#dewmie meta

[dewmie-in]

Fun theory with no evidence from Buddy’s Book:

Red car is Dewey’s (non-Mayormobile) car. Blue car is Jamie’s car.

They’re both in this episode in some way, too - you see young!Dewey on the ‘READ’ sign and then Jamie plays Buddy.

idk why they parked at the library. I see these weird parallels between Dewey/Jamie, Ruby/Sapphire and Steven/Connie all the time blah blah

[dramazones]

Oh Wow! Im finally here with a headcanon birth chart and analysis for jamie!

i'm on mobile so I cant even put this long ass post under a read more i am so fucking sowwy but anyways a lot of this was inspired from dewmie-in 's meta posts and also i rlly love astrology so pls follow them first of all or else ur a fake fan shhfhgjsjkfkd

☀️ ♓︎ Pisces Sun ♓︎ ☀️

There is no doubt that Jamie is a pisces sun. Some of the well known characteristics of a piscean are being the artistic ones, the ones more in touch with their emotions and the absolute dreamers of the zodiac, I can assure you this as a mercury and moon piscean!

And it’s quite obvious that these traits 100% match up to jamie’s surface character being a big theater nerd, writer, poet, and as an actor, he HAS to understand emotion in all its forms! While being the more compassionate of signs, that also comes with sympathy, and maybe even empathy.

to which he expresses when he tells steven that a good story with a quality protagonist HAS to include said protagonists struggles as well, now this might be a reach but perhaps this was self projecting after his own struggles in kansas, maybe even foreshadowing ooOoOh

(“a real hero must struggle” jamie struggles living in kansas, moves back to beach city, nails his first production and gains management position @ the theater, aka his heroic ending i guess idk, then more theater related accomplishments as mentioned in letters to lars ofc)

☽♎︎ Libra Moon ♎︎☽

One of the biggest desires for any libra placement is balance, And the moon sign being the emotion sign, Libra moons desire an emotional balance as much as they do in their environment. Libra Moons can also be known as a “people person” while typically depending on the study of others to lean their own nature.

Jamie fits the Libra moon description being a sort of people person himself. Though he’s capable of keeping a friendly conversation with just about anyone, There’s also no doubt that this guy has severe anxiety that affects his communication with others along with his emotional stability (even affecting him physically). The thing is that he’s managed to keep the anxiety and his social skills much more balanced the more we see him or i guess as time passes, not one of them overpowering the other. (see venus in scorpio as to why he limits himself socially as much as he would his anxiety)

While he desires emotional balance that also comes with a feeling of frustration and defeat when things are even slightly out of balance (also a symptom of anxiety ; easily irritated/defeated) such as his improv performance in letters to lars, ending his performance within a minute after feeling overwhelmed as it started going south.

So while there are several moments of him maintaining an emotional balance he also has another side of the scale that’s less balanced (astrology word play lmao) such as a general lifestyle balance, also nonexistent for jamie (even though your lifestyle heavily affects your behavior) in a sense that he lacks of a healthy sleep schedule being a mailman AND an actor, one occurring from the early morning to the afternoon and the other job occurring at night. Probably irrelevent but its MY sleepover and Ill add as much necessary info in this birth chart reading as i please.

Im also including buddys book as an example because though it was only jamie being the faceclaim for buddy theres no denying that since historical friction theres at least some parallels between the two characters sharing the same traits (being writers, returning to beach city to prosper in their careers, being absolute drama kings)

♀️♏︎ Scorpio Venus ♏︎♀️

One of the biggest aspects to Jamie’s character INCLUDES being an absolute sucker for romance so lets get this bread and talk abt his relationships w/ everyone and his views on love uwu

Scorpio being a water sign means healing is one of the largest aspects to the sign. Healing nonetheless comes with a relation to trauma being from the planet representing death itself. Life and Death go hand in hand to define each other, ya feel me.

while were on the topic of death lets bring back the parallelism between jamie and buddy thats been around since historical friction. in the play buddy is presumed dead up until william reaches beach city. ok. so hear me out. perhaps that was foreshadowing for jamie’s traumatic near death encounter with topaz and aqua. remember how I said the water element represents healing as well as trauma??? It all kinda ties in yall...

ANYWAYS It’s safe to say that Jamie is a person that’s been through his rock bottom AND trauma already (his death if you will), struggling to live a happy, or even regular (lets face it as far as we know the only thing he came back to beach city with was sunglasses, bitch was broke) life in kansas, the abduction, its not something you can heal from overnight. While he does show symptoms of severe anxiety (to say the very least) even after the abduction he’s also grown closer to working on healing, moving on from his overwhelming fear of rejection by prospering in theater (him coming back to life if u will), and as for anything directly related to the abduction is unknown, but its very likely he’s working on moving on from that on his own as far as we know!!

which brings up the next trait of a scorpion venusian! They prefer to be a mystery in order to protect themselves as a result of fear of getting hurt for trusting/opening up too much. The first time we see jamie since the abduction is during the re-election in dewey wins, where he doesn’t seem affected at all. Yes, Jamie is a pretty open book for the most part (see dewmie-in’s analogy to in/out of the closet in historical friction) however theres also moments where he limits himself, or perhaps another side to himself, a far more passionate side…

Holding back tears during his drama zone and waiting until hes alone to be excited abt delivering his letter in love letters, playing it cool when earning theater director position in historical friction, not to mention his room SHOULD play a very huge role in his secretive side. (see brodingle’s post on jamie’s room, his casual side vs his passionate side)

the venus in scorpio (or any scorpio placement rlly) also remains a secret not truly by choice, but theyre also studying others of interest. being an actor, Jamie should know a thing or two on body language and raw emotion as he sees it.

