Just Wow

Jasper’s episode Fragments is one of the best episodes of Steven Universe Future. I loved her reactions to Steven fixing the tree and bringing back the grass and kissing his bicep. It almost makes me forget about her toxic history with Lapis. Almost. Jasper is definitely someone you want on your side, though. Steven’s Jojo-esque form is fitting considering Diamond is Unbreakable. The Diamonds themselves have reversed their powers: Yellow fixes gems instead of breaking them (making her similar to a certain group of royal scientists), Blue makes gems happy instead of sad and sings a trippy ballad (which reminded me of Ricky Gervais’s song from Galavant), and White lets gems take control of her instead, which is a terrible idea as Steven demonstrates. It’s enough to read minds, not let people do to her what she did to them. And Spinel is Spinel, an amalgamation of classic and nostalgic cartoon characters, including: Sonic and Tails, Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny (or Daffy Duck, one of the Looney Tunes), and Harley Quinn/Joker. The rest of the finale is best summed up as Steven pretends everything is fine, everything is not fine and everyone cries, and then everything is on the road to being fine and everyone still cries. Like in KH3, it was definitely earned but still a lot to take in. It’s what this show is known for, after all. Lapis offering to paint him something with her tears got me, as well as Peridot asking where she’d find another Steven (someone to watch the horrible reboot with, assuming that hadn’t already run its course). Blue Diamond’s running animation made me smile (assuming that was running).

Handbooker Helper wasn’t back – it was just a one-off to explain the Valentine’s Day one-shot (which I still haven’t watched yet along with Doom, but I’m on vacation now, and it might potentially turn into a quarantine lockdown or downgrading me to non-essential). I found Dani’s written Recaps since she doesn’t do them in video form anymore. The literal fireside chat in Matt and Marisha’s home was a bad idea. The floo was open but the chimney was still blocked, causing the smoke to go into the room and set off all the fire alarms. They said they had another, better fireplace but used this one instead for some reason. No one knows when any of the lockdowns will end, and the next two weeks are supposed to be even worse. I’ve seen a lot of angry people these past couple of weeks, and I’m not looking forward to seeing more of it. Humans are the worst, which is why I don’t play them in D&D.

Isa’s video is pretty much done. I’m just going back and forth on formatting the subtitles and trying to pick a release date. Sing along if you know the words – I had to change them slightly to fit the situation. I watched the video on Aqua’s character file, and it was exactly what I wanted since the BBS novel talked about her baking a lot, and part of it was included. Terra’s was good too and intersects with Aqua’s.

Deep Dive

I’ve read through the tumblr document The Secret Reports posted. They point out the retcon that happened in KH3 when Ienzo said he’d been told Ansem had gone mad. In reality, Ansem had gotten depressed, but it never made any sense to me that the other apprentices would willingly betray him if they were as loyal as they were presented as in BBS (and the fact that Xehanort became the new favorite and a then a usurper). It would make more sense if Xehanort had to lie in order to break the three that were left behind [in KH3] in order to gain their loyalty. Ienzo definitely seemed suspicious of Braig and Xehanort in the secret ending, but it never went anywhere. In KH2FM, when Xigbar is recounting Xehanort’s takeover, he mentions “banishing that meddlesome fool,” to which Zexion doesn’t have much of a reaction since he’s just waiting for Xigbar to finish speaking and so he can leave. If he’d felt any sort of way about it, he’d most likely repressed it. It’s as much of a plot hole as him not being able to sense DiZ in CoM – the games’ narrative doesn’t allow for him to deal with it even if it’s making some powerful hints about it. Now, in KH3, he was most likely told the truth offscreen when Ansem’s code was passed along to him. This represents how the story was changed, in addition to when it all happened: Ienzo was still a child when Ansem disappeared, but if Nobodies can’t age, he was well into his teens when he lost his heart. Either way, he was a child who trusted the adults around him and paid the price for it; they were all some level of misguided, after all. The reports also conflict about certain points in the timeline being either weeks or years – definitely a retcon there. Furthermore, all throughout his early appearances, Xigbar seems to be subtly trying to raise suspicions against Xemnas (and in BBS, Master Xehanort had had to threaten him back into compliance), but this is all trashed in favor of him being Luxu, the narrative straight-up forgetting that he was ever a member of the apprentices to begin with. The Secret Reports mentions that the retcon happened to show the apprentices in a better light, but that didn’t need to be the case. I don’t need to think better of them, I just want things to make sense – I want the truth, and I wouldn’t think that much less of them for it whether they were tricked or complicit, guilty or innocent. There were several retcons involving this group, starting with KH1 where they might not even have been thought of yet (or Xehanort is very egotistical and didn’t include them in the reports anyway). I’m not too surprised, just very disappointed in some cases. 

It would suck if Xehanort only got away with writing Ansem Reports for so long because Ansem had locked himself away due to depression. Cue fan art/fiction of Ansem shutting himself in his room and Ienzo asking him if he wants to “build a snowman” (or whatever their equivalent is). Seriously, we are only certain of a few relationships of Zexion’s: he puts up with Xigbar but thinks he’s annoying, he respects Vexen but hates him (so it means more when Even vanishes from the premises and Ienzo says he’s starting to worry), he obeys Xemnas because he has to, Lexaeus is the only one he says he trusts, and we never see him interact with Xaldin or Dilan (who, by the way, had taken either their betrayal of Ansem or Ansem’s alleged abandonment very hard). He doesn’t say much about Master Ansem and straight-up doesn’t remember his parents as a Nobody, but we can assume he loved all three very much. Steven Universe needs therapy, and so does this boy. Repression only gets you so far and hurts more in the long run.

I’ve also been watching the videos ProdigyxCD is making about the character files that have been translated. I was right about their being purgatory between a Nobody getting killed and their reconstitution. Aeleus regrets giving in to the darkness and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be an apprentice, but given that all of them are guilty to an extent, what makes him worse than anyone else? They were in this together, and I’m glad none of them were banished or self-banished. Dilan’s was kind of sweet, mentioning flowers literally and as a metaphor. Even admits that wisdom is different from intelligence (as anyone who plays D&D already knows) and that the people he considers fools are the real heroes. Ienzo confirmed what I already thought about his dynamic with Even and Ansem, that Even was strict when teaching him and didn’t like Ansem coddling him. Nomura still hasn’t given any thought to who his parents were, though, so his memories of them remain vague or nonexistent. Ansem’s glad to have everything back to normal. And Demyx just wanted friends.

Thanks, Coronavirus!

I used my only day off last week to make sure “Kingdom Hearts: Home” was done and posted. Is it perfect? No, but good enough since I can’t manipulate the lengths of time that an image will appear onscreen like I could with the old software. If precision is lacking too much on the next project, I may have to use the old software again until that laptop dies too. Then I’ll be SOL. Since instead of staying home during the coronavirus scare, I have to work forever, I will definitely have to wait until April for the next video, but we’ll see what happens. The virus already caused jury duty to be cancelled, so I’m grateful for that at least. I won’t be able to finish the Saix video in that time since it takes longer to make different sequences go together with the new software and I keep giving myself headaches while focusing on it. The old software would often crash, and the new software becomes slow and unresponsive after a while as well. And then my computer decided it wanted to do a full system update which required several hours and restarts.

After worrying some fans that Prickly Pair would result in Steven’s downward spiral, the next two episodes were a return to form. Peridot helped Steven with his stress dreams, and the episode ended with them hate-watching the reboot of their favorite show. Bismuth’s episode was great even though Stevonnie didn’t have a speaking role. In this version, you can introduce friends to other friends and have it work out instead of it blowing up in your face. Until, that is, the follow-up: In an act of desperation, Steven tries to propose to Connie, but of course they’re too young and she says, “Not now.” The end of the episode where Steven says Garnet can’t stop him from eating cake (i.e. his feelings) and she says defeatedly, “I know” was funnier than it should’ve been.

Speaking of funnier than it should have been, “Artist Anonymous” from Power Rangers Beast Morphers. It’s too bad that Devon’s dad hasn’t been able to fight back yet like Anton Mercer, his actor does an excellent job of acting as Evox going back and forth between not caring about what the Rangers are doing and suddenly interested in using it for his own ends while trying to pass as totally normal. He was coughing during a previous episode, prompting me to yell “Corona!” at the screen. What timing with Tangled: The Series coming to an end right as the virus started dominating the world.

Irish cream Milano cookies smell great when you open the bag, but I can’t quite describe the flavor. It’s not bad, but sweet. Rotisserie chicken Pringles taste like they say they do, but it’s a pretty weak flavor that gets overpowered by anything else you eat with them. Brad may have convinced me to try the Reuben Pringles, though I’m still not sure about the sauerkraut aspect of it.