#pearl and garnet at the end of su

[kooldewd123]

heartbreaking: character you love gets a redesign representing their growth throughout the story but you like the old design better

[screwpinecaprice]

@glowweek Day 5 FAMILY | FRIENDS

Peridot and specially Lapis do not trust the racoons.

Specifically chose this angle so I don't draw feet. _(:,3」∠)_

Mi own connverse kids Ebony and Rohini are there! And technically Sakura and Zachary. (Please until now I don't know what else to name them. 😭)

And sorry the older Maheswarans aren't there. I don't know where to put them and I already had character overload. 😞

Hibiscus print on Bismuth's shirt is from ManMadeOfGold!

Speaking of shirt, another thing I avoided was thinking of their outfit designs. 😅 It's somewhere a little over a decade of timeskip since SU:Future and I'm sure at least one or two would've reformed during the time. So I'm gonna say they wanted to keep the vibe of a casual outdoors picnic-type event so they wore the casual themes.

[cruucigerglobus]

the woke mob (my friends) are making me rewatch Shawn Galaxy. here’s my almost redesigned rock moms.

- garnet looks like a superhero cause she is one, also more “spiritual” gauntlets for her

- amethyst is barely changed because she is perfect. other than that she has snakebites and an eyebrow piercing somehow, as a projection of light. she’s also wearing orisises

- pearl gets a more dramatic poet look cause she is one.

none of their chosen aesthetics match at all cause in my head i exaggerate how unfamiliar they are with normal human culture. they think they’re super on trend

[insomnious-illustrations]

Finally finished Steven Universe Future!

[venluming]

final day of the lesbian week… but lesbians shall live forever….

[suworkbook]

These two dramatic babies mugging for the cameras. 

[dykejasper]

Crooked Trajectory [SU fanfic]

Chapter Two - "Destabilized" - Lapis POV (link to chapter 1) AO3 Chapter 2 Link Jasper's sudden, unannounced arrival to Little Homeworld throws Lapis mentally off-balance, and she struggles with guilt, fear of abandonment, and self hatred. Amethyst gets her high to cope and Peridot finally hears the ugly truth. Rating: Mature CW: abuse, confinement, torture, choking, drowning, suicidal ideation, substance use (gem weed, lol), discussions surrounding trauma

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Wide yellow eyes with pupils narrow as pins stared, unblinking, between wet tendrils of white hair that snaked over clammy skin. The beast was motionless for the first time in weeks. The tense calm was unnerving, and Lapis knew better than to let her mind wander for even a moment.

Jasper's tired voice cracked when she asked, "Why don't you end this?"

Lapis ignored her, focused on maintaining their bond while shutting off access to her mind. She already leaked too much when she got distracted, and she couldn’t risk giving Jasper any more of herself.

When they first fused, Jasper tried to split away, but Lapis quickly figured out how to apply water chains within Malachite to match those on the outside, binding their light so she couldn’t leave. She thrashed, yanked, bit the chains, twisted, kicked, roared violent threats and obscene insults; none of it mattered. Lapis always made it worse for her, getting creative with water gags that wouldn’t allow enough air for her to speak or a fist of water around her throat, yanking her into the foul green pool below with a cruel snap of force and holding her there. It was exhausting, but Lapis endured with grim satisfaction. All that flashy muscle meant nothing against the power of a planet’s ocean in her hands.

After Steven infiltrated their space, rage choked all other emotion out of Malachite. Lapis was distracted, disoriented -- worried that Steven was still near, somehow. Jasper yanked their chains with enough force to throw her forward, slamming her face into the pool floor and knocking the wind from her lungs.

She knew Jasper was only a few short strides away from ripping her apart and she scrambled to get up. Her legs slipped and slid as she kicked herself away, coughing and spitting out water. Jasper was smiling and had a crazed look in her eyes. Her voice was hoarse and soft when she said, “You’re not protecting Rose, you lying, traitorous brat.”

In her panic to fly away as far as their chains would allow, narrowly avoiding a swipe of deadly claws, Lapis let her guard down. Her mental barrier dropped, and she couldn’t control the flow of her memories.

In that brief moment, Jasper watched her emerge from the mirror in front of Steven, cracked and panicked and significantly limited in ability, but still more than capable of building an ocean tower into the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Still capable of destroying the Crystal Gems and multiple humans, had Steven not begged her to stop. She would have enjoyed destroying the gems that kept her prisoner and tried to stop Steven from releasing her and would have delighted in their shattering -- if Steven hadn’t cared about them so much. She owed him her freedom, and him alone.

Lapis shook her wet hair out of her eyes and glared up at Jasper with every bit of hate she could harness, allowing her shatter-lust to pulse through them both with every beat of their fused heart. Steadying the quiver in her voice and forcing it cold as ice, she said, “I’m protecting him from us. You deserve this just as much as I do.”

Something in Jasper changed after that. Lapis had no clue how many hours of quiet they’d had, but it was stressing her out more than fighting. It could all be an act to make her drop her defenses again, and Lapis wouldn’t be tricked. Though it was getting hard to ignore the prickling anxiety that made her stomach twist and the tiny voice in the back of her mind telling her she made the wrong choice.

"Shouldn't be hard for you to shatter me. I won't even fight back... unless you want me to."

Lapis felt hot venom flood her veins and she clenched her fists, tightening the chains that held Jasper. Their hearts raced like opposing war drums, out of sync and messy. It'd be very easy.

And then what? Go back to Homeworld? Run back to the Crystal Gems and beg for their forgiveness? This was her purpose now. This was where she belonged -- crushed under cold, dark, abrasive sea and locked to one of the few gems more pathetic than herself. The chains got even tighter as Lapis’ fingers involuntarily clenched.