And finally, The venus is scorpio is a devoted, passionate, and emotionally attached lover. in love letters he falls for someone easily, and even if he learned in the end love at first sight isnt real he is most definitely the type to fall easily based on emotional connection alone! Also, his fear of rejection can easily play into his love life as well. Being in kansas getting constantly rejected and returning back home out of not just defeat but most likely homesickness as well. He missed his stable job. he wants stability, loyalty, commitment! yeah ok thts all i got for now ladies!

♂️♍︎ Virgo Mars ♍︎♂️

Mars being the planet of impulsiveness, energy, initiation and “doing it” being born under the sign of doing it efficiently and orderly gives a handful of traits that completely match up to Jamie and the way he puts out his energy into the world

Jamie has been the type to not just instantly put his energy into something new, but he’s also put his energy into mastering said thing! While Mars is the planet of impusiveness, Virgo is the sign of patience, the Virgo mars is a firm believer of practice makes perfect, and striving for overall perfect, which does in fact get overwhelming for Jamie the perfectionist.

In historical friction, though hesitant, he was not afraid to critique and analyze dewey’s writing skills. And although he was anxious again to go against deweys script and use pearls version instead, he went with pearls because he desperately needed to execute his first play flawlessly. this also occurs again in letters to lars, when his improv performance doesnt go as planned he doesnt just end it from there, in fact, he still has that sense of patience to critique his cast members on stage before getting completely irritated when they dont comply. imo its important to note this duality of patience and impulsiveness because this is an anxiety inducing combination that heavily matches up to Jamies energy.

it’s also important to bring Jamie’s room back in this, because while it was creepy as shit its also FILLED with books, and has really fancy stationery meaning he is in fact a writer. The Mars in Virgo is an attentive to detail oriented person, and being a writer, Jamie not only reads others’ works, he records his own with plenty of detail as seen in his love letter to garnet. Its in his nature by now to have an eye for detail as seen in his room, his costumes, his writing, etc.

Its very likely that his venus and his mars sign do sort of relate in a sense of the way he will present himself. The virgo mars wants a deep connection as the next person but refuses to express that “passionate side” as much as others, preferring to remain casual or present a “cool exterior” which plays into the venus in scorpio’s preference for a secretive side or to remain a mystery.

lets also not forget Jamie’s mime performance in Sadie’s Song. His body language easily read as excited and desperate for perfectionism. Theres no denying he spent time and energy into his act, probably studying mimes and all lol

plus the virgo mars being an attentive to detail type of person, scorpio venus’ silent study on their person of interest and libra moon’s dependance on the study of others to learn how to express emotion when and where and how all tie into each other. Jamie depends on detail before well, doing! he is the type to not just think before acting but hes also gotten quite anxious overthinking as well!

The Taurus Ascendant is a sucker for stability, loyalty, especially to their passions with change being their biggest weakness, very fitting to Jamie. Stability is what made Jamie return to beach city from Kansas because he was not used to such a drastic change in an unstable life, doing the absolute opposite of prospering in his acting career, another big desire for a taurus rising btw, they thrive for success!

They also need a sense of security and any chance at risking that security is a big no-no for the Taurus Ascendant. Jamie’s constant fear of rejection, his anxiety before a production that could make or break his career, he desires a sense of reassurance and security that will assure him that things will not turn out as horribly as his anxiety’s (cough drama zone cough) made it out to be.

⬆️♉︎ Taurus Rising ♉︎⬆️

now, in Reunited, hes completely moved on from garnet at this point. This takes places after the abduction, the only thing that would really be on his mind rn is healing and finding peace again with himself and in his surroundings. while hes handled this healing process alone (as far as we know) hes also learned about what he wants for himself including his love life. seeing garnet extremely happy and married and all makes him defeated for a moment not because “uUuuUUhH shes the one that got away!” its because he truly desires a passionate and devoted relationship as ruby and sapphires! which brings up the next topic!

In relationships, the Taurus Ascendant won't easily break up with someone they gave their heart to. Jamie wants a partner thats going to be as devoted and passionate as himself. He needs that sense of commitment and loyalty from someone and probably wouldn’t handle something as emotionless as one night stands for example! Any taurus placement has the same desires for romance as scorpio placements to be quite honest here, im just sayin as a venus in taurus and scorpio rising lmao.

🌊 Water Dominant 🌊

Ok so the thing is heres the thing. Out of all four astrological elements, Jamie exudes water energy the most, then earth, then fire, and lastly air. He’s not just an emotional person, he’s also an optimistic person, even when he overthinks things, he continuously looks into the future rather than his past so I think its important to note he also has that “psychic” aspect to him as well as having a strong sense of someone else’s emotions as much as his own.

let me also add in dewmie-in’s post where they point out tht jamie does in fact have a literal reocurring theme with water so even if he turns out to like not be a water sun sign in canon (highly doubt there will ever be a canon bday for him lmao the entire point of this post tho) theres no way hes gonna not be associated with water coincidentally. so if u didnt read their post tldr: being a fucking buffoon in the literal rain, throwing letters into the ocean, staring at the ocean on his free time, (aka during working ours, worlds okayest mailman) cries easily, buddy dying in water, jamie nearly being killed as instructed by a gem named aqua, jamie surviving in water after being THROWN off the ship. (i added a few more btw hshfhhdjd)

so yeah thats that on that, theres plenty more planet placements than that in a birth chart but i just felt like doing the usual ones i guess :P

[dewmie-in]

Two bombshell pieces of evidence that the ship will be canon??

