I am still annoyed that they framed lapis spying on peridot all ~cutesy~.
seriously so many people compare that scene to like. a teenager stalking her exes facebook, and tbh I don’t blame them because of how it’s framed but if you think about it for more than 2 seconds it’s sooooo much more invasive than that???
stalking your exes social media you only get snapshots of their life that they chose to make public. the use of an actual observation device to spy on her is more like secretly following your ex around with a hidden camera which you can flip on and watch their every waking moment at any time for however long you want without their knowledge or consent.
and you kinda get that for the literal second steven is creeped out that she’s been spying on them, until she is all saaaad because calling it spying makes her feel bad :’( and steven immediately switches into “comfort lapis who must never feel bad about anything because she’s a wonderful person who has been through so much” mode. because having yet another episode where lapis feeling bad about doing bad things was the problem that needed to be solved instead of lapis doing bad things…. was totally necessary….
and I mean….. I get it. I get why we have so many episodes like this. steven just hasn’t developed his approach to lapis at all. of course he’s gonna just keep having the same perspective and doing the same things. but on a meta level I do get sorta concerned sometimes that the crew is fully aware of how messed up her actions are, but because lapis, the fragile, vulnerable, “moody teenager” with “gem goth rage” is doing them, suddenly it’s just kinda cute and sad and not nearly as serious or harmful as if anyother character had done it.
I mean I know I gotta have faith and believe in the crew here, but can you blame me for having my doubts that they are EVER gonna take lapis’s destructive, controlling, sometimes violent behavior, with any degree of seriousness it deserves and without prioritizing her feeling sad or how “she’s totally a good person you guys” over everything and everyone else after roughly 3 years of the exact same pattern both in show and out.
@mambocat yes jennifer paz kills it this episode. her voice acting and the animation are definitely two of the highlights of this episode for me.
I don’t think she’s trying to manipulate steven, I think the emotions she’s expressing in this episode are genuine. it’s just… man there’s a huge disconnect here between my emotional response and the one they are aiming for here.
“I wouldn’t call it spying…. because that would make me feel bad. :(“
my response: good. you should feel bad when you do bad things. also, stop being a fucking creep.
theme of the episode: awwww poor lapis is sad and lonely now that she took everything from peridot. poor lapis spys on her friends because she wants to have a connection to them isn’t that sad and adorable and not intensely creepy and invasive? poor lapis is making herself all sad and isolated because she is just so scared peridot is gonna be upset with her for stealing all of her stuff and sending her spiraling into a depressive episode :’( she HAS to spy on peridot because it’s the only way she can know what’s going on in her life without dealing with the consequences of her actions. poor lapis is sabotaging herself because she just doesn’t trust steven when he says everything is gonna be ok. let’s remedy this by spending the entire episode reminding her that even though she has irreparably damaged the relationship that she had that everyone is gonna welcome her back with open and loving arms because everyone misses her wonderful presence in their lives. poor lapis is truly a victim here.
*fingers crossed that this will all lead to another interesting thing, i.e. Lapis gets to be really complicated again, instead of getting excessively treated with pity and no one calls her out on anything*
I’ve been wanting the Gems to start defining themselves outside of Rose for a while.
I made a post a while back about Rose being like a Diamond. Of course some details are now off since we know she actually was a Diamond, but the main point still holds true. Rose was treated like a Diamond by the other Gems. They obeyed her every command. They followed her every whim. What she said was law.
Pink may have said that she wanted to live with Pearl and other Crystal Gems. But she never really lived “with” them. She lived above them. She did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. And it was just accepted because she was their leader.
Rose believed that Gems couldn’t change. What they are made to be is what they are. Forever. But she never seemed to consider that that applied to her aswell. She didn’t change.
Pink Diamond never let go of her leadership role. She just traded one for the other. Instead of being Pink Diamond, the leader of the Earth colony, she became Rose Quartz, the leader of the Crystal Gems. One leadership for another.
Gems are very capable of change. They might struggle and relapse due to their Gem programming, but they are very capable of change. Peridot was able to turn away from everything she believed in. Pearl has become such an independent person that she struggled when asked to play the role of a Pearl during the zoo arc.
That’s what Greg so special. He was not a “yes” man. He questioned Rose. Challenged her. But even then, he acknowledged that she “always did what she wanted.” Though I have a problem with the cliché of a being living for thousands of years until they met “the one” person who was so different. While the story of Rose and Greg is sweet, it does fall into that ridiculous trope. Knowing how humans are, there’s no way in hell that Rose lived for 5000 years on Earth with humans and not one of them questioned her treatment of them before Greg did.
Back to the main point. The Gems need to learn to define themselves outside of Rose. And I do think this reveal is what might make that finally happen.
The Gems have been growing and changing. Just watching season 1 compared to these last few seasons makes that obvious. They’ve grown a lot. But they still had the shadow of Rose hanging above them.
But now….now their image of her will (hopefully) be shattered. And I hope the show won’t resolve this in a few episodes. I hope they stretch this out like they did Peridot’s arc. Because this is something they need to work on.
So, like, that whole interpretive dance routine Pearl sometimes does to take items out of her gem (like the police tape and mirror) is like a loading screen, it’s just her stalling for time while Pearl-inside-Pearl’s-pearl finds where she filed away that particular item
How Rose Quartz was able to shape-shift for prolonged periods of time (when she made a womb for Steven).
Pink Diamond’s obsession with humans and her zoo!
Why Rose Quartz didn’t want Bismuth to shatter gems. (Eventually, she could have shattered Pink Diamond!)
Steven being able to see through Pink Diamond’s eyes in “Jungle Moon” as Stevonnie!
Zircon’s case: Of course, in the end, it really was a Diamond behind all of this.
This is why Rose’s shield was the only thing strong enough to withstand a Diamond attack. Because, in a way, it was also a Diamond attack. Or rather, a Diamond’s weapon.
Pearl’s inability to speak up about the issue and reluctance to shape-shift.
THINGS THAT ARE EVEN MORE CONFUSING NOW:
How/When/Why did Pink Diamond decide to become Rose Quartz?
Why didn’t she return for the humans she left at the zoo?
Why didn’t she confide in Garnet, who has been by her side since forever ago?
And perhaps most importantly… IS STEVEN A DIAMOND?
list of characters who deserve more recognition in infinity war:
tony stark, who went hand to hand with thanos and was the only one who made him bleed
thor odinson, who had his hammer go through a blast from thanos’ six-stoned infinity gauntlet and almost killed him by burying his axe in his chest
wanda maximoff, who destroyed a whole ass infinity stone WHILE holding off a five-stoned thanos. also, the only one willing enough to sacrifice the person she loved the most in the world after spending half the movie trying to protect him only to have to kill him, then watch him die another gruesome death at the hands of thanos
stephen strange, who saw 14,000,605 possible outcomes for the future, and had to witness a thousand deaths and losses (his own included) each time
