Steven Universe Future | Episode 15 & 16
Added 2024-09-26 14:00:03 +0000 UTCSTEVEN IS OFF THE RAILS. Never in a million years could I have anticipated what was going to happen in this series.
Him being mad at Greg for his childhood, him SHATTERING JASPER!? Hellllllo??
Honestly...probably 2 of the craziest episodes in the whole series 😭
Comments
I honestly hate the direction they went with this so much. Steven flat-out killed Jasper. The whole show has shown shattering to be analogous to a death sentence, but he's able to undo it through some bullshit we've never had any previous indication should be possible. Steven, this person we've followed this whole show and come to love as an incredibly selfless, all-loving, wise beyond his years person, becomes a murderer at the tail end of his character arc. I love having realistic consequences to actions in a show like this, but this ain't it.
dys
2024-09-28 06:47:08 +0000 UTCFragments: This one is my favorite episode of the SUF series. There's just something so delicious about watching a negative outside influence so thoroughly warp a struggling main character's mindset, and the music is just TOP NOTCH this whole ride. The montage song?? The music during Steven and Jasper's actual rematch?? God, they give me such chills. I can overtly do character related meta analysis on JUST the instrument use in those pieces. (The short version of said analysis is that during the fight scene, the chiptune and strings that are so often associated with Steven as a character start out subdued under Jasper's synth bass as he begins the fight, but surge to the forefront by the end and then start sounding erratic and imposing as he's setting up for his final strike, mirroring his manic mindset at the time. It's GOOD music composition and I want to eat it.) One of the things that I think is particularly messed up about the way Jasper interacts with him in this episode is how she tosses and kicks him around. Now, to be clear- this was ALWAYS how Steven was flung around on a Gem battlefield as a kid, none of this is new- but I find it SO jarring to watch so soon after the revelation we had in Growing Pains, that every single major hit and fall he took was overtly Damaging his body. It's just that his self-healing is strong, and patches it up almost instantly. But like... ow. Some of those hits could've still been enough to break bones. It was "haha, funny" cartoon violence before, and now we see it for what it really is- a goddamn tragedy enacted upon a literal CHILD. The other thing I find very interesting about this episode is the way that Steven's form changes while in the woods duking it out with Jasper. By the end of those three days he spends out there, he's pretty much emulating her general shape- tall and broad, poofy hair- just as he's emulating her "advice" of venting out his anger through fighting. I genuinely do think a PART of Jasper's advice might be sound in another context... constructive forms of physical activity can be a wonderful way to work through pent up emotions... but in this case, yeah, no. Not what Steven needs at all. I genuinely think that there's a part of Steven who enjoys beating up on Jasper here because it's in some form thrilling and cathartic to enact pain on someone who was a cause of so much suffering for him in his childhood. Like, this is someone who... poofed Garnet right in front of him, knocked him out and kidnapped him, lingered in his nightmares for weeks due to the horrific fusion she formed with Lapis, continued to be aggressive to him and the other Gems after being RELEASED from said fusion, poofed Amethyst in front of him, like,,, Jasper's a very shadowy figure in his past who's basically the physical representation of a lot of what Went Wrong for him back then, so to get the chance to wail on her as hard as he can, with her entirely supportive of this? I can understand why he would lose himself in this sort of opportunity, as toxic a setup this may be. I see his laughter during this fight as him becoming lost in the somewhat cocky sauce of just how much more Powerful he is than his old childhood enemies now, and how thrilling and downright relieving that is. And then... he loses himself in the spar entirely. He goes WAY too far. He releases all those subconscious shackles and lets out the rawest force of his power: he goes for the shattering blow just as a diamond would. I have very stark memories (in fact, I got my reaction to this on camera, lol) of outright screaming when he briefly flashed those diamond eyes right before the end of the fight. That was so goddamn hype, geeze. Ever since the Rose=PD reveal I always wanted them to briefly give him the diamond pupils as a treat... damn, if only I knew what a horrid circumstance they'd show up in. You posit the question at the end of this reaction of whether Steven permanently shattering Jasper or Jasper coming back and calling him "my Diamond" is worse, and here is my personal opinion on that- I think what we see here is the Worst outcome for Steven. 