Steven Universe Nerdology

Another smattering of drawings from ‘Change your Mind’

people are just misunderstanding White.

When White finally shows a flaw, it’s a downhill battle, because what she’s been trying to do for so long was maintain perfection. No doubt she was the creator of all Gems, and the one who determined how society would run. She needs to do her best, always, lest things fall apart.

But she hasn’t always been a perfectionist.

This is perfectionism. Shoving yourself inside other Gems so that they can’t think for themselves—so you’re the only one making decisions.

It’s easy to be perfect if nobody can think for themselves.

But she wasn’t always like that. Blue Diamond says so herself—they all used to spend time together, and even laugh. Which doesn’t sound much like the White Diamond we knew, does it?

That’s because White’s perfectionism was a response to Pink’s death.

We’ve seen the other Diamonds’ reactions to Pink’s death. Blue’s is the most obvious:

She became incredibly depressed all the time—so much so that she weaponized her sadness.

Yellow is a slightly more complex Diamond: her response to Pink’s death was to bury everything. Don’t feel anything. Move on like nothing happened. Yes, she’s sad. But she can’t show it.

She’s cold. Calculating. She’s weaponized her anger over Pink’s death.

Which brings us to White. How could a leader, the one Gem who holds Homeworld together, show any sort of emotion? She can’t be angry. She most certainly can’t be sad. What effect would that have on her Gems?

So she keeps everything perfect. Because if everything’s perfect, nothing like Pink’s death will ever happen again.

She weaponizes her perfectionism. She robs other Gems of their being. She extends her will into anyone who shows deviance, because the Empire cannot crack again.

Until it does.

White gets embarrassed, and she shows color—she shows a flaw, for the first time since Pink has died. And the world doesn’t fall apart.

And that makes her realize: if she can blush, and be sad, and flustered, and nothing bad will happen, maybe she can go back to being herself.

So she does. Begrudgingly, but she does.

i think some of the jokes in the conversations between smoky and sardonyx were intentionally awkward or ill-timed. i mean. smoky laughs about the crowd being easy to please, for a reason. 

“i’m so excited i could just shatter!”

we’ve just had a bunch of episodes dedicated to the topic of shattering. how it means gems can never come back, how steven thinks nobody deserves that, how it changed the war, and how pink diamond deeply affected characters like jasper and eyeball.

“she (jasper) lost her mind in a corrupted fusion… i guess you could say she had a short fuse!” 

again, making light of a horrible thing that just happened… but i don’t think the writers think anyone found jasper’s corruption funny. heck, even people who dislike her (mostly) agree it wasn’t a pleasant scene. smoky doesn’t look all that comfortable making these jokes either.

but it segways into the real topic of the episode - how people use jokes to cover up very genuine problems. 

oftentimes, it’s awkward or flat-out uncomfortable to listen to, but for many people doing it, it’s also a way of coping. they want to acknowledge these bad things, but they don’t wanna… make a big deal out of it. they need to talk about them, but they also kinda really don’t want to. 

and that’s smoky.

trying their best to make light of their insecurities, because they don’t want to address them, or they don’t think that’s what their loved ones (sardonyx) wants to hear.  it’s kind of like having fun with a friend, while also going through something awful. you might want to talk about it, but you don’t really wanna… bring up how horrible you’re feeling when your friend is having a good time. you just wanna put on a “good show”.

so smoky starts making jokes about themselves. they’re not particularly clever or funny, they’re just “lighthearted” ways of saying they have serious issues. 

“i guess zero plus zero equals… zero!”

“they say two wrongs don’t make a right, i guess i’m living proof that’s true!”

these “jokes” aren’t funny, they’re sad. and sardonyx, who is excited for them and loves them, recognizes this and starts getting visibly uncomfortable. 

not everything can be a laughing matter. 

i think sardonyx recognized fairly early that smoky had self-confidence issues. like many friends and family do, her response was to try to help smoky find their positive traits… but when that doesn’t work, it can make the person you’re trying to comfort feel worse. like they’re a disappointment on top of everything else, for not following the “script” by feeling better already.

it was well-intentioned. it was the only way sardonyx knew how to address it, while also keeping a positive and fun mood. trying to cheer smoky up, without interrupting the “show”. 

but sometimes, you gotta interrupt the show and talk about what’s bothering you. even if it means ruining the good mood, disappointing the metaphorical “audience” that exists when you make your behavior performative to please someone else. 

