#oproars

Hello fellow people with su crit blogs! This blog is still dead, but I have decided to try researching something that I care about, and that involves getting the opinions and experiences of others in the community! My DMs are open! So here is my question:

What drove you to create an entire side blog dedicated to criticizing Steven Universe? Why did you choose that over just making some review-type posts on your main? What experiences have lead you to stand in this community separate from the rest of the fandom?

Please note, this is not a condemnation of any of those actions. I just want to collect as many different perspectives as I can, and obviously I made one too, so I can't fault anyone else for doing so. No worries there. ^^

I get into arguments with people all the time over whether Bismuth was a “bad person,” and I can’t even understand how anyone thinks she is??

“She wants to shatter people!” So fucking what? She wants to shatter the oppressive dictators that have killed and corrupted and shattered thousands of gems! Blue Diamond proved in The Answer that she is willing to shatter a gem because she fused with a different gem. Yellow Diamond doesn’t give two shits about Peridot’s knowledge and credentials and feelings because she’s a Peridot. Because she’s inherently “lower” than her. The diamonds only want mindless slaves. Pink Diamond apparently saw humans as exotic pets she could raise, and while one could argue that they weren’t treated cruelly, we all know it’s still not good for her to have done that in the first place. Not to mention: the way they treat pearls as slaves, the way they indoctrinate rubies to believe they’re expendable, the way they treat amethysts as screwups. The fucking gem mutants! Forcibly taking pieces of crushed gems and gluing them together and forcing those sentient pieces of their mind to be like that! And you know what? I’ll bet they didn’t have any plans to treat the cluster anything short of horrible after they were done destroying the earth.

This isn’t rocket science! The Diamonds are bad people who are continuously abusing their own people and have done so for millennia, and they don’t plan on stopping. At this point? It doesn’t matter if they’re still complex people with feelings. They’re dictators, and they are only cruel to the people they lead, and they are also a danger to all other planets out there. They need to be stopped.

And if Steven can find a way to help them “see the light” after that? Sure, have at it I guess! But I swear to god, if anyone has ever even entertained the thought of the Diamonds getting a redemption andBismuth staying bubbled… get off my lawn.

I redesigned Aquamarine based on my AU where she’s half-human (which you can read about here).  It’s kind of hard for me to draw in the SU style.  I put her gem on her knee because the tear on her face just seemed... eh?  But then I changed the shape of her cut too because her current one looks just like Lapis’ gem.  I did my best to give her a palette that didn’t look like Lapis’ (except the clothes because she’s Blue Diamond’s gem).

Her right palette is her natural look, and the left is the disguise she uses her shape-shifting ability to wear.  She thinks all gems do this if they’re requested to by their diamond, and has been ordered not to discuss it with anyone.

My Bismuth rant was actually gonna be a discussion about what she actually would have done if Steven hadn't bubbled her, but I had to let out some steam first.

Now!

Someone brought this to my attention recently, but now that I think about it, would Bismuth's plan have even worked at all? Keep in mind, this has nothing to do with whether her plan was moral or not, it only has to do with the logic of it and how successful it would have been if the other Crystal Gems supported her idea.

As far as I can tell, Homeworld works like this: everyone follows the social order, so rubies and pearls don't talk back to jaspers for example, or amethysts listen to agates. The Diamonds are at the very top, but let's say they were all destroyed. Who would take over Homeworld? It wouldn't be Bismuth, because as far as I can tell, she isn't even high class. Everyone would follow whoever was second-in-command to the Diamonds.

And that's even assuming she would ever make it to Homeworld and get the Diamonds in a vulnerable position where she has the time to use the Breaking Point on them. The Crystal Gems used to be a small army, but now they have no army. No way to realistically combat the Homeworld gems or take control once the Diamonds are dead. They can't even defeat Aquamarine. :/

Let's say they don't do it "storm the castle" style. Let's say they go under cover as their assigned roles and then strike when the guard is low. Let's say this is successful and all three Diamonds are brought down. The entire population of Homeworld is still against them, and the ones who aren't are afraid to join them.

For something like this to work, I think Bismuth would have needed a long-term plan. Not "just walk in there and kill the Diamonds." She would need to amass hundreds or even thousands of followers and supporters who would fight with her when the time came. Rose at least had some of that, but she kept her fighting on earth and ended up solving nothing.

