SHUNGITE Healing Benefits & Why Every Home Needs It

If your familiarity with Inside Out is at its bare minimum, out of the emotions' names, Disgust's name is going to stand out the most. Joy, Sadness, Anger and Fear do indeed sound like the most basic that an emotion can get, even to a layperson, but Disgust is just... out there. Consequently, as the emotions' characters are primarily defined based on their names, it might appear that either her characterization has the most leeway, or, conversely, that she's the most difficult emotion to write and fit into the neat little model of five emotions in anyone's mind.
Well, I'm here to tell you it's the latter. But what makes Disgust so difficult to write and what have I noticed in her depiction that is simply out of the line (in official material, mind you)?
Preamble: Why five emotions are a necessity
As far as the amount of little people pulling a real person's strings in fiction goes, it can be anywhere from two, per the stereotypical setup of a shoulder angel and a shoulder devil (as well as Reason and Emotion), to one hundred, as seen in the poorly received 2008 film Meet Dave. However, as I wrote previously, from its inception, Inside Out was bound by constraints which made its design virtually immutable once it was developed. Can the same logic be applied to the number of emotions in the movie?
Yes.
The essay I linked talks about how the plot of Inside Out was virtually bound to the concept of certain emotions leaving Headquarters. From there on, we can follow the basic structure of tropes, which is virtually unavoidable for a children's movie, and see how many emotions we end up with. As follows:

• If Riley was left to her own devices, without any emotions in Headquarters, this would lead to two possibilities: either (as is logical) she would be virtually emotionless, as seen in the fanfic Out of Place, or she would gain "autonomy" of her own, as seen in Intercom. However, an emotionless character is very hard to properly convey in a children's movie, with so-called "emotionless" characters in actuality being concealed inside themselves and reclusive, and the latter possibility goes against the premise of emotions controlling a person. Since neither possibility is really worthwhile to depict, there must be emotions left behind to act as Riley.
• The necessity for an imaginary friend who sacrifices themself, as well as the existence of Joy and Sadness outside of Headquarters, implies a trio which journeys through Riley's mind. This leads to many trio tropes, all of which can lead to convenient execution and setups to provide a stereotypical, yet entertaining movie.
• Conversely, just two characters don't lead to a particularly complex dynamic unless their surroundings (and a necessary third character) are involved, yet, four characters as a team for the majority of the movie may be too difficult to follow, especially when considering that two such teams will need to be followed.
• Hence, two emotions outside Headquarters + three emotions left behind = five.

Bam. Five emotions are a must. And, since we are working with Ekman's model, we get to choose from joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and surprise. And, as talked previously, Surprise as a character would be too similar to Joy and/or Fear (and has even been classed as a Joy/Fear mixture by Vox), meaning that we have the cast of emotions we are familiar with, and one outlier to try and characterize, with the name not being much of a hint. How did Pixar go about it?
How Disgust has changed throughout the development of Inside Out
While the development of Inside Out, bar its final version, is still shrouded in mystery in a lot of parts, it is known that Disgust came in particularly late, and wasn't considered during the stage when all the emotions had human names. In addition, the creators of Inside Out faced a design and characterization challenge related to Disgust, primarily based on deciding whether she's supposed to be disgusted or disgusting.
The choice they eventually went with, namely being disgusted, is most likely the right one. After all, there is no issue on whether Anger is supposed to be angry or merely inspiring anger, the latter of which Inside Out as a whole is not supposed to do, at least not intentionally. Whether or not it does is... another matter. *glances nervously at JelloApocalypse's Pixar movie review*
Another interesting design detail of in-development Inside Out is Disgust's purple dress, which would make her the only emotion to be visually coded in a color different from her skin/eye/hair color. Of course, it had to go for obvious reasons (namely, purple already being Fear's color), and thus, we were left with Disgust's design in the final version.
I'll admit it, there's also a bit of conflict with Joy's development; early versions of Joy had a tomboyish overall with shorts, rather than a sundress, and this final version does clash a bit with Disgust's. However, I think that once you look at them a bit more closely, even ignoring the colors, Joy and Disgust are hard to mistake for each other: Disgust has eyelashes that extend past her face, a purple scarf, a belt with a D on it and shoes, all of which she, a fashion-conscious emotion that she is, would have, and all of which Joy, more focused on carelessness and therefore being dressed to the bare acceptable minimum, lacks.
So, that's roughly how Disgust came to be, and how she looks. Now: how does she act, and what's so difficult to get about it?
The final version of Disgust's character
In Disgust's introductory scene, Joy purports that her job is to "keep Riley from being poisoned, physically and socially". This is immediately followed by Disgust negatively reacting to Riley eating broccoli, a required setup for the broccoli pizza joke which is one of the few things Inside Out is known for for those who have never seen it, and is more distantly followed by Disgust's obsession with fashion, being both an order from Joy to get Riley dressed for the occasion and the impetus for a Fashion Island to be created in 12 year old Riley's mind.
But that's her job. What characterization lies behind it?
On a basic level, Disgust is, well, disgusted and grossed out by virtually everything. Puking is a common physical reaction you can expect from her (even if it goes back to square one and her being disgusting), as is her leaving a situation she simply does not want to be involved with. Naturally, this also leads to her obsession with cleanliness (not seen much in the movie proper, but prominent in both official material and fanworks, and fitting to her character).
On a deeper level, though, there are two details of Disgust's characterization which might be missed by a lot of people, especially those endeavoring to write her in a fanfic.