Me:

So I think Homeworld may be at war. It could be a cold war, but I think there’s some sort of conflict in the background that we might not be aware of. Why do I think this? Consider Earth: The first Kindergarten, Kindergarten Prime, that they established was primarily designed around producing Quartzes. Why would Homeworld need large quantities of powerful soldier gems? I can’t imagine they’d make them and give them nothing to do. Tiger Millionaire and On The Run provide great insight into how lack of fighting and a means to express herself through combat negatively effects Amethyst. If you magnify that by the thousands of quartzes produced in the Kindergarten that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Because…hell she’s right.

Rose became a sort of safe haven for the Gems who didn’t fit into their intended role somehow: fusions, runts, non-conformers, you name it. And she was appealing in part because she was the last resort for those sorts of Gems. Jasper makes it clear these Gems would otherwise be shattered under the Diamonds. Joining Rose may not have always been a free, voluntary, ideological choice; maybe, sometimes, it was pure desperation.

That leads me to this: Jasper didn’t swat away Steven’s touch because she suspected him; she swatted him off because she understood him.

She understood he was doing what Rose Quartz always does: identifying a Gem so destroyed beyond its original purpose, and then offering to help it, offering compassion and comfort and gentleness. Against the dawning realization that only shattering awaits them on Homeworld, what Gem wouldn’t reach for Rose’s hand? 

And no, Rose wasn’t being compassionate strictly as a military strategy. Not at all. But that’s what Jasper sees. And from an objective standpoint, she’s not wrong. This is how Rose recruits Gems–with kindness in a hopeless situation. 

At that moment, Jasper saw Rose’s hand extended to her. And knowing what she knew, that could only mean that Rose has pegged her as something irredeemable to Homeworld. She had broken down into something defective and corrupted enough to seem worthy of pity in Rose Quartz’s eyes, worthy of being swayed.

Think of how Jasper talked about Peridot: She’s lost her status, her limb enhancers/tech, her home, her job, everything that, as far as Jasper and Homeworld are concerned, made Peridot who she was.  And yet Peridot seems to have completely bought into this bizarre new ideology, betrayed everything she once held dear and her species as a whole.  And this was the first time Jasper had any real idea of why.

And it didn’t just startle her.

It terrified her.

Because I’m not so sure about Rose doing all of this purely for the sake of compassion…oh, I don’t think Rose was any kind of monster, and I DO believe she was doing what she thought was right and best…but there is an element of the cult leader about her.  There is an element of rigidity to her ideology.  Fuck, look at what she did to Bismuth; somebody disagreed with her methods, and she “disappeared” her, just the way the Soviets did in the Cold War.

And what scared Jasper most was that, in that moment, she was tempted to take Steven/Rose’s hand.  And throw everything away.  And join this bizarro cult that would force her to leave everything behind.  And she couldn’t reconcile that temptation with her own drive and loyalty and ambition.  

I think one of my favourite things about “Steven Universe”, and one of the things I find most touching and personally affirming, is the relationship between Rose Quartz and Greg.

I mean, here’s Rose, who’s represented as this powerful, intelligent, charismatic, beautiful woman, respected as both a warrior and a leader.  She travels to Earth and decides to spend her life there, and in 6000 years, the human she decides is most interesting, most engaging, most beautiful…is Greg.  

Greg is a doofus.  He’s bald.  He’s fat.  He’s a slob with no sense of style or grooming.  He’s practically homeless.  He’s a failed rock and roll star whose dreams of fame and fortune ended with him running a small town car wash and living in the back of an ancient van. In any other show, he would be the loser of the cast, the fuck-up, the somewhat lovable, helpless goofball who can’t be counted on for anything.

But Rose thought he was beautiful.

It’s something of a sitcom parody; the dimwitted, ugly, slovenly husband with the beautiful, intelligent wife.  Fred and Wilma, Archie and Edith, Peter and Lois, Homer and Marge.  But Rose and Greg’s relationship isn’t like that.  Even in my favourite of those relationships, that of Marge and Homer, Homer is presented as more than a bit of a jerk.  Oh, he’s a fundamentally decent man who genuinely loves his family and treasures his wife, but he’s also selfish, thoughtless, more than occasionally neglectful, lazy, and self-centered.  And more than that, in those shows, the husband is really the main character.  Most of the wife’s role is reacting to his antics.  But that’s not Rose and Greg’s story.

Greg is a good man.  Not just a decent guy under the jerky exterior, but a truly and fundamentally good man.  He stands up to his misogynist buddy.  He adores and encourages his son in every way.  He is kind and giving to everyone he meets.  He works hard, even though it’s a job that he never wanted and that has taken the place of his dream.  Speaking of that, even though he’s never seen even a lick of the stardom he dreamed of, Greg has never lost sight of his ambitions.  He still plays music, still sings, still performs, still writes albums.  Greg may never make it as a rock star, but he will never stop trying.  This is what Rose saw.  This is what Rose, one of the most powerful and respected warriors and generals of her people, came to love.

