead. 

Holy fuck I forgot about this joke. Golden.  

S1E08 Business Time

For some reason, I don’t feel like there’s a lot to say about this ep. It doesn’t demonstrate any remarkable characteristics of Finn and Jake themselves. Instead, it seems to be more of an inside joke. 

When they find the business men, Finn and Jake at first feel like the business men are helping them work more effectively with their assists. However, the boys end up just being lazy, and not realizing that their workers are messing everything up. You can sympathise for the business men because they’re just doing what they were told to do.  This all seems to be metaphorical for when Pen and Patrick McHale started work on the show, and they got tons of help from Cartoon Network staff. They wanted to do everything by themselves, but ended up having to delegate. Maybe they feel lazy for it? 

What makes this episode EXTRA SPECIAL, however, is its confirmation of the Great Mushroom War.  By the time the season had released, the first shot of the intro was already Mushroom War bombs. There was also a reference to the war in the previous episode, where PB and Ricardio shared an interest in “ancient technology”. However, the only reason those references exist is because of THIS episode - This is the one they were working on when they decided it should be post-apocalyptic. They made the human zombies, and the icebergs filled with human junk, and then every GMW reference we see in the show is down to this decision. 

I enjoy the physicality of this ep. Finn and Jake crash through the entire gauntlet. Finn’s still wearing his fire resistant glove as he does it. They get covered in bruises, because they... like pain? I liked when you could see Finn’s sword legit being shinier, and his shoes having bouncing noises. And I want to be hydrated! I loved how smushy Jake was when he became an ice cream monster.  I love the colours of the Fluffy People. S1 has this unique art style compared to the rest of the series. They often draw white outlines to white things, it works nice here. 

[faelapis]

Why would you think than Jasper and Pearl will be a cute couple?, Pearl already found a girl for her type

i don’t think they will be… like, i’m fully aware my ship is super reachy. it took me a while to come to terms with shipping it at all - i used to joke about jaspearl being kind of a random ship. let’s be honest, we don’t even know when jasper’s coming back… i just think they could be an interesting dynamic. 

since you wanna know why, i’ll do My Jaspearl Thoughs under the cut ~

jasper and pearl… there’s a lot to them, and it goes far beyond jasper obviously being pearl’s “type”. for one, i really want them to talk and duel. their interactions have been pretty much neutral thus far - they’ve never hurt each other, unlike jasper’s relation to any other crystal gem, and pearl even tried to save her, but she’s not sacrificing herself for jasper, either. she’s ready to fight jasper in “gem hunt”, but doesn’t engage. jasper just walks away. 

it feels carefully done - avoiding any strong animosity between them, as there is still the question of who would win in a fight. they both win against amethyst, but lose against garnet. it’s pretty well-established that both were Big Deals in the war, which makes it an even more interesting question. jasper beat amethyst with more ease than pearl did, but pearl has beaten fusions like sugilite, which is something jasper was never able to do. 

pearl’s also exhilarated to fight malachite (controlled by jasper) in “super watermelon island” - they both get a high from a good, purposeful fight. we see this with jasper during the fight, and with pearl after: she’s laughing - almost giddy - when alexandrite unfuses. this is also interesting because garnet and amethyst, who have both been very excited about a good fusion in the past, are exhausted. amethyst just slumps over, while pearl is giggly and happy. 

also, they’re ~next to each other~ a lot in group settings, and i love reaching :’)

they have a lot in common, really. i think they could challenge each other in terms of mutually pining for someone they see as “above” them, who could do no wrong… who, incidentally, the other considers just. the WORST person. ever. pearl hates pink diamond, just like jasper hates rose quartz. they’ve both had this idea that love = sacrificing yourself for someone who is “better” than you, and that they, themselves, are disposable in that cause.

so it’s interesting that they both have this struggle… but on opposite sides. pearl would think “how could you sacrifice yourself for pink diamond, aka horrible earth-colonizer who had to die?!” just as strongly as jasper would think “how could you sacrifice yourself for rose quartz, aka horrible war criminal who attacked earth’s colonies and shattered my diamond?!” 

…so if maybe, just maybe, seeing themselves in the other’s struggle could lead to them considering that the other is more like them than they thought, that “the enemy” isn’t so bad as they think, and the gem they adored isn’t an infallible, glorious leader who they should ache for over thousands of years after they’re gone… i think those are all good things. 

they could also challenge mutual prejudice - pearl thinks earth’s kindergarten gems are “bad”, the byproducts of a “big mistake”, with amethyst as the only good gem to come out of it. jasper thinks pearl is just some “lost, defective pearl”. this is the kind of dehumanization (degeminization?) that allowed them to become terrifying in the war, because they’ve decided the Others are Bad.

jasper and pearl are about as Other as it gets: pearl represents the rebellion by her whole existence. to jasper, that’s selfishly abandoning your purpose and putting yourself above the Order of the Diamonds… even fighting and killing just for your own sake. jasper, in turn, represents following your purpose no matter what. to pearl, that’s a suffocating reminder of what she was “supposed” to be, when she wasn’t really a person: jasper is so willing to follow this purpose that she would kill and die for it. 

so both are a bit strange and scary… but they challenge the unhealthy parts of each other’s worldview. the dehumanizing, both of themselves and others. 

they could also be a comfort - they’re not alone anymore. there’s another young knight, who was trying so hard to do everything for their liege. someone who clung to that for thousands of years, and ended up alone after the person they loved died. someone who wants so many of the same things: companionship, a proper challenge, feeling like they’re right, talking about the war, doing anything for someone they love, feeling useful, an exhilarating duel, and someone they can confide in. 

next to what they already know they want, i think they need some of the same things, too: closure, accepting the past and moving on, letting go of unhealthy attachments, finding their own self-worth, discovering new reasons to live, working on their own flaws, and learning that their enemies are people, too. 

i just think there’s so much room for growth between them, as well as mutual enjoyment and learning to love, perhaps, the person they least expected. if not all that dramatic stuff, then at least getting some interaction between them, where they discourse a bit, either in words or a duel, and both enjoy the passion and fierce challenge of it. 

i’m absolutely giving pearl/mystery girl a chance, btw… but it’s hard to say pearl’s “found a girl” when we haven’t heard her talk, and humans have really short life-spans compared to gems… so as far as canon goes, i’m a bit hesitant to say pearl’s found her girl, that’s it, the pearl shipping industry is closed for business. especially when jaspearl is just so interesting to me. 

if nothing else, i’ll keep enjoying thinking about what could be.