While waiting for the Summer of Steven to start, here’s a thought:
We know that except for the Diamonds, gems are not unique. We’ve seen other Rubies and Pearls, and have heard references or implications of other Peridots, Jaspers, Lapis Lazulis, and Sapphires.
My question is: are fusions unique? For example, if one of the Ruby Squad from “Hit the Diamond” fused with a different Sapphire, would the fusion be a Garnet?
15 second preview clip from an upcoming episode called “Too Short to Ride” featuring Peridot and Steven: Here.
maybe look a lot like Garnet but not the same personality.
That goes without saying that another Garnet would be different from our Garnet. IMHO the personalities of the gems and the reasons/emotions behind the fusion influence the fusion. If another Jasper and another Lapis fused for a different reason, say love, I suspect it would produce a very different Malachite.
I don’t think there’s been any word of God on that particular fusion question. I do remember that one of the writers or producers confirmed that any combo of the surviving original Crystal Gems – Garnet (Ruby and Sapphire), Amethyst, and Pearl-- would make Alexandrite. In other words, if Sardonyx fused with Amethyst, it’s the same result as if Garnet fused with Opal, or if Ruby plus Sapphire plus Amethyst plus Pearl all fused.
I’m hoping we get more fusion details in the next part of the plot, but with fusion so disparaged on Homeworld I don’t know that we will.
And the Summer of Steven starts July 18th with a weeklong Steven Bomb called Steven’s Summer Adventure. The six episodes are confirmed to be: “Steven Floats”, “Drop Beat Dad”, “Mr. Greg”, “Too Short to Ride”, “The New Lars”, and “Beach City Drift”.
And that’s not all! Apparently, Cartoon Network has such a backlog of unaired episodes that they plan to air all of the remaining season three episodes (The ones listed above plus seventeen more) over the rest of the summer almost every weeknight.)
Promo featuring snippets from upcoming eps is here.
Want to test your Steven Universe knowledge and insight against SU creator Rebecca Sugar’s? Multiple choice quiz here
Cartoon Network has officially released a 50-second teaser clip of an unnamed upcoming episode and…SWEET JEEBUS, WE’VE GOT A NEW CRYSTAL GEM!
[spoiler] The new gem isn’t named in the clip, but since the clip is titled Bismuth’s Reunion, the new gem is obviously the hinted at but never explicitly named Bismuth.
In case you don’t follow fan theories…In “Lion 3: Straight to Video”, Steven enters the dimension inside Lion’s mane and there’s stuff in there. He immediately takes the videotaped message, and later takes out some other things (Rose’s sword and flag). One of the items shown but not followed up on was a Rose Quartz bubble with an odd-looking gem inside it that looked something like a ziggurat. The shape was a dead ringer for bismuth, a metal that can be grown into geometric crystals in iridescent rainbow colors. Thus Bismuth.
In “Same Old World”, Lapis’s flashback showed her being poofed by a large gem with rainbow dreadlocks and a gem that matched the bubble gem.
Anyway, Bismuth is loud, boisterous, and has been in a bubble for 5,300 years.
Also, Amethyst is wearing a different outfit in the clip.
[/spoiler]
Head up for the Summer of Steven starting tonight.
First responses: Steven Floats was a great episode to start the new set of episodes because it helps us see Steven’s love for Beach City and the Gems. Interested to see how his new power gets used. But what I’m excited to see what happens with the cliffhanger at the end of Drop Beat Dad.
So themes -
Steven as a flipside of The Hulk, positive emotion giving him a power but still control of emotion being vital.
And relationships, of son with absent father and present and loving step-father, of being happy doing what you are doing and not needing money for that.
Recapped in relationship between lover and jilted lover both mourning their shared loss, but again the theme that money does not get them what they want, love of Beach City and of each other is what they need.
One suspects some compare contrast is due to come not too far somewhere down the line.
Now that he’s appeared in a few recent episodes, Ronaldo has been active at his blog again. Keep Beach City Weird,now sponsored by Guacola.
And just in cased you missed it, Peridot has a Twitter account! It started in conjunction with her getting the tablet in “Too Short to Ride”, but she’s continued tweeting stuff like this:
NYAHAHA! 24 HOURS AND 672 PAGES LATER AND MY “ESSAY” ON HOW PAULETTE IS THE SCOURGE OF CAMP PINING HEARTS IS ALMOST DONE!