"Just do it already, you pathetic coward.” Jasper stumbled forward, her eyes wide and a terrifying, manic smile on her face that turned her blood to ice. “You want to, I can feel it! I want you to—”

"Shut up!" Lapis shot a thick tendril of water down Jasper’s throat, coiling it down her neck and clenching her fist. Blind panic bubbled up in Malachite while Jasper thrashed against her chains, her lungs flooding.

She'd never lose consciousness like an organic life form from asphyxiation or drowning, of course. But a gem’s survival instincts were designed to suit colonizing predators likely to meet physical resistance. If you threatened a gem’s physical form, they could really feel it, and would react accordingly.

Lapis could feel it, too. She could feel every painful, oppressive, horrible thing she did to Jasper, but that was fine with her. She owed it to Steven to stay and atone for what she did. Jasper wouldn’t even be on Earth if wasn’t for Lapis running back to Homeworld, expecting it to be her home after all that time.

She felt a powerful pull to crush Jasper’s gem when she said “I want you to;” an impulse that came from Jasper herself. Was she really that desperate, that she could overpower Malachite for that...? No, just willing to do anything to make me lose focus. The gnawing anxiety in the pit of her stomach spiked.

She crouched next to Jasper, swallowing down an intense choking sensation and watching her thrash up close. Impressive how this one turned out, considering the careless job done with her Kindergarten. Lapis was the one who cut the canyon that became her kindergarten – a panicked order coming from the top demanding a canyon far from where the Crystal Gem home base was, ignoring all other structural factors. It was there that she was poofed during a raid by the Crystal Gems, the day the Beta Kindergartners began emerging. She knew that wasn’t Jasper’s fault, but… it sure felt like it was.

She released the coil and Jasper collapsed forward and heaved up water, gasping for air while Lapis gently swept the wet hair from her pained face. She was soft -- loving, almost -- as she said, "You could feel how much I loved doing that, couldn’t you? Don’t worry about your gem. I don’t make a habit of breaking my things.”

That memory made Lapis want to claw her own throat open. You're a fucking monster.

Jasper’s eventual arrival in Little Homeworld was something she tried to prepare herself for. She had a thousand conversations in her own mind, repeating scenarios on loop compulsively. It was exhausting how angry she’d get over imaginary confrontations and blowouts with a gem that only existed in her memory.

None of her obsessive rumination included Jasper getting shattered. Finding out about that horrified Lapis, forcing her back into foul memories that she’d managed to avoid for a long time. What’d she finally do that pushed Steven to shatter her?

They were totally different gems in a totally different timeline from when they were fused. She vividly remembered the urges to shatter her own gem that Jasper shoved down when they were Malachite. She usually had no reaction to the impulse, thanks to thousands of years of Homeworld conditioning. She was taught that her only value as a gem from a defective kindergarten was her overwhelming strength and tenacity in the face of extreme torture and isolation, and she believed it to the point of pride. She was very good at pretending it didn’t bother her.

But, sometimes, the crushing darkness of the ocean was too much for the both of them, and they dwelled on their worst desires and impulses. Jasper was interested in being shattered long before Malachite. Her agate often described how the other Betas were shattered, and Jasper was left wondering what it felt like, if it was freedom of any sort. She never seemed to consider her agate might have been lying – most of her Kindergarten was unshattered on the Zoo ship. It was ironic that she achieved her goal, just to be dragged back to deal with the life she objected to.

Did she feel differently, now that she’d experienced it? Overwhelmingly, repaired gems reported their time being shattered as utterly miserable, a state of painful disconnect. The light that holds a gem’s consciousness refracts all over with no ability to connect, unable to repair itself, and unable to split away from the shards themselves. Like the human myth of purgatory, or how some humans speak of distressed spirits unable to achieve peace after their body’s death.

As shitty as all of that was, Lapis wished she could deal with it somewhere far, far away from her. Another planet, maybe. Jersey, perhaps. She’d like it there.

But she wasn’t in Jersey, no. She was leaning up against the wall of Bismuth’s shop, for some reason – arms crossed, staring off at nothing. Where is Bismuth...?

Lapis had been watching her from behind a sign for a few minutes in a state of disbelieving dissociation. At first, she was worried maybe she was hallucinating, but she looked like an entirely different gem from when they were fused – certainly not the version of Jasper that haunted her nightmares. She looked broken. Her corruption scars reminded Lapis so much of Malachite in color. She gazed absently at the broken horn jutting from Jasper's wild mane and wondered if she ever thought the same. Lapis would never forget that sickly green hell they shared.

Maybe it wasn’t her place to wonder at all. But after Steven corrupted himself out of sheer despair, well… There was no reason to believe corruption was a physical contagion a gem could contract from fusion. Corruption was a manifestation of the deepest despair turned physical, and despite all Jasper had been through, all the centuries of Homeworld torture before they ever met, her corruption scars resembled Malachite more than anything.

Her stomach twisted and she was overcome with a sudden and confusing rage that threatened to boil over into something physical. Nobody even told Lapis she was supposed to show up that day, that she was there already, right outside of Bismuth’s shop! She tried shoving down the voice that screamed and Steven fucking shattered her!! It was too much too fast; she couldn’t even remember where she was headed or what she was doing. She formed wings and took to the sky, flying hard and fast for the warp pad with tears stinging her eyes.

Why couldn't Jasper have gone literally anywhere else?!

The precarious happiness and stability Lapis built after destroying the barn was crumbling, and she had nobody to blame but herself. They didn’t have to say it directly. She knew they all saw her as a victim deserving pity, and she hated that. More than that, though: she hated the thought of her friends learning to fear her true self and abandoning her. That would be so much worse. They’d struggle to accept that she enjoyed keeping Jasper fused to her, forced to endure torture for torture’s sake. Forced to atone for the sins of other gems while Lapis wallowed in her own self-serving guilt and misery, redirecting her hatred of them onto the first gem to get in her way.

