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spudinacup · 5 years

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Spinels Character Analysis:

Now that the comic has caught up to this point I can go on a bit of a tangent here and rant about my logic behind Spinels progression through the first seven pages of the SU AU Gone Wrong comic.

Let's dive right in then, shall we?

Spinel’s Character Break Down and Emotional Complexity:

This is gonna be one hell of a long rant so putting Readmore here.

[This isn’t proofread so if there are grammar or spelling mistakes we’ll all have to live with them]

Spinel as a character is rather complex and predictably unpredictable in how she reacts to situations. In Pixar, they have a concept they like to refer to as the spine of the character. This is the basis of who they are and will drive all their decisions throughout the story. A prime example of this is Woody; his spine is to protect his kid and ultimately get back to him. This drives every one of Woody’s decisions. By being separated from Andy he feels that he will be hurt by his absence and as such seeks out a solution to this dilemma. As a whole, Spinel’s spine, so to speak, is rooted in her insecurity; more specifically her insecurity around rejection. It’s part of what made her so appealing to the fanbase and also to the viewers of the film. It almost seemingly justifies her murderous intent and ability to cause such havoc and devastation.

When looking at the concept of insecurity and abandonment you’ll find articles referring to child abandonment syndromes. TMI moment; but I was abandoned by my genetic parents and have an unfortunately extensive understanding of the sensations revolving around this kind of trauma. Spinel in many ways was a child for Pink, she was a playmate. This doesn’t imply that she had any maternal connection to Spinel but if you compare her situation to that of a child dealing with this kind of neglect it aligns very similarly. Spinel did not choose to be made, she was born into Pink’s service and felt that was her world. She revolved around Pink and was there to please her whims. She was immature yes, but so is a child.

In an article by Lynne Namka titled, “The Many Causes of Feelings of Insecurity and Abandonment,” she analyzes the impacts and results of this kind of abandonment.

“Some abandonment issues can be related to physical security and fears of survival of the physical body. Rejected children can fear annihilation if their emotional and physical needs are not met. The external rejection and lack of love are internalized by the child along with beliefs of being unworthy, undeserving and unlovable. These children can grow up to become jealous and insecure in their relationships.”

Everyone at some point in their lives has felt tossed aside or dejected by society or others and this drives home further that feeling of connection to this character. It as a rather smart choice for the Crewneverse to go ahead with such a character archetype considering the themes of forgiveness and friendship in Steven Universe.

The problem with a character that is based so heavily around the concept of rejection is their reactions upon being confronted by it. We see this demonstrated in the film through each of Spinel’s actions. This sensation of being left behind is strong enough that even while dealing with amnesia and being rejuvenated to an earlier state the emotional trauma still rears its ugly head in the form of aggression.

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Upon arriving at Earth in the film Spinel proclaims that she is there to kill Steven Universe and even continues to state in the concluding scene that:

“You know I came here to take my anger out on a bunch of strangers, but now that I know you... I want to kill you even more.”

This again coincides with the concept of Abandonment Rage. To quote another article of the same name from Lynne Namka:

“Blind rage often comes out of the anxiety and terror of being left behind. Domestic violence expert Donald Dutton defines abandonment rage by saying, “Rage often comes after fears of feeling abandoned and helplessness. A child is made furiously angry by a parent’s threats to desert him but on the other hand, he does not express that anger in case it makes the parent actually do so….the anger of a parent becomes repressed and directed at someone else later on.” Repressed anger then becomes displaced or put on someone else after frustration builds up to a boiling-over point.”

This is the progression of Spinel’s character arch prior to reaching Steven. She has had this melting pot of anger boiling inside of her festering and mixing into a whirlwind of hate and repressed frustrations. Spinel is experiencing a catathymic crisis, a term coined by the Forensic Psychologist J. Ried Meloy. To put it simply, its where the individual's anger becomes a catharsis for feelings of vulnerability. Its a moment of disconnect from one’s logic and instead allows their actions to be driven by this anger lacking any logical perceptions or thought behind it. Webster's definition is as such: an unexpected explosive outburst of impulsive often destructive behavior understandable only in terms of unconscious motivation

So now that we know where her head was at before confronting Steven, what happened after she killed him?

The Impact of Steven’s Death:

Spinel’s actions with the rejuvenator are rash, fast, and not well thought out. There’s been a few great analysis on Tumblr that follow this line of thought.

As a whole, Spinel is playing with the Crystal Gems but her aim is true with her weapon. When she strikes down Amethyst, Garnet, and Pearl its with a single slash straight through the middle, it's effective. What better place could you aim to cause immediate results? On the slim, and probably impossible but work with me here, chance that it didn’t work immediately or at the very least didn’t poof them, there’s no walking away from that impact. It effectively disrupts their physical form and forces them to retreat into their gems.

The intention of the injuries inflicted on Steven follows this same kind of logic. Spinel was attempting to cause as much damage as possible as quickly as possible.

Steven Universe is Pink Diamond, she knows this, or at least he has what’s left of her. Diamonds are difficult to kill as we learned during Steven’s trial.

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So why was she trying?

In my opinion, it was because she was attempting to remove the obstacles that were in her way to being Pink’s friend. She was envious. Under all the hurt and misdirected anger, she still feels abandonment. While it may enrage her she still longs to be accepted and craves that solace of belonging again. Pink Diamond was her world, she was all she had, that absence has left a void that little can fill. We ultimately see this envy and desire manifest in the climax of the film as she fights Steven and ultimately crumbles under her own emotional state before the injector combusts.

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After removing the obstacles that are the other gems she turns her focus upon Steven. The rejuvenator would revert him back to a prior state. If it brought Pink back, great she’d have the source of her anger. If it reverted his powers and Pink was really gone? Fine, she’d be done with him soon enough. It wasn’t a logical decision, it was an emotionally driven and rash conclusion of her abandonment.

When she attack’s Steven her first blow takes off Steven’s arm. I wanted this to stand out to the viewer upon their viewing of the comic. It's drastic, impactful and leaves one unsettled by the sensation of having some ripped violently from their person. The arm is in many ways if you look between the lines, an analogy of P!Steven’s situation. He has been lopped off what made him whole and is only half of a person in his current manifestation. There is no way to efficiently reattach that limb with the flesh expiring in his arms.

The second of her attacks follow suit almost immediately following the amputation of Steven’s arm. She attempts to recreate the action she did with the Crystal Gems and cut him in half. Again, this being an efficient and fast way to destabilize him and poof the gem. However, Steven is half-human. So worked up by her own feelings of entitlement to the violence and grief Spinel is blind to the blood that flies from his injuries and only realizes what has happened once she can no longer swing wildly. The second blow ultimately was the fatal one while also what forces his gem out of his body. Amputates his gem, if you will.

Unshown in the comic is Spinel realizing something isn’t right however it was actually the first image I did for this AU shown here:

The rejuvenator becomes stuck within Steven’s torso, it doesn’t go all the way through him. This isn’t normal and gives Spinel’s mind enough time for her actions is starting to sink into her. With this comprehension comes with it the confusion of what she is seeing.

[-credit @thelostmoongazer for this illustration.] Spinel has never met a human. Spinel has never been to Earth. Spinel has no concept of what an organic is asides from the small critters from the garden she presumably spent her entire life within. She has been isolated, abandoned, and now she’s thrust into the world blinded with rage that has left her unable to perceive the vulnerabilities of the individual she is facing.

In this instance Spinel panics and throws her weapon aside alarmed by the strange liquid she now finds her body splattered with. She attempts to distance herself from the collapsing Steven, the atrocity she has just committed, and the expanding substance that gushed from his body's fractures.

Gem’s poof, that is our understanding of their forms being disrupted. The Crystal Gem’s had poofed, Steven, however, Steven hadn’t.

This is when Pink appears:

As a direct result of her attack upon Steven, P!Steven is given space and room to reform himself. This immediately puts Spinel in the position of not only feeling confusion and shock of the situation she’d put herself into as her temper begins to subside and she watches the pink glow overtake the field they stood within. There is a sensation, we’ve all felt it before, its the same one you feel when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar by your parents. It isn't that she regretted her actions, its that she regretted being caught.

Not only right after it dawns on her that something is wrong but, as she assumes, the very person she’d been driven to this near insanity by.

She reverts a bit here, tries to resolve some of the issues with the newly reformed Pink. She tries to connect with them and apologize for what they were seeing, for what she had done. Underneath her resentment, she doesn't want to be hated by Pink, asides from that she is almost uncertain what she desires. All she knows in this situation is that things have not happened as they should have and now she has been caught.

It’s when P!Steven speaks to her however that a switch gets flicked. As I explained earlier in the post, Spinel fits rather well within the box of abandonment rage. She is a character-based within insecurity that reacts with aggression when she feels threatened as a way of protecting herself.

In these few short panels, P!Steven not only displays disapproval of her, but his change instance implies aggression immediately making her revert to a more defensive state.

