Steven's 13th

Today on Stuff You Might Have Missed

…Or, rather, today it’s “weird misconceptions that seem to have integrated themselves into the fandom”…

So we know that Steven turned fourteen in the episode “Steven’s Birthday” (aired as episode 75).

Presumably, before that, he was thirteen, of course. But there is no specific reference in the show to when he rolled over from twelve to thirteen. Context-wise, we’ve certainly seen summer come and go within the show and should be able to assume he had a birthday somewhere in there, but it was not mentioned or depicted.

Which is why it’s weird that so many people believe the episode “So Many Birthdays” (aired as episode 13) was when Steven crossed the threshold from twelve to thirteen.

I’ve seen this casually mentioned MULTIPLE times by people who are just mising what the episode was about, like “he was twelve for the first 12 episodes and then he was thirteen from then until episode 75,” but … y’all, Steven didn’t have a birthday in this episode. The entire thing was about giving the Gems birthdays because he felt like they had missed out on all those birthday parties they should have had.

Obviously it’s just a small annoying thing and isn’t anything to get all bent out of shape over, but I’ve actually brought up the undisclosed birthday in online conversations and had people shove this episode in my face to contradict me super smugly (and I quote, “so the episode So Many Birthdays was just something the rest of us imagined? cool, cool. fake fans, smh.”). It seems to be one of those weird things that gets ed incorrectly, like the fake trivia that Amethyst was the first Gem Steven healed and the weird belief that Pearl confirmed in-show that she belonged to White Diamond.

Anyway, Steven’s thirteenth birthday was NOT depicted in the show and this episode wasn’t it. That will be all!