She landed hard on the warp pad; stumbling, gritting her teeth and blinking away tears, she warped away without directional thought. Things are better now. I'm better now. But if that was true, why did seeing Jasper make her feel so unstable so fast? Maybe because she was fucking shattered! Her chest clenched and a sob slipped past her lips – she couldn’t inhale. Lapis just wanted to feel nothing about her, why couldn't she just feel nothing…?

The warp stream cleared, and she was in the beach house looking at the temple door. Her stomach dropped when she realized there was no Steven to talk her down – he went to the hospital with his humans after his corruption stabilized and would likely be there for a while.

Selfish of her to turn to him right then, anyway. What a horrible friend she was for trying to bother him about this during his time of need. She turned to collapse on the couch and nearly jumped out of her skin when she made unexpected eye contact with Amethyst. There were bags under her eyes as she lay with her neck bent badly; phone in one hand and lit blunt trailing smoke from the other; surrounded by a mess of snack trash with a tablet laying forgotten on her belly, looping the Stardew Valley menu music. She held out the blunt in offering, saying, “Dude. You need this more than me.”

“So, you knew? Why didn’t you fucking say something to me?” She hated how shaky her voice was. Pathetic. The rage that’d reared up in her slowly fizzled away and was replaced with festering shame and disgust. She moved forward and snatched the blunt from Amethyst’s outstretched fingers and took a long drag, savoring the grounding burn that tore at her throat. She hated this stuff – a hybrid of earth cannabis, altered with Blue Diamond’s essence to heavily impact gems – but she needed something. Her eyes slid closed as she resisted the need to exhale. The desperate impulse to take in clean air was deliciously familiar.

“Damn, Pearl said she was going to text-- you didn’t hear from her at all?” Amethyst snatched the blunt back and Lapis exhaled, watching the swirls of smoke trail away. Her insides felt like ice, and she had nobody to blame but herself.

“I blocked her two years ago,” she admitted, and Amethyst choked, coughing out the hit she just took until a laugh made it through the gagging.

“Bro! I’m sorry, that’s so funny!” Lapis smiled in spite of herself; she couldn’t be mad at Amethyst for her own inability to tolerate Pearl’s newsletter texts. Amethyst said, chuckling, “I wish I could block Pearl sometimes.”

She slipped the blunt from Amethyst and put it to her lips, standing up and pacing while vacuuming down the burning smoke, grateful for something physically distracting. She hated how sick she felt. The weed was kind of helping, but not enough. She kept smoking, hoping she’d level out eventually. Numb was ideal right now.

“I don’t think she’s going to, like, do anything stupid, you know?” Amethyst’s voice was suddenly tense -- serious. “I thought I had the past all sorted, and I know healing isn’t linear, or, whatever, but I can’t stop feeling like things are just as bad as they used to be. Y’know. Back then.”

Lapis passed back the blunt in stiff fingers, blowing out her own cloud of smoke and feeling her scalp begin to tingle, spreading a buzzing warmth down every nerve until her toes tingled. She slowly pieced together, “I think… I need Peridot.”

Amethyst mumbled, “You and me both,” and took a quick puff off the blunt, blowing the smoke out quickly and pulling out her phone, typing one-handed.

The smoke curling from the ashen tip was making Lapis’ eyes burn. I miss Peridot. She plucked the blunt back from Amethyst, nearly finishing it off in one long pull that burned her throat raw. The strain and ache and fire from holding it all in as long as she could tolerate was a beautiful distraction. She wished she had booze so she could add more types of burn to the mix. What if nothing terrible happens? What if something good happens?

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready for this,” Lapis said thickly, struggling to hold back tears now that she was high, inhaling deep and exhaling slowly.

“Listen… I feel you. Literally nobody in my life has come for me the way Jasper did, and I’m still fucked up about it. I don’t blame you for feeling messy right now,” Amethyst said, setting aside her phone and staring out the window.

Lapis didn’t know what to say. She was pretty sure she’d done far, far worse things to Jasper than Jasper did to Amethyst. Lapis hated that everyone saw her as a victim of Jasper’s and would likely assume that was the source of her distress. Jasper wasn’t anywhere close to the worst gem Lapis had encountered -- though she was one of the most pathetic. Aside from me.

She wiped her face, angry at herself. She felt like she was regressing into old thinking patterns, but she didn’t feel like she had the power to stop it. The warp exploded with light and Peridot tumbled towards her, panting; saying between heavy breaths, “I got here as fast as I could! Lapis, are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lapis said, irritated, suddenly wishing she was completely alone. Why?

“I can’t believe she just. Showed up here! And now Bismuth is on gemsitting duty, and soon we’ll all have to deal with her,” Peridot said, rolling her eyes.

“Must be terrible for you. I’m sure you know exactly how I feel,” Lapis said, any hint of humor behind the sarcasm gone and replaced with pure venom. She could see herself unraveling in real-time, and she was horrified that she couldn’t stop it. Amethyst looked up from her phone, her eyebrows raised, and Peridot looked suddenly terrified.

“I didn’t say that! I have no idea how you feel about this specific topic,” Peridot said, twisting her hands together. “You’ve never talked about this! And you don’t have to right now, but… Lapis, I’m afraid of losing you again.”

It’s like everything inside her was screaming for her to lash out at Peridot harder. Give her a reason to want Lapis gone before she finds her own reasons.

Peridot would never do that. She’s begging for you to stay in her life, even after everything you’ve done to her. And then Lapis broke down, her guilt overflowing; sobbing into her hands helplessly, repeating again and again, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

And they were both comforting her, reassuring her, promising that they loved her; she believed them. She was still sorry to put them in this position at all -- of having to love a monster like her. She’d just hurt them again and again until they were worn down to a shell of who they once were. Isolation was the safest place for her, really.

