Steven Universe - Outline “Lion 3: Straight to Video”
10/1/13
ACT I
It’s evening and Steven is at the Big Donut - completely stumped with what to buy. He paces around the store comparing items. “I could get a donut, which would be tasty… but I always gets donuts and I should be living life to the fullest and trying new things! So maybe… Spicy Pretzels?” Sadie tells Steven he better pick something soon, her and Lars are closing up for the day. Lars walks out the door. Sadie: “I’m closing up for the day.” Steven walks to a freezer case and sees what looks like a ornately wrapped bagged lunch. Curious, he pulls out the bag and a whole bunch of other ornate bagged lunches fall into a pile at his feet. Steven: “What are these?” Sadie explains they’re all lunches that her mom packed for her. She’s really annoyed by it. Her mom treats her like a little kid still. “I can find my own food. I mean, I work at a donut shop.” Steven: “So what do you eat for lunch?” Sadie: “Mostly donuts.” Steven asks if he can take one of the lunches home. Sadie says sure, but tells him to make sure he grabs a fresh one - some of those are a couple months old. Steven sniffs out the freshest lunch and runs out.
ACT II
Steven is at home, unpacking the lunch while Lion lounges nearby. The lunch is a win. It’s got a sandwich sliced into the triangles - the right way sandwiches are sliced. Chips, juice and a Lunchable type dessert that you assemble. Steven munches on his food and remarks that Sadie’s mom sure knows how to pack a bag. He looks up at the portrait of Rose-Quartz on the wall. He wonders what kind of lunches she would’ve packed for him. There’s just so many things he doesn’t know about her. Lion snuggles up against Steven. Steven chuckles, and pets Lion and they both look at the painting. Bleary eyed, Steven crawls into bed and drifts off to sleep. From Steven’s POV, we see his eyes close and when they re-open, he’s in a magical field of pink, wavy grass. Steven can’t see much beyond the grass, and for some reason he can’t breathe. Then Steven hears a muffled voice calling his name. It gets louder and louder until suddenly, Steven is pulled down into the pink grass and into darkness. Back in the Temple, Pearl shoves Lion off of Steven’s head. Steven gasps for air: “What’s going on?” Pearl says Lion was sleeping on his face! Steven looks to Lion: “What did you do that for?” and then to Pearl “And why were you in here?” Pearl admits she sometimes watches Steven sleep. Steven tells both Lion and Pearl to let him be. He wearily crawls back into his bed and falls asleep. He first dreams about playing checkers with Dog-Copter, but then finds himself back in pink field. Lion must be sleeping on his face again! We cut back to the house - and Steven

heaves Lion off his face. Lion tries to nuzzle Steven, but Steven pushes him out of the bed. “No! This is a Steven bed!” Steven makes Lion a bed on the couch and gives him a little stuffed animal just in case he gets lonely. Steven gets back in bed and very cautiously closes his eyes to go to bed… and finds himself right back in the pink field! Steven immediately wakes up and throws Lion off his bed. Completely fed up, Steven decides to lock Lion outside for the night. Steven puts Lion on the porch and tries to fall back asleep, but he can't. He looks out the window and sees Lion looking back at him with sad eyes. Steven feels guilty. Steven heads outside and apologizes to Lion. He understands Lion was trying to snuggle with him because he loves him. But sometimes love can be smothering. “Like with Sadie and her mom, or you and almost killing me.” Steven knows a way they can still be close, though. He crawls atop Lion and lays down on him to fall asleep. But as Steven nestles into Lion's mane, his head magically falls through and pokes out into the pink field!
ACT III
Steven realizes that the pink field wasn't a dream at all - the pink field actually exists inside of Lion's mane! Steven pulls his head out. He looks at Lion: "Were you trying to show me something?" Lion grunts. Steven takes a deep breath and plunges his whole body into Lion's mane. He crawls through the initially dense field of pink hair to find himself in a more open space (still surrounded by swirling pink hair). Scattered around the field are all sorts of magical artifacts. Steven sees the sword he pulled from Lion's head with Connie and several other objects which look like they belong to Rose. However it’s the simplest object that catches his eye - a VHS tape labeled "For Steven." Steven, running out of air, grabs the tape and quickly crawls out of the field and Lion's mane. Early the next morning, Steven is in the break room of the Big Donut with Lion, Sadie and the tape. They pop the tape into the VHS deck - it's a home video of a 30-something Greg and a pregnant Rose-Quartz! Steven is in awe - it's the first time he's seen his mother move or heard her voice. The video is filmed very poorly by Greg, who keeps using goofy in-camera special effects. Greg decides they should make a message for their yet-to-be-born son. Greg hands the camera to Rose and runs off to find a funny prop for the video. Left alone with the camera, Rose delivers a message directly to Steven. She seems to know that having Steven will mean she’ll cease to exist, but she makes sure that Steven knows she still cares for him very deeply, and will do her best to make sure he’s looked after. As Steven wells up with happy tears, an equally emotional Sadie decides she needs to call her mom to thank her for the lunches. Lars walks in on the teary scene, bewildered: "Ahhhh…. nope!" and walks right back out.