Lapidot Fear Comic Tumblr Lapis Leaving Me Again

The fifth original graphic novel for Steven Universe, Crystal Clean, is a new story about a mysterious Gem whose sludge-controlling powers make a mess of the embankment. It'due south new content–dissimilar some of the trade paperbacks that collect previously released individual problems of the comics. It is written by Talya Perper, with illustrations by S.K. Mara and a cover by Jamie Loughran.

This story seems similar a pretty typical "chase the monster of the day and salvage Beach City" plot at first, but it'due south got some delightfully complex interaction–including some complicated guilt issues left over from the Precious stone War, some interaction betwixt Cadet and his begetter, and some nuanced exam of Peridot'south feelings toward Lapis's absence. (The action appears to take place after "Letters to Lars" but earlier the events of "Tin can't Become Back.") The whole concept of existence willing to confront a mess bigger than you lot are is examined sensitively and finer in this graphic novel. Y'all can wait beneath for an exam of the plot and some noteworthy observations for fans, including lots of pics.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

The story:

It's time to clean the Temple in a belated summer leap cleaning, and everyone's excited–or at least determined–except, predictably, Amethyst. But they buckle down and deep clean the whole living space, including the refrigerator and the difficult-to-clean areas.

Peridot is not being asked to help with the cleaning. She is however living in the bath, heartbroken over Lapis leaving and taking the barn with her. Steven is sympathetic. Amethyst, not so much. But when they finally finish and earn a beach day, they run out to the shore in their fun-in-the-sun outfits simply to detect that there's weird green sludge all over the sand.

And what's worse: the residents of Beach City assume the Gems did something to cause the mess and they're furious. Yellowtail even thinks he saw Steven skulking effectually messing things up, while Kofi thinks since the Gems live on the beach and would have seen who did it if information technology wasn't them, it's their problem and they need to fix it. To Amethyst'southward intense dismay, they find themselves cleaning the embankment and agreeing to take hold of whoever made the mess, because it certainly wasn't them! After the second intense cleaning of the day, they're not in the mood for a beach day, and they figure they'll come back in the morning to get their 24-hour interval off.

Just when they venture out over again, the embankment is back to being covered in green slime. Who's doing this?? As they search the embankment for clues, Steven sees something shocking. It'due south indisputable that this weird slimy light-green effigy is involved somehow. Only what's not so clear is why information technology looks like a doppelganger of Steven!

The gross lilliputian figure is mean and fast. They requite chase, upsetting some townspeople in the process, and oddly enough, when they effort to fight the slime animal, it is able to re-mold its body and escape–much like the h2o clones Lapis Lazuli used against them during their outset meeting.

They go along to pursue and the Gems are incapacitated by the slime animate being throwing slime in their eyes. Steven is spared because he is able to block information technology with his shield. He continues to hunt it every bit it runs toward the car wash, warning his dad about it equally it turns into a slime bird and attacks. Greg reflexively sprays it with a hose. The monster is stopped immediately, but in all the leftover slime, Steven can't notice a Gem.

With the townspeople yet angry and the Gems still confused about what they're fighting, they make up one's mind to bring in some special knowledge: they consult Peridot. They want her expertise to fight the real culprit with water, merely Peridot is hands reminded of Lapis when it comes to contesting with water, and they're all unhappy having to ask her to help them when she'due south mourning.

Only Peridot is very much needed at this time, and the other Gems are able to convince her to work on a water-based weapon. She agrees and takes a machine Greg uses at the machine wash, maxim she could develop it into a water blaster if she had a common Gem-based water converter chosen a Cloud Crystal. Luckily, the Gems have admission to a place that uses them: the Sky Spire.

The Gems are able to excerpt a Cloud Crystal from under the h2o at the Sky Spire. Peridot demonstrates how it is able to pull water vapor out of the air to generate water. Only they have to leave quickly because birds attack. (Non Gem birds. Just regular birds. Steven won't allow the Gems hurt the birds, and then they only retreat.) And and so, only a few hours later, Peridot has created her new masterpiece: the Pressurized Hydro-Kinetic Crystalline Device, or P.H.1000.C.D for brusk. Steven calls it the "Hydro-Pack" instead, and learns to employ the features.