In the deep dark of early morning, Lapis and Peridot sat together under the stars, listening to the soundtrack of some anime that Peridot kept begging Lapis to watch. They hadn’t spoken for some time, and Peridot was fiddling with an old Gameboy when Lapis finally spoke, her voice tight. “That was embarrassing. I haven’t lost control like that in… years. I’m sorry I scared you.”

Peridot put down the Gameboy immediately and said, “No, no, I’m sorry that I made it about me when it wasn’t. I just don’t know what’s okay to say about any of this, and that’s hard, because now we can’t just avoid the subject. The subject is too big and loud to avoid.”

“I feel insane that I can be in the same room as Blue Diamond and feel… nothing. Not bad, not mad, not sad -- not happy, either. But Jasper showing up throws me into a spiral worse than any I’ve had since... maybe the one where I took the barn? I can see why that messes you up,” Lapis said with a frown, misery churning in her belly like nausea.

Peridot shrugged and wove it off. “Can I ask questions? You can pass on any that are too hard.” She was nervous again – twisting the corner of the oversized T–shirt she was wearing today into a wrinkled mess. That made Lapis feel even shittier. Peridot, of all gems, was at least owed the ability to ask her any question she ever wanted.

“Shoot.”

“You’ve told me so much about the mirror, about your feelings for the Crystal Gems initially, especially Pearl. But almost nothing about this. Was this fusion really worse than the mirror?”

“Yes... and no,” Lapis said, staring at the shimmering stars, nearly blotted out by Earth’s light pollution. She’d thought about it a lot and was ready for that one. “The mirror is something that was done to me. Something I had no control over, just another casualty of insane Diamond drama. Another victim of the war. It was the worst – I was conscious the whole time, I – nothing compares to the mirror. But Malachite… was entirely in my control.”

“But you were just trying to stop Jasper from hurting the Crystal Gems. That’s what Steven told me, when you were still… with her,” Peridot said, seeming to doubt herself more with every word. Lapis’ heart raced; she felt sick.

“When he was still a kid? Garnet just beat her within an inch of poofing, and she begged me to fuse to save herself. She couldn’t have made me fuse against my will, which is why she used the Crystal Gems to try to persuade me. Take them down together, get revenge on the evils done to us both by them,” Lapis said, feeling it all pour out of her like Spinel’s injector poisoning the Earth. Talking about it felt good, but she knew the truth was terrible.

“I hated all of them, all of you -- everyone except Steven. And I couldn’t hurt the Crystal Gems if I didn’t want to hurt Steven, but I could take it all out on Jasper, easy. And she was stupid enough to bring up the mirror, and stupid enough to try to stop me from leaving. I wondered if she knew what being trapped so helplessly felt like.” Lapis paused, hating herself. “I could have poofed her, shattered her, punched her across the planet, flung her into space, any number of things -- but then what? Live with the gems who kept me in that mirror?”

She put her face in her hands, exhausted; afraid to see the horror in Peridot’s eyes whenever it clicked that she was an irredeemable monster. She felt like a shriveled-up husk and wondered, with a sense of irony, if throwing herself in the salty ocean would give back the energy that crying took out of her.

“And so, you feel… bad? That you did that?” Peridot sounded genuinely confused. Lapis nearly laughed but was too tired. At least she developed beyond her old habit of rattling off replies and advice fueled by assumptions. She looked her in the eyes, imploring; determined to make her understand. Still afraid to see her understand, but she needed to. Lapis needed her to.

“Peridot, if it had been you stopping me from leaving and begging me to fuse, it – yeah, I know you wouldn’t, shut up for a second and put yourself in these shoes – it would have been you, suddenly aware you can’t escape within seconds of us fusing and dragged to the deepest darkest trench of the Atlantic Ocean. I would have had access to your worst fears and memories while being too strong for you to shut me out, and I would have enjoyed using that to torture you.” There’s that flicker of fear in her eyes. Finally.

Lapis pressed on, steamrolling over the spark of panic that made her chest clench. “Every bit of suffering I put her through, I could feel as if I was doing to myself. I still get her war and Homeworld torture flashbacks as if they’re my own. It was only Jasper because she put herself in my way, and even at her strongest, she only had a fraction of my power! When we fought Alexandrite, it was because I wanted it! I wanted it so badly, and I knew Steven wasn’t there that time, and she called me on that weakness. She could never take control from me -- our fusion stabilized because we felt the same way in that moment. Bored, exhausted, and ready to shatter the Crystal Gems… whole, for the first time. Joined together without resistance or doubt, finally. And then we weren’t.”

Peridot’s shock slipped away, and she said, in all sincerity, “I’m glad I got the option to bond with you over Camp Pining Hearts instead of that option. Fusion sounds tedious.”

And Lapis laughed, feeling the hard stone shell that had formed around her heart that day burst, and she was flooded with affection for Peridot. She should have trusted the gem who called Yellow Diamond a clod to her face before Era Three to be relentlessly fearless.

Maybe her fearlessness stemmed from her youth and lack of exposure to true horrors. It was refreshing, regardless. Contagious, even. Smiling, Lapis said, “Me too, Pear. How would I understand the complexities of CPH without you?”

“Ugh, you wouldn’t! My expert analysis is fundamental to the experience,” Peridot said with an air of mock importance. Her voice slid back to her normal cadence as she said, “Thank you, also... for telling me about this. I’ve been misunderstanding your perspective for years. Understanding you is important to me.”

“Even if my perspective is really, really dark?” Who does she think I am, really?