'Cause like, imagine you're in his place- your powers keep acting up, responding to your anger- you're genuinely terrified you're gonna start hurting the people you love, you don't want empty platitudes like your dad gave you after you crashed his van and nearly risked killing him, you want action! You want restraints! You want consequences! (Or at least, a Part of Steven wants that... the other part is scared of that, I think.) And then you make the most horrid mistake anyone could ever manage... you go too far in a spar, and you single-handedly shatter a Gem. If Steven failed to mend Jasper, then this would've served as the ultimate consequence- and I think it would've stopped his downward spiral entirely in his tracks and acted as a genuine reality check. But the thing is, even IF he failed to bring her back, this was still only an accident. What's so messed up about what REALLY happens is how it once again fails to leave the floundering Steven with any checks and balances, any real consequence. Not ONLY does he have the raw power to shatter a Gem in a flash, but he also has the godlike power to bring them back like it never even happened! Damn! How messed up is that? Now he can just keep messing up and fixing things forever, and the Gems never have to know or think about any of it! (*cries while thinking about That Dialogue from two episodes from now*) So yeah- the horror of this episode to me isn't that he's capable of shattering a Gem- it's that he can do so and THEN heal them entirely. Oughhhh it's so juicy. Kid's just 16, give him a break, he did NOT sign up for this godlike power set XD
Novantinuum
2024-09-27 01:24:13 +0000 UTCSteven is probably the last character people would expect to have a body count and it makes the point of no return so much more Fun
TheDeadDandy
2024-09-27 00:38:01 +0000 UTCOugHHH here we go! Here we go! God I love this pair of eps so much (okay, okay, yes- so maybe I say that about Most of these episodes, you got me- but still. This show Güd.) _ Mr. Universe: HAH, I love the way you noticed basically immediately from the photo on the wall that this was Greg's parents' house. Got a crit 20 on that Perception check roll, ahah. I'm pretty sure I had a delayed reaction to that on my first watch lol. "You look just like me! Only more... human." I think the above line speaks a Lot to where Steven's headspace is this episode. The whole situation with him and his dad here is... intensely complex, and I find it quite fascinating. After a childhood of pretty much blindly hero worshiping his parent as many kids oft do, Steven is finally growing in to those awkward teen years of blossoming resentment towards him for the ways he failed him in childhood. Namely, the fact that Greg's parenting style and his Gem heritage lead to him overtly missing out on the stability of an actual home and the day-to-day experience of going to school like other human kids. Which... yeah. The guy's got a point. Those are HUGE things to miss out on, particularly the second for social milestone and life development reasons. And, re: growing up in a van... it's a detail that's only SUPER apparent in one of the shorts I don't know if you ever watched (look up "Steven Universe extended intro" and you should be able to find it), but it took YEARS for the beach house to be completed, and by all appearance Steven seemingly only moved in shortly before the start of the first episode- which meant he spent about 12 of his current 16 years growing up with solely Greg's van as his home. But on the other hand, Steven's wish that he could've "had a house like [Greg's parents]" and lived his kind of childhood is a bit dismissive of Greg's lived experience, and all the hurt of his own past. While it's genuinely possible that Greg's parents were perhaps just a tad overtly strict as opposed to horrid people, there's a few specific details that casts doubt on that for me... Namely, I question parents who would force a haircut their child clearly hates on them right before a graduation, and also parents who would create the sort of atmosphere that forces a child to be compelled to hide even a fleeting INTEREST in music. There's not a lot that can be said for sure based on what little we find out about Greg's parents here, but with that senior year haircut and the forced wrestling extracurricular I'm getting strong vibes of "they wanted to ship him off to military school to 'toughen up' and he ran off in the van instead." Not to mention, all of those letters in the drawers... the ones Steven himself notes are 'unopened...' I can't help but wonder if perhaps one or two of those were Greg genuinely trying to reach out to tell his parents about Steven's existence, back after he was born- to give them One Last Chance to reach out and make up with him and be a part of his life. :( A parent who receives overt communication from their estranged child and doesn't even bother opening them is certainly... an oofies vibe. So, yeah. I understand why Greg would want nothing to do with his parents, much like Rose wanted nothing to do with the Diamonds. They both have the same upbringing, pretty much. In Greg's case, I think his problem was just that he over-corrected when it was time to raise Steven, and gave him TOO much freedom and not enough stability. The cycle of generational trauma at its finest, really.
Novantinuum
2024-09-27 00:02:30 +0000 UTC