While testing out the hovering feature, Steven sees the slime monster again, so the Gems pursue. They attack it without destroying it completely, and every bit it begins to retreat, the Gems follow. They discover information technology jumping through pipes and off roofs, culminating in an attack on Ronaldo. Some of the sludge gets in his oral cavity and he claims it tastes like avocado. Hmmm. They make up one's mind maybe this Gem monster is sending out Gemless doppelgangers considering it'due south stuck in one fundamental spot with admission to this avocado-based goop. Time for some detective work.

The town council meets, which includes many of the business concern owners and local families. The Gems explain they're looking for sources on big amounts of avocado in the expanse, and Kiki brings upwardly the Guacola incident from a while dorsum–when Greg'southward former manager Marty came to boondocks equally a representative of the gross avocado soda Guacola and tried to use Sour Foam's DJ skills to promote the product. Discussion of Guacola all of a sudden makes Mr. Dewey very anxious. He begins spitting out weird explanations of how there are probably cans of the soda buried around and the Gems should search for them, and so he moves to end the meeting. Steven is suspicious, and then he receives a mysterious note.

Ordered to come up alone to a manhole behind the Big Donut, Steven ignores orders and brings Peridot–who in his estimation, won't hold him back from dangerous investigations similar the other Gems will. When they get to the coming together place, Peridot finds out what a sewer is. (She finds it, and the entire concept of the human digestive system, icky.) The originator of the note turns out to be Buck Dewey, who has information to share with Steven.

Turns out that afterward Dewey lost the election, the Dewey family was left struggling financially with merely the income from the Big Donut, then he eventually went back to a previously rejected offer from Guacola to keep a storage silo on Beach City property. At present at that place's a Guacola silo on Dewey's personal property (and the Dewey family collects rent), but the silo is poorly constructed and is now leaking. Buck wasn't willing to blame his dad in front of everyone at the meeting, simply he figured Steven would understand that and exist able to have care of the state of affairs. Before they tin can resolve much of anything, they're attacked again by avocado sludge and take to leave the meeting. Buck agrees to requite them access to the silo the side by side day.

Steven has to accept a little pep talk with Peridot before they motility forward with the programme. She's very emotionally affected thinking this Gem might be like Lapis considering its powers, and she's afraid of how she'll react facing the Gem and worries she'll mess it up like she did with Lapis. But Steven needs her, and so they become to the Dewey residence, where they meet Buck with an epic h2o gun. And lo and behold, in the center of the avocado pile is a teardrop-shaped Precious stone, and information technology'southward cracked.

Buck, Steven, and Peridot fight the muck that begins attacking, but it creates doppelgangers of them likewise and they're unable to keep up. Luckily, the other Crystal Gems make it with reinforcements; Garnet and Pearl have water guns and Amethyst has water balloons! They have a pretty good stand (while Mr. Dewey comes out and flips out over the monsters), but the silo cracks and releases the biggest monster of all, and then the Gems have no choice only to bring out their best weapons as well.

Amethyst and Garnet fuse, and Sugilite is definitely a friction match for this slime monster. She's strong and not afraid to get messy. But every bit the battle continues, the creature emits a noise that has an emotional event on Sugilite. She shouts out an apology, while Steven has no thought what this means and turns to Pearl for an explanation. Reluctantly, Pearl discloses that this Gem was once a Crystal Jewel likewise and this dissonance is her distress signal. A bespeak she once emitted during a boxing–and the other Gems could not rescue her.

Pearl regrets that they tried to run to this Gem's rescue only were unable to assist in time, and because of their inability to aid, the Gem had been shattered and cached somewhere and then she couldn't be plant. They never found her, though the images of the story imply that Rose'south tears reached the buried Gem and partially healed it, though it remained croaky. Pearl calls it a mess that can't exist cleaned upward, but Steven is determined, and uses his hydro-pack to go later on the Gem itself at the center of the mess.

In his protective bubble, Steven finds the Jewel, apologizes for how long it took for them to detect her, and heals the crack before immediately bubbling the Jewel. The monsters deliquesce, Sugilite unfuses, and Steven sends the Gem to the temple. Dewey and Cadet agree they need to find a better fashion to brand ends meet and need to go rid of the Guacola silo. And Steven confronts Pearl regarding this Gem's identity, at which betoken Garnet and Pearl acknowledge to having suspected information technology was this mystery Gem because their history with her indicated the doppelganger attacks were in her skill gear up. They didn't admit it because they didn't feel comfortable including Steven in knowing that role of their history. Like Peridot, they weren't gear up.

