Steven Universe | S1/S2 | Odd Batch Pt 2
Added 2023-09-29 19:34:52 +0000 UTCHappy Friday y'all! Hope you're ready for some more Steven Universe! It's a mixed bag in this batch but fun nonetheless! Let me know your thoughts as well! Hope you enjoy 💜
Comments
I've waxed poetic about this with another Steven Universe reactor, but I definitely want to gush about the car ride scene in The Return again here, and what I think it means for Steven and his understanding of the world around him at this point in the show... Because up until this episode, the word 'alien' isn't used to describe the Gems even once. And even in the theming of the earliest adventures... the lines between fantasy and sci-fi are very much blurred... ARE the Gems really extraterrestrial, or just "magical denizens" of Earth? The audience gets drip-fed information over S1B that leads most to figure out it's the first pretty quickly. But Steven... oh, young, naive little Steven... is so busy being caught up in the euphoria and glee of getting to go on all his fun little adventures with the Crystal Gems that he never fully puts together the pieces himself. Not until this exact episode, until Greg passes him this blunt knowledge that he didn't even want to have to share himself. The Gems were INVADERS. They are ALIENS. And so, in a single car trip, the last of Steven's naivety is shattered. I hurt a lot. _ Yeah, I get the sense that if you had watched the Full Disclosure and Joy Ride episodes apart from the finale they might've been less pulled down for you. That's okay, though! They're still really great to batch with the finale because they're both dealing with the immediate impacts. (But yeah, these episodes were supposed to be the s2 openers and not the final ones of s1, CN did a weird airing order, sigh. Remind me in later reactions to further describe the experience of watching s3 live on TV, because they blasted them out one per weekday for like a month and it was absolutely wild, but THEN they didn't air any SU for like nine months after that, with zero announcement as to whether the show was even still being made, so ugh. CN really messed up the airing order and timing in a lot of ways and I'm really salty about it. I genuinely think you're getting the better experience here, watching them in a week by week small binge fashion.) Personally speaking, I think Full Disclosure may be in like... at least top ten eps for me, though. I loooove Steven's song, and- given that Steven is for sure my favorite character in the show- it's a huge character arc episode for him that just breaks my heart, tbh. Poor kiddo, having to grapple with the blunt reality that his life isn't just a fun little game anymore, and that he and his guardians are in genuine, life threatening danger, and by letting others into his life he's also letting THEM in to the possibility of being hurt :(
Novantinuum
2023-12-25 07:22:44 +0000 UTCYessss your first point, I felt the same when I watched AtLA. The only show that comes to mind that didn't have this was Gravity Falls. Which tbf is only 2 seasons, but it picks up pretty well after the events of S1. But you're right, a TON, probably a majority of shows switch pacing at the start of each season. That is a TON of hints, and unfortunately nothing I would've picked out on my own at all. Hopefully your friends weren't too disappointed haha because that's just...such FINE details that you can't really look for without hindsight. I mean, I suppose you may catch a thing or two, but you won't know what it means EXACTLY til you get to that point. I'm definitely going to have to go back and check some of those episodes though, especially the one frame. I love that they snuck that in there. It's crazy to me that in 2014...which I suppose is almost 10 years ago, we were still...and are, upset about people...gems? 🤣 loving each other. I personally am going to with that story. Now, logicstically, idk the work and gem implications of fusing with your love, but I'm here for it. I think it's sweet haha
So Everdream
