Characters / Steven Universe — Steven Quartz Universe

Steven Universe Main Character Index
Crystal Gems (Steven Quartz Universe | Garnet | Amethyst | Pearl | Rose Quartz | Connie Maheswaran | Peridot | Lapis Lazuli) | Gem Fusions | Homeworld Gems | Diamond Authority (Yellow Diamond | Blue Diamond | Pink Diamond | White Diamond) | Yellow Diamond's Court (Jasper) | Blue Diamond's Court | Spinel | Off Colors | Gem Monsters | Little Homeworld | Humans (Greg Universe) | Other

Steven Quartz Universe

Voiced by: Zach Callison (series), Daniel DiVenere (MultiVersus)

"I can’t believe we’ve come so far!
Happily ever after, here we are!"

^{Click here for his pre-timeskip design}

"I will fight to be everything
that everybody wants me to be when I'm grown!"

"Everybody always tells me how great Mom was. I just don't feel like I can ever measure up to her."

Steven is the lovable, half-human and half-Gem boy who is still figuring out how to harness his powers from the Gem he inherited from his mother. He's goofy, energetic and optimistic, yet takes his role as a Crystal Gem seriously, learning all his lessons, and taking his discipline with good humor when the situation calls for it. He is very much in touch with his emotions and does not shy away from saying how he feels. He is as impulsive as any other boy his age might be, but counts on his Gem family to keep him safe.

