Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4224349-20150326205101/@comment-26013337-20150327043658

Gnx486 wrote:

Dinoboygreen wrote: True, but remember that So Many Birthdays showed that Steven ages with the way he feels inside. So it's likely that he gained a maturity growthspurt in all this and thusly aged in the process. Physically, no, but mentally, yes. We've seen him make mistakes, learn, and grow as a person, and it's been very gradual, over the course of the entire first season. It's not his gem that's causing his maturity, it's just him growing up. His gem affects his age in a very visible, specific way. Eh I don't think he is actually aging that way, I think he's aging at a normal human rate, other wise, we would've seen his age fluctuate wildly by now. I believe the events of SMB were only effecting him because his magic is triggered by his emotions and he was feeling insecure about his age at that time. It was the magic of his gem that was causing his age to actively change but its an active change, not a passive one that can't be turned off. As soon as he felt like himself again, he turned off that magic and returned (mostly) to normal.

The magic was effecting him so badly because he was still unable to control his gem powers very well. But as we've seen, he now has a basic level of control of his gem, thus I doubt his gem would ever again force an age change unless it was at will.