EXHIBIT 1

DEWEY’S PANTS ARE TOO SHORT JAMIE’S PANTS ARE TOO LONG. highwaters and turn-ups, people! 

EXHIBIT B

DEWEY HAS TOO LITTLE HAIR JAMIE HAS LOADS OF IT.

if they fuse, regular amounts of pants AND hair.

[dewmie-in]

Finally found a good quality file so i’m here to remind you that Dewey has been staring at Jamie in the opening since s2 or so.

I’m going to break into your house and fill your sock drawer with pine-scented stinky tree air fresheners in case it wasn’t obvious enough that Ex-Mayor Billiam Dewey has been silently, painfully pining after Jamie the Mailman this whole time.

There is also a poster behind Dewey that looks slightly like a butt.

[dewmie-in]

Alternate take on the love quadrangle prediction -

Smiley/Jamie isn’t a red herring ship before Dewey/Jamie at all, but a Dewey/Jamie fake dating thing to get Barb to stop pursuing Dewey might happen instead, then it’ll get weird.

...”you don’t have to be a plunger - just pretend to have one”?

I can’t tell if this happening in the show before as a trope (Kiki and Ronaldo in Restaurant Wars) means it’s more likely it’ll happen or not at this point - there are so many weird parallels all the time.

In re-watching Restaurant Wars, there’s loads of clouds in almost all of the establishing shots - which would be for Barb in character symbols, but idk if it’s a strong enough reference... hmmmm

[dewmie-in]

So, you hear lot about the Cool Kids as analogs of the Crystal Gems. I have many theories now about Dewey and Jamie being analogs for Ruby and Sapphire (and becoming a ship as a result) since Reunited aired, snapping and crackling in my brain like the small twigs of an eastern European pine forest. Here are six points I've been thinking about for an unhealthy amount of time:

Point 1: Color palettes

Bill's color palette is kind of hard to ignore - it's about as close as you could get to making one of the human characters bright ruby red - pretty much a coral color. Jamie’s default mailman outfit is blue, kind of like Sapphire - simple enough.

You'd think Bill’s suit is just grey, but that's a weird color theory thing going on - it's actually shades of purple! Ruby has a little dark purple in her outfit - Garnet has even more. Also, Bill and Jamie also have one bit of blue and red each - Jamie with his chucks and Bill with his tie.

Their appearance in the rupphire wedding is a rubber mallet to the skull as color palettes are concerned:

Bill has ditched the tie, so he has a bit of blue around his shirt collar. Jamie’s belt is dark red. That’s two instances now of hinting at each other’s colors somewhere in their outfits!

This is also the only time I think we see Jamie in a blue shirt that isn’t his work uniform - why blue? Dude wears blue all the time at his day job and his one dressy shirt happens to be blue, too? This feels SO INTENTIONAL.

Point 2: Watery stuff and firey stuff

Jamie ends up in or around water a lot!

In Love Letters alone there’s a ton of stuff - being a total moon calf out in the rain; throwing the mail he was supposed to deliver into the ocean. Then there’s Garnet’s line that first gets Jamie sweet on her in the first place: “I’m a really good swimmer.” Swimming! Water!

He throws a bucket of water on Steven in Historical Friction

He ends up *in the ocean* with the others in I Am My Mom.

You might make a parallel with him and Lapis here because it’s water instead of ice, but water in some form is a common theme with the gems of Blue Diamond's court, so to me it points to a Sapphire thing. Water here = ice. I’d even predict something happening in a future episode with Jamie being cold or dealing with ice - we’ll see!

There’s also the whole theme of Blue Diamond's gems being more emotionally-focused, too. An analogous human would wear his heart on his sleeve a bit - falling in love at the drop of a hat, being overly dramatic and so on.

Warmth or fire tends to be a running theme for Bill, some of the most obvious things:

Melting ice cream in Joking Victim *and* Political Power.

The fireworks show he arranged.

Steven’s bit in Political Power about how, "Mayor Dewey was hiding things from you ... because he loves you," and then you see a shot of a nice fire in the fireplace.

His skin color is basically a perpetual sunburn.

In Political Power, Bill has the line, “you can't control what happens in the world but you can control how people feel about it - that's the real weight I carry - making the good people of Beach City feel better...” Now, he isn’t very successful at keeping people calm ultimately, but he tries, and even references Ocean Town being destroyed because of people rioting/panicking! Water = emotions Fire = composure.

There's weird bits of crossover here, too: Bill gets sprayed in his first appearance, and Jamie accidentally sets his quill on fire while writing his letter to Garnet. They don't do well using each other's elements, do they!

There is only one big counterexample to this I can find, yet even THAT is telling. To be fair, Bill is very much The Boss in Historical Friction and even a bit of a jerk, but then you see this bit at the end?

Jamie gets a fire in his eyes when he gets the position as director of the community theater. Who really started that fire, though? Who gave Jamie all that power? Bill did.