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A-B

• Acquired Situational Narcissism: This happened in "Steven and the Stevens", where he used a "time-thingie" to grab his past selves and form a band, when his dad has to cancel on Beachapalooza. The original Steven calls himself the handsome one, tries to boss his other selves to the point where they sing about him being a "meanie zucchini", and he bullied another past self into giving him the time orb. Steven then had a Jerkass Realization on seeing how scared his past self was and destroyed the orb, essentially choosing to die.
• Acrofatic: Steven can really move for an overweight kid in sandals. His dexterity doesn't suffer much either. He even lampshades this in "Together Breakfast".
  Steven: [after catching his stack of breakfast on his plate] SKILLS!
  • Given as he's half Quartz and we've seen how strong and bulky both he and Quartz warriors are, it's likely that much of the "fat" is actually compressed muscle, much the same as a sumo wrestler. Even more so with The Reveal he's actually half Diamond.
  • As of The Movie, he no longer qualifies for this though. According to show stats, he's 5' 6" tall and weighs 145 pounds, making him roughly the same size (if not quite as shredded) as a featherweight mixed martial arts fighter.
• Action Survivor: Emphasis on the "action". Early on in the series, he has no control over his potentially vast powers and has to rely on his wits and above-average physicality to avoid dying.
• Adaptive Ability: As Steven's mental state continues to deteriorate in Future, his Gem has started to provide him with whatever power it thinks he needs at the time in order to deal with his problems. Causing him to grow uncontrollably, gain Super-Speed, telekinetic shockwaves, his floating evolves into pure flight and his physical strength enhances even further.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Zig-Zagged and deconstructed. At the start of the series, while extremely well-homeschooled due to the gems teaching, Steven is 13 going on 14 but acts like an eight-year-old due to the gems sheltering him. However, when they stop doing so, Steven is violently thrust into situations far too intense for a tween, and develops PTSD because of it.
• Aesop Amnesia: While he doesn't do it constantly, there are a few times where Steven does not properly learn his lesson.
  • Both "The New Lars" and "Restaurant Wars" showed that sometime after "Love Letters", Steven seemed to have forgotten that he shouldn't be trying to butt into other people's relationships and be more careful about setting up romantic ploys (even fake ones).
  • He constantly advises other people to talk about their problems and gets this lesson himself in "Mindful Education". However, by Steven Universe: Future, his powers have now started reacting to his negative emotions while becoming more powerful than anyone expected. This coincided with his pre-existing fears lead him to his constant attempts to bottle up his feelings end up causing problems, such as nearly crushing everyone with his force field in "Little Graduation", and his venting at Cactus Steven in "Prickly Pair" causing it to rampage and parrot his issues to the others. Unfortunately, this just convinces to repress his feelings further out of fear that venting will just hurt the people he cares about.
  • Played With regarding the major aesop for Steven in the Movie on the importance of change and how it was his greatest asset. He did not recover his powers from Spinel's Rejuvinator until he recalls that his greatest gift comes from being able to change and grow. In "Little Graduation" though, upon learning that Lars and Sadie had an Offscreen Breakup and that Sadie Killer and the Suspects were breaking up to pursue their own goals while Lars was planning on going back to space with the Off Colors, Steven desperately tries to stop everyone from leaving and fix Lars and Sadie up again, culminating in his powers creating a Deadly Force Field that nearly crushes everyone. However, further observation notes that this is less based on change, but more of a fear of being abandoned or left behind.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Amethyst often calls Steven "Ste-Man".
  • Greg calls Steven "Stewball".
  • Averted with White Diamond calling him "Starlight" when they first meet. She called him this because at the time, she though Steven was his mother and absolutely refused to believe he was a different person.
• All There in the Manual: His eyes are always drawn as black dots, but according to the short eBook "Your Magic, Mind, and Body", they're actually dark brown, and so are Greg's.
• All-Loving Hero: Reconstruction. Steven hasn't met a person he didn't try to make friends with. It's something he has in common with Rose, and seems to be the reason both of them have healing powers. He even shows some concern for enemies, as seen when Peridot is crushed by a falling injector in "Keeping It Together" and he asks if she's alright. The only exception is Jasper, who he knew he couldn't become friends with the moment he saw her, and even that's based more out of fear than hate — the first thing Jasper did when she saw him was beat him unconscious. Even with Jasper, he shows concern when she falls into the Earth and covers for her in "Hit the Diamond" by lying to the Rubies that she's on Neptune. He also tries to heal Jasper when the latter becomes corrupted. In fact, this is shown to be his greatest strength because his desire to see the best in everyone meant he managed to turn Lapis and Peridot into his friends and eventual Crystal Gems. He manages to get the Cluster to be his friend, and eventually manages to get the Diamonds to accept him. Even his two least favorite people ever, Marty (a manipulative and neglectful jerk even to people he claims to care for) and Kevin (a condescending, egotistical jerk who gets really pushy about propositioning Stevonnie) are people he's still willing to be civil to. He gradually loses such traits in Future, in which he becomes Drunk with Power during his rematch with Jasper and winds up shattering her (though he's able to revive her afterwards), and later attempts to smash White Diamond's head into a pillar due to vengeful thoughts. He deeply regrets doing these things, and tries to help everyone once more, only to end up getting corrupted. Luckily, Connie is able to convince everyone to help Steven like how he's helped them, and he promptly gets his all-lovingness thrown back at him in the form of a Cooldown Hug, thankfully turning him back to normal.
• Always Someone Better: Reveals in "Steven vs. Amethyst" that he feels this way about Rose a lot of the time. Eventually he gains the self-confidence to stop comparing himself to her.
• Ambiguously Jewish: He's based off Steven Sugar, the brother of the series' half-Jewish creator Rebecca Sugar, has a Jewfro and his father's original last name, "DeMayo", is a Sephardic Jewish name. That being said, both Steven and his father like eating pork meat (although Steven eventually became a vegetarian in Future) and neither of them have ever been seen celebrating Jewish holidays throughout the series, so while they may be ethnically Jewish, they are likely not religious. Also, Abrahamic religions seem not to exist on Steven Universe's Earth in general, with there being no Christmas or Halloween.
• Ancestral Weapon: He inherited his mother's gem, and in "The Test", Pearl makes note that both his shield and bubble abilities were Rose's as well. He also has his mother's sword, but due to not liking fighting he mostly leaves it with Connie. Blue Diamond crushes it towards the end of the series.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: By the end of "Everything's Fine", Steven's growing stress, resentment and self-hatred boils over and he transforms into a massive Kaiju-like monstrosity. In this form, he is so powerful he can shrug off the collective force of Alexandrite, the Cluster and the Diamonds.
• Animal Motifs: Cats always seem to pop up in Steven's life somewhere. Examples include Steven's Cookie Cat admiration, his adventures in spawning cats from his body, his Tiger Millionaire persona, the tiger bell on his bike, his alarm clock, his lion, and the facial hair he grew when aged into a teenager looks like cat whiskers. Even the scratches on his cheeks he gained during his fight with Bismuth resemble whiskers. This is fitting: Steven shares Borderline tendencies with his mother, who is classified as a "hermit" type, often referred to as "kittens" or "cats."
• Anti-Magic: Slightly. It's worth noting that whenever Steven uses his shield against a Gem's clones, such as Pearl's holograms or Lapis' water copies, a soundwave dispels them instantly.
• Apologetic Attacker: Even when forced to fight, he often shouts a warning to his opponents before his attack connects, as he does in his fights against Bismuth and Jasper.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Asks at least one each to the Diamonds in "Change Your Mind" due to helping people self reflect being a part of his nature.
  [to Blue] How many times did you lock her in here? How many times did you make her cry?!
  [to Yellow] Does this look perfect to you?
  [to White] I am a child. What's your excuse?
• Astral Projection: Steven's abilities to enter dreams and take over bodies turn out to be applications of an ability to project his mind onto a mental plane, which also allows him to communicate telepathically. Unusually, Steven can't see any non-living objects while there—other people seem to be floating in an endless void.
• Awesome Mc Cool Name: Not so much "Steven", but his full name definitely qualifies. Connie's mother even makes the off-hand remark that she doesn't think "Steven Universe" is a real name (not even knowing his middle name is "Quartz"), even though his father's name is indeed "Greg Universe". As of "Gem Harvest", it's revealed that Universe is his real last name (Greg had his last name legally changed to Universe prior to Steven's birth) and that Steven's ancestral last name is DeMayo. Ironically, Steven thinks DeMayo is a cooler name than Universe. In "Growing Pains" when doing a medical checkup, he adds several surnames and nicknames to his chart, making him Steven Quartz Cutiepie DeMayo Diamond Universe. Since that chart implies he has no legal existence, this may be his vaild full name.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Zigzagged. It's played straight in that Steven is the youngest of the Crystal Gems. By several thousand years. However, as he grows in maturity and learns more about the dysfunction of the Crystal Gems, he becomes just as much of an adult, which has been noted repeatedly to stress him out.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: With Connie when they're not fused as Stevonnie. They briefly take on Pearl in “Sworn to the Sword”, and both take out two Gem Monsters together in "Nightmare Hospital".
• Badass Adorable: Definitely. He's a cute child who manages to help save Earth on a daily basis in the middle of the series.
• Badass Pacifist: Steven starts off as a kid who is the son of a member of an alien race of crystalline warrior women. Unlike his mother (who was a Martial Pacifist), Steven deeply dislikes fighting and tries to solve every conflict he faces non-violently. Even his "fighting" reflects this, as it's more blocking blows than attacking. By the end of the series, he has succeeded, up to talking down the Cluster from destroying Earth and convincing it to be his friend instead and convincing three galactic dictators to see the error of their ways.
• Bad Liar: Because he's a kid who wears his heart on his sleeve, Steven is a very bad liar. Whenever he tries to lie, it always comes across as awkward, and it doesn't take a lot of pressing to get the truth out of him. And that's the rare occasion that he ever does lie (he does not like doing so).
• Bad Powers, Good People: Most of Steven's powers fit his protective and nurturing nature, but he's also able to possess others and take control of their bodies. For obvious reasons, he doesn't use this very often on people — and the one time he did, he heavily regretted it. Arguably, this does still fit (and make him realize) one of his major personality flaws, namely how his desire to help people can be invasive.
• Bag of Holding: His Cheeseburger Backpack can carry a number of things (including a full-sized raft, and the party's entire inventory in Attack the Light).
• Barrier Warrior: Steven's Gem magic manifests as shields of various forms, mostly either in the form of a regular hand-held one or a forcefield bubble. While he does have several other abilities, the majority of his combat abilities are barriers or forcefields of some kind, and he gets quite creative with these powers and finds numerous ways to utilize them defensively or offensively, from "popping" his pink bubble to send people flying back or generating bubbles around his fists to use as protective boxing gloves, and by Future he's able to create various kinds of pink walls often several times his size, which he can send flying at will. The offensive utility of these powers gets to the point where his finishing blow that shatters Jasper involves holding her in place using several smaller barriers before crushing her with an enormous spiked wall of sorts.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Heavily downplayed. He still needs to breathe, but he seems to be able to function in non-oxygenated environments (such as in outer space in "Warp Tour", and inside Lion's pocket dimension in "Lion 3") longer than you'd expect an ordinary human to. "Ocean Gem" (where he stayed conscious longer than Connie did when they were trapped in Doppel!Steven's water spheres) indicated this may apply to underwater situations as well. This is explained that since he's half Gem, he needs significantly less oxygen and heat than a normal human does, but still needs some.
• Battle Aura: Like the other three Diamonds, he has one which is rippling pink with flower patterns in it. This belonged to Pink Diamond, and is so unique to her the other Diamonds instantly recognize it as hers and believe Steven is telling the truth.
• Battle Couple: The Shield to Connie's Sword.
  Steven: We're a team! She's the strawberry...
  Connie: ...and he's the biscuit!
  Steven: And that makes us... jam!