• 1. Disgust is like Anger, but more self-conscious

When it comes to everything that falls outside of a named emotion, nevertheless, the tendency is for it to be "assigned" to an emotion as a secondary aspect. For example, confusion is a secondary aspect of Joy, who is the first to notice something is wrong with San Francisco, and while she does try to retain her positivity, she quickly passes this distaste onto other emotions. Similarly, empathy is a secondary aspect of Sadness, which, in Riley's mind, originally went unnoticed by Joy, but which eventually was noticed and which serves as the primary characterization of Sadness in Jill's mind.
What about sarcasm, then?
Well, sarcasm seems to be split between Disgust and Anger, sometimes with fans disagreeing as to who is supposed to be sarcastic. While Disgust might seem like the one more in line to be sarcastic, just considering her demeanor (primarily that of disappointment), Anger is the one whose sarcasm is more frequently seen in Inside Out proper, as he is the one to sarcastically "suggest" renting an elephant to Minnesota.
This is not to say that Disgust can't be sarcastic; she definitely can, as she is the one to point out that she, Anger and Fear can't really substitute for Joy, and does so in a sarcastic way. However, petulant arguing on whether Disgust or Anger is "the sarcastic one" overlooks the similarities that they have, and namely, why they might be a terrifying pair together, due to how, occasionally, they complement each other in addition to being similar, much like Joy and Sadness.
Both Anger and Disgust have a lot to do with, and primarily react to, present unfavorable and "fixable" circumstances. This sets them apart from the other "negative" emotions, namely Sadness, focused on pessimism and it being all doom and gloom, and Fear, who is primarily focused on something bad that might happen in the future, and makes them the two obvious emotions to compare and contrast.
And when you do so, the main contrast between them is this: whereas Anger is more proactive and rash, doing something about the situation that he is in whenever he sees it, Disgust is more self-conscious, thinking about the consequences (which is a similarity between her and Fear) and trying to prevent Anger from doing anything which the emotions might regret (even if, as seen in the movie, Anger overpowers Disgust and becomes Riley's deputy lead emotion).
Of course, Anger and Disgust don't get to work together a lot in Riley's mind, at least not without Fear as a "third wheel" and Anger's primary chewtoy. However, this is more of a consequence of Riley's Anger not being a fully realized version of Anger. This is especially obvious when comparing Riley's Anger to Bill's Anger; whereas Riley's Anger acts on impulse, Bill's Anger, as a lead emotion, is more of a commander, working in his bunker-esque mind.
We will get to how Disgust and Anger can work together later on. Now, there is a second aspect of Disgust that I plain haven't seen called out.

• 2. The cunning and planning talent of Disgust

You might know Fear as the one who, while on Dream Duty, is able to spot the obvious tropes in dreams and is consequently bored, not afraid as his name would suggest, during dreams. However, he cannot apply this knowledge well to prevent many disasters; in fact, the only disaster Fear successfully, if temporarily, prevents is that of Riley tripping over a wire when she is a toddler, and in the "present day" of Inside Out, Fear almost seems useless, only really existing to be Anger's aforementioned chewtoy.
However, Disgust not only has knowledge of her surroundings similar to that of Fear, but is able to successfully guide others through difficult circumstances.
There are two main examples of this in the movie proper. The first one comes when Fear tries to send himself away from Headquarters, purporting to be "quitting", only for such a measure to fail and for Disgust to proclaim "Emotions can't quit, genius!". The second one comes near the end of the movie, when Joy and Sadness are trapped behind a window, and Anger tries to slam a chair against the window and fails. Disgust, then, is quick to realize what exactly needs to be done, and aggravates Anger to the point where his head lights up in a flame, and uses that flame to break the window.
Of course, this character trait of hers is not without faults. Other preventative measures that Disgust has thought of have failed: for example, when she tried to disallow Anger from stealing Mom's credit card, she, like Fear, was not able to do much to make Anger change his mind. In addition, when she had the idea of making Riley feel scared to prevent the darkness from overtaking Riley's console, it was already too late, and only Sadness could really do anything about it.
However, even then, Disgust is not to be underestimated, and especially not when compared with Fear, who you might associate with planning ahead first and foremost.