I've never been in a war, nor have I researched how they work. But these were just raw thoughts I had in collaboration with someone else, and since I am writing that exact scenario in my comic (the "get lots of followers and then storm the castle" thing), I am extremely interested in a discussion about this. I would love to hear what you guys think. Am I wrong? And if I'm right (or partially right), let's come up with a legit way to take down the Diamond Authority and slowly morph the social order into a less awful one.

So before the latest bomb came out, my husband theorized that Aquamarine could be the actual sister that Lion 4: Alternate Ending teased us with. He said, “What if Steven isn’t the only kid Greg had with a gem? He could have had a kid sometime after Steven went to live with the gems.” Now obviously, I questioned, “Why wouldn’t he tell Steven? Aquamarine doesn’t look half-human. Who the hell would Greg have had another child with?”

His answer was kind of fucked up, but also not exactly implausible I suppose. Since I still really don’t know how gems “have kids” the way Rose did. So with his initial swiss cheese suggestions and me filling the holes in, I came up with this:

When Blue Diamond kidnapped Greg (I don’t want to bring the zoo into this since that was terrible - maybe I’ll just say that wasn’t even a thing in this AU ffff), I think it’s safe to assume that she might have tried to “study” him, do some tests. Gems don’t have DNA, but humans do. How fascinating! What does DNA do? Greg answers simply because he’s just a simple guy trying not to get killed and not thinking anything of her questions. Blue Diamond takes some of his DNA and then locks him up somewhere. The Crystal Gems show up, save him, and leave.

I feel like despite the Crewniverse trying to make the diamonds sympathetic (which I will change in my rewrites anyway), Blue Diamond would be a sick enough person to want to make something with Greg’s DNA. (On a side note, they could have easily done the “BD crying over PD and other stuff” thing without making it awful - just portray it as an unhealthy way that she convinces herself she “cares” about humans, and make it clear that she is still wrong.)

So she does, one way or another. I’m not sure whether she would somehow grow a new gem with his DNA influencing it, or make one of the gems under her command give up their form as Rose did (which I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know about and therefore has never considered), or just… combining it with her “energy” somehow? I have no idea if this could ever be possible.

But obviously, a human/gem hybrid would surely be reviled on Homeworld. Killed instantly, or worse. Blue Diamond knows this, so she raises Aquamarine as a pure gem, explaining to her that she is to use her natural shape-shifting abilities to change the color of her skin whenever there’s a chance she will be seen, and that she isn’t to talk about that with anyone. She tells Aquamarine that she is a pure gem, and so she is raised on Homeworld with no knowledge of her dad (Greg) or half-brother (Steven).

(I also imagine Aquamarine with a different design obviously, but probably still small, maybe a little chubby like Steven. I may draw it x3.)

Aquamarine isn’t completely blind to the fact that she’s different from other gems, even other Aquamarines. The abilities they have seem to be much more powerful than her own, and there are a couple she can’t even seem to find in herself. Not only that, but Aquamarine has to eat and drink and sleep in order to survive, and to her knowledge, other gems don’t. In order to keep her safe, Blue Diamond exempts her from many of the regular duties given to aquamarines and instead keeps her close by her side. Aquamarine begins to question why she’s different, but if she asks Blue Diamond, she doesn’t get an answer.

Soon, Aquamarine hears of a mission being assigned to another aquamarine and a Topaz fusion, to capture and bring back some beings from a list they received awhile back. Aquamarine wants to know what a “Steven” is and why it’s important, and luckily Peridot has taken photos from the incident (she was on a giant screen after all - I’m sure she did). But of course, the assignment is only for the eyes of a specific aquamarine and the two Topazes, so when Aquamarine tries to ask to see the files, she is asked to confirm her cut, and she ends up lying about it to get a peek at the photos.

When she sees the photos of Steven from when Peridot made her report, she’s amazed. Steven looks more like her, and is in contrast with the gems that come out to fight with Peridot. The fact that there’s another species out there that’s apparently not a gem, but still looks like her, is exciting to her.

Aquamarine ends up getting caught when the actual aquamarine that’s assigned to this mission alerts the guards by claiming to be the same one, and Blue Diamond has to come and bail her out. Aquamarine is getting lectured by Blue Diamond when she asks if she is a “Steven.” Do Stevens have to eat and sleep like her? Why was that Steven walking around other gems without wearing his color palette?

Blue Diamond is aware that she’s talking about a human, but she made sure to leave that part out when assigning the mission. She tells Aquamarine that she can’t be a Steven because she’s a gem, and points to her gem to prove it. Maybe Aquamarine didn’t see Steven’s gem in the pictures, so she doesn’t have many more questions she’s able to ask.