This is what causes her change in tone and ultimately the change in her behavior. She is no longer remorseful because she was caught, she’s being rejected again, by the same gem again.

Adding a cherry on top, upon realizing that it wasn’t even who she perceived to be she feels tricked and made a fool of. Somehow, he wasn’t Pink. He hadn’t reverted into his beginning state, no, that pest that kept her from obtaining what she selfishly desired was still present. Her resentment for that craving boils back into her insecurities and feeds the explosive desires beneath it. Rather than apologizing further she takes hold of these emotional shelters and dives into what she feels the most comfortable with, her anger.

Which brings us to today’s page, where we see that beginning to be acted upon. Surely she can fix this, at the very least resolve that judgmental stare that lingers on her. She can make things better for herself.

She won’t let herself be rejected again.

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

Sources:

[Insecurity and Abandonment] [Abandonment Rage] [catathymic definition]

[SU AU Gone Wrong Comic Master Post]

#SU AU Gone Wrong #SU Gone Wrong #Steven Universe #character analysis #Spinel Character Break down #steven universe the movie #Spud speaks #long post #Spinel Abandonment #Trigger warning #TW: Character death #Tw: blood #Tw: stabbing #SU AU Gone Wrong Comic Analysis

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Loud House Reviews: The Purrfect Gig

The Sam/Luna trilogy comes to an end here, as we get to the most recent of their now annual episodes, each so far produced and aired toward the end of the season. That being said like last season Sam had at least one apperance before this as I saw her in the thumbnail to “Deep Cuts”, the OTHER Lunacentric episode this season. And while it sounded bad to me at first looking into it.. no. The writers, for the most part, gave almost every kid two episodes a piece, and last season gave each 3, so to the writers credit they TRY to ballance out who gets episodes.

The exceptions are Lincoln, who has around 5 that don’t also feature the girls as a whole, and 2 of those are with Lana, Lori who has 4, 2 of them shared and justifed as she’s possibly leaving for College next season and thus her episodes outside of one focus ont hat, and Lana and Lola: Lana has 3, and Lola has 2, and both have one together. And really even with those imballances it’s really impressive the show juggles 14 leads, with the parents themselves getting 2 this year too, along with Clyde, not counting his ones with Lincoln. | And that’s WITH the baffling decision this season to have the first 5 episodes be “With THe Cassagrandes”, i.e. 5 episodes of the Casagrandes that are counted as loud house episode that weren’t produced over at the sister show for some reason. And I have nothing against the Cassagrandes, what i’ve seen it’s not a bad show: I already have gone on about how much I love bobby, and I also love CJ and new comer Sam. I love the fact it has plenty of representation and a diffrent kind of big family, I love the theme song and I love the fact Melissa Joan Heart is on it because she’s terrific and spent the last decade really not picking her roles well. She was the lead in Holiday in Handcuffs, aka the movie where she kidnaps Mario Lopez and holds him at gunpoint to pretend to be her fiance until he gets Stockholm syndrome for really flimsy reasons. But I dont’ feel i’ts fair to the show to wedge it into another show’s spot: The Cassagrande-Santiago clan has shown up in 2 half hour loud houses and 2 15 minute eps. The kids watching KNOW these characters, and reception of the loudest mission was positive enough to get a spinoff made. You don’t need to spend a huge amount of another show’s episode order to promote a show kids will likely watch because it has characters from a show that airs all the time and is uber popular and has a similar humor style, and fans of the Loud House will at least try becuase they like the mothership and have known was coming for years now. This show HAD an audience going in. I watched both American Dad and the Clevland Show because it was from the same crew as family guy which I liked at the time. Granted American Dad had a decent stretch and Clevland Show .. had David LYnch as a recurring cast member I guess? Seriously david, this and not gravity falls? The point is it feels insulting that they felt the need to try and promote the show more, and all they did was take up episodes of the loud house and confuse children, and possibly turn viewers off a show they would’ve watched anyways. And if your wondering why I took such a massive detour it’s simple: Other than noticing the fact they’ve been specifically making sure each sibling gets more than one spotlight episode, shared or not, and this dumb decision.. Season 4 isn’t THAT much diffrent than Season 3. It carries on plots started there (Lori heading towards college, Luann and Luna’s relationship), but otherwise it’s basically just more shipping and shenanigans. But really. .that’s far from a bad thing, as I consider season 3 a highwater mark for the show, and it introduced a lot of neat new elements (Lynn’s Table, Stella, Leni having a job) that are still prevelant in season 4. It’s not bad and it’s even more understandable given that next season, every character is growing a year (thank you press releases), meaning they have tons of new plots to explore, and large status quo shifts with Lincoln going to middle school, which out of the four schools shown is so far the most underdeveloped and will need development, and Lori possibly moving out of the house and going to college, among many other things that have me chomping at the bit for next season. But that’s probably a few months away so for now, it’s time to get back on focus and with everything else out of the way, the actual review of this episode starts under the cut.

We open with Luna sitting in bed sighing when her poster of Mick Swagger starts talking to her. Whatever she’s smoking I could really use some. Depression is a bitch. Anyways, her drug induced hallucination of her hero starts talking to her. I haven’t really talked about Mick yet since the show uses him sporadically but he’s exactly what you’d expect; The show’s version of Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger, only slightly younger.. maybe. I dunno. Maybe he’s been around since the 60′s and is just a timelord. Or a groovy robot. Or has a dorian grey thing going on. We haven’t really gotten into Dino Spimoni situation yet where Luna helps her idol and has to help him reunite with a partner or convince him to stop faking his death. Just a reminder that Hey Arnold is great and that if you think it’s odd his crooner dean martin based idol got talked out of faking his death by a 12 year old, keep in mind he also tracked down the daughter his vitamise neighbor gave up so she could go to america and have a better life, helped convince his neighbors not divorce, and had to save his pig from being eaten in a revolutionary war reinactment. Hey Arnold was far weirder than I remembered and i’m here for it. Anyways, Hallucination Mick asks if Luna is coming to his concert this weekend, and she HOPES so she just dosen’t have the money for VIP pass to meet the actual version and do drugs with the actual mick swagger for a change. He says you never know when opportunity will come a knockin and it does in the form of the McBrides! Clyde’s dad’s Howard, the skinny one voiced by national treasure Micheal McDonald and Wayne Brady whose also great.. and i’m not just saying that because i’ve seen this. Don’t be absurddddd....

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Howard and Harold are Clyde’s dads... and while Clarence and Steven Universe beat them to having Gay parents in a children’s cartoon, their still the first interacial gay couple in a children’s cartoon, and on a nicktoon period, and even if they weren’t either of those it’d still be fucking great. Anyways the two are nice characters, while i haven’t seen EVERY ep with them their a loving couple, nice parents, and treat the loud kids as their own.. granted that goes too far in one episode, but still, thems good people. Anyway Howards having a panic attack, respect, and as his husband calms him down, we find out why: the mcbrides are going to pick up nana for the annual family reunion, and their catsitter cancled. Hence Howard’s freakout and Harold worrying about the 20 pounds of amish potato salad in the trunk. So naturally their hoping someone can watch their cats, Cleopawtra and Nefurtiti for the day, and them going to the louds makes sense, both for the obvious of the Louds being their closest friends in the neighborhood, and the not so obvious of a previous episode I haven’t seen having established the older kids as the best babysitters in royal woods, meaning that in addition to knowing them they have skill and this likely isn’t the first time. Luna, not thinking about herself, admits Lori went to hit the golf course early and Leni is at work, a nice way to explaning why it’s Luna that gets the job: She was there and it was implied by the fact she was getting high and talking to her hallucination that Luann isn’t, so most of the other options they’d have without some reservations are gone with no contrivance necessary. Anyways Luna’s Drug Fueld hallucination, points out money can be exchanged for goods and services, such as VIP passes, and also mentions sam already has hers. Either Luna’s forgot or her hallucination can use her phone. Either is probable, and is backed up by Hallucination Sam, before both start playing their guitars and Luna air guitars with them. I”m unsuprsied by all of this. She offers and the McBrides take her up on it immeditley. I do like that it avoids the “I don’t know if your up to this” cliche that always happens in these types of scenarios, the McBrides have no reason not to trust her, so they just.. do. Hell Harold only sets out one rule: don’t invite anyone over.. and it’s not even because he dosen’t trust Luna to have anyone over or anything like that, he just knows the cats get anxious with a crowd, though their therapist is working with them on that. And of course the two rich men with a single child have a cat therapist. I would too if I were rich. Harold and Clyde throw and unconcious Howard into the car and their off, they’ll be back at 6. And TOTALLY won’t be home hours early for hyjinks. Totally. Luna arrives to find a massive binder on feline care. Someone went to the Amy Santiago school of binders. It says to feed the cats at 10 sharp.. and it’s 10:02. Luna tries feeding them but the cats instead attack her in a full on psycotic rage and dump food all over her, so dinners on her.

