#this is me entering a depressive episode and developing a new hyperfixation

[nacrepearl]

This anniversary, I wanted to pay tribute to the show by redrawing my favorite SDCC poster. With a few changes. It’s been 3 years since this poster came out on the internet, but it’s the poster for the first SDCC I experienced in this fandom. Below the cut is me being sentimental because I really love this show and its impact on my life is greater than one would think.

March 26th, 2015. I decide to watch Steven Universe after seeing gifsets of the first Stevenbomb on my dash from lingering members of the people who worked on my previous hyperfixation Attack on Space (A spinoff AU from the parent series Attack on Titan, which my interest in was fading quickly). I opt to watch the episodes that are on demand because they’re easier to access. I watch Alone Together first, Full Disclosure second (actual quote from me, who hadn’t known about SU’s musical nature: “Since when is SU a musical?!”). I then spend the next week or two watching the episodes on demand, then going onto KissCartoon to watch the series in order, in its entirety. (Quote when watching S1E05 Frybo: “I’m glad I’m watching these now before this inevitably becomes my new hyperfixation.” I have second hand embarrassment moments from this episode to this day). My brother decides to watch with me occasionally.

Fast forward to the end of March. I’m caught up with the series (back then only up to Joy Ride, which aired the day I began this journey). My friend Zac and I are now both into the show, and the following week Attack the Light comes out the same day that Say Uncle airs. Say Uncle is the first episode I watch live. I download ATL and finish it within a week. The rest of the weekly episodes (you heard me: weekly) were to follow and I was excited to officially be involved in the fandom. The beginning of April, I found the comics and I got to issue #5, the one where Pearl sucks in a gem-embedded book into her own gem and becomes ill from it. that was the day that I realized Pearl was my favorite character. Hurt/comfort is my way to tell.

I carry on watching the episodes throughout the month, and then after Reformed airs, we are faced with a hiatus. back then, a month and a half was a long time. Then, I got into the Pearl theories. I was all over the so called “nacre theory” right up until the theory had been confirmed in Back to the Barn (I still am, though the term “nacre theory” takes on a whole new meaning that I’m not sure will see the light of day now that we know more about Homeworld). You should have seen me go ham reblogging things about Pearl being lower-class, a lowly technician (ha), a maintenance drone. And all Pearls looked exactly the same back then in the fanart.

May 26th they announced the second Stevenbomb, half the fandom combusted. So did I. Sworn to the Sword happened and I had more fuel for the NT. I woke up that Thursday morning to a gifset of Pearl and Rose’s fusion dance because We Need to Talk leaked and spontaneously combusted right there. Then they announced Week of Sardonyx and our naive selves said “another one?” I went camping that weekend, which was also the weekend of SDCC. I nearly had a heart attack from my over-excitement when I got home that Sunday.

Week of Sardonyx came and went, with even more fuel to the fire for the NT. Cartoon Network does their greatest fuckup of the year by accidentally putting all of the Summer of Steven episode titles a whole year before they air. They changed the release date for the weekly episodes from August 6th to September 10th, and then we were graced by small Peridot on September 24th.

Back to the Barn airs. I die.

Then we go into a very long hiatus until Stevenbomb 4, airing in January 2016. This marks the first epsiodes to be leaked with the traditional screenshots + 2 minute clip. This was our first look at both diamonds + their pearls, and people were reasonably excited. Then we entered what we thought was the longest hiatus in fandom history–and we got the In Too Deep special earlier than expected.

Following the special, they announced the Steven Nuke/Summer of Steven. 4 weeks of episodes every night from mid-July to mid-August. Mr. Greg was the first musical episode and the crew hyped it up so much and yet it still had a huge impact on those watching that night. It was nominated for an Emmy one year later in 2017. We got some of the most intense episodes of the show in that bomb, with Amethyst’s arc, Bismuth holding the first half-hour special, the revelation that Rose supposedly shattered Pink Diamond, and Centipeetle’s corruption being explained further. Following SOS, there were weekly episodes and then another short hiatus, until Gem Harvest’s release in November. A short hiatus and then Three Gems and a Baby aired in early December.

During 2016, I meet two of my best friends through the fandom - @always-make-it-gayer and @hackerperidot. Gale and J have been my friends since that summer and because of this fandom, I’ve been less lonely and have had a blast in the ever growing group chat we have (Reverse Garden of Eden). I love you guys, and of course everyone else in the chat.

Following 3GAAB, in early January 2017, the entirety of Stevenbomb 5 drops on the app. Pictures with the diamonds and the zoo and the famethyst were on the internet in seconds. I had been on holiday break from school, and the night this all dropped was the first school night when the break was over. I stayed up very late, watched the episodes when I woke up for school in the morning, and listened to What’s the Use of Feeling Blue on repeat in the cold, snowy weeks to come. This was also right around the time my mom bought a house and we were ready to move in.

I got another birthday episode–Rocknaldo, airing on February 24th. Could’ve been better. I’m not complaining though. SU was crucial during this time because I was feeling very depressed and closed off due to the move and missing the apartment. The New Crystal Gems was the last episode the apartment got to see, and I promised to show Pearl’s backstory when it eventually aired, but we moved too early for that to happen. I like to imagine it can see my journal entries (you can ask if you want, in short it’s a coping mechanism I developed). Thereafter, we had another hiatus leading up to the sixth Stevenbomb with Aquamarine and Topaz. That bomb ended with the saddest episode in the series, finalizing season 4. Then the Wanted event aired, and we got so much lore content and more hints to the Pink Diamond mystery.

There came the biggest hiatus in the fandom’s history to this day. We were so thirsty for content. It was dry as fuck and the only light in the dark was SDCC with the Lars of the Stars clip (which would then air months later) and the trailer for the first half of season 5′s kickoff bomb.

Gemcation airs, and everyone finally understands Pearl’s quirk with covering her mouth in discussions about the diamonds. We all were getting so antsy at this point to find out what was happening with Pink Diamond and the lore behind the show and by god where is White Diamond?

We get Stranded in January 2018, allowing us to spark the “diamonds get revealed in January” meme with the Pink Diamond face reveal. Of course, this is debunked by Legs From Here To Homeworld in July 2018.

We get more episodes in March, and then are plunged into the final reveal in May with the half hour event, Can’t Go Back and A Single Pale Rose. The fandom collectively freaked out with the revelation that Pearl and Rose were diamond and pearl and faked the shattering in an effort to end the war. The people who survived this saw the Heart of the Crystal Gems arc in July. This was the week that held the Rupphire wedding.

Reunited airs, and I am surrounded by 3 of my best friends ( @asassynerdnamedgabbs, @neroblackcat, and @hackerperidot who had been visiting New York from Australia that week ) so I hold myself back from reacting too much. I cried that night out of sheer joy that my favorite show was the first cartoon to show a lesbian wedding on national TV. Of course, we get the diamonds and then SDCC the following weeks, with Legs From Here to Homeworld. I am at my cousin’s graduation party the day of the panel and my phone is slowly losing battery percentage as I try to keep up with the tweets and posts about what was going on. It was a huge deal.

Now we arrive here. Nothing had been shown at last month’s NYCC which is unusual, but that’s okay. We are still on hiatus, and it is SU’s 5th anniversary of being on the air. I am patiently waiting for the show to come back, and I’ll have more memories to make with this fandom in the months to come.

Happy Anniversary, SU!

#lovelikeyou2018 #steven universe #reverse garden of eden #rae.png #raescribbles

[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!

#steven universe #steven universe meta #su theories #su predictions #su episode reviews #bill dewey #jamie the mailman #episode reviews #dewmie meta #meta #predictions