But when it comes time for the small team to leave for the mission, Aquamarine finds a way to distract the other aquamarine and then sneaks into her ship. Pretty soon, she’s off to earth to go find a “Steven” and sate this curiosity for herself.

Obviously if this happened, her encounter with humans on earth would be much different as well.

"This Gem-powered mirror..."

Why wouldn't you want to free her!? Did you think that was just the one gem in the whole universe that wasn't sentient!? Gems aren't batteries!?

Before I write my actual initial thoughts on Room For Ruby, I just wanna point this out: Pumpkin can’t even have a consistent tongue color or texture.

I liked this episode, though there were a few things that severely bugged me about it.

The first scene: awesome.  Steven and Garnet were fantastic and Garnet had so much faith in Steven.  And Steven’s reference to the answer and Garnet blushing about it was WONDERFUL. <3

Also Navy’s scream cracked me up the first time I heard it.

I didn’t expect Lapis and Peridot to be in this episode, but I was pleasantly surprised by their scenes.  This is the first time Lapis has shown any personality since, what, Alone At Sea?  And while the episode felt fast simply because of the restrictions of time on TV episodes, I liked that they touched on Lapis’ insecurities.  I felt like Peridot’s concern for her was genuine and it was kinda sweet.  I really don’t ship Lapidot, but that doesn’t mean I don’t support them having a good friendship (even if it wasn’t developed before this, I like to see good things happening), and I am a sucker for relationships in fiction, so --shrug--.

I don’t really have an opinion on how Lapis handled the situation yet, but I do feel that her feelings were reasonable, especially with how obnoxiously go-lucky Navy was being.

I’m sorry, but Navy’s voice annoyed me almost the whole episode.  I know it’s supposed to be more high-pitched than our Ruby, but good god.  Did not sit well with my ears.

BTW, scam or not, it was SO adorable and sweet that Navy immediately embraced her nickname.  I did not expect that.

Okay, now for the rant:

NAVY IS NOT EVIL.  STOP SAYING SHE IS EVIL.

Let me put things into perspective: Five rubies showed up on earth, not to attack the CGs, but to retrieve Jasper.  The CGs tricked them into playing baseball while they thought the rubies were after Peridot, which is fine.  Then they find out the rubies are after Jasper and send them on a wild goose chase to Neptune instead of just saying, “Uh, she kinda fell into the earth.”  Or handled it... SOME other way?!  Like what, did they think the rubies would never bother them again after that?

Then the next time the rubies show up, they decide to roleplay Jasper for awhile instead of just telling them that Jasper got corrupted.  Not to mention, Amethyst pretending to be Jasper probably actually hurt Eyeball at least, when she found out it was all a trick and she might never truly get any closure after the war.  I know the diamonds are horrible, but I’m looking at things from the rubies’ povs.

And then the CGs shot them into SPACE.  Eyeball did try to kill Steven, and it was pretty messed up, but she had her personal feelings and reasons too.  She acted irrationally and I am in no way excusing her trying to murder Steven, but just keep in mind that the "good guys” aren’t the only ones with valid feelings.  Knowing that the rubies know nothing other than what Homeworld has made them to be, they most likely believe in what they’re doing.

Human zoo happens and they literally smack into the rubies, as a joke I guess.  Steven was focused on his dad and that’s completely understandable.  I have nothing against Steven prioritizing the safety of his dad over everything else.  As he said himself, they could get them on the way home.  Though I would have preferred that they didn’t even have Greg get kidnapped in the first place, but that’s another review.

But I had lost any hope when Rocknaldo happened, because it confirmed that it had been WEEKS since even the last episode.

In conclusion:

I don’t blame Navy AT ALL for what she did in today’s episode.  Because it was HER ship to begin with, the CGs have never done anything but oppose them and trick them and make them feel stupid and used, then they left them for dead in space after they put them there, and might as well have forgotten about them and I legit believed they were just content with that.  Everything Navy did was in retaliation for what the CGs did to her and her team.  Even Lapis understood that.  Maybe that’s why she just let her go instead of kicking her ass with the OCEAN.

Don’t get me wrong, that would have been kinda badass to see, plus I HATE that they just let them go because now the CGs have no way to get to space if they need it again, like they NEEDED to DESPERATELY in the Blue Diamond human zoo bomb.

But the rubies deserved better, and the CGs sure as hell weren’t gonna give it to them, so I guess it’s up to this little punk to take back what she and her team lost: