I Dont Have Toomuch To Say On The New Episode Quite Yet (processing It, For The Most Part) But My Personal

I don’t have too much to say on the new episode quite yet (processing it, for the most part) but my personal two cents on something going on with Lapis:

Lapis has been doing a lot of personal recovery, in generally getting her feet under her and building up some kind of control she can assert over her situation.

At the same time, though, because of this, she’s also starting to vent her frustrations more- she’s not walking on eggshells as much around the Crystal Gems and she’s not afraid to say what she already said in Ocean Gem.

Lapis never believed in Earth. Not that she never saw value in it, not that she never liked it- but that she never thought it was worth it. And that isn’t something that evaporated because Steven showed her Jersey. If anything, her opinions towards Earth have come to fester a lot because she’s aware that she has pretty much zero say in staying on Earth. Even outside of whether or not she’s punished for attacking Jasper, there’s no real place for her to return to.

That is not an environment that ameliorates resentment, and what we see coming out of Lapis on the subject is just that: resentment.

There’s a hunk of Lapis’s feelings that are not going to move until they actually come into play. People are acting like we’re past Lapis’s equivalent of Catch And Release (comparing her arc to Peridot’s) but we really aren’t yet.

I’ve said this before, but that’s just it- Jasper and Peridot both immediately established themselves because they had Something To Fight For. They threw their cards on the table, face up, and this drove them into direct conflict with the Crystal Gems, and this is why we really know them at this point.

Lapis is still playing poker. Sure, she might’ve slid Steven one of her cards, because she felt like he was entitled to an explanation in Same Old World and she likes him- but she’s still got a full hand and even that one card, we have no idea what context that plays in.

I really don’t think we’re going to get to know Lapis quietly because she feels like opening up. I feel like before we really get an answer to that question from Mirror Gem- who did Lapis used to be- what we’re going to get is, if I had to guess…

Steven, in his desire to help people, is going to try very hard to get Lapis unstuck. And he’s going to succeed. Lapis is going to find something to fight for. And the rest of the main cast is going to be reminded, rather harshly, of the fact that Lapis was really not ever on their team.

She was playing along because it was convenient. Because she had nowhere else to go. Because it wasn’t worth it to pick a battle and actually fight it, so she kept quiet enough that the Crystal Gems backed off.

The peace Lapis currently is in is stagnation, and if we want to move forwards with her character, in a meaningful way, we need to lovingly take a sledgehammer to it.

And what this episode did was remind us that Lapis isn’t everybody’s friend, she’s a powerful, dissatisfied neutral party who’s abiding by a ceasefire. And I don’t say this to demean either Lapis or the Crystal Gems, or suggest Lapis is evil because she’s not being friends- she’s not doing it to be mean or to be a “bad guy”.

Lapis is doing it because at this point there’s a lot of ways the Crystal Gems and their crusade seem to have ruined her entire social standing and prewar life- and she’s allowed to be bitter. She’s allowed to not drop everything and nestle in Garnet’s arms just because they’re her only option at this point.