Point 3: Bill has a type

Bill has a crush on Pearl! And hats off to Pewey shippers - ship what you want and live your best life! But I'm afraid I have to bring this ship up from the depths just to sink it, because for my purposes it's a red herring:

Out of the main three Crystal Gems, who does Jamie portray best? Pearl!

Bill is into slender types with big noses, basically. There’s some fun headcanoning to be done about WHY Bill is so ridiculously transparent with Pearl and this hasn't been the case around Jamie. Perhaps he's over-compensating for a crush on Jamie? Perhaps he never thought of Jamie like that before and that will lead to a bit of development for them both? Now that Bill isn't mayor anymore, maybe he feels he can be a little more open about himself. Who knows?

Point 4: SU Tap Together

This post on the SU Tap Together game. tl;dr - they give Dewey and Jamie VERY SIMILAR abilities to Ruby and Sapphire as starters. I doubt it's coincidental.

Point 5: Buck’s dad

Pretty much the whole fandom agrees that Buck is an analog for Garnet. In some way, Garnet is the product of Ruby and Sapphire. Would it not make sense that Buck would have two dads to parallel Garnet's two 'moms'?

I am calling it now - Buck is going to get a second dad - a dad that can ultimately help foster his interest in art in a healthy, supportive way that his other dad hasn't been able to do up to now; a dad who is a creator and artist in his own way - as an actor! Jamie's gonna become Buck's second dad!

Point 6: It's time!

This is more meta, but we have several canon/near-canon fem ships. Would this show really have SO many sapphic and het ships and then have little-to-no men together? It just feels like next logical step to ALL THE inclusiveness that makes this show what it is! Dewmie is endgame! Soylent Green is people!

That's pretty much it. I’m kicking myself because way back, with all the hints at Garnet being a fusion so early, we all might have missed one of the most obvious ones - that the analogs for the gems that made her up as a fusion were there from the beginning and no one noticed! 

So, that's it. Grab a brochure and a stale cookie on your way out. Thanks for reading!

[dewmie-in]

If the time travel thing is right, the reason we see the Dewey/Jamie “sad men tango scene" in an episode called 'Reunited' makes a lot of sense. The episode was definitely about Garnet, but also about the Diamonds being back together; and Lapis coming back to join the gems - and Bismuth... it was about all these characters reuniting with each other.

Bill and Jamie’s thing at the wedding is a bit like they're being reunited too, even if they aren't aware. They’re going to be together as a couple in the past somehow - they’re together again in the present.

[dewmie-in]

Er, wait --

So I’m thinking back on the meta I wrote for Buddy's Book (some... more) and I mention that perhaps something deeper than just 'figuring out what his own legacy would be' caused Buddy to leave. The weird spelling errors in that episode feel intentional, like William and Buddy were pissed off at each other and doing something kind of spiteful back and forth.

That maybe there was some sort of problem that developed between William and Buddy.

Could a "legacy" for William not only be the whole 'I founded the town gimmie that bronze statue' thing but also a family? Specifically a wife and child? William Dewey has descendants alive in the present day of the SU world, after all. Buddy comes back to Beach City to become an author, but he has no descendants in Beach City that we know of.

crap crap crap did William have a thing with Buddy and then left him to marry a woman and have a kid? D-did he break Buddy's heart?! What even is this? A headcanon? A prediction? I have no idea what to do with this information except be massively sad.

[dewmie-in]

do any other characters besides Bill and Jamie refer to the people in town as ‘boardies’?

[dewmie-in]

Episodes I Watch Way Too Closely: 144 - Letters to Lars

Going from Jamie’s big episode in Love Letters, there’s a curious connection between that and the title of a big Dewey-focused episode, Letters to Lars, a few seasons later. A few SEASONS, I say as I collapse. More about this big episode and PLEASE OH PLEASE IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE READ ABOUT THE WRESTLING SCENE under my read more. And if tumblr is gross to you, read this on A03.

Lars is becoming quite the device for Bill’s character development of all things - the last episode was about Bill not even realizing Lars was missing and ultimately losing his job as mayor. Lars is even pink now - not quite Bill's shade but still - weird parallels between them! Toward the end of the episode, LARS HIMSELF makes a joke about being a storytelling device. Poor Lars! Lars outright asks why Steven sent him a *letter* – a symbol for Jamie. Even Lars is telling us this episode really isn't about him! Love Lars. Gotta get some more Lars in my life. Make a note of that.

Let me recap the episode briefly! Lars is still in space with the Off Colors doing his whole Star Trekky captain's log thing. Suddenly, a letter pops through Lars' head from Steven! Steven talks about the events going on in Beach City through his letter; we see Bill showing up as a common, depressing thread in most of Steven's anecdotes. We finally see a bit of resolution when Steven suggests that Bill start working at the Big Donut. We also see some atonement for Bill's mistake when he doesn't realize who Lars is in Dewey Wins  - naming a donut after Lars and then visiting Lars' parents.

Onto the episode rip-apart! Okay, I already mentioned the little Jamie reference with Lars having a letter pop out of his head. Then, we have an establishing shot of the ocean. Two Jamie symbols! Even before Bill shows up, Jamie is there in some way. Initially, I thought the events happened during the course of a day, but Jamie's improv class is at night – it's the only scene that we see in the episode at night, in fact! More toward that day/night or light/dark theory I have going.

More character symbols! The HAM Sign on the window of the Big Donut looks like a sun - and then Bill, similar in appearance to a walking ham, shows up a minute later.