“You’ve always been a little dark, I guess? The Lapis who did those things is the same Lapis that took the time to get to know me, even though she really didn’t want to. And sure, you took the barn and broke my heart, but you’re so important to me and I’d rather you remember that and always come back than leave forever out of fear or guilt.” Peridot had a warm little grin that made Lapis want to cry again. She didn’t deserve these gems. She crawled forward and kissed her gem, and then her mouth, and then her cheek.

“As long as you’re here, I won’t leave again,” Lapis promised, giving Peridot one more kiss on the gem. And she meant it, though her trust in herself was relatively low.

[starberrydreamx]

Pearl

Prologue ☆

Pearl! Welcome to the world you beautiful beautiful thing.” Her smooth bubbly voice was the first think Pearl ever heard. Even before she could put a name to it, she swore that voice was the most divine thing in the whole galaxy. The new gem opened her eyes to see an overwhelming flash of color, but even though she could feel herself getting overwhelmed, she focused her vision on the gem infront of her. She looked exquisite standing above her, with puffy pink hair and bright, sparkling eyes that seemed to hold a million worlds.  

Pink Diamond: Your new owner. Now, you must serve. Pearl put a smile on her face as a little voice told her about this wonderful being. 

“Hello my Diamond, it is wonderful to be of service.” She saw her Diamond’s smile falter, and with it her surroundings seem to implode on themselves. No. No. No! Her Diamond was not happy, she was not serving properly, she had done something wrong, she was inadequate for her and needed to be replaced immediately-

Then her smile was back, and the world was okay again. Everything was back in it’s rightful place, Pearl was at peace, but most importantly, her Diamond was at peace.

[rickardt]

A Steven Universe tribute I put together way back after finishing the final episode of Steven Universe Future ^^.

[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

[faelapis]

i feel like i'm in at a lonely table for one here... but i don't want any SU continuity to be a prequel. and i think some people who want a prequel, haven't really thought through what that would look like.

either a war prequel or a rose quartz prequel would end up as a huge downer. the steven/post-steven era is the only one that has any HOPE for the vast majority of the characters.

idk. i feel like if you really want flashbacks, there's nothing STOPPING a post-SU future series (whether an anthology series or a new main character) from having flashbacks. maybe pearl's the main character for an episode, and its mostly her telling old war stories. maybe bismuth and garnet finally have that beta raid flashback.

but if you set it in the past, definitively, then its going to be a bummer. because all the characters end up corrupted, shattered, deeply traumatized, or fleeing to homeworld. nobody feels like a winner right after the war. not a single character.

most gems are only beginning to heal from it now.

SU, thematically, has always focused on the possibility of hope and change. that's only possible in the future, not the past.

you want lore? you can have that in an anthology or post-future series. there is nothing stopping peridot or the diamonds from having a "explaining gem origins and religion" ep. you want action sequences? again, pearl can narrative war flashbacks, or we can even set an anthology episode in the past proper. or have a new conflict!

personally, i don't see a reason to set it only in the past. that's just an unnecessary limit on the stories you're able to tell.

[love-takes-work]

Here we are in the future (merch) and it's WRONG

Hot Topic has been kinda killin' it with neat new designs on SU merch, which to me is pretty special considering how long the show has been off the air and how much I like to get new merch. :X However, the last time I was browsing their site, I decided against getting one of the designs because it's this:

Huh? "Ladies love a hero"? Where the heck did THAT come from?

It's certainly never said in the show, and it's not a sentiment that's presented by any characters, nor is it intended as a message by its creators. Not to mention that the Gems pictured technically aren't even "ladies." Who got the weird idea that "ladies love a hero" would be an appropriate thing to associate with Steven Universe?

I ended up buying a coffee mug with a bunch of SU artifacts and was dismayed to find the "ladies love a hero" phrase had somehow made it onto the otherwise canon-referential mug.

(The side I saw when I decided to get it was this:)

When it came in I showed it to my friend and asked him to find the thing on it that was "wrong." IMMEDIATELY he was like "Ladies love a hero? WHAT?"

Just kinda makes me think that instead of being designed by anyone with a passing familiarity with the show, it was thrown together by someone who thought it would look good. Who decided this?

But speaking of which, then today I saw this one:

Okay. So, seeing merch with random shit from the show splashed all over it is common with knockoffs and lazy ripoff artists, but seeing something like this in a mainstream store is puzzling. It's a somewhat confusing graphic with no message, but it's like . . .

Okay, Steven, Spinel, and Connie from the movie, versus. . . .

Amethyst with her Season 2 design, versus. . . .

Random image of Stevonnie from a single scene in a late Season 5 episode, versus. . . .

Random Greg, random Pink Diamond, versus. . . .

Garnet in what appears to be an attempt at her post-"Jailbreak"/pre-"Change Your Mind" outfit, but it's miscolored, and. . . .

Completely missing Pearl, one of the major main characters. Who puts Pink Diamond, Greg, Connie, Spinel, and Stevonnie on a shirt but forgets Pearl?

It's just kind of a mess, conceptually. A bunch of pretty pictures, several of which are stock art and a couple of which I've basically never seen on anything (so why these, why now?).

It's not uncommon for images featuring the four main characters to have character designs that couldn't have coexisted, but that doesn't bother me as much as something that just feels like it was an out-of-touch designer's google search result for Steven Universe characters.

Man, I need to be a merch consultant for this show or something. I am not much of an artist and am not a designer, but like . . . if they'd just asked ONE fan. . . .

[screwpinecaprice]

It’s been nine years since Steven Universe premiered! 🥺💕

*And shout out to those supported me through Patreon!*

[clean-casual-analysis]

When the villain is a philosophy

When you think of the word antagonist, the first thing that comes to mind is a villain. This is completely natural, given that stories of good vs evil tend to follow a heroic protagonist fighting against an evil antagonist. But once you get into the definition of the word, a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something, moral alignment doesn’t dictate whether a character should be a protagonist or an antagonist. The most recognizable examples of this would be the likes of Invader Zim and Megamind, characters that are villainous in nature but are still the protagonists of their respective stories.