  Connie: Buds!
• Became Their Own Antithesis: For most of the series, Steven has always talked to others about talking about their feelings when they need to and stopping others from performing suicidal-like Heroic Sacrifices (i.e., Connie in "Sworn to the Sword"). However, after going through one Break the Cutie moment after another (from seasons two, three, and four) Steven has begun to internalize his own trauma as to not burden others and even performed a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of season 4 by pretending to be Rose Quartz so they would leave his friends alone. Steven Universe Future has this problem becoming worse as his powers evolve beyond the understanding of himself or the other Gems, further differentiating him from humanity or Gems and reinforcing the feelings of doubt and isolation without having a healthy outlet or confidant.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • In the beginning, all Steven wanted was to live up to the huge name of his deceased mother, as well as to know more about her. But learning about her Dark Secrets one after another gave him a bunch of Broken Pedestal moments. And in the season four finale, "I Am My Mom", he pretends to be his mother in order to protect his friends he accidentally endangered. As of Future, he takes down the painting of her and openly expresses resentment towards the callous and hurtful things she's done.
  • In season five, after realizing thanks to Defense Zircon that it's highly likely that Rose was framed, and after getting a vision of Pink Diamond, he expresses hope that Pink is alive and thus his mother is innocent. He's even willing to accept that Pearl shattered Pink because Pearl was a liberated slave, and not a hypocrite like his mother was purported to be. Then he finds out that Pink was alive; she was his mother, and faked her death with Pearl's help. Which means he is a Diamond. Steven looks miserable after he finds out.
  • Future has him more or less finally achieving peace throughout the galaxy and facilitating a peaceful coexistence between human and Gemkind. Only now that all major conflicts have been resolved, and his friends have overcome enough of their previous baggage to achieve real autonomy, he finds himself now disconnected from his loved ones and Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Downplayed. Steven has a positive relationship with the Crystal Gems, his father, and most of Beach City. However, the Gems and Greg often have a tendency of dumping their problems on him which makes it hard for Steven himself to come to them with his problems. Connie is the noteworthy exception as she never does this is in the series and apologizes to Steven when she accidentally causes him emotional pain, which is rare. As such, Connie is Steven's Living Emotional Crutch, confidant, and best friend.
• Benevolent Boss: When Steven takes on the role of his mother Pink Diamond in the Diamond Days arc, he treats the Pebbles quite kindly and finds them cute, acts informal towards Blue and Yellow Pearl and helps them discover what they like to do for fun, and tries to get the Homeworld Gems to refer to him by his actual name instead of his mother's.
• Berserk Button:
  • His first onscreen display of true anger was when Lars called his mom "weird".
  • Someone betraying his faith in them sees him at his angriest. Peridot's seeming betrayal brings it out.
  • Kevin's mere existence brings out feelings of pure hatred in Steven, and any of the civility and kindness that makes Steven so Steven-y is thrown completely out the window because of him.
  • If you are even rude to Connie, he will get furious.
  • He also apparently starts going ballistic and being fed up when he keeps hearing more of his mom's dark secrets and doesn't want to hear anymore in "Volleyball", causing damage in his super mode and almost causes both Pearl and Pink Pearl/Volleyball to be rejuvinated.
  • He seems to be acquiring more and more of these throughout Future. It's eventually revealed that suffering several near death experiences as a child has given him Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.]
• Beta Couple: He and Connie have this dynamic when in comparison with Lars and Sadie's relationship. The Steven Universe: Art & Origins described Steven and Connie's romance as a "pure and innocent love" while the romance between Lars and Sadie is more "teenaged-ridden, angst". In the case of himself and Connie it's more along the lines of two people who understand each other perfectly. They just "get" each other.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Steven is the sweetest, nicest kid you'll ever meet, but when pushed to the limit, given his Diamond abilities, things can get... intense.
  • Steven's Gem half is not nearly as talkative or happy as his human side. He can only exist for a few minutes at a time without killing Steven's human half, but he's more powerful than Pink Pearl, the Crystal Gems and all three of the other Diamonds put together.
  • Future has taken this even further, with Steven's PTSD manifesting as intense and sometimes outright violent outbursts of power when his body senses he's in danger, no matter how big or small. Though it's never out of malice, this has caused some fairly harrowing situations for him and those around him. Luckily, he seems to be on the path to recovery by the time Future ends.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Steven is a lovable goofball who can pull off surprising stunts when push comes to shove...
• Beyond the Impossible: Normally, it's impossible for Gems to fuse with humans. Due to being half human, however, he's able to break that rule in two. Also, if you think about it, he technically is a Gem fusion already. According to Rebecca Sugar, this goes one step further and Steven can fuse with organics in general, theoretically including animals like Lion.
• Big Fun: Fun all around. Though he seems to be trying to lose weight. We see a fitness book in his house in "Sworn to the Sword", and he is generally drawn as skinnier and less round than he was at the start of the show. At age 16, he's fully grown into his weight.
• Big Good: As Character Development increases, Steven seems to fill Rose's role (combined with being The Heart). "Lion 3: Straight to Video" implies that Rose believed that Steven would assume her place once she was gone. The latter is disproved in "Lion 4: Alternate Ending" when it's revealed that Rose had no such beliefs about Steven, and in fact had no plans for him beyond him living his life (she didn't even plan out what his gender would be, as she and Greg had a name picked out if he turned out to be a girl). He does become a Big Good in the long run though, being able to empathize and reason with people, including characters that others believe can't be reasoned with, and becoming a Hope Bringer to those around him. Even in the most dire of circumstances, he's able to bring everyone together.
• Big "NO!": The first line of "Gem Glow", courtesy of him. He repeats it several times as the show goes on.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has the biggest eyebrows out of all of the characters.
• Birds of a Feather: With Jamie. He shares several quirks and tendencies with him, making the two good friends.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Zigzagged. He celebrates his 14th birthday in "Steven's Birthday". And when he comments on if the Crystal Gems should be celebrating despite having to deal with the Cluster, they all respond that they need a break. And while there is no outside, antagonistic force, Steven goes through internal anguish throughout his birthday because he now realizes he hasn't physically aged since he was 8 and overhears his father and Connie discussing this. As such, he magically forces himself to be look physically older, but the constant strain causes him to regress to his baby form. And he continues to cry over his current form, until Connie reassures him that no matter what their age, she'll always be his friend.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: For the record, Steven is revealed to eat raw sugar and flour, has put cheese balls on a plain cake, has attempted to put BBQ chips on a sandwich, and has put popcorn on his perfect breakfast.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: He kills for the first time when a rematch with Jasper goes way too far and he hurls a spike-covered shield right at her face, shattering her Gem to pieces. Though he's able to restore her with his healing powers, he nearly has a mental breakdown in the process, sobbing the whole time.
• Blessed with Suck: His powers are controlled by his emotions, something he's not happy about as he often has to figure what emotion on his own and at the most inconvenient time.
  Steven: [concerning his ability to control his fall speed] Oh, it's controlled by my emotions. Just like all my stupid powers!
• Blue and Orange Contrast: In "Mindful Education", Connie's vision of her problem is tinted blue, and later, Steven's shameful thoughts are tinted orange.
• Body Horror:
  • He experiences this in "Cat Fingers". It's pretty cute to have kitty heads on his fingers. It's Resident Evil/Junji Ito territory once said kitty heads grow in and out from all over his body in unthinkable places, making him a twisted mass of constantly shifting kitty heads.
  • In "A Single Pale Rose", it's revealed that his gem is actually a brilliant-cut diamond with its flat side facing outward. This wasn't a big deal for the light-embodied Rose, but for Steven it means he's had a large, sharp point sticking deep inside his belly his whole life with no idea.
  • In "Change Your Mind", White Diamond forcibly removes his Gem, rendering the fully human Steven pale, weak, and completely unable to move under his own power.
    • On the other hand we don't see how he gets from White's hand to the floor. She may simply have dropped him, in which case he was probably dying of the fall.
  • It's revealed in "Growing Pains" thanks to Dr. Maheswaran's X-ray charts, that Steven's skeleton is full of fractures, particularly in his skull. Furthemore, starting from this episode, his body keeps randomly swelling whenever he is in a great emotional distress. Taken up to eleven at the end of "Everything's Fine" when during his mental breakdown, he screams that he's a monster and a mass of pink spikes burst out of his back, starting his corruption.
• Bodyguard Crush: He has a mutual crush with his knight, Connie.
• Bookworm: Becomes one after getting an extremely-long ban from watching TV as a punishment. The No Home Boys (and, later, the Spirit Morph Saga) are particular favorites. The first time he ever went to a library, he actually shouted with joy after seeing so many books in one place.
• Boxing Battler: When he Came Back Strong at the end of The Movie, he fought off Spinel by encasing his fists in bubbles, and using said bubbles as Boxing Gloves.
• Break the Cutie:
  • The fallout from the season one finale does a doozy on his fun-loving, innocent perspective on life. It's matured him quite a bit, but it'll take more than a near-death in a spaceship to chip away at his idealism.
  • The main theme of Season 3 is how Steven's optimism and childlike view of the world doesn't serve him well against all his opponents. First he has to poof Bismuth in self-defense since she's too consumed with hate. Then Jasper brushes off his attempts to help her since he carries Rose's gem — because Rose killed Pink Diamond. Finally Eyeball attempts to murder him to bring his gem back to Homeworld, and he's force to abandon her in space to save himself.
    • All of this inevitably culminates into a legitimately hard to watch breakdown in "Mindful Education". Steven carries a massive amount of guilt that none of the above Gems would let him help them, and how he never wanted to hurt anyone. Most tragically, all of his negative thoughts merge into one image that he seems to fear over everything else - Rose Quartz angry at him.
  • These problems are becoming worse as he finally learns the truth with his mom and the Gem War. Further still, even when it looks like he got a break in Steven Universe Future, it's just the calm before the storm. The problems that have been present since "Mindful Education" have now been brought back in a different context and amplified along with issues that have been present since the first season. This is taken Up To Eleven at the climax of "Everything's Fine", when he has a mental meltdown, at first downplaying his issues throughout Future, then revealing that he shattered Jasper and nearly killed White Diamond in front of Greg, Connie, and the Crystal Gems. This then descends into self-loathing and he collapses to the floor, decrying himself a fraud and a monster. This, combined with his unchecked traumas and uncontrollable powers, leads to his corruption. He gets better.
• Broken Ace: Just like Rose Quartz, as the series goes on Steven starts developing into one of these. He has incredible Gem powers, is very talentful, and is a Child of Two Worlds who succeeded where his mother failed by saving the Corrupted Gems and making the Diamonds see reason, all before he even hit his proper teens. He's also carrying a lot of emotional baggage that he still hasn't adequately faced and come to terms with and he's still a growing human both physically and emotionally. In Future, Jasper spells it out by noting that of anyone, he's the one who needs help now. Furthermore, his human growth is influencing his Gem powers and serving to make him feel more isolated than ever.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl:
  • Gender Inverted with Lapis — Steven is the energetic, optimistic Gentle Boy to Lapis' troubled, grumpy Brooding Girl.
  • Downplayed and played straight with Connie. While Steven still remains The Pollyanna Nice Guy who is open about his emotions, he has a habit of not talking about the fear he feels of what could happen if he doesn't become what the Crystal Gems expect him to be or the intense guilt he feels over not successfully helping Bismuth, Jasper, or Eyeball. At both times Connie has been the one he opens up to about said feelings and trauma, while she provides him with needed emotional support.
• Butt-Monkey: Not even he's safe from this trope despite his kindhearted personality.

C-E

• Calling the Old Woman Out: In season 4, Steven starts to learn that his mother, Rose Quartz, wasn't the saintly paragon he was always told she was, and that she had secrets she kept even from the other Crystal Gems. When Steven dreams of a palanquin he knows is connected to those secrets in "Steven's Dream", he gets angry at Garnet and Pearl when they're clearly trying not to tell Steven something. He tells them that he, as Rose's son, deserves to know the truth if anyone does. A few episodes later in "Storm in the Room", Steven goes into Rose's room in the temple and uses its ability to conjure illusions from his mind to actually interact with his mother on some level, which eventually turns into calling her out on leaving Steven to deal with her messes.
• Camp Straight: He is In Touch with His Feminine Side and the most sensitive of the Crystal Gems, whose members except him are sexless beings with feminine appearances. He likes cute and huggable things, constantly wears a pink t-shirt with a star on it, and has no problems wearing a dress for a concert performance. He also wears his heart on his sleeve and does not like fighting. However, he is in love with Connie.
• Can't Live Without You: When Steven's Gem and human halves are separated by White Diamond pulling out his gemstone, the latter is severely weakened, and will most likely die soon if they don't get back together. And while his Gem half seems fine physically, he's more or less The Soulless, and most definitely doesn't want to stay that way.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Downplayed. Steven can lie, with mixed results, but usually tells the truth. However, this has led to some Too Dumb to Live moments. One example is telling Jasper in "Crack the Whip" (who has two corrupted Gems) that Garnet and Pearl aren't home.
• Cerebus Retcon: The events of the Future episode "Growing Pains" act as this for his entire career as a Kid Hero: a diagnosis from Dr. Maheswaren for Steven losing control of his shapeshifting abilities when stressed reveals that, whilst Steven's hybrid gem-human physiology (as well as Rose's natural healing powers he has inherited) has resulted in him having a sort of Healing Factor that near-instantaneously heals his wounds, he also has numerous fractures from impact trauma from his adventures over the years that have healed over, and that Steven is in fact dealing with genuine PTSD from all the things he's witnessed and that have happened to him in that time.
  Dr. Maheswaren: Steven, do you remember anything bad in your childhood that particularly stuck with you?
  Steven: I guess... I kinda freaked out when they cancelled my favorite ice cream! And then I got attacked by a giant bug monster... and I got trapped in a bubble and almost drowned... I lost control of my body and turned into a blob of cats... I almost turned so old I died... Amethyst almost died... Pearl did die... Garnet got destabilized right in front of me... I woke up with a black eye imprisoned on a spaceship-
  Dr. Maheswaren: Steven, this is serious!
  Steven: B-But that was just the early stuff!
  Dr. Maheswaren: I think all of these experiences have been subjecting your body to a harmful amount of stress, and that's affecting your ability to respond to new forms of stress in a healthy way. You've been dealing with genuine threats from such a young age that your body is responding to minor threats as if your life were in danger!
• Character Development:
  • As the episodes progress, he becomes more emotionally mature as he displays a Wise Beyond His Years attitude when dealing with the personal problems between the other Gems, but he's still, you know, Steven. By the end of Season 1, he's gone beyond mainly seeing his Gem life as something cool or fun, seeing it more as a legitimate danger to himself and the people he cares about, as he, bit by bit, grasps the full gravity of the situation and his destiny to step into his mom's shoes. As Season 2 progresses, he becomes more of a core member of the team, often serving as the moral and emotional linchpin. However, Season 3, (specifically "The New Lars" and "Beach City Drift") remind us that Steven is still a child and his childlike viewpoint on the world can lead him to make mistakes.
    Lars: When did you get so mature?
    Steven: Somewhere in between learning to summon my shield and finding out my mom is a war criminal.
  • After learning about his mother's less than noble actions (especially that she shattered Pink Diamond though this has since been proven false), Steven has become more independent and rebellious towards the other Crystal Gems and their authority over what he is supposed to know. In "Steven's Dream", he openly argues with Garnet for not telling him why he shouldn't find the broken Palanquin, figure out his dream, and why he is shedding a constant flow of tears.
  • This is actually discussed in "Pool Hopping", as Steven maturing so much caught Garnet off guard and now she doesn't know what's coming up in their particular timeline.
  • The "Change Your Mind" special has him decide to stop trying to be what others want just to please them.
  • Future has Steven go through a Darker and Edgier version, as he's forced to confront the numerous amount of trauma he endured in the previous seasons and by the end, he's more open about his problems and is even going to a therapist.
• Characterization Marches On: In the pilot, Steven was more of a Deadpan Snarker, and he and Lars seem to have a mutual dislike of each other. In the actual show, he's more or less oblivious to Lars not liking him that much.
• Character Tics:
  • Steven puts his hands on his cheeks when he finds something cute and/or awesome.
  • Steven has a tendency to clutch his shirt (either near his chest or near his stomach) whenever he's thinking and/or talking about his mother.
  • When excited, Steven often has his arms akimbo and his hands flared up. Sometimes it turns into full-on Airplane Arms.
• Cheerful Child: He's quite the energetic youngster, that's for sure.
• Childhood Friend Romance: He and Connie met as pre-teens and developed a friendship and eventual romance. When Steven proposed to her in Future, she politely rebuffed but stated it wasn't a "no" but a "not now", showing she wants to marry him when the time is right.
• Childish Tooth Gap: A young Steven has one as seen in the short "We Are the Crystal Gems", here. It, combined with his Blush Stickers, makes him look even cuter and more innocent than usual.
• Child Prodigy: invoked Steven has been outright said by Word of God to be this, at least as far as music goes. Given the kid is excellent with a sizable number of instruments and and is shown to have perfect pitch (the ability to recognize notes instantly), it definitely shows. This may be another benefit of his half-gem physiology, as gems are shown to be quite musical by nature. Having a musician as a father is another contributing factor. One of the comic books shows what would happen if Steven went to school — he'd be second only to Connie in terms of aptitude, and by only the smallest margin.
• Children Are Innocent: He doesn't quite get how dangerous Peridot and the Homeworld Gems are. He even tries to make friendly conversation with Peridot. By season two he's smartened up quite a bit, but it's still a prominent character trait... until The Movie and Future, that is.
• The Chosen One: Subverted. At first, it looks like Steven has some "big magical destiny" planned for him, as is repeatedly stated by the Crystal Gems and Connie. That, and him being an All-Loving Hero, Magnetic Hero, and Messianic Archetype make it seem like he does have a grand destiny ahead of him... except, he doesn't, as "Lion 4: Alternate Ending" clears up. Rose never had any ulterior plans for him and only wanted to create a human child and let him be whoever he wanted to be. He does ultimately end up saving the galaxy, and then Steven Universe Future shows him struggling with not knowing what to do with himself after that.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Deconstructed over time. Steven has an intense desire to help other and their problems, but this more often than not causes him to push his boundaries, do and/or say something insensitive, or even outright manipulate people or the situation to his advantage.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • His thought processes are a little weird sometimes.
    Steven: I guess I'm just too tough to cry.
    Pearl: Just today, you were crying about snakes.
    Steven: [teary-eyed] They don't have any arms...
  • The "Pensive Moments with Steven Universe" series of online shorts showcases his odd thought processes.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Steven is very good at getting others to open up and helping them through whatever emotional problems are plaguing them. However, he frequently does this at the expense of dealing with his own personal issues until they overwhelm him. "What's Your Problem?" focuses on this issue and Amethyst's acknowledgement of it. She spends the episode trying to get Steven to have fun and open up about how he feels about the still-fresh Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond reveal, even as Steven himself is focused on finding and helping the runaway Ruby. When Steven tries to get Amethyst to talk, Amethyst makes it very clear that she has no intention of dumping "another thousand year-old complex" onto him and making him feel responsible for something he's under no obligation to deal with. Future is finally having Steven beginning to confront all his repressed issues, but he has not been having anyone else coming to help him open up to it.
• Color Motif: Pink. He wore a pink shirt in the original series. Many important scenes with him involve the color pink. He has a pink gem. His mother's hair was pink. His shield and other weapons he create are pink. If his gem is pulled out, a pink version of himself comes out. By the movie, he now sports a pink jacket. Even in his corrupted form, he's still pink.
• Combat Medic: Steven's healing spit and shield give him potential as a Combat Medic, but for now he is the Support Party Member (literally so in the Attack the Light game).
• Combo Platter Powers: Downplayed. He inherited all of his mom's powers, but he uses almost none of them other than his shields due to his lack of control and the shenanigans that resulted in the episodes they are revealed.
• Condescending Compassion: While Steven is a definite All-Loving Hero with great empathy, he has an earnest belief that he knows what others need in order to be happy. This mindset has gotten him into trouble, as he's not above doing morally wrong actions (i.e., lying, manipulating, or taking over someone's body), to follow it.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: In "Space Race", Steven mentions that his life has been put in danger so many times that he's gotten used to it and it doesn't really surprise him anymore. In "Horror Club", his reaction to the lighthouse coming to life and trying to kill everyone is "It happens." It's only in "Full Disclosure" that he finally realizes the effects of what he goes through on a regular basis. Steven Universe Future deconstructs this in the episode "Growing Pains". Upon visiting Dr. Maheswaren, it's revealed that Steven being subjected to so much trauma and constantly having his life in danger from such a young age has left its mark on his mind and even his body. Now, he can't handle the minor stress from mundane problems without reacting as if his entire life is in danger, because that is just what he has been experiencing for so long.
• Cosmic Motifs: Stars are always around Steven. His shirt has a star, his eyes turn to stars when he's happy or excited, his mother's side of the family come from space which are filled with stars, his father was an aspiring rock star, and he dots the "i" in his last name with a star.
• Costume Evolution: He spends the first five seasons with a Limited Wardrobe of pink T-shirts with yellow stars on them. After the Time Skip, the movie has him wearing a blue T-shirt with the yellow star and a pink-and-white varsity jacket, meaning his outfit now incorporates the colours of all of the Diamonds. In Future, he swaps out the blue shirt for a black one much like the shirt his father wore as a rock star.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Rose Quartz's healing powers are so iconic and unique to her that Steven using them to heal Eyeball instantly tips her off that he's Rose's son/reincarnation. This comes to bite him back after he gets captured and sent to Homeworld, and put on trial before Yellow and Blue Diamond. Regardless of his intentions, the fact that he can heal is proof enough that he is Rose Quartz.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Steven's a naive goofball, but if the situation calls for it, he can be just as competent as the rest of the Gems. As of Season 3, he's shown to be at least as good a fighter as Amethyst, and that's before he starts fusing. As he gets older and more experienced with his powers, he becomes far stronger (he is part-Diamond, after all), to the point that he's able to go toe-to-toe with the other Diamonds, supremely powerful Physical Godesses who are themselves able to effortlessly defeat any other Gem.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Not him specifically, but many of his alternate timeline selves in "Steven and the Stevens" are clearly in pain and fear as they dissipate into sand by the episode's end. And again with alternate selves in "Future Vision", where he sees himself dying in multiple ways like getting caught in a blizzard and freezing to death and getting eaten by a shark.
• Cuddle Bug: He'll hug anything he can fit his arms around.
• Cultured Badass: Steven is a great singer with perfect pitch, can play a variety of instruments, is a talented cook, and a Child Prodigy (see above).
