After this episode, I too wanted pizza with family.

Analysis on Steven Reacts (Part 1: LaPizza)

Let’s talk about Steven Reacts. In quick summary, the short is about Steven watching the newest episode of Crying Breakfast Friends in a YouTube-reaction-style video. The short itself brings out a lot of meta-references to fandoms, cartoons, and of course, hiatuses.

It’s not news that Crying Breakfast Friends has been likened to Steven Universe in the past. It’s a show about crying, singing food items within a show about crying, singing physical manifestations of light, and rocks.

While I’m certain that this won’t be the first post talking about the parallels between CBF and SU, what I do want to contribute to the discussion are the implications of the events in “Party Crashers,” because we are not only given a preview into possible resolutions in conflict, but also greater insight into characters. It is in this vein that I want to discuss the mini-sode. With that, let’s get right to it.

CBF’s plotline in this episode centres on the arrival of three mysterious new characters called the “Angry Lunch Enemies,” whose goal is to toss out breakfast and institute a new reign of lunch. 

It is very interesting how these characters first appear. They come in a strangely shaped vessel.

There happen to be three lunch items, ordered in a particular way.

And the entire scene mirrors how we first encounter the Homeworld Trio when they arrive in The Return. We are introduced to Jasper, a sandwich. Big, imposing, aggressive. To one side we have Peridot. Initially antagonistic, with Hamburger going as far as to make Pear cry. And then we have Pizza, who doesn’t say much of anything, really. And it’s very similar to Lapis’ demeanor when we first see her back. 

So let’s talk about that, in reverse order. Even before arrival, Lapis is afraid. She doesn’t feel at home in a Homeworld to which she’s been clinging for hundreds of years.  She feels threatened and she decides to play it safe and keep her cards close to the chest. When she arrives on the Hand Ship, she doesn’t say anything unless first asked by Jasper. The only time she intervenes is when she feels Steven was put in danger. But even then, had she not spoken, we wouldn’t have known she cared about Steven. She’s very adept at presenting impassivity. As I’ve mentioned multiple times before, it’s a survival mechanism of hers.

When we look at Pizza, it’s much the same. Here is a character going with the flow. Everyone’s angry-looking, so I’ll follow suit, but I don’t really want believe in this, so I won’t say anything. I think it’s also interesting how threatening Pizza looks when they arrive. Pizza looks as angry as the other Lunches. And that’s something we have to consider. If the Breakfast Friends are qualified by their crying, the Lunch Enemies are qualified by their anger.

And Lapis is angry. She’s been hurt, trapped, forgotten. More than anything, she feels short-changed. Several times now, Lapis has conducted herself in a manner far higher than what we know her to be: A civilian. It shows in how powerful she is, in a way Jasper and Peridot could not have predicted. Lapis Lazulis are common enough on Homeworld that Peridot, even without her data devices, would be able to tell Steven about them. Jasper framed fusing with Lapis as helping the latter. Jasper saw Lapis as weak, and willing to borrow someone’s strength to exact revenge. She completely underestimated what she was getting into.

 Lapis knows she deserves better, and when she first came back to Earth, she was angry and destructive. She’s a plain cheese pizza with no toppings left to lose.

And this explains why she was so willing to just entomb herself with Jasper at the bottom of the ocean. At one point, Lapis tells Jasper, “It wasn’t relevant to the mission!” This implies that she knew what the mission was: Evaluating the growth of the Cluster. Lapis knew Earth was a ticking time bomb, yet she chose to stay. Her behaviour speaks of someone with nothing left. This is in stark contrast to the Lapis who told Steven to “Do whatever they tell us,” so that “Maybe they’ll go easy on us” in Jail Break. Lapis has given up trying to find her place back on Homeworld. It’s a huge transgression to hurt another gem for no reason. Gems are a precious resource and Quartzes, more so. When Lapis decided to trap Jasper, she decided at that point that she wasn’t going to try to make her way back any more. There was no going back.

What was going on in Malachite? From Alone at Sea, we know that Lapis wasn’t just holding Jasper down. In Lapis’ words, “I took everything out on you, and I liked it.” There was a lot of punishment going on. Lapis, who felt she lost all control, was trying to gain some of it back. She was hurting and wanted someone to be miserable with her. “Let’s stay on this miserable planet, TOGETHER,” she said.

I think at this point, it can’t be said that Lapis kept Jasper down for so long only to “protect Steven.”  There was a lot of personal wrath she was unleashing, and it wasn’t all directed towards Jasper. That Malachite came out of the waters and attacked the CGs in Super Watermelon Island shows that Lapis still had a vendetta against the Crystal Gems.

So this is the first in a series of posts I’m doing about the Minisode, gearing up towards a character update for Lapis and Peridot. I’ll explain my absence in a bit, and as always, I’ll link to the other posts when they’re finished :D If you liked this post, you might like the others in the series: Part 1- Lapizza Part 2- Periburger Part 3- Jaspwich

Okay, last set of pictures, because I really want to write something down now.

Those last few minutes were so intense. At least we’ll always have this moment.

I get the reference now. Ribbons.

Some pretty stills from the newest episode. SU always has the best desktop background material.

My favourite is the day-night juxtaposition, but “Sitting on the Pizza Shore” is a really close second.

This show does some great things with cheeks.

Me on Friday afternoons: I’m gonna stay up late and do all the fun things I put aside when there’s school!

Me on Friday nights:

Kiki is proud of Steven for wearing a headband like hers. 100% what happened here.

I really want to go to the cheese rave in the pizza cave.

It rhymes so you know it’s good. Please?

Do you look at this moment and just think “My family daily <3″

If not, I will make this my family daily.

I’m going to take a break and come back with analyses :D 

Fryman has seen some things.

Like father like daughter.

No new episode is completely without a compilation of adorable Steven faces.