But villain protagonists and hero antagonists aren’t what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the antagonists that aren’t entirely focused on, at least in the traditional sense. Antagonists that, despite being the source of conflict in the narrative, don’t actually show up a lot of the time. These antagonists, while characters in their own right, are more symbolic in nature. The protagonists of these stories aren’t just trying to defeat the antagonists, but the rotten philosophies that these antagonists have. The beliefs that push the antagonists to do their villainous acts.

White Diamond: Uniformity and the Status Quo

In the entirety of the original Steven Universe series, not counting the movie or SU Future, White Diamond appears in three episodes out of one hundred and sixty episodes. (Two if we don’t count White Pearl/Volleyball) That’s not even one percent of the series. In most series involving a good vs evil plot line, we usually switch perspectives between our heroes and villains to understand how they’re reacting to the events of the story. But SU is entirely told from Steven’s perspective. The audience only gets new information about gems, homeworld, Rose Quartz, etcetera, when Steven himself learns it. Because of this perspective, we don’t see the final antagonist of the series until the very end of the show.

But even though White Diamond is not present throughout the majority of the show, her homeworld subordinates and beliefs fill in the place of the hurdles that the protagonists must pass. Think about what the show is about and what lessons it teaches. Relationships are intricate and need mutual respect, being proud of who and what you are, and (most importantly) societal roles do not define you. The development of the main characters each involve acceptance of the self and bucking of what’s expected of them. Pearl fully moving on from Rose, Garnet improving her self-love, Amethyst fully accepting herself for what she is, Peridot’s disillusionment with Homeworld and growing appreciation for earth, Connie disobeying her mother’s strict rules, Steven slowly becoming someone better than even his own mother, I could go on. It’s honestly surprising, looking back, how most of the characters’ core issues stem from the lack of self-assurance and how homeworld views their flaws.

White Diamond and her Homeworld regime ultimately represent how systems put limits and stigma onto people for the sake of uniformity. The consequence of living inside your own head. A fusion cannot happen between two different gems, Pearls must be servants, Quartz gems must be big and strong, and Diamonds must be the perfect leaders. Why? Because that’s just what gems do. Because that’s how the system works. Homeworld’s status quo is one of creating an ever-expanding empire at the cost of independence, self-expression, unique lifeforms, and healthy relationships. The system can’t be wrong, White Diamond can’t be flawed, it’s how things have always been so why change what isn’t broken.

Sauron: Dominance and Corruption

While he has more screen presence and is a much more a significant part of the story of Lord of the Rings than White Diamond is to SU, the dark lord Sauron is similarly one small part of a larger tale. Heck, he doesn’t even have dialogue in the book trilogy. Also, like White Diamond, Sauron is best represented by his many underlings. Ruthless orcs with crude but effective weaponry, colossal beasts to crush his enemies underfoot, massive armies dedicated to the dark lord’s cause of dominating all life in Midde Earth. But what’s most notable about Sauron isn’t the great power he possesses or the armies he commands, it’s the way he corrupts and deceives those that stand against him.

The betrayal of Saruman the White, the nine Nazgûl once being great kings of men who were turned into terrible ringwraiths, and most notoriously, the enticing power of the one ring. Boromir, believing that Gondor can use this evil weapon for good. Smeagol, utterly degraded into a deceitful cave dwelling throttler named Gollum. Frodo, forced to carry a heavy burden that weighs him down both physically and mentally. To Sauron, the corruption of good is a weapon he wields with unmatched lethality.

The insidious nature of his villainy is what makes Sauron the great representative of dominance and corruption that he is. The promises of more enticing good people to do evil for the “right” reasons and the ruthless conquest for dominion over all is all too real an evil to ignore.

The Martians: Colonialism and Warfare

I debated with myself on whether or not the martians from War of the Worlds should be included here. Unlike Sauron or White Diamond, the martians are clear and present throughout the story. On the other hand, there isn’t a named martian general or a big bad that’s shown to lead the alien invaders into combat. In the end, the fact that the martians are made to purely represent the darkest parts of humanity outweighs the secondary theme of this essay.

One of, if not THE first alien invasion story, War of the Worlds messaging is clear and easy to understand. The tentacled beings from Mars are coldly intelligent, remorseless, and regard our world with envious eyes. They use human blood as sustenance when they aren’t vaporizing us by the hundreds, their tripods are horrific machines of mass destruction, and their invasion is one of slaughter and destruction. But the book is quick to remind us that humanity isn’t so morally innocent compared to the martians. The consumption of our blood seems horrific, but humans have also killed animals and each other for food and resources. Their tripods are colossal and terrifying, but humanity has made countless destructive war machines. The invaders are dead set on wiping out humanity, but humanity not only brought extinction to animals like the dodo bird but to entire groups of our own kind. The martians are not simply an alien invasion to fight back against, it’s a cautious look into our worst future. A humanity that prioritizes ruthless colonization and military might is a humanity doomed to be parasitic and heartless.

War of the Worlds also takes a critical view towards solving problems through warfare. Violence is sometimes needed to fight evil, but that does make violence a good thing. The action and battles in War of the Worlds are not thrilling or glorious, they are horrific and even bumbling to an extent. Much like the early British imperials that they represent, the martians are arrogant and only win because they have the better technology. Even the destruction of a tripod has severe consequences, a flaming wreckage falling into a lake and boiling the humans hiding there alive. There is nothing pride or goodness to found in destruction and death. Warfare and violence should be the last resort of those trying to survive, yet humanity and martians brandish their weapons without care or empathy for those beneath them.