• Curtains Match the Windows: Black hair and eyes.
• Cuteness Proximity: Has a weakness for baby-sized things, even if they're baby-sized monsters. He even doesn't hide his adoration when seeing how tiny Peridot is without her Artificial Limbs, much to her annoyance.
• The Cutie: Friendly, innocent, playful, optimistic, compassionate, and lover of all things cute and fluffy — Steven's about as lovable as it gets.
• Dark Is Evil: Downplayed. Steven's outfit in Future has him supporting a black shirt, which coincides with him suffering a bad case of Sanity Slippage, gaining anger issues, and temporarily becoming a monster.
• Dead Guy Junior: Downplayed. Steven gets his middle name from his mom.
• Death by Depower: Steven's gemstone doesn't just give him powers. Despite being material instead of a projection, his organic body is horribly weakened when Steven's gemstone is removed, and he would clearly die if kept separate for very long. The reveal in Growing Pains that his skeleton is full of healed over injuries implies that Steven may also suffer from internal injuries kept in check by his powers.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Of the All-Loving Hero — Steven is a kind kid who tries to befriend everyone he meets. The show never says that Steven's wrong to have these beliefs (and nobody In-Universe attempts to discourage it), but they do run into very realistic flaws. Long story short, Steven's optimism and willingness to see the best in everyone is one of his best virtues, but just like everybody else on the show, he's still a flawed character.
    • First, Steven's peaceful tactics have worked sometimes, as characters like Lapis, Peridot, and even the monstrous Cluster were all stopped by him showing them kindness. However, as the series goes on, his caring philosophy often clashes against the morally complex world around him. Characters like Bismuth and Jasper who show a sympathetic side outright reject and even try to kill him when he extends an arm to them. Eyeball was simply a bad person, and Steven's attempt to reason with her did nothing except give her the opportunity to almost murder him. Navy in "Room for Ruby" exploited his Defeat Means Friendship beliefs in order to steal back the Roaming Eye for the Ruby Squad (though in Navy's defense, he did shoot her out into space with her crew and never bothered to rescue them afterwards). In other words, while Steven's caring nature has helped a number of people, that doesn't mean he can help everyone, the people who he's trying to help have every right to reject him, and there are instances where Steven has no choice except to fight back against those trying to hurt him.
    • Second, following from the above problem, Steven's desire to help people leads him to repressing his own emotional trauma and not addressing it because he worries more about their needs than his own. Episodes like "Mindful Education" and "Storm in the Room" show that his inability to help them weighs heavily on Steven's psyche as his caring worldview has let him down when confronted with these dilemmas.
    • Third, while Steven is genuinely caring, he still has the mentality of a child (even though he's a teenager), so many of his attempts to help others can do more harm than good. There's several moments where he can be insensitive or even condescending, making situations worse or more strained than they already are.
    • Fourth, "Beach City Drift" proves that despite Steven caring for everybody, including his enemies, he is still capable of hatred. When he and Kevin cross paths again after the latter harassed him and Connie when they were fused as Stevonnie in "Alone Together", Steven can barely contain his anger. After he leaves, Steven outright declares that he hates him, something that absolutely shocks his father as he never heard Steven say anything bad about anybody.
  • Of the Half-Human Hybrid: Being the only Gem/Human hybrid in the world may grant Steven a variety of unique powers, but it can also lead to several weaknesses as well. For example, Steven is significantly tougher than an average human, but can be easily overpowered by a much stronger Gem, he can breathe in space but for a limited time, and he can empathize with both humans and Gems but that doesn't mean he can always solve their problems. And being the only known human/Gem hybrid among his peers, can cause him loneliness and insecurity over not being able to fully understand what others go through or be able to consult with another hybrid who understands his feelings.
  • Future deconstructs his Kid Hero nature in the earlier seasons, showing that not only did those incidents harm him internally, in the form of various bone fractures, but constantly being exposed to genuine threats from a young age means that Steven is having trouble dealing with the stress by more minor, day-to-day stuff where his life isn't at risk, the implication being that he has genuine PTSD.
  • Future also deconstructs his tendency to put other Gems or humans before his own wants and needs, and jump to help people, as now, with intergalactic peace assured, Steven suddenly has no idea what to do with his life now, having defined himself by helping people for so long that he doesn't know how to handle being in a situation where they don't need him anymore.
  • Future also also deconstructs his desire and ability to fix things. He is properly unable to discuss his trauma with the others partially because by the time he resolves an issue, everything's back to where it once was. "Growing Pains" reveals that his skeleton is lined with fractures and injuries he didn't even know he had because his wounds healed as soon as they were inflicted. During his breaking point in "Everything's Fine", he laments how he can do things as bad as shattering a Gem and he can "get away with it" because he can fix it and no one will ever know that something was wrong. It takes his entire family (the Crystal Gems, Greg, Connie, the Diamonds and Spinel) giving him a Cooldown Hug and offering him the support he needs for Steven to begin healing. "The Future" has him mentioning talking to a therapist now, and he is in a better place emotionally and mentally now that he has a support system and his feelings are out in the open.
• Defence Mechanism Superpower: His deflector shield first manifested in "Bubble Buddies" to protect Connie from a falling boulder. Unfortunately, Steven didn't know how to turn it off, and when it finally turns off by itself, they happen to be underwater (thankfully, it wasn't too far down).
• Deflector Shield: He's capable of creating a spherical energy shield with his gem. It resisted getting hit with a roller coaster and a harpoon gun, but a Gem training robot was able to blast through it.
• Despair Event Horizon: Throughout Future, Steven slowly suffers from Sanity Slippage, and in "Everything's Fine", it reaches a breaking point when he finally snaps, at first downplaying his issues, then revealing that he shattered Jasper and thought about smashing White Diamond's head into a pillar in front of Greg, Connie, and the Crystal Gems. This then descends into self-loathing and he collapses to the floor, decrying himself a fraud and a monster before pink spikes burst out of his back.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: The crux of his internal conflict in Future. He has no idea what to do with himself now that everyone else around him has managed to find contentment in their lives, as his life previously had been spent helping them through their problems.
• Didn't Think This Through: A recurring character flaw that gets Steven, and occasionally the people around him, in trouble.
  • "Bubble Buddies": He tries to pop the bubble he and Connie were trapped in by getting onto the tracks of a roller coaster and let the ride hit them. Connie of course realizes they'll probably be flattened by the ride, but Steven is oblivious.
  • "Fusion Cuisine": For a dinner out with Connie and her family, he needs to bring one of the Gems posing as his mother. In fairness, he thought it through to see they each had motherly traits but flaws that would turn off Connie's parents. So he urged the Gems to fuse into Alexandrite. Connie calls out how terrible an idea this was, but Steven doesn't seem to grasp why her parents would be terrified by a giant multi-armed monster.
  • Steven spends most of "Bubbled" convincing Eyeball that he is Rose Quartz, and he manages to do that. He fails to take into consideration that Eyeball has a grudge against his mother (and seems to have not taken into account the negative reactions being mistaken for his mother would be) and how they are stuck inside his bubble in the void of space.
  • While he did have a point that Garnet and Pearl hiding secrets from him is wrong, his impatience over wanting to learn more about Pink Diamond leads to his father being kidnapped by Blue Diamond in "Steven's Dream".
  • Again, his impatience in wanting to rescue Greg had Steven mess with the ship's controls and nearly cause it to crash in "Adventures in Light Distortion".
  • In "Dewey Wins", Connie calls him out on giving up so easily against Aquamarine and the Topaz duo and turning himself into them so he could be put on trial on Homeworld, instead of trying to come up with a better plan. It's also made clear that he didn't think of how his loved ones would be hurt and terrified by his Heroic Sacrifice, especially since they had no way to save him and he only got back to Earth on a massive stroke of luck. There's also the fact that it led to Lars' Disney Death and Lapis abandoning Earth and Peridot out of fear of being caught up in the chaos of war again. Steven later acknowledged in "Gemcation" that he really messed up with that decision.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: He asks White Diamond what's her excuse for being childish, which actually embarrasses White enough to make her blush.
• The Dividual: "Change Your Mind" shows that Steven's human half and his gemstone are two separate entities in a symbiotic relationship. Neither is completely functional without the other, as the human half can barely stand and nearly dies in the two minutes that they are separated, and the gemstone does not appear to have a real personality nor restraint of its powers, acting on a single-minded drive to reunite with Steven.
• Does Not Like Spam: Steven doesn't like "Lion Lickers", partially because they replaced his favorite snack "Cookie Cats".
• Dream Walker: "Chille Tid" reveals that he can connect to other Gems through his dreams, and this seems to be an ability totally unique to him (and apparently not inherited from his mother, though it can't be proven since Gems usually don't even try to sleep). Comes in handy when he is able to mentally link with the Cluster.
  • Steven has also revealed the ability to transport his mind into a Watermelon Steven in his sleep. And can do so intentionally.
  • He later learns he can enter the dreams of other humans (or even transport his mind into their sleeping bodies) as he sleeps. In each case, it's discovered accidentally and caused by a conscious concern for the "target" as he falls asleep.
• Drunk with Power: Briefly falls into this while training with Jasper during "Fragments" due to her encouraging him to tap into his anger. He snaps out of it after their rematch ends with him shattering the gem.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: In "The Future", having moved on from the mental trauma with the help of his loved ones, he decides to move from Beach City to explore elsewhere, sharing a heartfelt farewell with the Gems before setting off. He even got a therapist!
• Emotional Powers: His powers are controlled primarily by his mood — his shield and bubble are powered by love and compassion, he can sense and be affected by the moods of those around him, and when he jumps he can slow his descent through feelings of joy. And when he gets angry, he discovers some truly destructive abilities.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism: The openly emotional and expressive attitude (Emotions) contrasts Connie's logical and more serious demeanor (Stoicism).
• The Empath:
  • In "Horror Club", he is able to sense the feelings of the Gem animating the lighthouse. This also ties in with some of his Dream Walker powers, as he was able to project his mind to talk to the Cluster after feeling their discomfort.
  • He also unknowingly psychically connects with Blue Diamond after she arrives on Earth, seeing what she sees and experiencing her grief, which makes him cry uncontrollably.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Bluebird Azurite is a fusion of Eyeball Ruby and Aquamarine, two gems that both tried to kill Steven at some point. Steven, who is normally all about giving second chances, does not trust Bluebird at all until the other Crystal Gems try to convince him otherwise. Steven is right; Bluebird only exists because of her two components' mutual hatred of him, and she refuses to change.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • As kind and empathetic as Steven is, even he has his limits when it comes to Lars' jerkass behavior, Onion's disturbing or illegal activities, and Kevin's creepiness.
  • As much as he is a Cuddle Bug, even he finds the Diamonds' behavior towards him to be far too overbearing.
• Extremely Protective Child:
  • In "Back to the Moon", for attempting to attack the Crystal Gems, Steven actually throws the Ruby squad into space and doesn't make it a big priority to rescue them later (he was planning to in "Adventures in Light Distortion", but had completely forgotten about it by "Room for Ruby").
  • During the "Out of this World" event, Greg is kidnapped by Blue Diamond and Steven is determined to save him at whatever cost. Whether it's traveling at the speed of light, entering into a (presumably dangerous) human zoo, or ready to fight those he perceives as trying to keep his father against his will.

