Aaa I was thinking that Steven only got the pure energy form a bit later. Like in legends: Somebody did something great? Make him a god or something and things like that. I added some details in the other sketch post I did but in short, he gave the locals a reason to preserve the cave, after all.

Steven is 25 in the RSE/ORAS timeline, yeah, but imagine this weirdly mature kid just hanging around the house. Maybe it adds to his reputation, which works.

And yes, I’ve been thinking he does have the ability to swap between spirit and human form by way of, eh, condensing? But it wears him out sooner or later so visits to caves are kind of necessary now and then, since technically he’s a cave god. Plus when he’s apparently so obsessed with caves Stone Senior can just say ‘Hey look he isn’t interested in running a company so I’ll just hand the company down to some relative/that other CEO’ and just leave it off like that.

I haven’t got the time to watch Gravity Falls though, Grade 11 stuff is catching up fast.