• (no number) This is just Riley's Disgust. What about others?

Ah, yes, the Riley-centrism. Well, I haven't forgotten that Disgust exists in other minds too, and can talk about those. There are two main Disgusts, other than Riley's, that are noteworthy in this regard: Mom's Disgust, who has the most lines, and the Yeast of Eden cashier's Disgust, the only version of Disgust who is a lead emotion. Other Disgusts, if they do have lines, are reactionary side characters in their minds at best, and therefore, are not particularly worth analyzing.
Both versions of Disgust, as outlined previously, work in tandem with their respective Angers. Namely, Mom's Disgust and Anger are the first to "wage war" against Dad, seeing his incompetence, and the cashier's Disgust and Anger engage in a lackluster dialogue, primarily intended to make her focus away from her job and into whatever might be more favorable.
However, while Disgust seems to be necessarily working together with Anger, Anger does not seem to be necessarily working with Disgust. For example, Dad, who has Anger as his lead emotion, also has Fear as his second-in-command and the one who primarily engages in dialogue with him (though, both Fear and Disgust are involved in the two-key system that activates "the foot" in Dad's mind).
Oh, and I can't forget: remember how they moved away from a purple dress for Riley's Disgust? Well, Mom's Disgust does, indeed, wear a purple dress. Though, Mom's emotions in general seem to be the most developed out of any non-Riley mind (for example, her Sadness has a beaded necklace, which Mom herself lacks), so this is more of an observation about Mom than an observation about Disgust.
Which thus reminds me that we are getting sidetracked, because we're going to discuss Disgust (and by that, I mean Riley's Disgust, of course) and what other characterizations are there for her.
Who messed up and where

• 1. Official material

This is going to be veering into fanwork territory, but before it does, let me just get it out of the way: yes, there is indeed official, licensed Inside Out material that gets Disgust's characer wrong. What in particular am I talking about?
sigh
Inside Out: Thought Bubbles.
Yeah, I shouldn't be looking for amazing characterization in a cheap Puzzle Bobble clone which mainly subsists on microtransactions. And yet, even when the standard is so low, it still fails and gets Disgust wrong. How exactly?
Disclaimer: I have only played to level 133, and haven't even gotten to Fear yet; therefore, he will be omitted from the following section.
Let's look at what the Inside Out characters are supposed to be doing in there. Obviously, they retain their characterization when they are called for and become your "companion" in a level, are predominantly happy when you succeed and predominantly feel their emotion when you fail (with Joy, instead, trying to bring you up and/or find the bright side). A very simple framework to write characters in, and those should be done fairly nicely. Are they?

• Joy, who you start with, is done fairly well, and is, as you would expect, the most fun character to have around as a companion, even if her power is a bit useless in some levels. The only downside to her character is when she looks happily onto the board, even if there is no way you can clear anything or benefit yourself with your next move (especially if it's your last move and you're going to fail and lose a life), which I do find a bit irritating.
• Sadness, introduced in level 15, may actually have been done better than Joy, considering her character. Often, she either regrets appearing happy or "fakes" happiness, and while the movie itself sometimes has her be genuinely happy over what others consider depressing (the funny movie where the dog dies), Thought Bubbles does fine without it and limits her enjoyment to rain, which is a bit of a motif with her power too, and the completion of a level, which is similar to her finally finding her purpose in the movie.
• Anger, introduced in level 51, is also done well. He keeps his teeth gritted throughout various levels, and his happiness does appear either evil or menacing at times, whereas when you fail, he is concerned with fairness, as he is in the original movie.
• Disgust, introduced in level 126... you already know where this is going, don't you? Let's start.