The Truth, In-Fighting, and the Seemingly Insignificant

These antagonists all represent a morally dangerous part of humanity. The stubborn refusal to change a flawed status quo, the desire to dominate and corrupt those who don’t, needless conquest and bloody war. But despite all their power and influence, these philosophies that the villains believe in fail them in the end.

For White Diamond, her ultimate failure stems from the mortal enemy of all tyrannical systems: the truth. In the last episode of Steven Universe, White Diamond removes the gemstone from our protagonist’s body. Believing that the mischievous Pink Diamond is merely hiding in this human body, White seeks to end this silly game once and for all. But once the gemstone is removed, it does form into Pink Diamond or even Rose Quartz. It forms a bright pink Steven. In the final act of Change Your Mind, White Diamond is faced with reality and all its implications. This gemstone is Steven, it’s always been Steven. This half human is not the irrational or childish person, it’s White. The leader of Homeworld, the one who’s supposed to know all and make things better, is wrong. But in order to do that, she needs to leave her own head. One of the hardest things for a person to do is admit when they’re wrong, that their foundational beliefs holding up a status quo is deeply flawed and objectively false. But accepting that you were wrong, learning from and fixing your mistakes, and becoming something better than what you were before is the greatest reward anyone genuinely looking for redemption can ask for.

For Sauron, his victory over Middle Earth comes so close. Minas Tirith has been ravaged, the army of man outside the black gates are crumbling before his might, and the ring bearer has been corrupted. However, just when all hope is burned to ash, something unexpected happens. Gollum, the epitome of the corruptive power that the one ring possesses, attacks Frodo to get back his precious. Whether it’s through struggling with Frodo like in the movie or not paying attention like in the book, Gollum falls into the fires of Mount Doom with the ring in tow. In the movies, we’re told that the eye of Sauron can pierce through cloud and stone. Because of this detail, I personally wonder what was going through the dark lord’s mind as he watched Gollum plummet to his death. The one ring’s defense, Sauron’s greatest strength, corrupting others into fighting amongst each other, was what led to his ultimate downfall. This is not the first time something like this has happened. Think back to the orcs fighting amongst themselves, or when Wormtongue stabs Saruman in the back. Not to mention that the mercy of both Frodo and Bilbo is what led to Gollum reaching Mount Doom in the first place. Even with all his armies and power, Sauron underestimated the petty infighting amongst his followers and the little acts of kindness of his enemies. Even when the forces of darkness seemingly succeed, all they’ll have left is each other to destroy. As Frodo himself said in the Two Towers book, they can’t conquer forever.

For the martians, their demise comes outwardly from nowhere. Their Tripods fall silent and they all die due to sickness. The book states that the martians either never encountered bacteria like earth’s or they had wiped out all disease on Mars. In both scenarios, the martian’s belief in their untouchable superiority over earth led their death. As soon as their invasion started, they were doomed. War of the Worlds isn’t just a hard look at what humanity could become, but also a love letter to all types of life. Bacteria, the seemingly most insignificant part of our world, is our savior here. It is so, so easy to despise germs and how they make mankind ill. But they also decompose dead flesh, helps the human body digest food, and are just as vital to our world as so many other creatures’ humanity takes for granted. All forms of life has a place in this world and to undervalue, let alone actively want to eliminate, all of it is foolhardy and black-hearted.

It’s how these stories come to an end is why I’m attracted to the idea of villains representing abhorrent philosophies. They show the inherent flaws of such morally bankrupt ideas and how their failures are inevitable. The desire for uniformity and belief that your status quo is flawless cannot stand up to the truth of the situation. Great and powerful conquerors seeking to corrupt will find themselves destroying each other when there is nothing left to dominate, while small acts of generosity and sympathy keep their opponents afloat. Arrogant war lords with their mighty machines will crumble to the things they deem to be insignificant.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/747087104725729280/who-are-all-these-people-getting-harassed-and#notes

Can only speak about what I experienced or my friends, but I remember that during the Legend of Korra there was a lot of this shit. Especially when the KorrAsami ship became more popular. There was also a growing dislike of any M/F shippers, and a lot of anti-bisexuality for Korra and Asami, despite them both having dated a guy, and nothing to imply that they're no bisexual anymore. The fact that they ended up together was apparently enough to bring out the knives to any "bisexual" shippers.

Bubbline, aka Princess Bubblegum and Marceline also got the anti-bi treatment for Marcie, and people getting angry if you did the ship wrong.

And last but not least: STEVEN UNIVERSE! Oh girls, boys and NB'joys. There were a lot of different F/F ships, but during the entire run and especially by the end of SU, if you dared do it wrong there were knives. You couldn't ship Pearl/Garnet because that's abuse. You can't ship Pearl/Rose because it's abuse. Amethyst/Pearl: Abuse. Garnet/Amethyst: Abuse. Lapis/Jasper: Abuse. Peridot/Lapis: Abuse. Garnet/Jasper: Abuse. Pearl/Jasper: Abuse. Amethyst/Jasper: Abuse. Peridot/Amethyst: Not abuse surprisingly but that one's also bad. Diamonds/their Pearls: Abuse. Don't you even fucking dare try doing any M/F ships with the gems, because they're all "lesbian coded" and if you still did it: Knives. Honestly, every ship was somehow bad, and if you got swept up with the wave on antis you'd get attacked for your ship. It was exhausting, especially following fan art. But it was also a real good show of anti hypocrisy because every anti would ship their fave F/F regardless, and would just twist another ship to be the bad one, and they can ship their ship because they're smarter.