Anyways, Luna then tries walking the cats which goes as well as you’d expect.. not because she had to put harneses on cats and expect them to do anything at a certain time, but because they pull hard. I can relate to that with my dog.. not my cat. He just goes wherever he wants because he’s old and kind of an asshole. Anyways, with the cats now messy from running over a guy with a cake, because of course, Luna looks up what to do next which is.. give.. them a bath.

Who.. who does that. I know their messy, but use a rag or something. No animal likes being bathed but cats, esepcially one who this episodes shows aren’t declawed (And rightfully so but still), do not LIKE being bathed. Granted they wouldn’t like being cleaned off with a rag or something either, but it still feels less cruel to both them and any prospective babysitter to just hold one down and wipe it off then find the other and repeat. Look witht he walking thing I can see why someone would, in their case because their probably too skittish to let their cats wonder around, and in some cases because said cat is young. But this.. this even for a comedy contrivance is stupid. It’s not the worst uninetional cat abuse i’ve seen in media, Elmyra exists and the mother of the lead of get fuzzy tried putting her cat on a vegetarian diet, which Rob, said lead and a staunch vegetarian himself, not only found concerning but gave said cat the money for takeout.. keep in mind in this strip cats can talk and walk upright. Also I miss when Get Fuzzy was both daily and good. So Luna naturally ends up in the bathtub, soaked and depressed and not sure what to do when her friendly neighborhood sign that the drugs haven’t worn off yet comes by and tells her to shape up if she wants to go to the show with Sam. This gives Luna a great idea. LIke a Zack MOrris great idea it involves breaking the rules.. unlike a Zack Morris idea, it dosen’t involve sexual harassment or a zany scheme. She decides to call Sam, since she’s apparently great with cats and given we saw how she was with chickens last time, not a real stretch. She also pops Mick’s bubble which.. hurts him.. somehow. I dunno. Anyway cut to Sam arriving. She arrived fast because she was picking a new character up from his gamer’s club meeting: Her brother Simon, who’d been mentioned in side materials but makes his first apperance here. I like him, he has a neat design and i’ts nice to give sam a family life of her own, and he’s a nice if glued to his not-nintendo switch kid. Frankly I hope he and LIncoln meet at some point. I mean he has an opening in his friend group starting next season there’s no way Rusty passes 5th grade. And even if he somehow does, it’s not like adding another member is too much of a stretch given, once they got past courting her, the rest of his group warmly welcomed stella in and it’d be an intresting dynamic having his sister’s girlfriend’s brother in the group. Also if your wondering if i’ll ever stop finding ways to bash rusty in these reviews even when he’s entirely absent..

Anyways, Luna slams the door in the kids face, which he takes in stride , and explains the situation, and after fred fliintstonning him is taken off the table, go with “Sneak him past the cats”. It works because cats never look up at the backs of a gay teenage couple sneaking a small child inside. Luna decides to leave Simon in the entertainment room while she and Sam watch the cats and he finds Clyde’s VR gear and asks to try it on, with Luna reluctantly agreeing as long as he’s careful.. which as far as we see.. yeah he entirely is. The Sharpe’s are good people.

Cue a montage! Sam helps luna scrub the cats, with brushes as they should’ve done minute one, put them through spa type pampering which is also a call back to the first time we saw the McBride’s house in the series, take selfies, and then sing the cats to sleep, in a really sweet and really well sung lullaby, notable for being the first time Sam’s sung on the show and Allyson Stoner, who I haven’t mentioned but should’ve before this shame on me, does a terrific job and has done a terrific job as Sam in general. Luna thianks her for the help, Sam says no sweat they get to see the show together, and Sam ducks out... before realizing she forgot something. Her wallet... no wait she has that.. OH SHIT HER BROTHER. And before she can get him DOUBLE OH SHIT THE MCBRIDES ARE BACK. Harold is grumbling about the potato salad... apparenlty Aunt Brenda brought some and wasn’t supposed to. I do like how both McBride dads have their own quirks:While Harold IS the more rational one, he can slip up just like anyone can. Luna prepares to leave.. only to realize oh shit her girlfriend’s brothers in the house still. Her not all complex scheme! She fakes having left something behind to get him out, and once sam calls comes up with a plan: Sneak Simon around back. Sam sneaks around with the bush she ducked into, and we get one of my faviorite tropes: A scooby doo doors sequence! Also the dads speak in unison. Dawww. We also get an adorable bit of Sam gesturing for Luna to hand her the boy. I couldn’t find a gif of it sadly, and I would’ve credited it, but I did find 50 tons of creepy Sam X LIncoln fanart. Just.. why. Why exactly. Why do you do this to me tumblr. And to be clear I have ZERO issue with shipping a character whose sexuality isn’t fully confirmed as just gay in canon with a male character, Bi and Pan representation is important. It’s why I get annoyed at the people who throw a hissy fit any time Della Duck is shipped with Launchpad. Here though I do because it feels like this ship is ENTIRELY a troll, especially since LIncoln has 80 other options, not at all including the icky incest ones, and that I cut and dry have every problem with, and is being done soley to annoy people who ship sam and Luna and are finally enjoying some gay/bi representation on children’s television. If this is a troll then kindly

Thank you John. So anyways Sam does grab the boy and nearly gets him out the door.. only for the mcbrides to run into their bisexual catsitter shoving a small chubby child out their kitchen window only to have a lesbian fall out into their kitchen. Naturally Howard faints again and Harold is displeased... probably because his husband fainted again.. and you know the shenangians in his kitchen. The only time shenanigans are allowed in that kitchen are when Clyde is sleeping at a friends house for the night and only on the table dammit. They got reinforced oak for a reason. We cut to the boys playing, which is a nice touch: Clyde being a nice kid dosen’t mind sharing, Simon has similar intrests, and the only time we’ve seen him be eh on sharing is letting Lincoln borrow his new console.. and he not only felt BAD for not wanting him to borrow it and having to try and get it back, but he only did so because the Loud house is insanley chaotic and understandbly he wasn’t sure it’d get back to him safetly. His dad’s rasied him well, he’s a good boy once he got past his ‘Stalking his friends older sister” phase and got into his “anything besides that “ phase. Luna comes clean to the McBrides and.. Harold appricates the honesty. And both are impressed with how well they took them, with Sam and Luna giving each other credit. So instead of getting upset, especially since Luna was both honest and only called in Sam for help and Simon was an unexpected guest and they both did a fantastic job, they offer to split the money instead. Sam, in a really sweet gesture, then gives Luna her half with no hesitation or prompting from her girlfriend, Luna gives her a cheek smooch and they hug. Then Luna acciently wakes the cats, and we end on the girls singing the cats, Simon and the McBrides all to sleep. Also Luna’s hallucination is alsleep.. those drugs wore off hours ago after all. Final Thoughts: A really fantastic setup. Once again the show shows it’s slowly gained talent for taking stock plots (in this case a babysitting episode) and making them actually intresting, mostly by having the characters behave reasonably. While it didn’t really expand Sam’s character, it didn’t really need to , the previous ep with her having fleshed her out as a sweet, kind girl with a talent for animals, and Simon is a wonderful addition to the series massive cast of side characters that , unlike some additions , will hopefully show up again. Seriously half the reason I bitch about Rusty is that the show is great at making charcters, and improving them after a few bumpy episodes as seen with Clyde, Lori and Luann, but yet still uses him and dosen’t make him any funnier, while I can name handfuls of characters who either need more apperances (Girl Jordan) Or haven’t shown up again at all (Carol Pingery, Rocky, Maggie). And that’s not even all of them obviously, but my point stands. But given he’s the brother of one of the main characters girlfriend and would fit in with the main character well, I have a feeling we’ll see simon again at some point. I also really liked seeing the McBrides, mostly because I haven’t seen many of their episodes, and found them to be delightful, helped by having wonderful va’s behind them as standard for the show and great chemsitry and it was a nice bonus to have the shows two main gay couples interact, without it feeling at all forced, and neither did Sam’s inclusion. And while we haven’t gotten a full on kiss with Sam and Luna, which really they should, CN beat them again on that, the cheek kiss and hug was still very sweet, as is the episode really. It’s funny, heartwarming, and really enjoyable. While itd osen’t have as much emotional weight as the last two eps, I like that it didn’t: For once the conflict was low key but understandable and now Sam and Luna are a full couple, they can just do cute couple shit and get into wacky shenanigans like any other couple on this show without any angst attached. It’s really nice. It also shows that no, a couple being together isn’t boring fuck off will they or won’t they, but i’ve ranted enough about stuff unrelated to this episode. I really liked it and hope to come back to these two someday. For now as I sign off Pride Month is far from over... as next up I have multiple things planned, but one of the biggest is a FIVE PART series on Red Action and Enid from OK KO. Yes FIVE. All 3 of their romantic eps, and Red’s first two for proper context both for the finale, which uses both episodes as part of the plot, and for a proper view of her character arc and to ease readers into the series better. So be there for that, and a donald duck birthday celebration, and until then, later days!

#Sam Sharp #Luna Loud #Saluna #the loud house #howard mcbride #harold mcbride #clide mcbride #simon sharp #the purrfect gig #pride month #lbgtq

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gem-rewatch · 5 years

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SU rewatch- S1E9- Tiger Millionaire

This episode is our first major character development one, this time focusing on Amethyst.

Amethyst... at the beginning of the series, seems to be stuck with a severe case of “middle child syndrome.” We learn a lot more about this as the show continues and the Gems’ dynamics deepen, but from her interactions with Steven thus far she reads most as an older sister figure to him. She’s a wild child, someone who’s often the instigator of whatever nonsense Steven’s gotten into that day. Before Steven was born she was the baby of the group- but now that she’s not the youngest, she’s suddenly faced with the expectation of being more responsible and grown up.

The thing is, it’s only been like this for little over twelve years. And for a quartz who’s already lived hundreds and hundreds of years? “Growing up” suddenly becomes quite a daunting task.

An important theme of this show is change instead of rigidity, however- and just like Rose embraced that change when she gave up her form to have Steven, all of the other Gems get to evolve as individuals as well.

That’s just part of the magic of the Earth!

Pearl: “You’re always putting us in danger with your little outbursts!!”

Amethyst’s expression immediately informs us that she’s intimately used to Pearl’s scolding. Nothing new to see here. Just Pearl squawking on as usual. She deflects her jabs, already hardened to it.

But when Garnet steps in...

Garnet: “Amethyst. You are a Crystal Gem. You need to act like it.”

A few interesting details to note here...

Amethyst visibly crumples. She’s quick to recover... quick to put up a mask, but it’s clear that this shook her.

Even Pearl looks surprised that Garnet spoke up, which suggests that she normally takes Amethyst’s side in these types of disputes and it’s just Pearl arguing.

Whereas Amethyst had little to no reaction to Pearl, she seems legitimately upset to hear the same from Garnet. She probably values her opinion a lot more than Pearl’s, so to receive a scolding from both of them... ouch.

Pearl: “I think we really got through to her!” Garnet: *growls in displeasure and walks away.*

Garnet is well aware that this status quo is only pushing Amethyst further away. There has to be a better way to get through to her about this...

It really says something about the Gems’ own oversight of what’s right in front of them that they left to do goodness knows what and forgot about Steven, standing in the corner of the house, trapped in a cocoon. It’s not just Steven who occasionally has this problem.

Please, Amethyst. I beg you, from the bottom of my heart:

Beat up Ronaldo for me.

Amethyst: “In the ring, nobody can tell me what to do! And if they try, I hit ‘em in the face with a chair!”

Gawdddd the delivery of this always makes me laugh.

This does make me wonder how difficult it was for Amethyst early on, though- after she was found by Rose Quartz and the others. Up until then she’d spent her whole life fending for herself. Alone. In the Kindergarten. Unlike every other Gem, who emerged with orders, not a single soul ever instructed her on anything until the Crystal Gems. I bet a big part of her still yearns for this pure freedom sometimes, even if it was a lonely existence.

Amethyst: i’m so sick of being told what to do man Steven: *slams that relate button*

I love that Amethyst is the one Steven bonds really close with first. It makes a lot of sense, since they both get what it’s like to be seen as “the screw up” or “the childish one.”

Steven: (impersonating Pearl) “Oh Steven, I told you before not to take peanut butter on missions!” Steven: (impersonating Garnet) “I’m not going to say anything, but I expect you to know that was wrong.”

Pearl vocalizes every concern that even briefly flits across her mind.

On the contrary, if Garnet chooses to vocalize a concern, then it’s. A big concern.

Both Steven and Amethyst intuitively know this.

Also Steven, you’re precious and I love you, you big nerd. Absolutely impeccable impressions. Please go into theater.

I will always think it’s hilarious that Steven’s idea of an “unlikable persona” to put on for the wrestling matches is just. A rich industrialist.

Pearl: Um...watcha got there?

Amethyst: A smoothie :-)

I REALLY love the color palette of these little one-frame action shots.

Okay, so the whole “mean” act Steven and Amethyst have put on as part of their wrestling tag team. Half of wrestling is just... acting, honestly- and being mean is their shtick. It’s a sort of love-to-hate thing for the audience, it’s FUN to have a good vs. bad dynamic in spectator events like this. Steven didn’t mean to take it as far as he did, he just got carried away with the act. (A recurring problem for him. See: Steven and the Stevens)

But Amethyst? Pearl has been scolding her for being too wild and loud and rude for so long that she’s started to internalize this... and willfully act this way. It’s like a two-for-one combo of punishment to self and acting out for attention.

Amethyst: “Listen, Steven. You can’t let anyone make you feel like garbage.” Steven: “Is that how you feel?” Amethyst: “I only feel how I want to feel.”

And then during the tag team championship, Pearl and Garnet intervene... and poor Amethyst just snaps. She’s furious. Her one outlet, and she’s so afraid they’re gonna take it away from her!

During her fight with Garnet, notice- this is far more heated than just a typical Crystal Gem practice brawl. She’s squeezing Garnet’s midsection hard, MUCH like Garnet did to Peridot in Catch and Release.

Amethyst is outright trying to poof Garnet here. That’s how angry she is.

It’s only after Steven gives a stirring explanation of why they’re doing this, why they need this outlet, that the two of them begin to understand. Just... let them have this space.

I adore how Garnet and Pearl just... turn the encounter into another part of the “act” by starting the whole “you have to defeat us to save wrestling” storyline. It’s a nice way for them to get into the wrestling spirit themselves, to support Amethyst’s interest.

Amethyst: “Sorry for, um- sorry.” (Sorry for almost poofing you, Garnet.) Garnet: “Same here.” (Same here- for being too harsh and not being supportive of your outlet.)

#su #steven universe #su meta #amethyst #garnet #pearl #tiger millionaire

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evenstevensranked · 7 years

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#44: Season 1, Episode 6 - “Louis In The Middle”

This week, Louis coincidentally saves big shot on campus Blake Thompson's life (who's clearly not 13 years old and only in this one episode) by stopping him from choking on a piece of steak, lol ok. After that, Blake welcomes him into his entourage -- He even calls Louis his "main man." But, it doesn't take long for things to go south. Meanwhile, there’s romantic tension between Ren & Larry and we need to talk about it.

The episode opens in the school cafeteria with Louis doing some Marlon Brando impressions for Tawny and Twitty ("I made him an offer he couldn't refuse" / "I coulda been a contender" and "sTELLA!!!!") All quotes that would most likely go over kids' heads. While shouting "Stella" he whacks Blake Thompson in his precious face -- which is something you’re not supposed to do I guess. But turns out, it’s okay! "As long as it's not the nose. Anything but the nose” Blake says. That’s good to know. We learn that Blake is so popular because he’s been in a few commercials. That’s apparently enough to warrant celebrity treatment in Sacramento.

We get a pretty inappropriate quote around here. Twitty says that Blake did a Doc Dennier’s hot dog commercial a few years back. Louis sings the jingle "If it's not Doc Dennier’s, you're just eatin' wieners!" To which Tawny replies "I don't eat wieners." - Oh, dear God. Haha.

Blake starts choking in the middle of telling some arrogant story about himself, but people think he’s “acting” at first. Haha, why else would someone start choking mid sentence? For dramatic effect?! Louis realizes that Blake is actually choking and it’s like Hero Mode: Activated. Where did this side of Louis come from?! He rattles off information and gives commands to people around him like he’s a freaking EMT or something! He goes behind Blake to give him the Heimlich maneuver. Here we get a slightly inappropriate bit of Louis shouting "I'M THRUSTING! I’M THRUSTING!!!" paired with this image:

I wish I wasn’t an adult and didn’t notice this.

After this, Blake is all "You saved my life. You're a genuine hero. Welcome to my entourage!" We see the character Ivan used as Blake's sidekick here. He’s only in a few episodes.. but he’s usually Larry Beale’s lackey. So using him here just makes him seem even more fickle and desperate. Which works, I guess. Blake tells Ivan to basically wait on Louis hand and foot now. You can already tell that Louis is letting this somewhat newfound popularity go to his head. AS UAUAL! Louis does some of his impressions for Blake and he seems to think Louis is funny........... for now. I hate fake people.

Also during this opening cafeteria scene, Larry/Ren conflict is set up for the subplot. Ren is Student Policy Monitor and thinks the school deserves better lunch options. I agree. Last time I checked, school cafeteria food is one step above what they serve in prison. She stands up and gives a little speech about her plans to improve the food.. but Larry keeps interrupting, cracking jokes, and mocking her.

You know it’s serious. He’s giving her The Hand.

Twitty and Tawny become concerned about Louis possibly succumbing to peer pressure. I like this part because Tawny tries not to worry and says “No one knows the real Louis better than I do. Deep down he’s classy, caring, very very intelligent...” - It’s supposed to be a joke but it’s actually surprisingly true. Either way, she decides they should keep an eye on him.

The next day, Louis is telling jokes to Ivan and some popular girls at lunch.

This is where the episode takes a sad turn. Ivan goes over to Blake all excited about how funny Louis is, but Blake says “Dude. Grow up, the guy’s a dork!” You can tell Ivan was genuinely entertained by Louis but forces himself to ditch him for the sake of staying on Blake’s good side. Sigh. After losing a phone argument with his mom about cleaning his room (like the big important celebrity he is), Blake just kinda stares at Louis with disgust. And of course, Louis is oblivious.

Seriously, this guy is a 35 year old 8th grader. I guess that’s what happens when hot dog commercials are your top priority...

Tawny has been “observing” Louis the whole time. He sees her and asks "What are you, choppin' hedges?!" I always loved that.

Tawny says she and Twitty are worried he's becoming a "pod person." I never heard anyone say that term before this show. And I never knew what it meant so I looked it up:

"A person pretending to be something they aren't, or an impostor. This is inferred because of the old alien movies where alien pods appear on earth and the "pod people" dispose of the humans and slowly reproduce the bodies, pretending to be humans."

I honestly remember thinking she was saying “Pot person” when I was young and that Louis was secretly doing drugs or something, lol. I was like ~ooohhh this is getting Degrassi-deep right now!~ The whole conversation was Very Serious and ended with Louis getting offended and taking her concern the wrong way. He feels like they’re just jealous of him having new, cool friends. Oh, Louis.

Ren asked for everyone to submit cafeteria suggestions into a suggestion box. Which was a good little idea... until Larry decided to stuff the box with offensive things about her. Like, who tries that hard?! Oh my god. He must really hate her, or really love her and has a strange evil way of showing it. She decides to resign from public service. Larry finds out, and he's clearly upset about it.

Charlotte (who makes her last appearance in this episode) and Ren reading through Larry’s messages. i.e. “Can you do something about the tuna casserole? It smells like Ren Stevens’ breath.” - Wow, Larry.

When Louis tries to do an Austin Powers impression for Blake the next day, he tears Louis down and says his 15 minutes of fame are over and he's done tolerating him. Nice!

I just had to include this image. “Gagalicious, babehhh!”

Blake tells Louis to go hang with his own friends. Only problem is -- Louis kinda ditched Tawny and Twitty. This leads to a mirror talk! Yaaaaay!!!! I love how consistent these were in Season 1, wow! This time, he treats it like he’s doing stand-up:

"For those of you keeping score at home... My new friends, they don't like me. My old friends, they don't like me. So I guess the score is Friends - 0, Louis - Really 0. I guess next time I'll think twice before I save a guys life."

Later that night, Ren's watching a romance soap opera when Larry shows up at The Stevens house to apologize to her. Yo, I swear to god. There is so much romantic tension here!!! He tells Ren that they've been competing against each other ever since the 5th grade and that she can't just give up. Because "If there's no Ren Stevens, there's no Larry Beale." WHAAAT?! It gets all awkward and Ren invites him to stay and watch the rest of the show with her. He says "No thanks, I think I've had enough soap operas for one day," and LOOKS HER UP AND DOWN with a sly smile. She's left sitting there like "ok :) ????" They're the best ship that never sailed on this show:

Come on, now! She’s all blushy and confused lol

Louis is all upset and wants to find a way to be Blake's friend again. WHY, LOUIS?! WHYYYY?! They're holding a school car wash and Louis sees a car about to kind of -- sort of -- not really, back into Blake and “crush him,” so he runs over to push him out of the line of fire in an attempt to save his life again. Buuuut, he just ends up getting water all over Blake and angering him. Louis insists “I’M SAVING YOUR LIFE OVER AND OVER AND OVERRR!!!!” but Blake yells “Stay away from me forever” at him in front of everyone. So that’s the end of that.

Tawny and Twitty observe this, as well. Tawny says “Louis’ constant craving for approval combined with his youngest child syndrome has basically split his personality in two.” - THAT’S SO SPOT ON THOUGH?!?! I love how they gave Tawny these lines. They really show how well she understands him.

Tawny decides she and Twitty have to go to “drastic measures” to shock Louis back into reality. They come up with a plan that involves Tawny as a damsel in distress tied to train tracks, and Twitty as an evil train conductor about to run her over. They plan it so Louis has no choice but to ride up on his bike and save her in the nick of time. He does, and this is their way of forgiving him and becoming friends again, haha. It's cute. Pretty unrealistic. But cute.

Louis: “Isn’t this is the part where you tell me I’m your hero and ya kiss me?”

Tawny: “Don’t push it.”

Following their romantic-tension-filled heart to heart, Larry starts taking Ren's side and supporting her at lunch after she becomes Policy Monitor again. "You heard the lady! If you have a suggestion, you fill it out and put it in the box. Continue, Miss Policy Monitor..." he says:

They’re so cute. Why didn’t they happen?! They totally could’ve turned this into one of those passionate mortal enemies falling in love tropes, lol. I’ll always be salty over this.

The episode ends with Louis sticking two carrots up his nose at lunch to assure Twitty and Tawny that things are back to normal. It’s adorable, haha.

I love the look Tawny gives him! Awwwww. If you haven’t guessed... I SHIP IT.

So yeah! That’s it. I don’t really know what else to say about this one. It’s not bad at all. It’s just a little.... eh. It’s not bad, but it’s not amazing. This one is genuinely very neutral. It easily could’ve been placed anywhere on the list, imo. But, I just decided on #44. I really love the Larry/Ren stuff here. This is one of three big moments in the series where you really sense that they have weird repressed feelings for each other or something. I like it a lot and wish they went for it! Other than that, there are some nice Louis moments and development here (I love the mirror talk, for example) and I really like the subtle Louis/Tawny hints as well. But, yeah. This one is pretty chill overall.

As always, thanks for reading!! <3

If you enjoy the blog, please feel free to spread the word/follow my other socials:

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 7 years

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Episode 43: Maximum Capacity

“You know how I feel about shapeshifting.”

Steven Universe begins in the middle of the story, when Steven first reveals signs of his latent magical powers. This is a terrific jumping-off point, but it’s always been clear that the saga of the Crystal Gems predates him by many, many years. Rose is more often than not used as shorthand for the past, the way things had always been Before Steven (his birth being the second time she upended a longstanding status quo).

But we often ignore a critical period of time in the show’s history: the lost years between Rose’s death and Gem Glow. Surely there were some growing pains, considering the Gems are still uncertain about showing Steven the ropes, but implications and theories are all we get until Maximum Capacity.

History inundates every aspect of this episode. Obviously it consumes the plot and provides ample fuel for drama, but even its humor is derived from digs at pop culture history (Li'l Butler as a representation of 80’s sitcoms) and the viewer's own history with the show (the bait-and-switch reveal of Amethyst-as-helper depends on our knowledge of Pearl’s behavior). Few episodes commit so single-mindedly to one theme without a character up and telling us the lesson. Steven comes close in his big speech about letting things go, but it’s just ambiguous enough to use its obvious double meaning to its advantage.

There’s a huge layer of uncertainty to this episode that I just love. How much does Steven understand about what’s going on? There was a point in the show where the subtext of his speech about letting things go would’ve been lost on him, but he’s wised up enough to potentially get that he’s also talking about Greg and Amethyst’s baggage about Rose. But has he? We just don’t know!

The same can be said for the nature of Greg and Amethyst’s relationship. While I’m personally all for the interpretation that they clung together as kindred spirits after Rose’s death, and am fully against the interpretation that their history is romantic (Greg has shown no interest in anyone after Rose, he treated Amethyst like a child sister before Rose died, and her rant is more about losing a parental figure than anything romantic), I can’t ignore that there’s plenty of reasons for other fans to infer that they had a fling. Amethyst’s crack about seeing Greg’s junk aside, the knowledge that she’s roleplayed Rose in the past when the two of them hung out alone together is loaded as hell.

There’s no right answer to these things, and that’s perfect, because history is a fickle thing, especially to a kid like Steven.

Not to harp on Horror Club again, but Maximum Capacity is a sterling example of how to include Steven in an episode that’s not really about him. He’s focused on, for sure, but it’s all in service of our true leads, Greg and Amethyst. His self-enforced grounding is funny, but it also highlights a sense of responsibility that’s lost on two adults drowning in memories. His sorrow about Greg missing the fireworks may make us feel for him, but it also highlights how far his father has fallen. Steven gets to be his own character doing his own things, but he never distracts us from Greg and Amethyst’s story. And what a story it is!

While they’ve had few interactions to this point, Amethyst is notably more cordial with Greg than the other Gems—recall her casual greeting to him in Onion Trade and her hanging with him and Steven in House Guest. Amethyst is also more involved with human culture than her partners. That these two elements of her character are linked is a brilliant touch: of course Greg would introduce her to cheesy amazing sitcoms like Li’l Butler.

