#amethyst on the other hand is around the same height as Sadie but both of them are short

[bispearlnets]

nobody asked but I feel like height-wise (since there are no canon SU heights) I put Pearl at about 5’9/5’10 (seeing as she’s around the same height as Greg and he describes himself as “not that tall”, which I take to mean the shorter side of average). meanwhile Bismuth is around 6’5ish, maybe 6’6. Garnet is actually slightly taller than Bismuth which surprised me when I looked at reference images, I think she’s around 6’8ish. which would fit with Greg’s description of Rose being 8 feet tall, because with my height headcanons she would be just slightly under that. Amethyst is about 4’11 because she has extreme “not quite 5’0” energy

[novantinuum]

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: T

Words: 1.3K~

Summary: His family’s not present, the third time he runs away. They never see the creature he becomes.

Early corruption AU.

I’m back! Future updates are likely to be slower as I am starting a new job soon, but at very least I have now settled into my new home. I share some writer’s meta on the AO3 version.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well. Thank you! <3

____

“So, I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinking,” Amethyst begins one day, propping her chin against the raised lip of the lava pool as she lounges on the floor at the center of the temple’s burning room, which they’ve started to use as their meeting space again.

Pearl— standing beside one of the lower branches of crystal pipes— tiredly glances her direction, nodding for her to speak. Even Garnet’s head tilts in interest, which is quite an accomplishment given her recent uncharacteristic silence. She suspects that she’s been busying herself scouring through whole galaxies of possibilities, although she’s not sure what good that will do without any reasonable intel to guide that vision. It’s been well over a week and a half since Steven’s gone missing, and beyond the existence of what they suspect is a corrupted Gem and footprints leading towards the water, they have no further clues. No inklings as to where Steven might have disappeared to, no hits from Greg’s posters, not even any leading tips from Homeworld or any of the outlying Gem-inhabited planets. And as for this particular creature... they’ve only met a single eyewitness. A human, who briefly caught its silhouette against the backdrop of sunrise. Perhaps if it ran further inland it would’ve tripped one of their old corrupted Gem surveillance sensors, but they never placed any in the oceans. They barely have any means to survey the oceans.

“I’ve been talkin’ to all sorts of people the past few days, right?” Amethyst says, widely gesturing as she rolls onto her back. “All Steven’s friends. People in town who knew him pretty well. And pretty much everyone agrees that he was actin’ pretty weird these past few months. Sadie described him as overly-tense. I called up Lars on his ship, and he kept saying that he was genuinely worried about his mental health, or whatever. Greg told me the same thing. And Connie. And basically everyone else.”

Pearl rhythmically flexes her fingers in and out of a fist against her side, her features rapidly curling into a scowl. “And what does that have to do with his disappearance?”

“Uh, potentially everything?” she snips back, throwing her hands in the air above her. “Y’guys, you’ve been making so many assumptions, but we barely know anything! You can’t just blindly throw out the idea that the whole corrupted Gem thing and Steven are linked without at least considering it.”

She grimaces, not even bothering to filter out the full intensity of her bitterness in the audience of such a ridiculous, illogical notion. “Amethyst, we’ve talked about your little ‘theory’ already. And everyone agreed that it’s impossible.”

“And yet it’s true that Steven has defied the impossible before,” Garnet comments suddenly, adjusting her visor.

“Are you defending her?” Pearl gasps, turning towards her old friend with her mouth agape with shock.

She crosses her arms, evidently unbothered by the weight of her subtle betrayal as she lounges back against the entryway. “I’m not defending nor rejecting, merely acknowledging a possibility.”

“Yeah, see?” the younger Gem chimes right back in, quickly pushing herself to her feet to rise to her full height. (Which blessedly— if she’s aiming for intimidation— isn’t much.) “Garnet gets it! Steven’s different than us. Always has been. His powers just do what whatever the hell he’s feeling, right? He feels happy, he floats. He feels spooked, bam! Bubble. He feels like an old man, he literally turns into one. And recently, it seems like he’s been feeling pretty crappy, which probably wasn’t helped by us getting all up in his business after he crashed the van.”

She squints. “Is this going anywhere?”

“Yes,” Amethyst stresses, peering right up at her, her eyes flaring with an urgency and passion Pearl admittedly hasn’t seen her wielding in quite some time. “Because I also talked to Jasper the other day. And she gave me the last piece of the puzzle I needed.”

The quartz steps back to address them both, hands nervously fidgeting with the frayed stitching of her missing sibling’s wool jacket.

“I gotta admit, this isn’t easy news, but it has to be shared.” She inhales tightly, briefly closing her eyes as she does so. “I’m pretty sure the reason Steven had her in the bathroom is that he was trying to heal her with the diamond essences he keeps there. Because he shattered her, in a duel.”