In a world where success and worth are measured primarily in material gains and career-based achievements, Greg is a reminder of what’s truly important.  In the show, his failed music career, his chubby build, his sloppy clothes, his poverty…they don’t matter.  What’s emphasised is the true, human beauty of Greg; the warmth, the kindness, the courage, the imagination, the dedication to art and devotion to family.  It’s a reminder to all of us who have been pushed to be “successful”, been hassled about when we were “going to get serious”…that even if we are living in poverty, even if we have no real career, even if we’re not conventionally attractive or haven’t achieved all we’ve wanted to…we still have value.  We still have beauty.  And we are still loved.

Wow! Another stellar set of episodes. While I may have been a bit underwhelmed by “Bismuth” (in short, Bismuth was a great episode, but I’m most excited to learn about Gem qualities and Homeworld history, so episodes that cover those things are more engaging to me. Bismuth was a great character defining, but didn’t hit upon the topics I like most.)“Beta+Earthlings” was much more my cup of tea.

Once again, this will be a first impressions episode covering my reactions to the stuff we’ve learned.

1. I actually jumped out of my seat when Steven fused with Amethyst. That he can fuse with gems didn’t really surprise me, but it was a great moment.

2. Jasper’s corruption: I’m not sure what to make of this. My current belief is that all of the corrupted gems on earth are the result of the Diamond Authority’s weapon. I used to think corruption could occur naturally, but gave up on that idea after Monster Reunion. But now we have Jasper corrupting. I want to say it’s because she fused with a corrupted gem. If Fusion was an important weapon of the Rebellion, it seems reasonable that the DA’s attack, in addition to rendering gems ‘useless’ by corrupting them, would make them dangerous to fuse with. So I’m thinking she started to corrupt as a result of the fusion and not necessarily as a result of her mental state. It seems reasonable if you consider that corruption is mental damage and gems in a fusion share a 'mental’ space.

3. Pink Diamond. I think it was significant that when Jasper was asserting what was good about Homeworld and the Diamond Authority, they showed the 4 diamond logo, not the current 3 diamond logo. This makes sense when we later learned that one of the reasons she holds a grudge against Rose is, to quote Jasper “I’ve been fighting from the moment I broke free from the Earth’s crust. Because of what you did to my colony. Because of what you did to my planet. Because of what you did to my Diamond.” Steven asks “Yellow Diamond?” Jasper looks shocked and then says “My Diamond! Your Diamond! Pink Diamond!” To me, this is another point in favor of the argument that Rose is not Pink Diamond, but I don’t think this seals the deal definitively. So you Rose as Pink Diamond theorists, don’t give up hope! More importantly though, what can we infer about the Rebellion timeline from all of this? Peridot says “It was obviously a total rush job. Halfway through the Rebellion, Homeworld scrambled to generate extra soldiers on the ground.” What we can infer from this is that Jasper was 'born’ somewhere in the middle of the Rebellion. She still considered Pink to be her Diamond, as well as Rose’s Diamond, and when she thinks of the Diamond Authority, she thinks of the 4 Diamond Logo. Does this mean Pink was still around during the middle of the Rebellion? In Monser Reunion, Centipeedle draws the 3 Diamond Logo to represent the Diamond Authority. So it changed during the Rebellion. Jasper is at first infuriated at 'Rose’ for what she did, and then looks crushed when Steven doesn’t realize Pink Diamond was even a thing. How would Jasper have developed such an attachment to Pink Diamond if she was already gone when Jasper was born? To me that means one of two things: Either Pink was still around in the middle of the War, or Homeworld was using “What Rose did to Pink Diamond” as a method of indoctrinated newly forged gems and turning them against Rose. This still doesn’t address why the Diamond Authority logo changed, or whose side of the Rebellion Pink was on. Someday we will learn!

4. We discovered a new type of Quartz, Carnelian. Nothing more than a name, but now we have Rose, Jasper, Amethyst and Carnelian as quartz types.

5. How crazy adorable are Peridot and Lapis? I mean seriously, I could watch that all day.

Effectively the popular fanon Homeworld as an organization that frequently or even regularly executes Gems cannot exist.

Getting a crack is a death sentence and Homeworld is already struggling for enough people to fill all the jobs they have. Rhetoric’s like what Jasper’s holding onto- that ‘weak’ or ‘flawed’ people don’t deserve good things- are dying out and we already know Jasper herself isn’t a very staunch defender on it, given she actively points out that Peridot’s been deprived of her assistive technology and (implicitly, thus) her dignity. 