F-H

• Face: As Tiger Philanthropist.
• Face–Monster Turn: He undergoes through this during his mental breakdown in the episode "Everything's Fine". His self-hatred, combined with his unchecked traumas, feelings of purposelessness, and his uncontrollable powers, corrupted him and turned him into a pink Kaiju-like monster. He gets better at the end of "I Am My Monster".
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Steven actually accuses himself of being this at the end of "Everything's Fine", saying that he is not nearly as innocent as he was as a kid anymore or as mature as everyone thinks he is. He has done bad stuff, including causing destruction across town and Little Homeworld, has had thoughts of hurting White Diamond out of revenge, and even shattered Jasper. He acknowledges the fact that he has been able to "get away with all this" for so long because he can just "fix" everything and it slowly eats away at him until he calls himself a fraud and a monster.
• Fan of the Past: Steven seems to be interested in older media. He has a VCR and huge tape collection even though Sadie assumed he wouldn't know what a VHS was. By Future, Steven is driving a car made years before he was born and still using the cassette player, even though he could easily replace either.
• Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: His spit can heal injuries or illness (even damage to inanimate objects) and turn plants into Plant Mooks. This is inherited from his mother, who could do the same with her tears.
• Fatal Flaw: Steven has four primary flaws — his loving nature, a tendency to neglect his own well-being while acting on said nature, his confidence (and lack thereof), and his impatience.
  • Steven's All-Loving Hero nature can prove fatal on occasion:
    • He often puts the emotional well being of others (especially the Crystal Gems) ahead of his own, even if this will hurt himself more than it helps them. He also tends to avoid thinking about his emotional problems until they overwhelm him all at once.
    • His idealistic perspective on life has had consequences, the biggest example being when he amicably reveals himself to Peridot in "Marble Madness", believing that she won't try to harm him. This is quickly proven false and the Crystal Gems have to save him, which gives away that they are still alive on Earth and starts the plot of the Homeworld Gems returning to Earth, knowing that they're active. Occurs once again, more painfully, in "Bismuth", when the title character tries to murder him while he is trying everything he can, and fails, to talk her down.
    • Steven's All-Loving Hero personality means he's absolutely traumatized when he has to hurt someone. And being a nice kid with no one to really talk to about this, he keeps it to himself, which leads to even more trauma.
  • Steven's powers are directly tied to his confidence in himself, which is shown to be realistically fragile for a child his age. This leads to him losing his healing spit after Greg causes him the slightest bit of doubt in his abilities, and not getting it back for two seasons even after realizing he had no reason to doubt himself.
  • Even after Character Development, Steven's impatient nature when it comes to learning more hidden truths causes more problems.
  • As Future shows, Steven retains his near-pathological need to help everybody, even when they don't really need it, or need help specifically from him. However, it leads him to suffer Existential Horror and confronting his long repressed problems and issues. Issues and problems that have been worse by having his powers now react to his negative emotions. Out of a mix of not wanting to be a burden and fear of no one understanding (which is itself caused by his hybrid status and growing power), he has been trying to bottle up his issues further and further, especially since venting them out just led to such a disaster that it reinforced his prior conviction of keeping them to himself.
• Fat and Skinny: The round and chubby Fat to Connie's slim and lean Skinny.
• Final Boss: His monster form is the final threat faced in the series.
• First Friend: Steven tends to be this to a lot of people with Friendless Backgrounds, becoming an important figure in their lives as his friendship helps them to grow as people.:
  • Connie Maheswaran, becoming inseparable best friends with Steven after their first adventure together and growing more confident and assertive throughout the series.
  • Lapis Lazuli, who opens up to Steven because he talked to as a person instead of treating her as a tool. After being freed and healed by Steven, she would become protective and see him as her Morality Pet.
  • Peridot, during the time when she had to work alongside the Crystal Gems to stop the Cluster from forming, was treated with kindness by Steven, something that would cause her to go through a Heel–Face Turn as she sees beauty and learns to care for someone other than herself.
• First Love: Steven is Connie's first and only true love.
• Flight: In Future, his floating ability has apparently evolved into this.
• Flower Motifs: Steven has a rose motif inherited from his mother. His shield has a rose pattern on the front and his Deflector Shield emerges from a rose that grows over him. It's not drawn in the animation, but the Funko Pop! figurine of Steven shows that the back of his hair forms into the shape of a rose◊.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Averted with Connie. He mentions in "Bubble Buddies" that he remembered from last year's Beach City parade float after she dropped her glowing bracelet. He found and wanted to return it to her but she long gone. And after he mentioned their indirect meeting, Connie also remembers him being on one of the parade floats... with soap bubbles in his hair.
• Free-Range Children:
  • Steven went missing for days at one point, and the Gems and Greg didn't seem worried because it's something that Steven usually does.
  • Additionally, Steven, along with Sadie and Lars, got trapped for weeks on a monster-inhabited desert island, and the Gems neither sent help nor seemed to realize he was gone.
• Friendly Enemy: Steven eventually recognizes Peridot as an enemy, but still shows her a lot of amiability, which she reciprocates with confusion and disgust.
  Peridot: I almost feel sorry for you. Nyaah!
  [Peridot warps away]
  Steven: ...Have a great weekend!
  [Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet stare at Steven]
  Steven: I mean... I hope her weekend is not so great?
• Friend to All Living Things: Shows signs of this in "Monster Buddies". Though initially afraid of the Centipeetle, he tries to befriend it after it doesn't attack him, and ultimately is able to tame it to some extent. He even defied Garnet in order to protect a magic mirror that he befriended, and when said mirror turned to be another Gem, he's willing to help her too despite the Crystal Gems' protests. In "Gem Drill" he proves to be this to the Cluster, by telepathically connecting to it and convincing the various shards to befriend each other and help him to bubble it.
• Friend to Bugs: As a part of his love for animals, Steven is also very sweet towards insects.
• Fun Personified: Cheerful, friendly, Steven is just about as fun he can be.
• Fusion Dance: "Change Your Mind" reveals a few things about Steven and fusion:
  • When he's plummeting to his doom with the four gemstones of the poofed Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, he discovers the ability to cause them to reform by fusing with them, which also saves all of them.
  • When he is briefly separated from his Gemstone, it forms a solid light body separate from his organic one. The organic half is so weak that he is physically incapable of moving, while the gem half retains his powers but appears to be missing large parts of his personality. The two quickly re-fuse and assume their half-gem form again.
• Gem Tissue: Has his mother's gem where his belly button would be.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: Steven is an emotional healing Gentle Touch to Connie's brutally honest, no-nonsense Firm Hand.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: A boy variant. Steven (a young boy) has a variety of different stuffed animals he sleeps with.
• The Glomp: Gives one to his dad upon returning from Homeworld in "Change Your Mind", which knocks him off his feet and sends him sliding back several feet.
• God in Human Form: Half human and half Diamond.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil:
  • Steven doesn't get the idea of someone in real life being pure evil. The worse he can say about the Homeworld Gems is that they're "mean", and that's after they've locked him and the rest of the Crystal Gems up in prison cells on their spaceship. He even thinks Peridot will change her mind about attacking Earth after she sees how beautiful it is, even though she tried to personally kill him. He is eventually proven kind of right about Peridot when she joins and helps them, though being proven right in one instance seems to have made it harder for him to accept instances where he's wrong.
  • Seems to be something of a running theme where Steven's willingness to believe in people and things thought to be evil has paid off. This has been noticed with how he tamed the dangerous Centipeetle, how he saved Lapis from the mirror and healed her when she posed a threat (which ended up with her not only helping warn him of the Homeworld Gems' arrival, but her later joining of the Crystal Gems), his noted helping of Peridot, and his helping and bubbling the Cluster.
  • This eventually becomes a problem when he discovers that his own mother had to do some pretty "evil" things to save her friends, and then he has to hurt some people in order to save himself. Committing these "evil" acts himself causes him a tremendous amount of confusion, guilt, and shame.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Steven is a goofball (dangerously so in the first few episodes) and is quite empathetic, but he's quite smart for his age. Even the tech-savvy Peridot lampshades it.
• Grand Theft Me: Is able to take over the bodies of the Watermelon Stevens. As it turns out later, he can do it to other humans, and does it to Lars. He of course returns to his own body at the end. Being Steven, he doesn't use this for anything bad. "Escapism" explores this ability in more detail and reveals that Steven can possess beings from lightyears away. However, it also appears that once he possesses a body, he is stuck in it until either his main body wakes up or the possessed body expires.
• Green Thumb:
  • In "Watermelon Steven", he creates an army of sentient watermelons by putting seeds into his mouth and spitting them out. Unfortunately, he can't control them, and they start attacking anyone who they perceive to be a threat.
  • In "Gem Harvest", he recalls this ability and uses it to make a single pumpkin creature, after Lapis and Peridot grow a field full of plants (via mundane means, besides perhaps Lapis using her powers to water them) and wind up disappointed that the plants don't move on their own. He was almost able to convince the two that they made the pumpkin, until the pumpkin ran straight for Steven himself.
  • By the movie, he's taken to using his healing spit to re-grow flowers he's just picked.
• Growing Up Sucks: Steven's Character Development tends to skew this way. He starts off as a naive child who just wants to join in on the missions and be considered a full Crystal Gem. Slowly he gets his wish, but with great physical and emotional pain. He goes from seeing his mother as a great unbelievably perfect person to someone flawed and whose past he himself has to keep dealing with. When his powers first manifest it was a great and exciting time, but that initial excitement slowly changed into annoyance and self-deprecation as his control of them never seemed to get better.
• Guilt Complex: He takes more responsibility for things than he should. He blames himself for Lapis Lazuli stealing the ocean in "Ocean Gem" ("I was the one who let Lapis out of the mirror. It's my fault the ocean's gone.") and Greg's leg being broken during the battle of that episode in "House Guest" ("I'm sorry that you hurt your leg and that your van got smashed up because of me." Greg himself tells Steven in this instance he apologizes too much), he blames himself for the fight between Ruby and Sapphire in "Keystone Motel" ("I don't understand, is it... Is it me?"), and "Mindful Education" reveals he most likely blames himself for the corruption, poofing and being launched into space of Jasper, Bismuth and the Eyeball-Ruby respectively. This is shown as Stevonnie (the fusion of Steven and Connie) begins to vividly hallucinate the three surrounding them, looking helpless. This complex likely stems from the fact that Rose Quartz (the former leader of the Crystal Gems, and Steven's mother) had to give up her physical form to make Steven. "Joy Ride" reveals that Steven feels that the rest of the Gems sometimes blame him for her not being around anymore, and he seems to be pretty hung up about it as well. Amethyst finally calls him out on it in "What's Your Problem?", bluntly telling Steven that he is not responsible for other people's actions, and blaming himself for the bad things that happen to everybody is not only unfair to himself, but is extremely emotionally unhealthy.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted with Connie — while he mainly fights defensively and supportively, with his attacks being either magical disabling effects or throwing his shield, Connie uses a BFS.
• Half-Breed Angst: Steven generally enjoys being a Child of Two Worlds, but even at the start is afraid being half-human will hinder his abilities as a Crystal Gem. As time goes on, Steven starts to feel more insecure about his status as the only Gem hybrid in existence and struggles to find balance between his human half and Gem half.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Played with in that Homeworld Gems discriminate against Steven by failing to acknowledge Steven as a hybrid, merely seeing him as his mother Rose in a new form. Though if they did understand his true nature, there would doubtless be an extremely negative reaction — Peridot called him a "hybrid abomination" after forming a tenuous friendship, while Jasper was disgusted by "Rose" even fusing with a human. Luckily, the Crystal Gems managed to catch on relatively fast and humans are Fantastically Indifferent to Gems in general, so he's been able to live most of his life free of such persecution.
• Half-Human Hybrid: He's part-Gem on his mother's side.
• Handshake Substitute:
  • He and Jamie share one as of "Historical Friction". Both high-five and proclaim out "Acting!" to each other.
  • Briefly had one with Lars where they would high-five each other in the chest.
• Heal the Cutie: After spending much of the epilogue series suffering from his unchecked PTSD, created from his traumas he experienced in the original series and movie, out of control powers and having a colossal mental breakdown, the episode "The Future" reveals that Steven's mental state is now in a much better place thanks to his loved ones (and therapy).
• Healing Factor: "Growing Pains" shows that while they apparently healed quickly enough not to bother him much, he received several bone fractures over the course of the show. Deconstructed - his powers may have healed over his bodily damage, but they've done nothing for the mental and emotional stress so much physical trauma has left him with.
• Healing Hands: He finds out he has healing spit in "An Indirect Kiss", which renders Connie's glasses obsolete. His tears bring Lars back to life.
• The Heart:
  • He is the emotional core of the Crystal Gems, and often helps them with their personal issues. The thought of him dying terrifies the other Gems. His status as this to them is a central theme of Season 5's penultimate Story Arc, fittingly titled "Heart of the Crystal Gems".
  • Steven tends to fulfill this role to the townspeople of Beach City as well. He manages to calm down a riot against Mayor Dewey with a Rousing Speech on how talented they all are in "Political Power".
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Rose personally considered the ability to grow and change humanity's greatest ability that made them superior to Gems in that way, and thus viewed it as one of the most amazing things Steven would get from his hybrid nature. Not only can Steven change and grow, he can make others change and grow, including Gems who are normally very unchanging. It shows in that he has managed to make the Crystal Gems grow more in his (comparably) very short life than they had in millennia. According to Rebecca Sugar, this is the exact reason that made his pure unleashed power was able to overpower White: he had to actually train and grow to gain ability over his power while White and the other Diamonds naturally have theirs. As such, his power became far, far greater.
  • Him realizing that he was neglecting his ability to change by focusing on the idea of a "happily ever after" is the final "piece" that he needs to restore his full powers in The Movie.
• Heel: As Tiger Millionaire. Then he has an in-universe Heel–Face Turn and becomes Tiger Philanthropist.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Creates himself a big, burly character named 'Stefan' with Peridot in order to fix Camp Pining Hearts' reboot in "In Dreams".
• Hero Protagonist: Steven is the main protagonist and often saves the world on a daily basis.
• Heroic Bastard: "Gem Harvest" reveals that Greg and Rose were never legally married.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • After Steven becomes dejected that his intentions of celebrating a birthday party for the Gems seem childish, he starts moping around town. He's completely unaware that he's magically aging his body up the more he sulks and dwells on the issue of maturity.
  • Happens again in "An Indirect Kiss" when he learns that he did not inherit his mother's healing tears, making him wonder if he will ever develop magical powers. It takes a pep talk from Connie and the revelation that he has healing spit to pull him out of it.
  • He goes through a doozy of a one in "Full Disclosure" having to come face to face with just how dangerous being a Gem really is.
  • He almost enters another one when he is confronted with Peridot's betrayal, though he doesn't have much time to really brood about it and gets proven right in the end.
  • After seemingly unaffected by a series of traumatic events concerning the truth behind Bismuth, his first-hand witnessing of Jasper's corruption, and a murder attempt by Ruby (Eyeball), "Mindful Education" shows Steven absolutely broken over mentally-manifested versions of them.
    • Coupled with the fact that all of those events revolve around an unbelievable act apparently committed by Rose Quartz, Steven's emotions must be amazingly conflicted.
  • In "A Single Pale Rose", he comes out of Pearl's memories sitting in a Troubled Fetal Position, looking absolutely miserable, after learning that his mother is not actually a Quartz, but Pink Diamond masquerading as one.
  • After he and Connie get locked up as punishment for fusing during the ball and the other Crystal Gems get poofed, Steven starts believing that their plan to save the corrupted Gems by enlisting the Diamonds' help was an impossible act and blames himself for everything. But then assurance from Connie keeps him from entering the Despair Event Horizon.
• The Hero Dies: The Steven that we follow for most of Steven and the Stevens ends up being erased from history. The one remaining after the episode ends thus has no memory of any of the events that occurred except for all of the other ones attacking each other before disappearing.
• Hero with a Unique Name: Steven's full name is unlike any full Gem or human: he has a regular human first name, a gemstone for a middle name, and a (very unusual) surname when Gems have a three part production code with the Crystal Gems going by a Race-Name Basis. This was even lampshaded by Dr. Maheswaran.
  Dr. Maheswaran: [holding out phone] Connie? The Steven Universe boy would like to speak with you. [to self as she walks out of the room] I swear that's not his real name.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Several episodes show him to be a competent ukulele player, and he's pretty good at making up lyrics on the fly. He clearly follows his dad in that respect.
    • Steven's actually a much more accomplished musician than even that; as demonstrated across several episodes, he's proficient in the ukulele, guitar, drums, and piano. He also has perfect pitch and is able to identify specific notes just by hearing them. Not bad for a 14-year-old kid with no formal education to speak of.
  • Behind the Cheerful Child there's a scared little boy who holds a lot of doubts: he thinks he'll never be able to control his powers and step into Rose's shoes and the other Gems will want nothing to do with him. He even suspects that the Gems blame him for Rose's death.
  • "Restaurant Wars" shows that he's quite the culinary genius. It's to the point where a single dish each caused both Kofi and Fryman to end their war for the sake of mutual, economic safety. One has to wonder how good he'd be if he got a formal education in the culinary arts.
  • "Made of Honor" demonstrates that he's also a romantic who's really into weddings and has spent the entirety of his life making a wedding planning book.
  • Steven is not much of a combatant and tends to use defense as an offense assuming he even uses offense at all (as he doesn't like hurting people even by proxy of any actions he takes). Contrast this against the full might of his power when he becomes a kaiju during "I Am My Monster" where he manages to knock down every gem from a roar alone. It's entirely possible that, had he known how to use this power willingly and wanted to use it, he would have been stronger than any other threat they faced by a wide margin. By the time he does use it; he's so far gone in self-hatred and corruption that he is almost entirely animalistic.
• Holding Hands: Will usually do with his friends, father, and Connie. And speaking of Connie, he does this with her especially since they do it to fuse into Stevonnie.
• Homeschooled Kids: Steven is homeschooled, though it doesn't seem to be a formalized education; in "Mirror Gem", Steven only even finds out what a school is like from Connie, then he gets Pearl to set up a classroom. The lesson gets put on hold because of equipment malfunction, then Steven celebrates because he could say he was taking summer break. His actual level of education isn't known, but he's literate enough to read the whole Spirit Morph Saga without any trouble. This question is directly addressed in the comic Too Cool for School, where he briefly enrolls in Connie's school. The answer, apparently, is extremely well, as Steven passes his first major test with a score second only to Connie herself.
• Honor Before Reason: In "Change Your Mind", Steven refuses to apologize for fusing with Connie, because he's not sorry for it, even though he risks getting the two of them locked up until they starve to death. Luckily, this helps make Blue Diamond realize how terrible Pink has suffered under White's rules.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Steven had no idea how to activate his Crystal Gem or control the powers that would manifest every once and a while. After "Ocean Gem" and "The Return", this changes, mostly, and he is now able to easily use his force field and shield weapon. Other powers are still a little hit or miss. By "Too Short to Ride" he's mostly gained control of his shapeshifting capacity. By "Steven vs. Amethyst" he has gained control of his ability to control his descent.
• Hybrid Power: Initially, being half-human seems entirely detrimental compared to being a full Gem: his powers and body develop slowly instead of being like that from the beginning, he needs to eat and sleep, he might be as short-lived as a human (and can even accidentally cause his own death by old age prematurely, though he can also seemingly reverse it) and may not be able to regenerate his body like full Gems do. Later, it's revealed his body has some advantages no Gem has had before, including being able to fuse with humans (and according to Rebecca Sugar, organic beings in general, theoretically including animals like Lion) and immunity to technology that destroys Gems' bodies. He also has the power to talk to other Gems in his dreams, which is something totally unique to him since Gems don't even need to sleep. But perhaps the biggest advantage has nothing to do with his powers at all: being raised with Gems and humans leaves him as basically the only one in the world who can easily understand and empathize with both. This ties into another major ability he has: Gems are expected to never change and have that drilled into them by Homeworld's society, but being human, Steven's natural state is change. And as shown with the Crystal Gems, this makes him very capable to instigate change and growth in Gems on a level even his mother couldn't do. Notably, Rose considered this the most amazing thing Steven's hybrid nature would give him. The power displayed by Pink Steven suggests that his true potential might exceed White Diamond. This is because he not only inherited the sheer power of his Diamond mother, but the ability to change and grow from his father, something White lacked.