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It only becomes clear that their bingeing (a word that may be ugly but at least is clearer than “binging”) originated with Rose’s death when Pearl Pearlsplains the situation, but something’s immediately off with Greg when Steven realizes he hasn’t even slept. Greg has always prioritized being with his son, even to his detriment in the dreadful House Guest, and seeing him ignore Steven Time is troubling.

Thanks to our pinpoint focus on Steven's reaction to Rose’s absence for most of the season, we've barely touched on how it affected the rest of her family. Pearl gets vocally emotional about her at times, and Garnet treats her memory with the utmost respect, but Amethyst is consistently quiet on the issue (in no small part due to her condition in An Indirect Kiss). Strangely enough, Greg is similarly reticent about Rose; while his debut in Laser Light Cannon showed him reminiscing, playing the music she loved, and tearing up over her image, he's been a closed book ever since.

In that way, it's fitting that these two get the first round of Adults Miss Rose Too before Pearl steps into the ring. Maximum Capacity shows that their grief is just below the surface, ready to drag them not only into deep sadness but unhealthy coping mechanisms. Sure, there are more harmful ways to mourn than watching a show nonstop, but we gradually see it draw out the worst in our two heroes.

The occasional portrayal of Greg as lazy and absentminded has always been, well, lazy and absentminded: he’s the sole financial provider for his son unless the Gems have jobs we don’t know about, and he seems to run his own one-man business well, so the idea that he’s just a big galoot has never gelled with me. His core competence and responsibility means it hits like a truck to see him so sucked into the siren song of Li’l Butler that he forgets to spend New Year’s Eve with his son. I love how instantly he regrets missing the fireworks: as a good father, he recognizes the mistake and feels awful about it without anyone telling him to, and takes steps to fix it right away.

But then it’s Amethyst’s turn, and after an episode-long showcase of her most obvious flaw (laziness that outstrips Greg’s by a mile) she reveals the pinnacle of her self-centeredness. She’s apathetic to Steven’s feelings, then Greg’s feelings, and acts as if Greg is source of all her problems while indirectly blaming Steven’s existence for Rose not being there for her. I almost hate to bring up her middle child syndrome again so soon after On the Run, but it certainly manifests in her anger over her feelings and needs not getting enough attention.

Thanks to terrific writing, her obvious remorse, and Michaela Dietz’s outstanding delivery, Amethyst doesn’t become the monster that my descriptions of her actions might imply. But she deals with negativity by internalizing and exploding; she literally lets the garbage in her life pile up until there’s no more room. It’s far healthier to deal with baggage instead of pushing it aside, as Steven so helpfully points out, and therein lies my only issue with Maximum Capacity.

In an episode about the importance of coping with the past, we don’t actually get any lessons on the how. We learn what not to do, but rather than actually face his history head-on, Greg returns to find that all of his problems have been sorted out by someone else off-screen, no hardship required! Moreover, Amethyst is still holding on to all of his baggage when the episode ends, with the exception of a few items (including the frame that frames this amazing shot):

I’m all about the show’s ability to subvert a lesson, but it doesn’t seem intentional here, especially with a lesson this good. Still, Maximum Capacity is brilliant enough that I mostly give it a pass. Not every aspect of grief can be dealt with in eleven minutes, and besides, we have Mr. Greg to take care of the processing.

Future Vision!

This is our first look at Garnet and Pearl’s Dad Shirt Forms, which we’ll see again in...wait, never? What’s wrong with this show!?

Amethyst will turn into Rose once again in the movie, this time with an okay from Greg (and a song!).

If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have inconsistencies…

Not sure how we managed to get so many callbacks to Laser Light Cannon in one episode, including the broken picture that first prompted “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs,” without a single reference to this alleged catchphrase. I’ve said before how silly it is that Greg never says this outside of Light Cannon, but it’s particularly silly here.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

This one’s a little more poignant than usual, but I guess I’ll take it, jeez Hilary.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Even if it doesn’t stick the landing, Maximum Capacity somehow tells a great story about grief and disappointment without being a downer. I’ve got no beef with downers, mind you, but Li’l Butler theme or no Li’l Butler theme, that’s a hell of a feat.

Top Ten

Steven and the Stevens

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Winter Forecast

On the Run

Warp Tour

Maximum Capacity

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

The Test

Future Vision

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

No Thanks!

4. Horror Club 3. Fusion Cuisine 2. House Guest 1. Island Adventure

#maximum capacity #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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chevd-blog · 6 years

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My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 5: 20 - 11)

20. Hand. Cannot. Erase. – Steven Wilson (2015)

For his fourth solo release, Steven Wilson took inspiration from the real-life story of Joyce Carol Vincent, a young woman who passed away in her London flat in December 2003 and remained undiscovered for more than two years, even despite having family and friends, and having left her television on at the time of her passing. The album follows the story of a fictional woman heavily based on Vincent, ending with her abrupt disappearance. With a stylistic nod to prog pioneers like Rush and Yes, as well as the powerful guest vocals of Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb, Hand. Cannot. Erase. serves as a poignant examination of the isolation and alienation of modern urban life.

Prime cuts: "Home Invasion / Regret #9", "Routine"

19. Absolution – Muse (2003)

Bolstered by the success of the lead single "Time Is Running Out", Absolution is the album that first gained Muse major mainstream recognition as a band to watch. There aren't many hints of their later excessive, over-the-top tendencies here— though "Butterflies & Hurricanes" does contain a piano section which aptly demonstrates Muse's appreciation of classical music. Instead, this is one of Muse's more low-key and easy-to-listen efforts, demonstrating the prowess of a band that could be content with crafting hauntingly beautiful melodies ("Sing for Absolution", "Blackout", or "Ruled by Secrecy" all come to mind), or simply shredding (as on "Stockholm Syndrome"). Sometimes, less is more, and simplicity is just better.

Prime cuts: "Stockholm Syndrome", "Butterflies & Hurricanes"

18. Core – Stone Temple Pilots (1992)

At the beginning of their musical career, Stone Temple Pilots was another in a lengthy list of bands that benefitted from the exposure afforded them by the Seattle grunge explosion in the early 1990s. They spent years dogged by accusations of sounding a bit too much like Pearl Jam, before they eventually managed to develop a more distinctive voice that distanced themselves from anyone else. That isn't to say that their early material is bad, though; on the contrary, their first album, Core, is hands down my favorite of theirs. I don't think of it as derivative, either; rather, I appreciate it for what it is. Like most of the alt-rock at the time, there is a dim, dingy feeling about it— but it's all channeled through a sunny production, reflective of their San Diego roots. There's more California here than Washington. That makes for an album which is oddly upbeat about being grungy, which I find rather appealing.

Prime cuts: "Plush", "Wicked Garden"

17. The Downward Spiral – Nine Inch Nails (1994)

There is no album that encapsulates my high school years quite like The Downward Spiral. Which probably says something terrible about me, because— with all due respect to Trent Reznor, but let's be honest here— this is a seriously fucked up album. This album is what it sounds like to slowly be driven into the ground, day by day, until you are ground down into little more than a cold, numb machine made of rotting meat, just begging for the sweet release of death. This album is how it sounds to gradually become an automaton, going through all the motions, but truthfully no longer giving a fuck. This is nihilism incarnate. And I've been on that brink myself, more times than I can count, driven by a sense of alienation from the hostile outside world, and it never gets any easier. But at least through the rough patches, I've had The Downward Spiral to reflect my turmoil. When I first encountered this album, I immediately adopted "Heresy" as my personal anthem— a song that expressed perfectly to my repressive Bible Belt surroundings just how I felt about their precious 'Good Book'. I buried all my vulnerabilities and my pain beneath a mechanical visage, as modeled in "The Becoming", and I grew a thicker skin. I gravitated to this album, and (at least in my head) eventually embodied this album, specifically out of spite; I recognized it as everything the religious conservatives hate about our culture, and I had no greater desire at the time than to piss off a world that had rejected me. I'm happy to report growing out of that phase of my life, for the most part. I still have occasional episodes where I stare longingly into the abyss, and ponder jumping in. But the power this album has had, to take the chaotic tempest of negative emotions inside of me and give them form, is awesome. Ironically, I think this album has actually prevented me from following through on several occasions, just by allowing me to work through my angst and get all of that built-up poison out of my system in a constructive way. Now that's power.

Prime cuts: "Closer", "Hurt"

16. Altered State – Tesseract (2013)

Following the departure of lead singer Dan Tompkins, Tesseract went through a period of searching for the right person to replace him, beginning with Elliot Coleman's short-lived turn at the microphone, but ultimately settling on Ashe O'Hara. Perhaps it was kismet that it was during O'Hara's time in Tesseract that Altered State was recorded, as the new voice also heralded a new direction. O'Hara's silken voice was obviously best suited for clean vocals; all of Tompkins' guttural screaming went right out the window. That made emulating peers like Periphery essentially impossible, which also provided the band with an opportunity to reinvent themselves, tighten their sound, and be more adventurous (such as on the track "Of Reality: Calabi-Yau", where they underscore their blend of palm-muted heavy metal with the extremely unexpected wail of a saxophone, and actually pull it off). Consisting of four multi-song suites (Of Matter, Of Mind, Of Reality, and Of Energy), the album also contains extremely dense metaphysical lyrical material to match its heightened musicality. In combination, all of these new circumstances result in Altered State being nothing short of a miraculous metamorphosis for the band— Tesseract in a literal altered state.

Prime cuts: "Of Matter: Proxy", "Of Mind: Nocturne"

15. Mer de Noms – A Perfect Circle (2000)

Mer de Noms is a cryptic album, in the same way that Tool albums generally are. Furthermore, this is the only album of A Perfect Circle's where I really feel there's an apt comparison, if not in sound, then in attitude. Setting aside the music for a moment— can we talk about how much I geeked out over the band actually inventing their own arcane-looking alphabet to use in their liner notes? I was a nerdy teenager at the time I obtained this album, and being a lover of puzzles, naturally I decrypted it and then adopted it for my own use for encoding secret messages in my notebooks. But, I digress. What makes the music so interesting here, after listening to Tool for so long, is Maynard's voice being channeled into music with a completely different energy. Tool is logical, cerebral, and quite masculine; APC is much more of an emotional experience. That goes even for the harder-edged songs like "Judith", where Maynard's cry of "Fuck your God!" is intended less as a slight toward religion in general than as a frustrated outburst from a person who had watched his devout mother paralyzed in an accident when he was a child, and who was astounded that such a trial did not cause her to lose her faith. With nearly all of the song titles being names (hence the album's title, which translates to "sea of names" in French), much of the puzzle presented by this album comes from familiarity with the eponymous subjects; some are Biblical or legendary, while others are somehow personal connections to the band. But regardless of how much the listener may know about the myth of Orestes, the music is still a reward unto itself.

Prime cuts: "Judith", "Orestes"

14. Ten – Pearl Jam (1991)

You know how certain songs are attached to memories or sensations so strongly, that you can't hear them without replaying those other associations in your head? Pearl Jam's Ten is like that for me. Yes, the entire album. It's an album that makes me feel the cool, crisp autumns of northern Georgia where I grew up, and see the leaves turning, and smell the hickory smoke of roadside boiled peanut vendors. It's an album that I see in dark reddish colors— maroon, sienna, burgundy. When I listen to "Black", I remember staying home from school for two weeks in 2001 due to a bad case of pneumonia, and the flannel blankets, and spending my daytime watching old episodes of SNL from the early 90s. When I listen to "Garden", I remember quiet, rainy nights in my on-campus apartment during my first year of college, just sitting in the dark after my roommates had gone to bed, drinking a cold glass of milk while watching the rain dance and glitter in the outside light with the windows narrowly slatted. When I listen to "Jeremy"— well, of course, that song makes me remember how terribly I was bullied all through middle school and ninth grade, and how reliant I was on that song to help me through one of the most miserable times of my life. (Seriously. This is another album I credit with literally keeping me alive.) I know none of this is concrete or tangible to anyone else but me, but… this is something that frustrates me about lists like this when music journalists write them. By the nature of their publication, they can't focus on the intangible impressions they get, because they're supposed to write about universally-appreciable things. In this case… I can't do that. Everyone already knows it's a goddamned brilliant album. But these impressions, and the way they make me feel— they're so strong here that they're basically half of the album's appeal to me, as far as I'm concerned. This is just an album that I've known so long, that it is deeply ingrained in me.

Prime cuts: "Jeremy", "Alive"

13. Master of Puppets – Metallica (1986)

I was introduced to Metallica (and heavy metal itself) in ninth grade by a classmate of mine named John. On one fateful extended class field trip to Mentone, Alabama, for a trust-building workshop, John lent me his copy of Master of Puppets to listen to during leisure time. I didn't know it at the time, as I sat on my cot in that cabin in the forest and listened to my Discman, but there was absolutely no better album to initiate me to metal. It was revelatory. Up to that time, I was still finding my taste. I had never heard music so hard-edged, or drumbeats so fast, or guitarwork so intricate before. And 8-minute songs? Being a prog rock fan who now routinely listens to songs two to three times that length, it's funny to think about in retrospect, but when I was that age, my attention span wasn't used to anything longer than 5 minutes. I was used to the stuff being played on the radio at the time— stuff like Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray. It should be a testament to how much of an earthshaking experience it was for me, that I still even remember the trip to Mentone (which was otherwise pretty forgettable, honestly). When I got back to Georgia, one of the first things I did was buy my own copy. There are eight songs here, and not a single weak one among them. Lars Ulrich's drums are on point. Kirk Hammett's guitar is on point. The lyrics, and James Hetfield's vocals, are on point. To this day, I still get goosebumps listening to the opening of "Damage Inc.", or the instrumental "Orion" as it slows down into a more laidback tune, led by the incomparable bass grooves of the late Cliff Burton. And in addition to being technically impressive, it was a cathartic album, too; this was the album that first allowed me to tap into my inner adolescent rage, and to release it. "Fuck it all and fucking no regrets", as they say. Wherever you are, John… thanks.

Prime cuts: "Master of Puppets", "Battery"

12. Superunknown – Soundgarden (1994)

It's sad for me to write this now, still only a few months out from Chris Cornell's passing. He was a hero to me when I was a teenager, and this was my first encounter with his music. First I got into Nirvana, then Pearl Jam, and then gradually I got into Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Out of all the releases between the four of them, Superunknown is and probably always will be my personal favorite, even over Nevermind and Ten. The combination of Cornell's unearthly voice and Kim Thayil's guitar stirred something inside me that the others just couldn't quite reach. Maybe it's because, at the time, Soundgarden had been together longer than the other three bands, and they were able to reap the rewards of knowing and playing with each other for a longer time. Whatever the reason, it just felt (and still feels) to me like one of the most musically mature albums to come out of the whole grunge scene. And the sad thing is, I think a lot of people pay attention to it because of "Black Hole Sun" being such a gargantuan hit, and undersell the rest of the album. There are lesser known songs here, like the title track, or "Fresh Tendrils", or "Like Suicide", that are absolute sparkling gems. To listen to those songs, and to know now that the moment has passed, and that chemistry can never be truly replicated again with Cornell gone… it's really disheartening. But at least they left behind one hell of a masterpiece.

Prime cuts: "Black Hole Sun", "Superunknown"

11. The Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)

Did you really expect me to leave this one off my list? Pink Floyd has been showing up on my list with a fair amount of frequency, and I saved the best one for last. I mean, it's almost ridiculous how clichéd it is to talk about this album as an example of a musical tour de force. It's practically to the point where I can just say the words "great album", and this will be one of the ones that people automatically think about. And as I sit here writing, trying to come up with something to say to rationalize my choice, I realize— there's probably no other album in my life which has served more as a soundtrack to the truly awesome moments. I've painted to this album, and felt the invigorating high of inspiration. I've synched it up with The Wizard of Oz, not once, but twice. I've played it while taking a breathtaking car ride through Badlands National Park in South Dakota. I've listened to it while watching a total solar eclipse. There's no other album that fits these kinds of experiences as well. It's an album that compresses time with its mellow nature, and causes 42 minutes to disappear so rapidly you can scarcely understand where they've gone. It's an album that simultaneously makes you feel insignificant, as a tiny human in a grand cosmos billions of lightyears and aeons large, and important, as someone fortunate enough to bear witness to the splendor of the universe. In short, about as close to perfection as an album can aspire to be.

Prime cuts: "Money", "Time"

At last, we’re down to the final 10. Which ones made the cut? Find out the first half tomorrow, with Part 6, featuring #10 - #6!

#top 100 #top 100 list #music #albums #favorite #list

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 7 years

Text

Episode 40: On the Run

"That’s not my home.”

Anxiety and depression are two sides of the same coin, separated by opposing degrees of certainty. Depression tells you to dread the future because bad things will definitely happen. Anxiety tells you to worry about the future because who KNOWS what’s going to happen, yikes, things could go REALLY BAD. Depression tells you to zero in on awful things from your past and remember that there’s nothing you can do about it. Anxiety tells you that oh man if you’d just done that one thing differently life might be better, or heck, life might be WORSE, so hopefully you won’t get lost in a time vortex and screw things up, oh no, one more thing to worry about! Depression tells you that nobody cares about you. Anxiety makes you cripplingly unsure, because what if your friends are just pretending and your parents are just tolerating you, but what if that’s all in your head and everything’s fine but people find out you’re worried about this and think you’re crazy?