To begin with, on the emotion selection screen, whereas Joy, Sadness and Anger are shown feeling their emotion, Disgust is shown with a smile. Not only is it creepy in and of itself, it is just so out of character for Disgust.
Then, once you actually hear Disgust, there is an obvious mismatch between her voice as she appears in the movie and as she appears in the game. The differences are subtle, but they're definitely there and if you ever get past at least a couple of levels you'll be stuck on, you'll notice it.
Yeah, Mindy Kaling might be a bit hard to get, but that's just showing another problem, which you might recognize for what it did to Steven Universe. Namely, its creators hired high-profile singers and performers to portray fusions, most notably Nicki Minaj as Sugilite, and then ran into trouble as these characters simply couldn't reappear with their original VAs. For SU, this is downright detrimental, as fusions can't appear often (or have to appear non-verbally) for a stupid out-of-universe reason, but for works where the celebrity VA plays a main role, as is the case with both Kaling and Amy Poehler, Joy's VA, the effect could be even worse, as these roles have to be re-cast, creating the dissonance between the voice in the original and in the licensed material.
Then, there are Disgust's lines, which are what the VA (Kaling or otherwise) reads and what the writers are supposed to write. In addition, those go in line with the poses, which are what the animators do, and what truly injects character. For Disgust, they range from her being embarrassed, which is what you would expect in the movie ("Uh, that didn't happen, right?") to her being focused on herself, which is so out of line when other emotions are focused on the board (when her power is used, she scratches her arm while going "Ew! Gross!"), to her downright reusing Anger's lines ("Seriously?"). And, of course, there's the absolutely impeccable transition from her being genuinely happy (not fake-happy like Sadness or gritted-teeth like Anger) when you get that combo to her being disgusted while looking at the table, as if that thing from a few seconds ago didn't happen at all.
Yeah. Even a mobile game can do better. And, given that right now, I am stuck on level 133, where Disgust is your only choice (levels where you only get to pick from one emotion, excluding their introductory levels, always seem to be the most difficult), between the RNG working against me, the limited lives feature and the misrepresentation of Disgust, I don't think I can get through it.
(The only other official material I'm familiar with, Driven by Emotions, actually does a fairly good job of capturing all the emotions and how they would narrate, including Disgust, so there's nothing noteworthy there.)

• 2. Fanworks

So, even official material gets it wrong, and it is pretty much contractually obligated to represent the movie as best as possible. What about fanfic, where there is no such restriction?
Let's start with HollyAnne1084, who names Disgust as her favorite character. Yet, her stories have a bit of a tendency of casting Disgust as "the damsel in distress" (her death and living life from infancy to adulthood again in Life After Death, multiple kidnappings in various stories and her having a concealed identity in A Promise is a Promise), which doesn't do her character justice at all; she is meant to be a side character whose cunning is an aid, but who just doesn't work as a main character, and especially not as who Holly tries to make her be.
In Life After Death in particular, this newly-growing-up teenage Disgust is cast as someone who needs protection. This protection seems to be against Anger, whose actions killed Disgust in the first place, yet somehow, the story develops into a point where Anger, himself, becomes the protector, and eventually, Disgust's romantic interest. It's a romance that just can't work out ordinarily, if Anger is responsible for Disgust's death like that (and if Disgust is significantly younger; though, she eventually does grow to adulthood in the story), but I guess it can work out according to Holly's logic.
It doesn't help at all that when Holly depicts her own mind, she casts Disgust as her lead, even when circumstances show the contrary. In particular, Alone (A True Story) has Sadness as the more dominant figure in Holly's life not too long before discovering Inside Out; as mentioned previously, Sadness is the "doom and gloom" character who would be focused on the fact that Holly's dad is a criminal, that there's no real way to change that and that Holly herself might be destined for a criminal life. Of course, if she were ever to do so (which I simply don't wish for her, or anyone, for that matter), Disgust and Anger would be in the lead in her mind, but since she, herself, is wary of the consequences, Fear, as well as Sadness, are much more suited to be Holly's leads.
Beyond Holly, though, OOC versions of Disgust are a dime a dozen. There is only one other example that made me cringe and that I remembered long after reading it, which, once again, comes from Disgust's interaction with Anger. Namely, in it Anger says something sarcastic, and for some reason, Disgust objects, claiming that it's her job to be sarcastic.
Of course, when I first read it, I was under the impression that Anger, not Disgust, is "the sarcastic one", and that's why it made me cringe. However, looking back on it, such casual pointing out of characterizations is so out of place anyway, and looks like it would eventually be expanded into a full-on breaking of the fourth wall, which is not what we want at all.
...Unless we're talking about my own parodies, where fourth wall breaking happens on a regular basis. Let's just talk about those, then I'm done.
Epilogue: Disgust as she appears in Andersen's Mind
Wouldn't be an essay by me without me getting self-indulgent. What can I say? We were veering into fanwork territory.
I'll admit it: at first, even I got Disgust's character wrong and didn't think how it would fit into the mind framework that I was parodying. Andersen's Mind - Trailer 2: Behind the Scenes claims that "Disgust steps in as a leader in Joy's absence" (wrong; that's Anger), and only later in the video, we get Disgust's character that I stuck with, namely trying to appease Joy (and, whenever he plans, Anger) and being faithful to her to a fault.
I feel confident with this characterization for two reasons. One, it moves Andersen's Mind Disgust so far away from her Inside Out counterpart, which is a necessity in order to parody Inside Out, rather than try and write a fanwork as a fan of it, which would require Disgust to be perfectly in-character. Two, it acknowledges an archetype of subtitle parody character, the yes-man, only really seen in the form of Joseph Goebbels/Skeletor in Downfall parodies and not in any other derivative parody theme.
So, being a sort of "it just feels right" I gravitated to while writing Andersen's Mind, developing Disgust's character has led to a video called Andersen's Mind - Moments: Disgust, which is, to date, the only Andersen's Mind video that exclusively focuses on one character, and in particular, how Disgust interacts with her surroundings. What can this video tell us about my own variety of Disgust?
The most noteworthy segments in this regard are the second segment and the third segment. The second segment, on its own, has Joy purport that the worst-case scenario for the emotions would be to be stuck in a Pixar movie. While this is far from a statement to be taken seriously, as Pixar, in particular, are much more capable of poignant stories, Disgust's sudden reaction to "Remy from Ratatouille" makes others consider the possibility, and therefore the idea of Pixar being a sub-par animation studio, seriously.
Meanwhile, the third segment points out Disgust's sarcasm capabilities, which I already discussed extensively. However, it also points out how she sees Joy as an authority, and therefore, as seen in other "Joy plans" parodies, feels the need to stick up to her.
And that, roughly, is my own parody variety of Disgust. Distinct from the canon variety, yet, a memorable and fallible character on her own.
As well as proof that while Disgust is easy to misrepresent, she also has a lot of unseen potential as a character in fanworks.
Let's call my status "semi-back". I'm still not posting every Andersen's Mind video that I make, as soon as I make it, and currently, I only have one more essay in mind, but I am ready to discuss Inside Out (and, to a lesser extent, other Pixar movies), whether here, on /Pixar or on the Discord server I co-admin (no link because this is not an ad).
Alright. Let's go. Tell me how I'm wrong.