In the aftermath, Steven declares that he'southward prepare for the hard stuff because Earth is worth it, and they get out Dewey with his mess to clean up. And then they have their well-deserved beach day, even getting an apology from Kofi about not helping. And this time, Peridot does join them. Inspired by the way their group has taken on a mess, she decides to make clean the bathroom and both metaphorically and literally tackle the messes she'southward been dealing with.

Notable:

1. This graphic novel takes place one-time betwixt "Letters to Lars" and "Tin't Become Dorsum" (yes, episodes 144 and 145) of the show. It'due south interesting how and then many of the comic adaptations happen during this window–placeable in time because Dewey is working at the Donut shop and Nanefua is mayor, and Peridot is still living in the bath mooning over Lapis (whom no one has tracked down).

2. Garnet's "enlightenment guru" persona is invoked at the offset of this book as she says the nonsensical line "realigning the chakras of the house will bring residuum to the abode." Chakras are generally energy centers in the torso, not part of a building, though I've heard some people suggest rooms in the house can exist represented by chakras. I don't know if that's a factual error or if information technology was intentionally gobbledegook to have Garnet saying goofy stuff.

3. Amethyst's INTENSE dislike of cleaning is and then hilarious.

4. Dewey is still insisting on naming certain donuts subsequently himself.

v. Garnet is said to canonically never ask questions in the bear witness. In this comic she asks several questions. She blurts "What?!" when she's punched a slime creature and doesn't empathize why information technology's not destroyed. And she says "Where?" when Steven says he saw the monster. And she asks Steven and Peridot why they thought they could handle this by themselves, and asks why they idea they wouldn't believe them, and asks what they're talking about. And afterward Sugilite unfused, Garnet asks a bunch of questions near what happened, how they escaped, and where Steven was.

6. The idea of the Deject Crystal is really interesting. And the callback to the Sky Spire was overnice to see.

7. Pearl points out that Peridot'southward device's abridgement, P.H.K.C.D, sounds inappropriate when spoken out loud. Welp!

8. Ronaldo's cameo involves him singing the Koala Princess theme vocal in Japanese.

nine. Peridot'southward dismay over the disgustingness of sewers was probably my favorite part.

10. At ane point Peridot is consuming some kind of new Camp Pining Hearts cloth on her tablet while lying in the bathtub. When Steven interrupted her she partially blurted Lapis'southward name. :(

11. It's a really bold move to insert a piece of history into the Gem state of war in a side-story comic like this! I wish nosotros had stories like this that were indisputably canon so we could learn more most the various Gem battles. It'southward still fun and weirdly touching to read about.

12. The Gem War flashbacks were drawn with the aforementioned graphic symbol designs as those presented in "Your Mother and Mine." Looks really cool!

13. Information technology's weird to me that Steven bubbled the Gem and didn't want to discover out who she was. Maybe he figured she'd exist unsafe and desire revenge, only she shouldn't have been corrupted if she was undercover and unformed during the fourth dimension of the Diamond attack. (Lapis wasn't corrupted, but cracked.) Information technology would've been nice to hear what she'd have to say, but at the aforementioned time, that would've been complicated and would have added a LOT to a story that's not really allowed to bear on the main canon, which that probably would have on the same level Bismuth did.

14. I also recall information technology'south strange that Garnet and Pearl suggested they considered this Gem 1 of their squad and felt such guilt over abandoning her, but they said they didn't know her name, indicating that they didn't believe she was a Lapis Lazuli even though she had similar powers and an identical Gem shape. I wonder if this was just an endeavour to avoid existence also presumptuous about the history or something since once more these comic authors don't have admission to the textile for the show's writing team and aren't producing canon stories.

15. Can you really go along avocado-based soda in a silo like that? Gross. I'm non sure why a visitor would even want that honestly. A soda silo on private property?

16. Interesting that Sugilite recognized the distress telephone call and felt guilt, but after unfusing, Amethyst still wasn't clear on what it was. Information technology reminds me of how guilt felt by only 1 fellow member of a Fusion manifested in "Mindful Education."

[SU Volume and Comic Reviews]

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Source: https://love-takes-work.tumblr.com/post/617758376512946176/steven-universe-graphic-novel-crystal-clean-2020

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