No wonder Homeworld’s main focus at this point, rather than apprehending the Crystal Gems, is trying to get Jasper off the planet. They’re trying to lose as few people as they possibly can and Peridot has made it clear she’s not exactly playing for Homeworld any more.

And this, quite potentially, leads to a huge incentive that may spur one or more reform arcs: because at this point entirely outside of whatever Peridot has in mind about sustainably accessing Earth’s resources, Steven stands to be an incredibly important asset to Homeworld’s current crisis.

He’s a healer- and implicitly, it was Rose’s healing power that let her set up the fountain, so Steven could do the same. And moreover he’s making real headway on repairing the corrupted Gems, not all of which are going to want to settle down and live on Earth forever given it’s the site of an incredibly dark, traumatic chapter of their lives. And there are a lot of them on Earth. One of which is that “perfect” quartz that Homeworld has been trying really hard to get back.

Pictured: The two corrupted gems in Gem Hunt, next to Crazy Lace Agate and Biggs Jasper.

In Back to the Moon, Pink Diamond’s mural was finally revealed. One detail of note is that, while the other Diamonds were pictured alongside multiple planets, Pink Diamond’s mural shows her holding only one, which appears to be the earth and its moon.

Why is it that Pink Diamond only possesses a single planet, while the other Diamonds each have several of their own?

The most straightforward explanation is that Pink Diamond is the least powerful of the Diamonds, and thus least able to claim a colony as her own.

I’ll explain why this might be under the cut.

It’s all coming together.

So lets start off with this.

This is what started the rebellion, the first act of treason from Rose Quartz, but here’s the thing, we’ve already seen the scene directly after the act of poofing pink diamond. (I specified ‘poofing’ and not ‘shattering’ for a reason, bare with me)

This is it. Right here.

If you’ve watched Rose’s Scabbard as many times as I have (so many, too many) then you know how this scene goes.

Rose: “Pearl, I’m going to stay and fight for this planet.”

This dialogue is so, so important. They’ve reached a breaking point (ha) here. Something that Rose just did has pushed them both into needing to make a choice. There’s no going back. Rose chooses to stay.

It’s important to notice her expressions here.

The first thing that strikes me is that for a few frames she’s looking away from Pearl, looking back. What exactly is she looking at? The evidence of what she’s just done? Pink Diamond’s Gem?

But it’s her eyes that really do it for me.

She looks haunted.

Then the urgency of the situation comes in through the dialogue, and here’s why I think this just happened.

Rose: “You don’t have to do this with me.” Pearl: “But I want to!” Rose: “I know you do. Please, please understand, if we lose we’ll be killed, and if we win, we can never go home.”

She’s done something punishable by death, so she gives Pearl the option of leaving. She still has time to give Pearl the option of leaving.

This, if nothing else is proof that Homeworld doesn’t know that Pink Diamond has been poofed yet, that the act of treason has just been committed. They are the only  gems who know what has happened, we know this because not only does Eyeball confirm that there were witnesses to Pink Diamond’s shattering but, in the beginning of “The Answer” when Pearl and Rose first attack, the Ruby guards can be heard crying out:

“Who are you?!” “Show yourselves!”

At that point all Homeworld knew was that there was a rebellion, they didn’t know who had rebelled, who attacked Pink Diamond.

Back to Rose’s Scabbard.

If Pearl returns to Homeworld now it’ll be without consequence, she won’t be blamed because nobody knows what just happened, Pearl can lie, claim no involvement, anything. Rose knows this, tries to protect her by offering her a means of escape. (It’s obvious by her body language, her hesitation, and her resignation that she wants Pearl to stay but she would never ask that of her, but that’s another post entirely ;D )

Pearl declines, of course.

(Rose looks so relieved and happy and ajshgjakhgs)

We’ve just witnessed the start of the rebellion and the birth of the Crystal Gems.

Now this. This is where and how Pink Diamond was shattered.

The rebellion is underway, a thousand year war. The Crystal Gems are outnumbered, outgunned, and it all comes to a head in the strawberry battlefield where it seems that White Diamond has been sent in to finish them off once and for all.

This mural has always reminded me of something straight out of Sailor Moon.

And I believe the same scenario played out here. The odds were stacked against them, they were facing total defeat. So Rose, like Usagi, uses her last resort, her strongest weapon.

In this case, that’s Pink Diamond’s Gem.

And this is what happens.

She never meant to shatter her.