The World of Steven Universe is full of mysteries. The writers have said there "are no filler" episodes, and the theory is that when you have 11 minutes to tell a part of your story, especially in a labor intensive medium such as cartoons, every detail may be significant. This series of posts will explore interesting, weird, and/or unexplained bits of each episode. I will be inspecting any and everything that strikes my fancy - many details will be insignificant and probably amount to nothing more than world-building or just-for-fun fluff, but since there is literally nothing better to do until this, the post-Steven Bomb 4 Hiatus ends, I'm going go....Full Ronaldo.
Explanation of layout: I will record my observations in the order they occur while watching the episode. I will also make a note of whether the "mystery" or theory invoked has been Resolved, Partially Resolved, or remains Unresolved. In some cases there may not be any clear need for a resolution, where I will simply not list a status. To qualify as Partially Resolved, there needs to be significant evidence to support the theory. To qualify as entirely Resolved, the theory should be explicitly confirmed either by images or preferably explained by a character. This should go without saying, but there can and will be spoilers. I will do my best to avoid spoilers of unaired (leaks, aka advance spoilers) content, but I may reference storyboard or cut material. Consider yourself warned.
Episode 3: Cheeseburger Backpack
Note: I'm sorry all my screencaps are dim, I'm watching via Hulu and it does that when you pause.
Preamble
Aw hell yeah, now we are getting to the real meat and potatoes of this show. The most pervasive mystery in this series is that it would seem that Gems have been on earth longer than possibly even humans. Their tech and structures have been around long enough that humans seem to just completely ignore it. It is a common trope in a lot of sci-fi/fantasy that "normal" people will just ignore things that are too strange - for examples of this, check out the works of Terry Pratchett, specifically anything involving the character of Death. That's a bit of a tangent but the point is, there are these MASSIVE structures, seemingly all over the place judging by the maps in It Could Have Been Great, but they seem relatively undisturbed except for the decay of time and nature.
These structures are arguably the biggest clues to unlocking the history of Gems on earth, so expect any episode showing places important to the Gems to be longer posts - but hopefully also more mysterious!
Item 1: Steven Star Eyes Count 6
Steven is excited because he thinks he finally has found a way to become a helpful member of the Crystal Gems.
Item 2: Previous Mission (Status: Unresolved)
It would appear that the mission the CG's have just returned from involved retrieving the Moon Goddess Statue. They are covered in feathers and have a giant egg with stars on it.
My first thought was, we've only see one giant "bird" in all of Steven Universe, perhaps this egg belonged to that Gem Monster which would explain why the Roc attacked Amethyst, Pearl and Steven. Then common sense returned and I remembered that Gems almost certainly do not lay eggs of any kind. Furthermore, the Roc-type Gem Monster is highly unusual compared to other Gem Monsters we see making it even less likely to lay an egg, but we will talk about that in the episode for Giant Woman.
So, thus I conclude that there is actually a giant earth bird somewhere laying eggs, or else a normal sized earth bird laying giant eggs. Yeeowch
Item 3: The Moon Goddess Statue (Status: Unresolved)
This object is VERY unusual when you consider it in the context of all the gems we see in the show. I don't know how much of the earlier object designs are or will be considered retconned later on - the fact that we see Connie's bracelet and centipeetle in the very first episode implies to me that continuity, at least the continuity of plot objects, is very important to the writers. It's been said that Rebecca Sugar has a "Steven Universe Bible" of sorts that has the entire plot & storyline mapped out. I believe it.
There are several reasons this item is unusual. Let's take a look
The first thing off the bat is that this is a made object - there is a small blue gem embedded in a sculpture. We will come to see a number of objects involving embedded Gems, but for the post part they are considered "Gem Powered Objects" - the Gem is embedded in the object to give it non-static powers: Lapis's mirror, the pyramid gem, the desert gem, possibly the lighthouse gem, the Clocktower in the SU comic books. All of these Gem-powered objects are able to affect and interact with the world around them.
This gem does not exhibit such powers, though that's only saying we do not see it exhibit such powers. Rather, it seems intended to function as a key. At first glance, I've always assumed the base of the statue to be a second gem which would be even more unusual, but upon reflection, I believe it is only the carved base of the statue, and the lighter color is derived from the carving technique having a different effect compared to the technique used to carve the female form.