When depression gets its way, you’re a passive mess accepting a miserable fate. When anxiety gets its way, you’re an active mess stressing yourself into a panic about possibilities. And a lot of us get to have both!

Amethyst and Pearl are sad in a way that Garnet and Steven fundamentally aren’t, but this sadness takes two distinct paths. Pearl’s is certain and passive where Amethyst’s is uncertain and active. Pearl is Depression, and Amethyst is Anxiety.

Of course, this isn’t (and shouldn’t be) a perfect metaphor, because like most actual people with anxiety or depression, both Gems have elements of both disorders: recall Pearl’s many anxious fits and Amethyst’s depressive slumps. Moreover, it’s important not to diagnose fictional characters with real disorders when you don’t have a medical license and the characters don’t have the physical brains required to even have human mental illnesses. But as a representative exercise, Pearl appeals to my despondency while Amethyst appeals to my overthinking. Pearl often lets negativity engulf her, but Amethyst internalizes and dwells on it until she explodes.

On the Run is one such explosion. Except for a single joke-based hint in Steven’s Lion (“We kept Amethyst”) there’s been no reason to believe that Amethyst has a different origin than Garnet or Pearl, but it’s soon clear that Kindergarten is never far from her thoughts. Our excursion solidifies Amethyst as a character who’s always worried about how people see her—which, I mean, she’s a shapeshifter, come on—and that she’ll never measure up to the roles she’s supposed to play. She’s supposed to be part of a team that fought the Homeworld Gems, but she’s the direct product of the invasion. She’s supposed to be a mighty Quartz warrior, but she’s an overcooked runt. She’s supposed to be one of Steven’s guardians, but she’s still treated like Garnet and Pearl’s kid sister half the time. Pressure squeezes away her self-esteem until she sees an opportunity to bond with Steven, and they immediately bounce.

The conflict of On the Run hinges on Amethyst’s anxiety blending with her middle-child syndrome. This isn’t Tiger Millionaire, focusing on Steven and Amethyst, or Giant Woman and Secret Team, focusing on Amethyst and Pearl. This is about how both of these relationships pull Amethyst in different directions.

The prompt here is Pearl’s explanation of the Homeworld invasion, which pointedly omits Amethyst from the group of rebels led by Rose Quartz. We can see that Amethyst is mad, and gets madder as Pearl dances around the “bad” thing Homeworld was doing, but at first viewing one could easily read her reaction as anger over being ignored. Miniature twists like these do wonders for the show’s rewatchability.

After a welcome aside commenting on old-school book series like The Boxcar Children and The Hardy Boys (complete with criticism of their ridiculous comic counterparts), Steven and Amethyst are off!

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On the Run (the song) has two important achievements beyond being a great tune. First, it speeds our characters from Steven’s room to the open rails and gives us a little journey without using too many of the show’s eleven minutes. Second, it ensures our understanding that Steven and Amethyst are in separate places. We begin with Steven singing alone, highlighting the silly hopefulness of running away on a whim. Then we have a whistle solo (courtesy of the sequence’s songwriter/co-storyboarder and resident guitarist Jeff Liu), giving a nostalgic, adventurous interlude to reinforce how fun this whole thing is. But then, as Steven continues to obliviously enjoy himself, Amethyst reveals that she’s still dwelling on Pearl. It all culminates in the same line, “Home’s a place that I have never known,” sung from opposite perspectives—one goofy, one wistful—before a gorgeous final shot sets a somber tone for the rest of the episode.

Amethyst reverts to her usual demeanor as soon she’s home, reversing her and Steven’s chipper/wary dynamic from the song. I wonder how grade-school kids grapple with the fact that the ominous canyon full of bacteriophage drills we spend most of the episode in is called “the Kindergarten.” Does it tap into their budding sense of irony to see a class they aren’t far removed from associated with such a scary setting? Do they think the name is funny, in the way Fluffy the three-headed dog from Harry Potter is? Regardless, as an adult, I love love love the name of this literal garden that grows children.

Amethyst’s light attitude helps keep the Kindergarten’s dim lighting and eerie soundscape (the music, sure, but also those clangs) from getting too frightening, but it’s still a hell of a place. In a rare moment of asking the right questions, Steven voices the viewer’s concerns over just how many Amethyst-shaped holes there are in the walls, and all that they imply. But Amethyst is just happy to give him a tour.

Because when she’s around Steven, she gets to be the cool big sister that runs away with him and tells him all the secrets the grown-ups don’t want him to know. He, and we, wouldn’t get this introduction to the Kindergarten without Amethyst’s desire to bond, and maybe show off a little. She’s not ashamed of her background, instead proud to position her earthling status as something she and Steven share.

It’s only when bigger sister Pearl shows up that Amethyst’s sour mood returns. Telling Steven the full truth is against the rules, it seems—who would’ve thought a team founded by Pink Diamond might be against telling the truth?—and Pearl is blind to Amethyst’s ulterior motives in bringing Steven to the Kindergarten. Part of this is Pearl’s fault, as she should know Amethyst well enough over thousands of years of friendship to understand why she might be upset, but a lot of it is Amethyst’s fault for her stubborn refusal to talk things over. It takes something drastic to break this pattern, and it comes in the form of their first physical fight on-screen.

While Steven Universe has always veered against violence being the answer, its exciting fight sequences often go against this message. Not here. Amethyst and Pearl’s fight is just brutal, even when Amethyst gets what may be her most badass line in the series (“I wouldn’t wanna fight me neither!”) and the choreography’s on-point as ever. Aivi and Surasshu obviously help, but Amethyst’s blind rage quickly giving way to her self-loathing is heart-wrenching on its own, especially when we see how futile her attacks are. And when you think the worst of it is over, it ends with this:

The ambiguity afforded to this scene is incredible for a children’s show. While watching it over and over reveals that Amethyst is clearly stepping away before Steven bubbles, in the moment itself it’s uncertain whether her exclusion was intentional on her or Steven’s part. Obviously Steven’s not a monster, and immediately is concerned, but physically separating Pearl and himself from Amethyst encapsulates the latter’s self-exile in a way that’s succinct, elegant, and tragic. Having it not be immediately clear whether she’s the one doing the exiling is icing on the cake.

While this is Amethyst’s moment to shine, Steven gets to show off his maturity by realizing he’s in over his head. It’s Pearl that needs to talk with Amethyst, but there was a time where Steven wouldn’t know that, and Pearl wouldn’t have listened even if he did. I appreciate that his contribution isn’t overplayed, because this isn’t really his story, but I’m also glad he isn’t limited to a standard “hey stop fighting!” role.

The positive reinforcement for Steven about talking versus fighting has major benefits down the line. He, and we, are shown that talking things out, even when you’re sorta bad at it and it’s awkward, beats fighting. There’s a straight line connecting the conclusions of On the Run and Mr. Greg that I adore; Steven presents the same solution to a longstanding conflict, but where the former comes from a place of confusion and desperation, the latter is a planned and confident maneuver (and in song!).

I don’t wanna think about what Amethyst would be like without Michaela Dietz. In the wrong hands, the character’s slangy lexicon would aggravate and alienate viewers over the age of ten, but Dietz’s natural delivery makes every line feel wonderfully unforced (give or take a “Chill it, dude” that not even she could salvage). This skill by itself would be enough to make her casting worthwhile, but episodes like On the Run let her show off her impressive range and criminally underused singing voice. Dietz has openly discussed how her experience growing up as an adoptee affects her portrayal of Amethyst, and her vulnerable performance exhibiting Amethyst’s anger and sorrow in the Kindergarten is some of her series-best work.

On the Run continues the show’s trend to put character first even in heavy lore episodes; with all the emotional tension here, it can be easy to forget just how much we learn. Not only is Amethyst from Earth, but lots of Gems are, and it was kind of a huge deal to the rebellion. This is a game changer, but we care more about whether Amethyst and Pearl will make up, even though we’ve already had two entire episodes about their feuding natures.

Still, this is hardly to say the lore is brushed aside. Even if the Gem Odd Couple is one step closer to the healthy sisterhood of Last One Out of Beach City, the lingering final shot of Kindergarten before it cuts straight to black leaves an impression of its own. We’re in this deep, folks.

Future Vision!

The lovely melancholy feeling of the train ride gets another day in the sun when Steven and Amethyst take Peridot on the scenic route back to the Kindergarten in Back to the Kindergarten.

Now We’re Only Falling Apart not only shows the moment Amethyst was left behind, but the moment Pearl’s anti-Amethyst sentiment was born: this might’ve been a very different relationship if nobody had bumped Pink Diamond to the ground.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

The amazing tone of Kindergarten gets this high marks already, but finally getting some development on Amethyst and Pearl’s relationship after hemming and hawing for forty episodes? Yeah, put it up there.

Top Ten

Steven and the Stevens

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

On the Run

Warp Tour

The Test

Ocean Gem

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Future Vision

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

No Thanks!

3. Fusion Cuisine 2. House Guest 1. Island Adventure

#on the run #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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