A lot of this episode deals with how even when his self-absorption has gotten in the way, Bill genuinely wants to help people, be part of things, and ultimately make people happy. Not having that anymore has left him rudderless. Bill has never really been an uplifting kind of guy out of all the characters in the show – he's a mess, really – but this episode was easily one of his saddest. We see him becoming more and more desperate to participate throughout the episode – and becoming more and more unhinged as each attempt fails.

Uh, what is going on with sad men at their wit’s end in this show and half-untucked shirt tails? That’s twice I’ve seen it now – one for Bill and one for Jamie back when he was being a weirdo in Love Letters...

What a couple of dorks.

Interestingly, Bill and Pearl have no interaction this episode – not one line is exchanged between them in the pizza shop scene. If anything, Garnet interacts with Bill more… or at least reacts to him – with a sympathetic little ‘aw’ (I so hope Garnet helps get Bill and Jamie together please oh please) and then whacking him in the head with a tennis ball. Head injuries are always good for character development - well done, Garnet.

Bill could have had another chance to talk to Pearl during the improv scene too, but nothing happens. What is Bill doing trying to participate in the improv class in the first place, anyway? You can tell he's obviously jumped into it last minute out of desperation - no Laugh Guard sweater or anything. You’d think he’d be trying some last-ditch effort to get with Pearl, his big!crush, but no. We see one more token effort to talk to Pearl in one of the background scenes in Reunited and that's it.

Mr. Smiley and Barb are taking an improv class so... that's interesting. Jamie had been doing lots of one-man shows at this point, and he has had trouble getting other people to show up to audition for stuff in the past, so I'm hoping he didn't have to beg people to take this class. It's also the first class we hear of him teaching (but not the first session of the class) so I'm wondering if the community theater might need to start making money. I promised my friends and family I would not write a volume of speculation on the Beach City Arts and Culture operational budget, so I'm going to move on.

To touch on the lack of Bill/Pearl interaction this episode one more time - Pearl actually interacts more with Jamie as a heckler, even prompting a 'Pearl, be nice!’ from Steven. I don’t think she was doing anything maliciously, but the fact that she initially made Jamie look incompetent stuck in my mind a bit. Between Pearl and Peridot? He gets ripped apart in this scene, and ends up pretty annoyed by the time Bill enters. The whole thing is just cringey and wonderful.

Jamie also seems kind of… weirdly full of himself here! He tries to teach improv but honestly he's not doing all that well. I’m wondering if this is going to be a running theme. I so want the next Jamie episode to be a 'crisis of confidence' thing – either a bout of impostor syndrome or people questioning his competence in some way or UGH. There is kind of a disparity so far between Bill's and Jamie's development as characters, so I hope he gets an episode soon.

That last bit with Peedee and his price-gouging tater tots is when everything is thrown out into the open about much being mayor meant to Bill. Notice none of it is actually feeling like he accomplished anything as a leader – it was the routine of it all, really:

 “You know what I miss the most about being the mayor? The little things – getting dressed and ready for work, walking down the boardwalk seeing everyone’s smiling faces – yes! Knowing I had a place in this town. I used to look forward to it every day – just like the people of this town used to look forward to their morning donut.”

And today in More Lines With Subtext That Probably Isn’t There:

“I guess these days no one gets what they want.”

And then yay! Found some meaning NEW DONUT BOY!

Bill and Barb’s flirting is admittedly super cute to me. If I’m wrong about LITERALLY EVERYTHING I have been theorizing and predicting and hyperfixating on these past few months; if they just decide to make the dance in Reunited a joke like most of the fandom thinks it is; if they just make Bill straight and keep Jamie alone forever? I hope they end up doing something with Bill and Barb. Perhaps Bill would be able to get her to relax her parenting style a bit more - and in turn, Barb could make Bill more attentive as a parent! It also makes you wonder where Sadie would fit in to all that because she does not seem to like Bill at all. BUT ENOUGH, steering readily back into bisexual-disasters-bill-and-jamie territory…

I think this bit actually speaks to two things - one thing about how Bill has now changed as a character and something that started as a tiny prediction but is now a HUGE one:

Okay first, it shows us that Bill is available now! I ramble a bit in my post about Dewey Wins where Bill thought it would be inappropriate to do a ton of flirting as mayor - maybe Bill feels he can play the field a bit now? Even in his interactions with Pearl, he never actually went so far as to ask her out on a date or make a 'move’ so to speak. Okay, so he referred to her as 'the hot one', but he never said that to her face. He whenever he tried talking to her, he tended to cycle between ridiculousness and disappointment, really. So yeah, Bill can be 'in the game' again.

Now for the prediction I have, based on the speech scene at the end of Dewey Wins and the scene in the donut shop towards the end of this episode:

Jamie’s standing off by himself, staring at the soda machine in thought. Smiley is the first to get donuts and then walks off screen in Jamie's direction. Then, Barb and Bill flirt.

Jamie and Smiley are also standing together during the debate in Dewey Wins - there are a couple weird things where Smiley disappears from the background during this - I can't tell if it's just an inconsistency in the animation, or they did it to make the figures in the foreground more easily visible. When Smiley *is* there, it looks like him and Jamie might even be talking to each other a bit during the speeches. I swear the angle of Jamie's arm in one part makes it look like Jamie has grabbed Smiley's hand for support as Bill's speech starts. Hey, this is me talking, though - I grew up on '90s science fiction where it was all 256-color screen captures and I read way too much romantic subtext into shots framed to deal with tiny aspect ratios on old TVs – ANYWAY!