Getting to that now - the design of the statue is also very interesting. "She" appears to have the same shape/physical characteristics as Rose Quartz, and the similarities don't end there. It's hard to tell due to the placement of the statue's arms, but it looks like she might be wearing a strapless dress similar to the one Rose Quartz wears. She has long hair and a dreamy, closed-eyed expression similar to that shown in Rose's painting. Here again we see the an eye-related motif. Closed eyes may represent the state of being unaffected by or uninterested in worldly matters. Or it can represent an artist who has trouble doing eyes. Welcome to shrug city, P
Considering the events of The Test, this entire episode could have been called "Second Guess Everything When You Rewatch It Later"
There are also diamonds shown on the "stomach" area of the statue, reminiscent of the placement of gem on Rose Quartz's body. I believe these diamonds are simply the light being refracted through the blue gem onto the statue - however, that does not make this insignificant. The blue gem is being held in front of the torso/chest. We see this pose more and more as the series goes on. The only thing that gives me pause is the position of the statue's hands - compare this to the way that White Diamond is depicted in the tower on the moon. The statue's fingers are parallel to the ground, while this position is shown with the fingers held vertically in all other cases. Then there is the "wrist cross" pose that we see Peridot perform, and Pearl also performs (around her face/head) during the extended opening. There are three chakra aligned along the torso between the chest and the stomach, and interestingly enough they include the green and yellow chakra. I'm not sure if this is relevant or not yet.
Item 4 - The Mission (Status: Semi-resolved)
"We have to place the Moon Goddess Statue at the top of the Lunar Sea Spire by midnight or the whole place will collapse!"
By midnight? Midnight on the dot? Okay Pearl, that seems pretty specific but let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Even though time is based on the earth's rotation on its axis, and the moon's orbit around the earth ain't got nothing to do with it. It's a Lunar Sea Spire - not only has it got the inconstant moon all up in it's business, but the ocean too, and when those two troublemakers get together all sorts of wacky hijinks can happen. We can hazard a guess that something something, waxing and waning of the moon, its periodic orbit around the earth blah blah, rising and falling of tides, yadda yadda, incrementally undermining the foundation of this ancient structure until it reaches a critical threshold of stability.
I want to believe you Pearl, but we all know you're a dirty liar.
Item 5 - The History of the World As Told By Pearl (Status: Unresolved)
Alright, so a year ago when I started watching this show, this episode was what really grabbed my attention. I've mentioned before the central mystery of, what was the role of Gems on earth. Everything Pearl is about to tell us, we have to question, even moreso in light of everything we learned as of It Could Have Been Great in regards to what the plan was for Earth by Yellow Diamond, not to speak of any of the other Diamonds. We learned a lot in Steven Bomb 4, and that information is going to be the basis for most of our discussions in trying to analyze what we see and are told in these early episodes.
You should have seen it in it's heyday. The structure of the Lunar Sea Spire is remarkably similar to the Sky Fortress seen in The Answer. That and other evidence I'm about to point out, not least of all the fact that it's a GIANT HONKING 13 STORY TOWER BUILT ON THE SEA BED CALLED THE LUNAR SEA SPIRE would indicate that this tower was built for and by Blue Diamond.
It was an oasis for gems on earth!. Oh man. So much just in this single shot. First of all, I can see why Gems would want an oasis on earth, after facing the horrors of this terrible, hell-like planet. Hmm, wait, maybe something more like this or this is what Pearl was thinking of.
Maybe I should have started with the central focus of this shot. That statue remind you of anyone?? I want to assume that it is Blue Diamond but at this point, I really don't feel safe doing so. If we assume this statue is a water fountain, and that is water coming down from the bowl and her lower hands, it would confirm that water is the elemental domain of blue gems - however, we do not know about the powers of any of the diamonds yet, we actually have very little information on this topic still.
There are a number of statues shown later on that also bear a resemblance to this one, mainly in the episode Steven the Sword Fighter. Here on the right, we see a statue or carving depicted with a moon-type symbol, whose hair, body shape and facial expression resembles that of the Moon Goddess Statue. There's a statue not shown in the first clip, directly across from the "Moon Goddess" wearing the same style hood.
One of the biggest arguments against the idea that this statue in the Lunar Sea Spire is depicting Blue Diamond is the two pairs of arms. I'm not a subscriber to the theory that the Diamonds are fusions. I could come up with plenty of arguments explaining the depiction of 2 pairs of arms on a non-fusion Gem in a statue, not the least of which being "It's art you uncultured swine!" This is a recollection of Pearl's and unfortunately we never see this statue "in real life" to get more detail.
