#rocks.......... thos rocks........

i think it's quite funny that in my youth i was unable to reconcile that lapis was indeed a manipulative person and tried to like... justify it with personality adages that didn't really make any sense, but now that i've gotten a little bit older, i think a particularly compelling idea is the idea that yes, lapis is manipulative, but since the gems are notoriously bad at communicating with each other, they were really none the wiser as to the depths of which their behavior affected the people around them.

i don't think i can really call any of the gems inherently cruel so much as their society breeds a very jarring callousness surrounding one's personal use to how they can contribute to the group. i think that, in contrast to phos, lapis was beloved—they were charismatic, personable, an excellent fighter, and extremely intelligent. they were responsible for keeping the gems' recorded history in order as the librarian, and very well could've done a lot of the recording themself. in short, they're highly valued within the gem society's pecking order of usefulness and it undoubtedly went to their head.

i don't think lapis was ever super emotionally intelligent; or, at the very least, finds the emotions of others muddling, meddlesome, and confusing. i think the reason why phos was able to go to the moon with lapis' head on their shoulders was because phos has a particular emotional attentiveness that i feel lapis lacked, and with lapis' particular strand of manipulative tendencies now swimming around in them, was able to tap into the moon gems' emotional needs and wants. lapis could not do half the crazy shit phos did because they're not nearly as compassionate as phos is. lapis got their head shot off because they were thinking too hard about the situation in front of them in the first place!!! and i don't think this lack of care is born out of any inherent maliciousness that lapis possesses, so much as their natural proclivity for intelligence subsuming all other facets within social interaction and self actualization.

i believe lapis is sorely lacking in empathy while phos excels at it, even if the ways in which they try to empathize with others is clumsy and filtered through the inherently unempathetic way their society is constructed—and it's so interesting to me to think about a hypothetical scenario where a gem gets brave enough to tell lapis how their self-serving behavior at said gem's expense made them feel bad and lapis being unable to brush it off because of its pointedness.

it's why i think, in a way, lapis is kind of a tragic character. it didn't seem like they were proposed with the opportunity to reflect on their personality, considering that their status intermingled with their purpose for existing, like all the other gems. i struggle to see lapis as like... deliberately cruel and conniving. bcs that's just not interesting to me and doesn't gel with how the characters in hnk are written anyway. to paint lapis as The Token Evil Teammate rather than somebody whose arrogance blinds them to the wellbeing of their peers and has an endless thirst for knowledge at the cost of not only said peers, but themself, is just absurd to me.

i also think that the ways in which hnk demonstrates the varying types of intellectual on a sort of sliding scale of emotional attunement/intelligence is fascinating, honestly. cinnabar in particular is somebody who is incredibly smart but also incredibly kind, especially when given the room to actually be a fucking person LOL. euclase is also very intelligent and kind as well, and is also the primary source for lapis' more unsavory behavior. in a way, lapis' character sort of speaks on how self-serving intelligence is impotent in the wake of emotionality intermingling with logic—as stated before, phos actually MADE it to the moon, whereas lapis' inclusions could only expound upon the awesomeness of the feat, even just as a hypothetical. they even commend phos on their cleverness as well—not so much, though, as to concede that phos is the smarter one bcs lapis is nothing if not haughty!!!! & also phos doesn't think things through all the way and is rather impulsive but WHATEVER!!! i love them both sm...