I-M

• I Am Not My Mother: Steven's situation is less about him wanting to move away from his mother's legacy, and more about his realization that he can't live up to that legacy when everyone expects him to. The heartbreaking part is that Steven admits this not by saying "I'm not my mother", but by saying "I'm not Rose Quartz", because he has never known her as a mother. Once he learns about Rose's more questionable decisions, such as shattering Pink Diamond and imprisoning Bismuth without a trial, he starts to question with whether or not he wants to be like her.
• Iconic Outfit: His pink t-shirt with the yellow star, blue jeans, and pink sandals. In the movie, he now wears a pink jacket over a blue shirt with a yellow star, and the shirt becomes black in Future.
• Ideal Hero: Subverted, surprisingly. Steven's charisma, kindness, and devotion to his loved ones make him perfect for this trope. Except, one of the aesops of the show is that there is no such thing as a perfect person, which also applies to Steven. While he's a genuinely good person, he's also prone to making mistakes or reckless decisions that come from his own set of flaws, flaws that don't make an "ideal hero".
• Identity Breakdown: In Future. Steven struggles with a Loss of Identity as helping people has become central to his identity and the resolution of the main series has allowed everyone to move forward with their lives, leaving Steven purposeless and incredibly lonely. Trying to repress these feelings only makes him spiral further. Thus begins a season long Sanity Slippage that includes him accidentally imprisoning his friends, talking to the plants in his garden as replacements for his friends, and attempting to shatter White Diamond as he places the blame for all of his problems on her. The final bad guy to fight in the entire series comes from Steven having a full blown meltdown and manifesting a Superpowered Evil Side that embodies all of Steven's bottled up resentment and anger.
• Idiot Hero: For the first half of the series, Steven is this: A small, naïve child who is easily manipulated by the adults around him, he doesn't even realize his entire race is from another planet until the end of the first season. His childish antics frequently get him and the rest of the cast in trouble. However, as the series goes on and Steven learns more about combat and the minds of other people, he eventually (very gradually) grows out of this trait, and emerges as a Warrior Therapist with only occasional moments of weakness.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Explored. In the main series Steven doesn't think much about how unusual his life is, but several episodes in Future drive home how strange he is because of the experiences that shaped him, such as in Bismuth Casual, where Steven discovers that he has trouble relating to Connie's other friends. This comes to a head in Mr. Universe, where he is able to contrast his own history with the extremely structured and repressed upbringing his father had.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Steven wants to have magical powers like his mom because he wants to continue being with the Crystal Gems.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Steven can change the size and shape of his bubble shield into more complicated constructs with focus.
• In a Single Bound: "Steven Floats" reveals he can control the speed of his ascent and descent to jump incredible heights/distances and then land safely, much like his mother.
• Indy Ploy: Discussed in "Bubble Buddies" when Steven and Connie are trapped in Steven's protective bubble shield:
  Steven: We just gotta find the right ride. Yeah, the kiddie coaster! Alright, we just roll down this ramp as the carts are coming at us, and the crash will break us free!
  Connie: What happens after the bubble pops?
  Steven: We'll be free!
  • Later on, when they're still protected by the bubble at the bottom of the ocean:
    Steven: Oh, sorry! Are you alright? It's not so bad, uhhh. It-it's okay, I uh...
    Connie: [panics] It's not okay! You keep saying that, but you don't know what you're doing! Now we're going to suffocate or starve at the bottom of the ocean, and only my parents will notice because no one else cares about me!
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: The episode "Prickly Pair" in Future reveals that he has this. Steven's issues seem to be a tangled mess of a desire to be needed along with a resentment of feeling like he needs help. He has somewhat condescending perceptions of the Gems' flaws but also still wants to them to be impressed by his new hobby. When they're rightfully disturbed by the fact that he named his plants after people he knows to pretend they'll never leave him, he takes it as a sign that his gardening is unimpressive instead of concern for his wellbeing.
• Innocence Lost: After the events of season one, he stops thinking as his duties as a Gem as something fun and begins seeing them as a dangerous burden. Though it seems it was actually more just the stress of everything that happened in the season 1 finale and he still seems to enjoy going on missions though he is much more competent now.
  • Steven Universe Future though is kinda ramming it in that Steven confronting all the repressed problems is causing a lot of agony and problems.
• Innocently Insensitive: Justified. Steven is an All-Loving Hero and is the most emotionally thoughtful and sensitive among the Crystal Gems, but he is still a 14-year-old boy who occasionally lets his own feelings get in the way of the feelings of others. Plus, like everyone else, Steven is a flawed person capable of hurting others, intentionally or not. This is a trait that he inherited from his mother, Rose Quartz a.k.a Pink Diamond.
  • When Connie is visibly upset over having her eyesight healed by his healing spit in "An Indirect Kiss", he doesn't notice and is just happy to have healing powers like his mom.
  • "Reformed" has him asking questions that visibly upset Amethyst, but he doesn't notice it until much later.
  • At the climax of "Sadie's Song", Steven realizes that Sadie never really wanted to sing, and that he and Barb were unwittingly pressuring her into it.
  • Even though Peridot is extremely and visibly distraught over speaking against Yellow Diamond in "Message Received", Steven is just happy she's a Crystal Gem.
  • "The New Lars" has Steven deciding to be a "new Lars", but he ends up making Sadie feel hurt again, and just the fact that Steven kept pretending to be Lars while possessing his body was a major violation on Lars' consent and he was righteously furious once he woke up.
  • His attempt to cheer up Amethyst in "Steven vs. Amethyst" by losing a video game on purpose is from a good place, but she quickly catches on to him, stating that his action, however good-intentioned, only makes her feel worse.
  • After returning from Homeworld in "Dewey Wins", Connie is upset with him for willingly turning himself into Homeworld. She explains that him doing that felt like he didn't trust her or their training. Steven continues to argue that she's fine and that he had to. Connie becomes frustrated over him not understanding and leaves, with a slightly annoyed Steven mumbling that she should've been telling him how brave he was. He does eventually have a Jerkass Realization of his behavior after Mayor Dewey's campaign failed, but by that time, Connie is so upset with him for brushing off her feelings that she refuses to talk to him until "Kevin Party".
• Intergenerational Friendship: Onion, Connie, and Peedee are about the only kids around Steven's age who live in or near Beach City, so Steven hangs out with older kids a lot, and he is very popular amongst Beach City's teenage crowd, simply because he's such a fun and nice guy to be around. It's later revealed that he's actually fourteen years old, he doesn't act or look it. The lone exception is Lars, although Steven's completely oblivious to this. Eventually, he manages to become friends with Lars as well.
• Internal Reformist: When he realizes that the Diamonds don't understand that he is Pink's son, not Pink Diamond in another form, he decides to make the best of his position to convince White Diamond to heal the Corrupted Gems, and to end the practice of invading other planets. Unfortunately, Steven ends up unsuccessful with this; we learn that while the Diamonds loved Pink, they did not really respect her, being condescending to her and not taking her opinions seriously. They would end up treating Steven the same way. As such, when Steven tries to do things his way when hosting a party so that White will finally attend, Blue and Yellow Diamond micromanage the whole thing and White doesn't bother to show up. Then when he accidentally fuses with Connie and causes Blue and Yellow to turn against Stevonnie, prompting the Crystal Gems to fuse into Garnet and Opal respectively to protect them and inspires a random Jade pair to join them and fuse into a bigger Jade, Yellow poofs the lot and locks up Stevonnie as punishment. Steven dwells on the failure and notes he understands his mom better.
• Interspecies Adoption: Ties in with Half-Human Hybrid above, even if his biological dad was present. Steven's nature as a half-Gem makes him a genuinely unique being, and while loving, none of his caretakers truly understood how to care for him. Future focuses heavily on the consequences of Steven's upbringing, including unnoticed injuries from his missions with the gems and how his 'Gem duties' affected his mind.
• Interspecies Romance: Steven (half-human, half-Gem) has a mutual crush on Connie (human).
• Intertwined Fingers: With Connie, especially when they fuse into Stevonnie.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Due to being raised by the laid-back and understanding Greg and by three (four if you are counting Ruby and Sapphire) One-Gender Race alien women, Steven is very much this and is very open about it.
  • He has a love of schmaltzy things, disagreeing with Connie on the Weddings for Everyone ending of her favorite book series, primarily the details of the cake.
  • While he finds fighting monsters and doing missions awesome at first, he at heart believes that Gems should not fight Gems and only ever really gets involved in a battle if he absolutely has to, especially against fully-sentient Gems.
  • He has no problem putting on a dress and going up on stage for a concert performance. The rest of the town have no problem either. Though they do note it was better than the time he did it nude two years ago.
  • He is not afraid to cry. Boy does he cry. This is even lampshaded in "The New Crystal Gems" when Connie's lack of crying was a detriment to her Steven impression.
  • Steven appointed himself as the official wedding planner of Ruby and Sapphire's wedding, revealing that he has compiled a "Dream Wedding Journal" for Ruby and Sapphire to look through for themes and details to make their perfect wedding. When Sapphire questions him on how long he has been working on it, he answers "My entire life."
• Irony: Steven is willing to forgive just about anyone for past misdeeds in life, as long as they are willing to make a change for the better, no matter how recently those misdeeds may have been. The one person Steven can't find himself to forgive is his own mother, Pink Diamond, who despite being very flawed probably took the most steps to try and better herself throughout the many years she was alive.
• It's All About Me: A much more empathetic and kind-hearted version of the trope than normal. Steven genuinely wants all the best for everyone, and if someone he knows is unhappy he'll work tirelessly to fix it, to the point of neglecting his own needs. At the same time he can be incredibly self-centered; early in the series it's mostly just him being Innocently Insensitive and not realizing that not everything can be about him, but by the time of Future he's embraced a much more self-destructive version of the trope: Since most of the events in the main series really did revolve around him^note  Of which Reynaldo voiced his displeasure of in "Keep Beach City Weird" , and he ended up Living Emotional Crutch to almost everyone he knew, he's just started to take it for granted that everything does have to revolve around him and he alone is responsible for everyone's happiness. When all events finally stop revolving around him and everybody starts moving on with their own lives, he has no idea what to do with his own.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: In "Full Disclosure", Steven tries to do this with Connie and take up the whole brooding, anti-hero shtick when he's finally realized just how much danger he can get in, because he doesn't want her to get hurt. He ultimately decides not to break up with Connie; otherwise, she would have ended up friendless and heartbroken, and he values their relationship too much to go through with it.