This shot is very important in my opinion because it also depicts other figures. When this episode first aired, we had no frame of reference to know whether they were all meant to be Gems, or a combination of Gems and humans interacting. The way Pearl talks about it, and how the Crystal Gems go on about "protecting humanity" and "saving the day" gave a very different impression early on in the series about Gems and humans coexisting, compared to what we come to find out is the actual reality.
Item 6 - Steven Star Eyes Count 7
Steven is finally on a Gem mission!
Item 7 - Steven's Heritage
Pearl is the only one who ever seems to care about Steven's heritage, or about preserving Gem tech on earth, and even then it's hit or miss. I wonder if we will see a pattern emerge of what Pearl cares about versus what she doesn't when we have more of her backstory and timeline. Perhaps she is only nostalgic of places that she experienced before turning renegade, or places she associates with that pre-war time. If my theory that this place was an "oasis" after the creation of the Kindergartens started to affect the landscape of earth, that starts to give us more clues about the timeline of the Gem Civil War on earth. It will also back up theories I have on Rose Quartz and her motivations.
However, I am not ready to assume that Pearl experienced this location at it's prime herself. She may have heard of it, or extrapolated what it was like based on her past experiences with Gem gathering places. If she experienced this place herself, when it was still being used for its intended purpose, with such a nostalgic attitude, then she must have still been a member of Gem society when she first came to earth, and went Renegade later. That seems to make sense in the context of the storyline as we know it so far.
Item 8 - The Vortex
We've seen Lapis in action. We know that she is incredibly overpowered compared to other Gems thusfar. We don't know if the vortex is created by technology(some kind of engine), magic, or a combination of both. It would seem that it has continued to exist without intervention for some time.
Based on what we see later in the episode and how the Moon Goddess Statue is designed to be used intercepting the beam of moonlight to the tower, I have a theory. There is some kind of Gem engine within this spire. When the Moon Goddess Statue is placed at the top, it channels some kind of light energy, manipulates or transfigures it, and the energy is then stored in some kind of battery/generator that continues to power the engine.
In terms of what we know about blue gems, this doesn't seem to far-fetched. They deal with "flow" - water and time specifically are the ones we know about. Sapphire is attuned to one directional flow of time and can predict likely outcomes. When she fuses with Garnet, a gem whose strengths lie in explosive energy, combustion, fire, it scatters the flow and branches - we know that Garnet also has some electrical power which is generally depicted a combination of fire and "water" elementally. If you've watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, firebenders can create and control lighting by using bending techniques that are similar to waterbending so I'm not just totally pulling this out of my ass.
My first point here is that there is some kind of narrative being told to us, via background images and clues scattered throughout the series, involving this tower, (blue) gems with water power, the moon and some kind of gem associated with the moon, possibly a white gem.
Just to return to the whole statue thing, it's very unusual that Pearl refers to it as a Goddess as we never hear that term used again on this show outside of specifically talking about this statue.
The vortex appears to be sucking the water down and doing ??? with it, before it can reach the structure of the spire. So this is not a bubble or forcefield - it's suction. This is the second instance of a sucking-type device on this show, shown to be very powerful.
In re-reading this section, I'm asking myself, what is the point of the spire in the first place. Surely there are more convenient locations for a dirty great spire than at the bottom of the sea.
Item 9 - Steven Diamond Eyes 1
Determined Steven!
Look familiar?
Item 10 - Horses and Lions
On the wall next to the spiral stairs leading up, we see 4-legged animals. They appear to have horse-shapes but at least one is holding it's tail erect.
It's interesting to me that they would show land-animal depictions, on a structure in the middle of an ocean, when all the other decorations we see are geometric abstract designs or gem statues which leads me to Items 11 and 12.
Item 11 - Diamonds and Triangles
Diamonds and triangles everywhere. There were also plenty of diamonds on the outside of the spire.
Item 12 - Gem Busts
Walking up the stairs/down the hallway, we see a bust in the background. It shows a figure that may have had arms similar to Sugilite, 2 pairs of forearms, joined at the elbow. There is no visible gem.