--

[rosenotactuallyquartz]

Who's your fav character of su?

my top three favourite steven universe characters

(because three are particularly special to me)

pearl

i’d use the favourite character label for pearl because of how much i admire her. being there for steven through his personal trauma. giving connie + steven support that she + rose never had while also learning from them. she has to work through her flaws, trauma, grieving the loss of the love of her life, never having a childhood, struggles with understanding humans so that she can properly care for a human child. but she loves so strongly and that helps her significantly. she loves him just as rose would have loved her son. steven always says things like, “pearl is smart and she’s always trying to protect me from danger!”

gosh, i love everything about pearl as a rebel against homeworld. homeworld says that pearls are inferior gems with irrelevant feelings—sugar writes in end of an era that rose fell in love with certain aspects of pearl’s personality, one of her main traits being how fiercely opinionated she is. homeworld says that pearls are not built to fight, pearl learns sword fighting for a war against homeworld gems who were supposedly built for fighting. she’s incredible and garnet’s first impression of pearl is “terrifying renegade.” homeworld says that pearls are made to serve, to simply stand there and follow orders from a superior who they don’t have a personal connection with. once they’re on earth & pearl can be who she is, she not only has her own personality but she’s able to fall in love and form a meaningful relationship. she wants to take care of her, keep her safe, make her happy. but she won’t do anything for her in some shallow, traumatizing homeworld way that involves her standing there & looking pretty & following orders. no, she’ll fight for her, she’ll be her knight because that’s the kind of personality she has. that’s the kind of love she has for her, it’s protective, caring, and bold rather than pure worship, feeling weaker than her, & timidity. it’s not always easy, and she has to work on complex trauma from homeworld (i.e., overprotective mixed with difficulties grasping that rose loves her for simply being herself and not because of the things she’s doing for her) but she makes progress and her growth is continuous, from flashbacks to the final episode.

in sworn to the sword, she has a memory in which she saves rose at the very last moment from a homeworld gem who’s supposedly “built for fighting.” she doesn’t even focus on how powerful she is in that memory, because all she’s thinking about is how scared she was for rose & the relief she felt when she was saved. she’s so smart & empathetic, so you can tell that she really cared about rose’s abuse trauma and the pain she tried to hide. by then, she is understanding humans more and therefore she only tells steven a little bit (i.e., having her feelings invalidated & being pushed to continue when she was upset that her colony would hurt living things in now we’re only falling apart), knowing that too much detail would be too scary for a child.

she also has lovely outfits (especially her outfit with the legwarmers) & songs. she can be so comforting & nurturing, yet so fierce & protective. which is great for both rose & steven.

rose

i’d use the comfort character label for rose because of how much i relate to her. our personalities, our views, the things we’ve been through, & some other more personal things. just a little tip for anyone who reads this: if you struggle with sympathizing with yourself, sometimes looking at a character you love & relate to is helpful! i have so much empathy for rose, and then i think, wait, but i’m so much like that. as a bi & poly girl, i feel so understood by her story in that way, too.

like pearl, she’s a complex and flawed character. she genuinely believed all life was precious, urged the crystal gems to protect even humans they didn't understand, and never wanted to shatter anyone. she saw beauty in everything but couldn’t apply that to herself—she couldn't forgive or love herself, or see the beauty pearl saw in her. it’s heartbreaking that pearl always tells others how much rose cared about all life, knowing rose’s only exception was rose herself.

while that’s not as comforting, it’s meaningful. you learn a lot from it. onto nicer things.

she’s also comforting because she’s so endearing to me. she says the most adorable things, has the cutest facial expressions, everything.

she’s associated with other things that bring me comfort; my favourite colour is pink, i love animals & she has a bunch of lion friends. i loved princesses & fairytales as a child & she gives me nostalgia with her healing powers & other princess traits. my four-year-old self watched princesses who did everything right, did no wrong, were loved by everyone. straight with one specific body type. i couldn’t quite relate to them, & of course i wanted to be a princess. but rose! she’s sapphic & chubby & she fights with her knight who uses she/her pronouns & she makes mistakes & has mental health issues & is disliked by some. i can’t even begin to explain how refreshing that is. she’s unique, realistic, relatable, different from the stereotypes, complicated, & just as beautiful (if not, more) as any princess that i loved growing up. her story with pearl has so many fairytale features & yet it’s so complex, which is really cool.

connie

connie is my third favourite character, and she is relatable in some ways as well as admirable. she resonates with me because of how i was growing up. so, she gives me some comforting childhood nostalgia too. overachiever, “gifted,” shy. i empathize with her so much & i love watching her character development.

connie + steven are different from other kids. connie is super smart & mature & quite anxious, while steven’s a gem with some really traumatic experiences. their closeness is so meaningful. they grow together while they enjoy being kids & making childhood memories together. connie also reminds me of how pearl would be if she was a kid who grew up in beach city. i could say the same about rose with steven, and i love the parallels. the kindergarten scene in now we’re only falling apart particularly made me notice the similarities in their personalities and the way they interact. like pearl, she starts off being nervous, following all rules. she’s seen as inferior to homeworld. that doesn’t matter, because her best friend & eventual love interest admires her even though he is a diamond who lives on earth as a quartz. he’s more playful, & their contrasting personalities are good for them.

i love how caring she is. she doesn’t understand everything about gems, and she’s a kid! of course it’s confusing and distressing. but connie never runs the other way when things come up because she knows this is confusing and distressing for steven, too. i love when she says, “i want to be part of your universe.” she always knows when she needs to check on steven, talk to him about difficult things, reassure him, & she even trains with pearl so that she can protect steven and the earth. her courage and determination amazes me, too. she sees the gems summon their weapons, resurrect, heal, see the future. she’s human, but she doesn’t let that phase her. she learns to fight and she’s incredible at it. she has so much empathy that she can truly put herself in other people’s shoes, ask them meaningful questions. she’s just a wonderful person.

if i made a top ten list, you’d also see steven, amethyst, garnet, ruby, sapphire, pink pearl, & blue pearl. there’s even more characters i love after that, but yes! i don’t know how to end this! bye, i suppose!