Pearl freezes. The kinder reality she’s stubbornly nurtured within her mind ignites and burns to cinders in an instant, hard light thrumming through the thin circuitry of her extremities at such an unimaginable pace that her form barely manages to keep up with the strain. She nearly crumples to her knees upon the sheer anguish of the revelation, only narrowly catching her fall to remain upright. Across the room, Garnet appears to be on the brink of splitting apart. She... shards, her primary instinct screams for her to violently discard every last bitter tasting word Amethyst has spoken into the furthest recesses of her mind, to rot and decay there for the rest of this cursed eternity, and yet still her picture perfect memory chooses to taunt her with details of the recent past... with the hauntingly damning fact that— when she checked the bathroom after watching Steven warp away, the last moment any of them laid eyes on him— the bottles of diamond essence had indeed been sloppily spilled into the bathtub.

“Her words, mind you, not mine,” Amethyst continues, no amount of stabilizing calm in her tone able to mask the slight tremor under the surface. “You can ask her yourself, if you want.”

“No,” she whispers, hot tears budding in her eyes as she presses her hands to her mouth. “That’s not what happened, it can’t be...”

“So, returning to my theory, you have a kid who’s already feeling terrible, someone whose powers do whatever he’s feeling. A diamond. And then he makes the worst possible mistake: he shatters someone. Accident or not, it don’t matter. Because maybe then... he starts feeling like a monster. Becomes a monster.”

“No,” she shakes her head vehemently. “No, no. Corruption doesn’t work that way, you—“

“Like, think about it!” Amethyst interrupts, striding towards her again. “Really think about it! All we know for sure is—“

“Amethyst, you have to STOP, this—“

“—corruption was caused by the Diamonds, but besides tha—“

“—you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking abo—“

“—how it actually works is like a total mystery!”

“NO!” she explodes, plunging the room around her into a dreadful silence. “You weren’t there, but I WAS!!” The burdens of her personal history grow heavier still as she jabs a decisive finger square at the center of her chest, continuing her impassioned tirade with water trailing down her cheeks in thin rivulets all the while. “I watched as that horrid corrupting light slammed against the surface, nearly obliterating any living Gem in its path, I watched as my friends and allies lost all control over their forms and became a twisted shadow of their former selves, I watched all of that!! So you don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t know about corruption!”

Amethyst’s expression sobers considerably in the audience of her outrage. Pointedly, as if expecting rescue, she turns her gaze to Garnet, who has her arms hugged around her middle as if holding herself in one piece. Quite honestly, after the horrid news they’ve just become privy to, she probably is.

“We should move on to a new subject,” the fusion states frankly, once again avoiding any clear stance on the topic. “This is clearly making Pearl very upset.”

The quartz’s eyes alight in clear indignation. “Y’know what? Fine,” she spits, shoving her hands in her pockets and storming towards the doorway. “If both of you are gonna be that sensitive, I’ll take my ideas somewhere else. But just for the record?” she says, whirling back to face them mere inches before passing through the temple’s threshold. “The reason Steven keeps running away is staring back at us in the mirror. You just refuse to see it. And that’s not my problem.”

[peridotfanfic]

Peridot’s Even More Flawless Fanfic: Episode 3

Hi.

Pearl is in space with Steven and some others, and Peridot says she’s too busy preparing her next masterpiece to post this one, so she asked me to do it. I’m Lapis Lazuli, by the way. I’m a big supporter of the meep morps.

I wasn’t sure what this was exactly, but I read the previous episodes. The randomness fits perfectly with the way life is sometimes, and Peridot’s portrayal of me is truly flawless. “I’m trapped under a baseball and confused!” I completely understand myself there, it’s very confusing, and I do get trapped a lot. “You like me, I just don’t want you really.” I think that all the time, it’s uncanny.

Anyway, here is episode three, which Peridot says contains both fusion and singing, and also brings back two of Steven’s greatest foes: Bismuth and Kevin!

. . .Who’s Kevin?

Speaking of, I have no idea who I’m even talking to right now.

Drift Alone

Pearl, and the homeworld gems,

That’s always a way we,

Believe the day can’t think!

Amethyst be easy.

That’s crystal and your,

Beauty and,

This world!

We will protect you.

Why you?

Believe this!

The episode begin with Kevin being corrupted and broken. He must dodge the lasers from a blood machine, which makes him laugh. His memories from one past self, with an angry Sadie, then interjects by throwing cans of creamed Steven. That suggests he’s never popped a hug.

As Kevin finishes making mistakes, Steven and Amethyst enjoy their original height. With Pearl suddenly there, he must help set an alarm for their rehearsal. It doesn’t work, and Bismuth then shows up by expressing a statue from space.

PEARL: Bismuth! We’ve got you for 6000 years since no time was gone. Ahahahaha! Come to me, Bismuth, never commit bravo here for someone you shouldn’t have even managed. Shouldn’t you just leave me now, Bismuth?

Bismuth explains to pearl how Rose completely repaired the episode by having fun, because she’s freaking been alive. To get married to Steven, they reluctantly accept a friendly dialog with Kevin and Bismuth.

Bismuth: But you shoulda shattered the Homeworld, and look what happened to Rose’s sword! This sword was made right, but now that’s all real. We walked in pieces, and didn’t even tell ‘em.

KEVIN: Baby, my socks don’t even have time to look at you.

GARNET: She’s still gonna try to kill you, Steven. Bismuth, the planet is your mother ,did you know that? Homeworld did this for breakfast.

But Garnet quickly realizes she doesn’t have any real reason to be with them.

STEVEN: Errggghhhh! Bismuth you should be lost to this place! You wanted to have any fun you wanted, but it’s not right. Sorry Bismuth, I’m sorry to you.

AMETHYST: Yo Bismuth, haha, gonna bury you just using a airplane! You can’t tell Pearl i’m thinking of us.

With Amethyst goofing around, Steven realizes they need electronic distractions. He hands Bismuth a video of his elbow and throws her towards the ocean, exclaiming disbelief. He then hugs the fallen tree with a koala, called Guacacola by Lion. The gems watch Steven encourage Bismuth to learn how to drive a stickshift. Her anger towards Steven accidentally pops a surprised Pearl, who immediately starts becoming younger.

PEARL: Bismuth, you’re perfect because I don’t hate you! You know that I’m glad another planet was gone, but this still was fine. Oh Bismuth, we’ve had no time-based reason.  

Pearl usually starts singing then. Bismuth points to paranormal activity, which makes everyone nervous.

BISMUTH: You lied to everything that I’m just! Don’t tell me Rose Quartz can really do whatever you can.

As Kevin rubs Bismuth bitterly, he gets an epiphany.

Kevin: I’m like a beautiful trench coat, with my tail and my pain. I act so lonely, you leave me a big old man. That’s why I invented the whole two kids and a brother time.

Amethyst: You can’t even be floating, baby war gonna wreck your head! Yo, Steman, what’s a rock?

Steven wakes up alone, and Pearl asks him why he’s wearing sandals. She wants a large yellow ball. In front of the mountain, Kevin coerces Bismuth to see what looks to be a jerk person. Her powers specifically make everything exactly the same thing as the star pattern. They both meet his dad for some cool moves, but then they have lost their identity. A moment of laughing hysterically is better than payment for something different. They don’t need birthdays to go hang out with a koala.

Kevin: So lonely, you’re gonna think that’s impossible to kiss.

BISMUTH: You know you really are the dirt of the body, but you can’t take me without a test. This planet and I didn’t even disappear, did we? Don’t agree to pack a pleasure extra punch that brings the war to you.

The crystal gems’ shapeshifting powers entail the breaking off of itself. They meet with Kevin and Bismuth up in Funland’s air bag system. They have to worry together eventually after reading plenty of ink. They are interrupted by a white bird, but before Steven finds out that he is a lava-like substance, all the gems reluctantly fought that most dangerous monster. It is revealed to be sad.

STEVEN: This crazy state you delivered can’t stay true. I’m turning, like, a bazillion shining stars that kinda looked like mom. So please, can’t you let me just be pretty? I thought you should train like a rich magician.

Bismuth begins chanting, to try various methods with Kevin. They both seem nice. They can form a different person, so they do that.

Bismuthine: You’re gonna show me that effect with our own identities. You think I’d never forget the whole time we stopped a beautiful me? You’re my finest piece of quartz baby, and maybe that’s impossible, but Rose taught this place. Baby, it’s Kevin you really mean. My little old man don’t play a twerp like you!

AMETHYST: Yeah, I’m doing the sky you look to. Just happens like there’s a chicken to win. Bismuth, you feel bad like pearl.

PEARL: Back in 50 years ago, I could have everything that matters. We’ve come to feel and work, oh yes, but you shouldn’t commit a a song to listen to!

Steven then proceeds to sing anyway, because he can.

Steven Sings: “Burning You Might Be”

Don’t like to tell you, we’re gonna make two!

Don’t like to find you, anything I do!

I wanna be great, and you just can’t,

In my fair eyes, you might that!

Burning you might be, wherever you see,

The planet I’m not like, anybody!

Burning you might be, whoever you are,

We’re good and we’re dad, and we’re still not a star!

Burning I will be, frozen in place,

Just like being a star, I’m walking to find the pace!

Bismuth relishes Steven, then kisses him on his speedboat.  Steven says that things will happen if something is too gross. As Kevin speeds in the burning room with multiple beautiful flowers, they awkwardly have another lifetime to do something.

The episode ends with them arguing over who thinks the song was over with. Steven refuses to believe it until sunrise.