Good Little Girl

Hold on to your butts.  The Diamonds each have some kind of Empathy Power, if you will. Blue can project her feelings onto other gems and force them to feel what she feels

White Diamond can literally take a gem over and make them her, as she put it;

We haven’t seen Yellow’s yet, as her power seems purely physical; a static shock powerful enough to poof a gem–which is fitting as she isn’t the type to show much emotion anyway;

But Pink Diamond definitly had one, as we see Steven use it here to get Yellow and Blue to stop fighting and listen to him:

They instantly recognized Pink’s gem and come around enough to hear Steven out. It’s almost like Pink’s power soothed all their worries, calmed them down and thus, made them more agreeable. So, its safe to say Pink Diamnd’s Enpathy Power is to reach out to others and soothe them. That explains why the Diamonds just want to adore him like the old days, Pink brought them inner peace, and she pasased on that power to her son.

It can be a flashy, dramatic power like Blue or Yellow’s, where you actually see a beam of light or a color change, but normally, its a passive power that comes through mostly when Steven is just… around people he cares about. It especially comes out when he sings for his friends–just like when Pink sang songs underwater for her Diamonds.

But here’s the thing fam; every time we’ve seen Steven use the passive side of this power, he’s focused, he knows who he is, what he’s doing, and why he’s doing it. He knows his path, and he’s following it. 

What if he didn’t? What if he suddenly goes through an identity crisis, and uses the passive side of this power? We got our answer tonight;

THE TOXICITY FROM HIS IDENTITY CRISIS & SELF-HATRED IS POISONING HIS EMPATHY POWER!!

Instead of soothing and bringing inner peace, now it brings the opposite; emotional and psychological turmoil! The double edge to Steven’s empathy power seems to be that if he uses it while in a bad head space, he can stuff his toxic thoughts and emotions into another living being and mess them up; Cactus Steven was getting progressively worse even before Pink Steven angrily made his appearance!

This is horrifying, as Steven was just… venting!! That’s what I mean by a passive power, he wasn’t even trying! Just like when he sings, he brings peace without making an effort, when he’s toxic he can cause so much hurt without making an effort. But, it’s ony when he does glow pink that we really understand what’s going on; 

Cactus Steven is corrupted. And we’ve seen this power before.

Do you see what’s happening?

It was a Hate Beam. The Diamonds, so full of toxic hate and rage were they in the face of losing their precious Pink Diamond, they literally lazer focused all those feelings down at all the defected gems on Earth, corrupting them–and now, unbeknownst to him, Steven is unlocking that power. But Steven’s not the kind of person to release such toxicity onto his surroundings, and he’s already started to bottle all those toxic feelings up. What if instead of releasing them in a healthy way, he starts turning them inward and takes them out on himself?

Made this with help from @mycotian because clearly Steven has finally reached the cold cynic levels of one black coffee in SU Fear uwu