I'm predicting that there might be one, final red herring!romance for Bill and Jamie each. For Bill, it’s going to be Barb - for Jamie, it’s going to be Mr. Smiley. Mr. Smiley has been in enough background scenes lately with Jamie for me to wonder if Jamie might start dating Mr. Smiley first - and Bill is going to learn of it and date Barb as a reaction.

My biggest piece of evidence for this is that seemingly RANDOM BREAK into wrestling stuff in the middle of the episode! Some of these may overlap with other ships or plot points in the show of course, but I'm for now I'm reading this as foreshadowing in my Bill/Barb/Jamie/Smiley love quadrangle theory:

"The Marmalade Boys fought each other in – you guessed it – marmalade!"

This will either be a messy relationship (Jamie and Smiley?) or... fighting in mar... hmm.. mal... mail? MAIL? DUELING POSTAL WORKERS? Are Barb and Jamie going to fight over Bill?

"Concrete Heat faced off against the Wolf of Wall Street inside a steel cage!"

Steven says this in voice over, but this isn't a “face-off” really - we see Concrete Heat (Heat? Firey warmth stuff? Bill is that you?) climbing up the steel cage to get away from a dude in a wolf suit. This might be Bill and Mr. Smiley fighting over Jamie, but I think it's more likely that Barb will either pursue Bill, or Bill will feel trapped by her.

"And the Good Looking Gang finally lost the tag-team title to The Sea Wasp and Shark-o-Mania!"

That has only one interpretation to me. Two guys with their arms around each other, one in blue and the other in red. Is my ship just sailing in foreshadowy form or what?! Does objective reality really exist? Oh, also - one of Jamie's character symbols is mentioned here – the sea!

You might be thinking, “What about Bill and Jamie's dance in Reunited! Jamie could have been dancing with Smiley if are a thing” - but I don't think they're a thing yet – and that scene was to plant a more obvious seed with the viewer that there's some sort of thing between Bill and Jamie - something buried deep they will only let out between the Red Solo Cups of Dubious Contents and being mutually upset about things. Their running away from the wedding screams (and I’m so happy I don’t have to keep this to a G rating because it’s tumblr and not A03) them having a one-night stand! Or at least intending to before the attack happened. I'm guessing giant aliens landing on the beach would kill the mood... unless you're Greg. I have no idea if Bill and Jamie's evening together will be referenced later on as something that causes tension or awkwardness between them. I could see Bill maybe even ghosting Jamie for a bit as a result. Maybe this awkwardness is what pushes them into the other relationships?

At the moment in the storyline, I suspect Mr. Smiley just fills the gay friend trope for Jamie – helps Jamie through a rough time after all the trauma of the Aquamarine episodes. In this case, Bill might misinterpret their friendship as something else and I'm just losing a hemisphere of my brain at that.

So to summarize: there's gonna be a big thing with Bill, Jamie, Barb and Mr. Smiley, and Bill/Jamie will ultimately be the result. I'd say I'm taking bets but that's illegal, so I'm just going to look really smug if it's true.

To wrap up, most of Bill's story arc feels like it’s tilting toward stuff to get him out of being so self-absorbed. Which is going to be a process! The bit at the end where Steven has him name a donut after Lars and then bring some over to his parents is a good start. I hope the whole abduction thing is brought up specifically with Jamie and Bill together as part of that growth, but I feel that's kind of optimistic. I get the feeling something new is going to happen that might make Bill a bit more selfless.

SO! Sweet jelly baby jesus this is so much fun! This gets me caught up of all the episodes that have currently aired. I'm going to start watching the series from the beginning now and writing a post on episodes where Bill/Jamie might be hinted at, where they have minor roles where something might speak to their character development, OR just random theories. Either way, there will probably be at least one more chapter to this meta in the coming days or weeks, so expect another update soon!

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Episodes I Watch Way Too Closely: Episode 133 - Dewey Wins

Life and death and love and birth and Dewey and the Hindenburg.

This episode involves a lot of me picking out - and possibly conflating – a bunch of different types of symbols or themes or analogies for characters and ships, and then it kind of devolves into a bunch of predictions. Then it's an attempt at the labanotation for an interpretive dance with a lot of screaming.

Okay, okay! If you don’t want to read this on tumblr, you can also check this out on A03! More stuff under the read-more.

Steven has just gotten back to Earth from his big trial on Homeworld. Connie is upset because she felt Steven ditched her after all the training and effort they put into working as a team and Connie leaves. We then learn the next day that Mayor Dewey has Nanefua Pizza as an opponent for the first time in his decade-long tenure because he is being blamed for the abductions that occurred during the previous episodes with Aquamarine.

Feeling responsible for the abductions himself, Steven tries to help repair the damage to Bill's image by giving a speech, which backfires when Bill doesn't realize who Lars is. Trying to repair the additional damage, Steven stays up all night with Bill to help prepare for a debate with Nanefua the next day. Bill ultimately resigns as mayor in the middle of the debate, realizing Nanefua is more fit for the job than he is. Steven feels betrayed by Bill in a similar way Connie felt betrayed by Steven, and Steven gains some perspective as a result.