Well, we’ve been overwhelmed by new Steven Universe episodes for the past two weeks, with Cartoon Network dropping eleven episodes. Steven and the Gems have returned to Beach City, and most of the episodes for the first week-and-a-half focused on the human residents of the town. Garnet went seven episodes with no speaking roles and one cameo.
The Summer of Steven has featured the return of some highly anticipated characters (Stevonnie, Rose Quartz, Centipeetle, Vidalia), lesser characters getting a day in the spotlight (Sour Cream, Kiki Pizza), and the return of the series’ total hosebags (Marty, Kevin, Jasper). Oh, and an almost entirely musical episode (five songs).
What are we thinking so far?
I’m impressed so far! (Don’t know if that’s saying too much though – I’m a relative newcomer to the series, so I’ve been enjoying all things Steven Universe, even the massive themed blocks CN was running up to the new episodes.) The Centipeetle and Jasper episodes had some really heavy stuff.
I’m thinking that I remain impressed. I appreciated Lapis’s mixed emotions regarding her past dysfunctional relationship and how antagonists often see Steven as Rose. Rose’s ignorance about childhood was also interesting.
Most simply this grouping has had only slight advancement of the arc but extremely fascinating character growth of many characters, major to minor. With dynamic character growth being possible as opposed to the static nature of gems on homeworld, being part of the broader arc.
Well, we pretty much knew that Steven training his shield and Connie training with the sword was leading up to Stevonnie using both. And there it was.
Well, after having my mind blown with Friday’s episode and then again with tonight’s, I thought I better start getting my Season 3 impressions in before it’s over.
First, I’ll focus on the early bunch of episodes focusing on Steven interacting with the human residents of Beach City: Drop Beat Dad, The New Lars, Beach City Drift, Restaurant Wars, and Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service. Steven spends a lot of time in these episodes healing some long standing rifts between BeachCity residents: Sour Cream and Yellowtail, Lars and Sadie, Kiki and Jenny, and Fryman and Kofi (but not Ronaldo and his hime-sama Jane. I’m guessing that sometime before the end of the series, Steven and Gems will need the people of Beach City to have their back. The townspeople are also getting to see Steven exhibit his new powers, as they’ve seen him float, shapeshift, use superstrength, use dream powers, and fuse into Stevonnie.
I’d rate the New Lars as the best of this bunch and Drop Beat Dad as the worst, with Restaurant Wars as the funniest.
By Amazon’s reckoning, we just started season 5. Although I don’t see specifically how the season starts and ends are determined. They don’t seem correlated with the long pauses in when the episodes are made available.
According to the production staff, we are wrapping up Season 3 Wednesday and starting Season 4 Thursday.
Season 1 was 52 episodes - Everything up through “Jail Break” in the correct order (Cartoon Network showed the later part of this season and the early parts of Season 2 out-of-order so they could clump the Peridot/Jasper/Lapis invasion arc episodes together.) This is what is on the Season 1 DVD set - available only in Australia (Region 4).
Season 2 was 52 episodes, but then Cartoon Network decided to split the order into 2 26 episode seasons, and they counted lumping together all the various 2-3 minutes shorts as one of those episodes. This is why the 30 minute “Bismuth” special was billed as the 100th episode.
Cartoon Network has ordered another 52-episode batch, which was originally considered Season 3, but has since been split into Seasons 4 and 5.
Note: This is according to the production staff. The Cartoon Network video on demand page is calling some of the currently airing episodes Season 4. And Amazon is splitting the show into 26 episodes seasons, although Season 4 contains only 20 episodes, which is why Amazon is on Season 5.
As for the long hiatuses, that’s Cartoon Network’s doing and has nothing to do with actual Seasons/production orders.
With that said…
Damn, this show just keeps getting better and better. So much to process in the last few episodes. It looks like Steven is heading for a “Snape Pensive” moment, where he’ll find out his mother Rose isn’t quite as perfect as all the people who loved her (especially Pearl and Greg) have portrayed her. Keeping Bismuth bubbled for 5300 years and lying about it is pretty messed up. (Nice continuity touch: I rewatched the first episode with Lion’s mane from Season 1, and the bubbled Bismuth gem was there). And just what did Rose do to Pink Diamond?