2023-10-03 12:56:02 +0000 UTCI think there's often a jarring change of pace when one goes from the end of one season to the beginning of another when watching TV shows. Things tend to accelerate and get very exciting and plotty at the ends of seasons, then go back to a slower pace with more episodic material at the beginning of the next one. I remember finding that particularly striking when I binge-watched Avatar during the lockdowns in 2020. The end of Season Two was so exhilirating, with these huge events and everything coming to a head, and then Season Three starts, and after a banger opening we're...doing a Footloose homage? It felt a bit like someone yanking back hard on my reins, you know? It always seems to take a while to get back into the swing of early season pacing. Full Disclosure also has that really long visual montage during the song to remind you of what happened at the end of last season, which is a little weird when you go straight into it with no break after watching the S1 finale. It's like "Didn't I just watch this?" -- There are a ton of hints and clues towards Garnet being a fusion, absolutely none of which I picked up on when I first watched this show either. I think my housemates, who are the ones who introduced me to this show, may have been secretly disappointed in me for not picking up on a single one of them. They're a whole lot of fun to spot on rewatch, though. One of the really huge ones, other than just the fact that Garnet has two gems and three eyes (and is larger and more powerful than the others), is that she opens her door to the temple by activating the two bottom gem lights in the star on the temple door, one of them blue and the other one red. All of the other gems open the doors to their rooms by activating just the one light in the color that matches their gem. Her behavior in the episode where Steven and Connie fuse is also telling. When Steven is told that fusion is difficult for gems, Garnet smugs "Not for me!" and she's over-the-top thrilled when she meets Stevonnie. The others also defer to her immediately to be the one to advise Stevonnie...but since they tend to defer to Garnet anyway, I don't even know if that counts. When Alexandrite de-fuses during the dinner party with Connie's parents, you can see Ruby and Sapphire for just a split-second mid-air before they re-fuse into Garnet and hit the ground. I don't know how *anyone* spotted that one, though, seriously. It's like a single frame or something! Many people did, though. Go figure. There's also a hint that Steven himself may have subconsciously intuited something about Ruby and Sapphire: in the story he tells in Garnet's Universe, he gives Garnet two secret little friends whom she thinks Steven is "not yet ready" to know about. There are a bunch of smaller clues sprinkled here and there as well, all throughout the first season. Like I said, they're really fun to spot on a rewatch. Apparently when the show first aired, there was lots of fan speculation about Garnet being a perma-fusion, and tons of elaborate theorizing about how or why this might have happened. People thought that maybe one of the gems making up the fusion was injured or corrupted in some way, so Garnet couldn't ever unfuse for that gem's protection, or perhaps one of the gems was really powerful but eeeeeeeeeevil, so the fusion was a way to keep it safely imprisoned... Stuff like that. And then after Coach Steven aired, when Pearl told Amethyst and Garnet that they were losing themselves in Sugilite because they'd "been fused too long," many people became convinced that that must have been what had happened to Garnet. But apparently nobody even considered that the explanation could be as simple and sweet as "they're just a couple, very much in love." Of course, the fact that it's an unapologetic -- triumphant, even! -- lesbian romance in a kids' cartoon from 2014 also might explain why nobody hypothesized that as the reason. The reveal really caused a huge stir in LGBTQ circles. I think it was probably largely responsible for the show first finding such a large adult audience.
SK Elkins
2023-09-30 23:55:02 +0000 UTCI'm terrified to ask what they did to the song 🙃 but it really is a bop. The action going along with the song too is just so good. Ooh yeah that makes sense, I never considered the 2 gems. I don't even think I really noticed. I'll have to go back to those frames though and take a peak. Thank you for responding!
So Everdream
2023-09-30 15:30:13 +0000 UTC‘Stronger than You’ is one of my top five favourite songs from Steven Universe of all time. It did turn into a meme for a while some years ago, mainly with the undertale fandom (💀), but I still unironically listen to it. It’s just so goooddd! Also about your question to whether there were any hints about Garnet being a fusion in earlier episodes; there was! For one, she’s the only one in the Crystal Gems with 2 gems, which raises some eyebrows. Also, there are like a few frames where you can slightly see Ruby & Sapphire when Alexandrite unfuses in that one episode with Connie’s parents! There’s probably more, but that’s all I can remember rn :)
ZoZo
2023-09-30 15:13:39 +0000 UTC