Continuing on, a second statue in the wall niche, same as the previous one.
And then a third statue, same arm style, no visible gem depicted.
Item 13 - HoloPearl and the Crystal Shrimps (Status:Unresolved)
We know from Steven the Sword Fighter and Beach Party that Pearl is capable of generating multiple holograms with sufficient combat strength...why does she generate holograms to show the other two what to do when she is capable of just creating holograms that can just...do that. This is a scene where I'm like wtf Pearl. If this was a test for Steven all along, why not include him in the combat plan? Was the point of the test just to see if Steven could simply accompany a mission without making things worse? (In which case...failed.) She claims the crystal shrimp are deadly which I'm forced to conclude is more lies.
"Don't touch that! Their shards are deadly!"
Crystal shrimp are another oddity in the SU world. They look and act like Gem Monsters, but as far as we know, they have no gems - Pearl specifically refers to them as "shards". Are they gem shards? Or is "crystal" a special term in regards to gem life? In that case, what is the significance of the team calling themselves the "Crystal" Gems?
I have a partial theory on this, and it also ties into my theory about Rose Quartz and her motivations. I'm not quite ready to go into that theory yet.
"Bagel sandwich!"
IF THESE ARE GEM LIFE FORES WHY ARE THEY INTERESTED IN EATING BAGELS? MAYBE THEY AREN'T EATING, JUST INVESTIGATING BUT STILL, THIS IS SO RANDOM.
This may just be a gag...but then again, maybe not...
Great, now I want a bagel.
Item 14 - Watch Out! (Status:Resolved)
Early clues to Garnet's future vision. I'm not counting when Garnet said earlier that she "sensed some instability" because I'm pretty sure that was a Garnet Joke.
Item 15 - Triangles
So many triangles up here on the roof.
Item 16 - What next Pearl?
Let's ask ourselves, what would have happened if Steven HAD been successful and brought the Moon Goddess Statue. I don't believe that it would have restored the spire. According to my theory above, they were merely re-charging the generator that keeps the water away from the spire, which would have bought them more time. Since they failed, the water came crashing in, destroying the already weakened tower. The high level of humidity, salt in the air and the suction from the vortex below is probably what caused the decrepitude of the spire. They would have had to restore the spire themselves after the moon-statue ritual, which begs the question of, if you had know this spire was here the whole time Pearl, why weren't you taking care of it and checking on it before now? It all goes back to The Test but still.
So as I was saying, whether this is a test or not, Pearl is going on and on about Steven's heritage and taking it seriously and blah blah. IF the spire had not been destroyed, what were you going to tell Steven Pearl? How much of his Gem Heritage would you have revealed?
Furthermore, as much as I love a field trip, if you're able to conjure images of the structure with your Gem...why not just TELL Steven about it while projecting slides for him to see how it looked?
Ultimately, I don't want to say that this episode's writing was weak, despite how much I am criticising it. It just had a different agenda, which is building on what we know about Steven and his interactions with the Gems. We get plunged into this complex world and it takes off at 0-60 from the start, but what I think gets lost in translation is that we are actually watching Steven's journey into the world of the Gemkind from the beginning. Steven admits that he "doesn't ask follow up questions" and generally accepts what he is told at face value a lot - something that begins to change later, but for now we need to realize that Steven has been living with the Gems, seeing them go off on and return from missions, without really knowing what's up. Based on the extended intro, I believe Steven has lived with the Gems for a little while, perhaps several months to a year. We are with him on the ride as he actually starts involves himself with what the Gems are doing on earth. The show is told from the point of view of Steven, and thusfar, everything HE knows, WE know - everything WE don't know, HE doesn't know.
That's why these early episodes can feel so painful and why it's easy to dislike Steven for people just getting into the show from the beginning, because we want Steven to be as curious about everything as we are, but he keeps sabotaging his chances at learning more, and never asking for more info.
Finally, I believe that Garnet knew Steven was going to fail to save the spire, and that's why Steven was able to take this "Test". She and Pearl conspire through the series to hide information from Steven - they both know what is at stake. If there was a chance they would have had to explain things to Steven, they wouldn't have used THIS as a test for his first mission.
Item 17 - Crystal Shrimp Redux
Do you think Crystal Shrimp can breathe underwater? If they like bagels, I'm not going to assume they are like Gems and don't need to breathe. This episode is so very perplexing.
END OF EPISODE
Edit: Wow I botched that title.