Let's start this off with full disclosure: I'm not giving up my gem analog theory thing where Bill and Jamie correspond to Ruby and Sapphire any time soon; I also have a thing about dualities in various SU ships that I'll touch on in a second - but – BUT! There's also lots of weird symbolism just for individual characters going on as well. It's like this show weirdly likes to foreshadow characters that are about to show up, whether in colors or symbols.

Connie is standing next to Steven's mailbox and the ocean is behind her. Mail for Jamie would be the obvious one and I notice they've been pushing that more in later episodes, but I think his main symbol is the sea or more broadly, water.

There’s all the weird symbolism with Bill and the sun in various episodes - not to mention his constant sunburn.

Nanefua actually has quite a moon vibe going on! Lots of spherical grey stuff going on in her character design – the big granny glasses and her hairstyle. In that same first scene, the moon is out. We later see a sun in the t-shirt shop as Sadie and Steven walk by, then we see Nanefua and Bill in that order. The only one out of order this time is Jamie – we see references to him first but actually see him last. Huh, I wonder why.

Because I have only gone back and watched the episodes where Bill and/or Jamie have speaking roles, I probably am missing symbolism like this for the other humans as well, and I don't know if this is something they do with gems.

Anyway, the moon and the sun as rivals totally makes sense to me – a successful matriarch versus an unsuccessful patriarch. I can't help but also think about how the moon controls the tides? Is this some weird thing where Nanefua is going to try to rein Jamie's theater stuff? Budget cuts or something?

The other thing I was thinking about is how a lot of the ships in the show deal with sort of dualities. Ruby and Sapphire would be the obvious one with fire and ice; Sadie and Lars get life and death. Even though they're only a one-episode ship, I think happiness and sadness with Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowney is pretty apparent. The theme between authority and subordinate with Pink Diamond and Pearl might be another.

The speculative one is Bill and Jamie - I think they might be either light and dark or day and night? There's all the stuff with Bill and the sun I just mentioned; there's also just the sort of obvious thing of Bill being (coded as) white and Jamie being darker. Also, Jamie's theater stuff – his true calling - tends to happen at night, the more mundane reason being because he's off work by then, I'd guess. Despite how badly he messed up during the day, Bill also seemed to be pretty miserable after pulling an all-nighter with Steven to prepare for the debate! Even back to Political Power he mentions nighttime being scary because that's when the town turns into a mob.

What a metaphor for pining lovers and all that cheesy business if that's true, right? The light and darkness intimately linked yet never meeting. It'd be cool if something happened between them at sunset, or dawn. Oh, dawn might make sense – opening of donut shops, mail delivery... hm! Oh oh their little dance in Reunited happens at sunset! Enough though, back to the episode!

There's my new hero Nanefua with her cute little scarf and green sweater and her telling the town how it works! Mayor Billiam is so doomed. This is the first time Bill has to run opposed – which makes sense! This town would have to be pretty apathetic to live there and put up with all the weird things that go on.

(look at the weird impossible in rl cartoon physics backwards self-hug he’s giving himself here... yeesh)

Steven feels guilty about all this because Bill is being blamed for the abductions.

Steven: If only I could have warned you about this abduction stuff sooner then everything would be fine now. I really dropped the ball.

Bill: Huh. You're right, Universe. This is all your fault!

He sounds downright happy about this. How convenient!

Am I smelling the tiniest pumpkin spice whiff of self-sabotage here? I don't think he is ruthless enough to pretend to forget Lars to like, RUIN his chances against Nanefua or anything. He is definitely stressed and out-of-touch enough to forget who the local donut boy was; he's been bad with names before.

I do wonder if he saw an opponent as a blessing in disguise though. He even might have known that Steven was going to fail in some way? If anything, an even worse thing he did here than forget Lars was play on Steven's guilt to alleviate his own. If Steven messed it up, Bill would feel like the responsibility of messing up the whole family legacy thing wasn't directly his fault.

Maybe the symbolic-type reference we see to Jamie with the sea and the mailbox in the beginning hints at Bill's motivation for wanting to give up the mayorship in some way?

A common complaint I hear about this episode is that it's so ridiculous that a Steven, a kid, is helping Bill with his political career – but it looks like Bill really isn't even in the game at this point anymore. He never actively ASKS for help, in fact he kind of protests, talking about how the town is saying hurtful things about him. For narrative purposes, we have to see the story through Steven's point of view somehow, and this makes it so we also have a glimpse into Steven's state of mind, too. It makes you wonder if Steven wasn't around, would Bill even be fighting this, really? Where did all that ego go?

By the next morning, Bill and Steven look like me after I have been writing meta for three minutes. Bill's speech is worth repeating here, mostly because he feels like he's taken the blame for everything, pretty much all the time:

“When you're the Mayor you get blamed for everything – when the boardwalk has termites, it's the mayor's fault. When aliens steal people, it's the mayor's fault. When the mayor crashes the Mayor Mobile into the only cell tower in town, it's the Mayor's fault! Most people can't handle that kind of pressure – but I CAN!"

He says, as he's completely falling apart, because he obviously cannot handle that kind of pressure.

This is the first time we see Jamie again after 'Are You My Dad' and 'I Am My Mom', standing in the crowd during the debate. Because he's more or less a background boardie in this episode, we don't see much of ANYTHING with regard to how massively traumatized he could be from events of the previous episodes he was in. Jamie very visibly does not clap at the end of either of the speeches. In fact, he just kind of stares up during Bill's speech, looking vaguely disappointed or possibly confused? Jamie sticks out a of the crowd a little by standing off to the side. It's very obvious that they put him in the crowd for the viewer to be able to fully see him.

