#it took me years to get this recipe i cannot violate the trust

[dear-ao3]

that walnut cake saga was the highlight of my day omfg

thanks. it was not the highlight of mine.

[modestmondays]

Lapis, Jasper, Malachite, and Abusive Relationships

I’ve been meaning to make a comprehensive post on this (believe it or not, this post is the ultra-condensed version). I may still do that. It would be nice to have everything in one place. And I haven’t forgotten that people addressed specific arguments to me, more than a month ago.

But for now, I need to talk about one key point: what abuse is.

I feel like a lot of people are talking past each other when it comes to “abuse”. The last time I posted about this, I think some responses to my post had genuine language confusion, with one person not being a native english speaker. But in most of these posts, including the ones I’m seeing lately, it’s usually survivors who identify with Lapis arguing with survivors who identify with Jasper. And that makes it hard to talk about abuse.

Because for many of those people, abuse is “that thing that happened to me”. First of all: yes. What happened to you was abuse. I’m not here to argue that. But what happened to you was not the only way abuse can happen. Abuse takes many forms, and yours, while one, is not the only one. There’s no single template that encompasses all forms of abuse.

We need to narrow things down. Thankfully, Steven Universe makes this easy. What we're talking about is an abusive relationship. She’s right there. Her name is Malachite.

And we know how abusive relationships work. They’re about power, control, and identity. The abuser has a certain self-image (often inaccurate, and frequently rooted in elements of toxic masculinity, but in any case deeply felt) and to maintain that self-image against outside assaults they need to be in control, they need to have power over the other person. They’re not hurting someone for fun. Only children are that thoughtlessly cruel. These are deeply insecure adults, choosing to hurt and abuse someone else in order to control them.

Now, both Jasper and Lapis suffered significant traumas prior to forming Malachite. Jasper survived losing a war, plus whatever happened after. She lost friends, and she saw loyal gems turn traitor. Lapis was imprisoned for thousands of years, held captive by Homeworld and by the Crystal Gems. This isn't a competition--both of them had awful things happen to them, and neither excuses their behaviors. 

But they didn’t have a personal relationship, yet. Lapis got dragged to earth and interrogated by Peridot. And Jasper was only on earth to fight Rose Quartz. She didn't care about Peridot, or the remaining Crystal Gems, or even about Lapis. 

Until she found out that Lapis was lying to protect “Rose Quartz”. And I get it, we’re sympathetic to Steven here. But Jasper has seen gems do exactly this last time she wasn on Earth. Those gems joined the rebellion and attacked Homeworld forces. So Jasper puts Lapis in a prison cell. 

It doesn't matter that we think the rebellion was right, or that we know Lapis was protecting Steven, not Rose. That doesn’t make Jasper an abuser here. Lapis had just declared herself a traitor and a threat, so she got locked up with the rest of the Crystal Gems (and no one is arguing that Jasper abused Pearl or Amethyst by locking them up too). 

Yes, being locked up was a huge trigger for Lapis, but that’s not Jasper’s fault. Jasper wasn’t doing this as some kind of special punishment for Lapis--she treated her exactly the same as the other captive Crystal Gems. Because, as I said, they didn't have a personal relationship, yet. 

But after the crash, on the beach, when they fused, that was Jasper and Lapis quite literally “getting together.” Examining their motivations at this point is instructive:

Jasper wanted to fuse to be stronger, to beat the Crystal Gems. She wanted to use Lapis to get what she wanted. That’s super gross, and already a recipe for a terrible, toxic relationship. But she was up front about it. She didn’t force Lapis to agree. And we know that Lapis is powerful enough that she could have said no. Should have said no.

But what did Lapis want? She wanted to stop feeling used. She wanted to be in control. She wanted a prisoner. And here was Jasper, the latest in a long line of gems looking to use her to get what they wanted.

So what did Lapis do? She said yes. And then she violated Jasper’s trust, took Jasper prisoner, and dragged her to the bottom of the sea. As she told Steven, in Alone at Sea: “I was always battling against Jasper to keep her bound to me.” And as she told Jasper, directly, “I was terrible to you. I liked taking everything out on you. I needed to. I - I hated you. It was bad!”

That’s an abusive relationship, and Lapis Lazuli was the abuser. The one in control. The one doing the hurting. Jasper stuck with it, because she was getting what she wanted (strength) and what she felt she deserved (punishment). But she was still the victim. 

I understand that a lot of survivors who identify with Lapis had abusers who looked like Jasper. Someone who grabbed them, jerked them around, maybe even called them names. I get that they were the one who wanted out of the relationship, who wanted it to all be over. That when they left, their abuser stalked them, told them “I’ve changed” or “I’m the only one for you”. That they may have even lashed out at their abuser, fought back for freedom. That’s not a unique situation--plenty of people have experienced similar abusive relationships.

But not every abusive relationship is like that. Sometimes the victim is the one who was loud and large and physical. Sometimes the abuser tries to move on but the victim is still stuck. Sometimes it’s the victim who says “this time it’ll be different. I’ll be better. You won’t have to hurt me again.” Sometimes the victim accepts the abuse because they think that’s how it’s supposed to be. Because they feel it’s what they deserve.

Those people exist. There’s a reason some abuse survivors identify with Jasper, and it's not because they're abusers themselves. But don't take my word for it. Talk to them. Listen to them. It won’t invalidate what happened to you. Both your and their experiences of abuse are valid. 

(And sometimes abuse is nothing like either of those two cases. There’s many kinds of abuse, and many other traumas that don’t involve abuse at all.) 

But a story cannot be all things to all people. A story has specific characters in a specific situation. How you feel about the story, or the characters, or the situation, what they remind you of, even what you want them to be, doesn’t change what’s there. Steven Universe is a single story, and it’s one where Lapis Lazuli abused Jasper. 

If this ruins Steven Universe for you, I’m sorry. But I can’t change the story they told. None of us can. We can write new stories, though, if we need to. Maybe even better stories. That’s what fandom is for. 

And if our stories don’t match, well, neither do our lives. And that’s okay.