Interestingly, Mr. Smiley is standing there next to Jamie in most of the shots in the crowd. Initially, I thought of Mr. Smiley showing up as our gay bat-signal - telling us there’s gay stuff going on and you should pay attention, and he might be that! But I see now that Mr. Smiley is more than just a symbol. I already posted a theory about this to tumblr, and I’ll probably talk about it some more when I post my meta about Letters to Lars here.

Moving on, pink and blue behind Nanefua and another big old spherical moon-looking thing as she gives her uplifting amazing speech – oh, just give her the job!

Jamie cracks a smile at the end of Nanefua's speech, because it was a good one and it makes, ya know, sense! You could also take this as Jamie being optimistic Bill might lose the election.

Now, why would Jamie be happy about that?

I'm sure you know at this point that everything in this show has to be indirect – you can't just have a Bill up and say "I didn't think it was appropriate to date you because we're both men and what would the town think omg", for example. The writers have to bury it in layers for various reasons – and it's also just kind of cool in storytelling dynamics because the messages can become more universal and apply to multiple themes or plot points, all while still appealing to certain audiences, too. It speaks to how skilled the writers are – no room for lazy writing, for sure.

So, most of the evidence I have so far points to both Jamie and Bill having a thing for each other but not being able to act on it. The main thing I think we'll see explained as the reason for 'thing keeping them apart' is something along the lines of 'the mayor couldn't date the mailman'. They might even explain that it wasn't appropriate because Bill was in a position of authority as an elected official, or that there was a conflict of interest because blah blah theater stuff, or even in the SU world post offices are run by the city or something and that would make Jamie technically a city employee. Who knows?

Now that I think about it, I wonder if this might be something they'll get into as a parallel to Pink Diamond and Pearl with the idea of rank, but that pairing is well covered in meta so I'm not going to get into that here.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at here is that little smile could be speaking volumes in an episode where Jamie doesn't even speak. Sure, it was a good speech, but also - if Bill isn't mayor anymore, that conflict of interest disappears. They could be together.

One last thing about Bill's character development I can't help but bring up:

“Come on, Universe – you know she's going to be a better mayor than me. It was the right thing to do!”

Oh man, fiction sometimes is so much better than real life, especially lately. Think about how egotistical Bill normally seems - what a huge thing to admit for him – that's growth!

That's it for this bus crash! My next episode review is going to be the final one that gets me up-to-date, and that's Letters to Lars! It's got letters AND Lars in it!

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tl;dr Garnet is Cupid and she’s shooting some arrows

I'm at Pool Hopping right now in my re-watch.

Main plot-wise, Garnet is hinting at a bunch of stuff about how White Pearl broke, but Steven Diamond Who Pearl Rose What blah blah -- there’s Dewey/Jamie foreshadowing in them thar hills.

Steven is ordering pizzas and trying to be as random as possible:

Garnet: Go weirder! Steven: Deliver it to the ocean. No, no, no! To Kansas! No, to the moon! Kiki: I don't think that's within our delivery radius.

There’s two Jamie references by Steven: the sea (a Jamie symbol we see crop up in episodes a lot) then a more direct thing with KAAAANSas. Then we see Garnet and Steven with the pizzas and then this happens:

That’s Dewey’s statue and a guy that looks remarkably like Jamie walking toward it, then taking a pizza to the solar plexus. tbh I don’t know *why* they just had a guy that really looks like Jamie but isn’t. It’s not Jamie’s VA we hear when the guy thanks Garnet; the guy’s details are vague because he’s so far in the distance. I’m so, so counting it, though.

Then something really similar happens with Dewey in the next episode!

Dewey getting whacked in the face with a tennis ball, by Garnet! And the sea is in the background.

Okay, okay it’s a seaside town - there’s gonna be shots of the ocean all the time - but did they really have to show the sea in the bg? Couldn’t they show the car wash from another angle and just let me rest?

Garnet is Cupid shooting arrows okay...

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"The other thing I was thinking about is how a lot of the ships in the show deal with sort of dualities. Ruby and Sapphire would be the obvious one with fire and ice; Sadie and Lars get life and death..." Thinking about this and I note that the show really likes taking these binaries and subverting them; both Sadie and Lars cross the line between life and death, for instance. I wonder how that's going to happen here.

YES! The Sadie Killer thing and Lars being revived - great catch! I wanted to sit and compose a rational response to this but it’s too good to keep to myself. One I was thinking of was maybe Bill being pessimistic and Jamie being optimistic, but I just don’t know really… You mentioned yourself the idea of Bill = tradition vs Jamie = progress when we were chatting last night which might make more sense.

[dewmie-in]

I seriously just have some garbage with spelling errors within a few seconds of each other in Buddy's Book for evidence of this, so this may qualify more as a headcanon, but...

Just as Bill gave Jamie the position as director of the community theater? I think William gave Buddy the library so he could keep writing.

idk if the nature of William and Buddy's relationship is going to play out the same way it will with Bill and Jamie, but I could totally see a recurring theme of 'Deweys giving people they care about stuff that will make them stay in Beach City', though.

It makes you wonder if the Deweys feel like they can never leave town for an extended amount of time.