• Jumped at the Call: Nothing will stop him from trying to protect his family and his home.
• Just a Kid: Deconstructed. Steven is so determined to be viewed as a Crystal Gem that he often hides his own fears and trauma in order to reassure the others that's he's capable of any task. This is made even more depressing because the Crystal Gems are unaware of the psyche of human children (besides the concept), and expect Steven to just bounce back from any emotional trauma that happens to him.
  • Garnet is the exception. She apologized profusely both times she realized that Steven was in emotional distress because of the Gems.
    • The first time was in "Future Vision" when she believed revealing her precognition to Steven would bring them closer, but it only turned him into a nervous wreck freaked out about the future. Garnet took off her shades to apologize to Steven.
    • The second time was in "Warp Tour" when the Gems blew off Steven's concerns about seeing creatures in the warp stream. He became insomniac; and the more the Gems scoffed at him, the surlier he became. When his concerns were proven true, Garnet apologized profusely.
  • Played with in "Joy Ride", when the Cool Kids give the Gems a What the Hell, Hero? speech about how they expect so much from Steven when he is just a young child. The Gems apologize for straining him so much, yet at no point make it seem like they lost confidence in his abilities.
  • Brought to the forefront in "Steven vs. Amethyst", when he admits that he trains hard because he's "not Rose Quartz".
  • This is what he inherited from Pink Diamond, who wanted a colony of her own to prove herself to the other Diamonds much like how Steven tries to prove himself to the Crystal Gems. Tragically, it led to Pink's "death", and the Crystal Gems had no idea how much of the Diamonds they were emulating in regards to Steven.
• Karmic Jackpot: For five seasons and a movie, Steven always helped everyone, even those who hurt him, without asking nor getting anything in return. In "I Am My Monster" everyone finally repays the favor by saving him from his corrupted form with a Cooldown Hug. After everything he has been through, he absolutely earned it.
• Keet: Steven is a very sweet, cheerful and optimistic boy.
• Kiddie Kid: Justified. "Steven's Birthday" reveals that he's been 13 up until this episode, in which he turned 14. However, due to his Gem heritage he seemingly stopped aging after 8. Zig-Zagged in that while he often acts like an energetic 8-year-old, he's just as often Wise Beyond His Years. He does feel insecure about his appearance when the issue comes to attention. This becomes completely subverted in Future, in which he has little-to-no childish traits.
• Kid Has a Point: Despite being the youngest and most naive, Steven can make a very good point once in a while.
  • This bit of dialogue in "Warp Tour".
    Pearl: Nothing on Earth can access the Warp points but us!
    Steven: Yeah? Well... what if it came from space!?
    Pearl: I... don't like your tone.
  • In "Marble Madness", he points the futility of the Crystal Gems continuously destroying the robonoids since they didn't know why they're coming.
  • Steven gives Garnet and Pearl a lashing out in "Steven's Dream" when they keep on hiding information about Pink Diamond from him because that's what Rose wanted, and he accurately points out that since Rose was his mom he deserves to know all of the truth, good or bad, about her.
• Kid Hero: He's protected the Earth along with the Gems since a very young age. It's deconstructed as the story goes on, with episodes like "Mindful Education" and much of Future showing the unresolved issues and trauma that such a character would have.
• Lady and Knight: The Lord to Connie's Knight.
• Lamarck Was Right: Because Steven's gem was the source of his mother's power (and was his mother), he'll probably develop all of the powers Rose/Pink Diamond had.
• Last of His Kind: He is the last free Rose Quartz Gem. The others were all bubbled by Pink Diamond due to his mother's rebellion. Steven would be the last Rose Quartz Gem period if it weren't for Blue Diamond keeping the bubbled gems around as mementos of Pink Diamond. Yellow Diamond, on the other hand, wants to shatter them and forget about Pink Diamond. Subverted in that he's not actually a Rose Quartz at all: he's a Diamond.
• Laugh of Love: Has romantic laughs with Connie during their moments together, including the first few times they fused.
• The Leader: Bismuth considers Steven to be the true leader of the Crystal Gems since he was able to keep the rest of the Gems together even after they found out the truth about Pink Diamond being Rose Quartz.
• Leitmotif: Chiptune melodies represent him throughout the series.
  • In "I Am My Monster," the penultimate episode of Future, the chiptune music gets steadily more distorted as Steven begins to lose his mind.
• Like Brother and Sister: His relationship with Amethyst. Steven is the cute little brother who looks up to Amethyst and likes to have fun with her and Amethyst is the cool, rebellious older sister who can be both a good and bad influence on him, but still cares about him. Although if one considers Gems made on the same planet for a single Diamond siblings, as Amethyst did for Jasper and the "Famethyst" in the Zoo, her and Steven actually are related — the Rose Quartzes were apparently also made on Earth, making Amethyst the gem equivalent of Steven's aunt. It turns out that his mother was Pink Diamond, who is the Gem Matriarch Amethyst was made for. This means for all intents and purposes, he and Amethyst are half-siblings.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Steven takes after both his parents in different ways.
  • Like Greg, he shares an inclination for music. In the extended opening, Steven is the one who wrote the Gems' song, and he appeared to be quite young when he did it. Also, like Greg, he is as pure a pacifist as can be, but can step up when needed.
  • Like Rose, he is an All-Loving Hero and Friend to All Living Things. Rose and Steven even have the same laugh and their pupils both turn into stars when either gets really happy or excited. On a darker note, both have a tendency to assume that they know what's best for others and make choices without consulting them, causing them to be both insensitive and condescending. Gets even more tragic in Future, when during his Sanity Slippage, he emotionally excludes everyone around him, causes problems (shattering Jasper, attempting to shatter White Diamond) and acts as if it never happened or it's no big deal. When Steven finally confesses to all this, he's apalled that he got away with it for so long, just like his mother did.
• Liminal Being: Steven is half human and half Gem, combining the abilities and needs of both.
• Limited Wardrobe: With a few exceptions, he's always depicted wearing a pink t-shirt with a yellow star in the middle. "Story for Steven" reveals that they are most likely from the boxes upon boxes of unsold Mr. Universe merchandise Greg owns, as a box of identical t-shirts can be seen in his van during the episode.
• Literal Split Personality: In "Change Your Mind", White Diamond removes his gemstone. Instead of reverting to Rose Quartz, it forms "Pink Steven", who seems to represent his determination and full magical potential. Pink Steven also does not seem to care about the collateral damage of his actions, as the Crystal Gems are caught up in his shockwave as well.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Steven functions as this to a number of characters.
  • To Greg. In fact, hearing what almost happened to Steven in "Full Disclosure" sent Greg into a near heart attack.
  • To the Crystal Gems to the point of Deconstruction: it's a lot of pressure to put on a small child. Steven is increasingly the Gems' crutch, doing all he can to help them overcome their issues as much as possible, but he simply doesn't have the knowledge, resources or emotional maturity to cope with that. He's looking at the people he loves struggle with abandonment issues, self-esteem problems and grief, he knows they have these issues ("Joy Ride" makes this perfectly clear), but the harsh truth is that he's not equipped to deal with it. He's not a therapist; he's a child who regularly has to watch his guardians fight with themselves and each other. Poor kid has to feel at least a little bit trapped on occasion.
  • To Connie. Due to being her first friend, Connie's willing to do anything to be with him and to help him, and it's a feeling he shares with her. Deconstructed once again in episodes like "Sworn to the Sword", where she's willing to do too much for Steven to be comfortable with.
  • To Lapis. She sees Steven as this due to him basically being the only good thing that's ever happened to her in the past five millennia.
  • It's deconstructed in Future. After being the crutch for so many others both Gem and human for so long, he's caught flatfooted when the issues of those who relied on him all start getting resolved. Leaving him without anybody's issues to resolve except his own, which he ignores and refuses to let anybody else even try to act as a crutch for him.
• Living Mood Ring: When in intense distress, his gem causes him to turn bright pink all over because his PTSD has broken his ability to differentiate between minor emotional inconvenience and the end of the world. Downplayed, as this is the only emotion that effects a color change.
• Locked Out of the Loop: It's apparent the other Gems are withholding a fair amount of relevant backstory from him, and seem reluctant to even reveal anything unless Steven stumbles upon it by himself. The entire conflict of "Mirror Gem"/"Ocean Gem" stems from the fact that they weren't willing to tell him the true nature of the Gem monsters they fight until after Steven made the situation worse by releasing one in a misguided attempt to help. Steven eventually confronts them on this, causing Garnet to admit that they're scared of what may come. In a much less serious example, Garnet says they kept the fact that she's a fusion secret because they wanted it to be a nice surprise for his birthday. His habit of forgetting to ask questions (probably as a result of the Gems withholding information) leads to him accidentally being locked out of the loop at several points.
  Steven: Why do I never ask follow-up questions?!
• Love at First Sight: Downplayed. It was more like "attracted at first sight" when he first saw Connie a year prior to the series, but he had to spend time with Connie before coming to the conclusion he loved her.
• Love Bubbles: A literal variant with Connie (his Implied Love Interest) in "Bubble Buddies". They spent almost the entire episode stuck in his magical bubble (thanks to Power Incontinence) and a lot of their interactions come off as Ship Tease, especially since, in the beginning, Steven endearingly behaves like a boy trying to talk to his crush.
• Loved by All: Steven is an All-Loving Hero and everyone loves him back. He's been able to deal with jerks, bullies, and Homeworld Gems, reforming them in the process. Zig-zagged, however, as by the end of the franchise, the only characters left that Steven has not been able to reason with/befriend are Aquamarine/Eyeball (aka Bluebird Azurite), Kevin, and Marty. Steven is ultimately able to win over Jasper, albeit in a very messed-up way. He also becomes beloved by the Diamonds.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Deconstructed and subtle example. Steven cares about his friends and family and wants their happiness and safety. However, he tends to go overboard in trying to do both, usually involving the expense of either his physical or mental health.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: His weapon summoned from the gem on his stomach. Steven starts out not knowing how to summon it, to being able to shrug off ship-based cannons and using it offensively.
• Made of Good: If Garnet is a living embodiment of romantic love, Steven could be seen as a living embodiment of self-love. This is emphasized in the climax of "Change Your Mind" when Steven does a Twirl of Love with his gem self.
  • In a cruel sense of irony, he loses this at the end of "Everything's Fine", when his Sanity Slippage and self-loathing reach a breaking point, corrupt him and turn him into a pink Kaiju-like monster. It doesn't last that long, though.
• Made of Indestructium: He can create a magic bubble shield that's nearly impossible to pop. Even a direct hit from a harpoon gun simply bounces off of it.
• Magical Boyfriend: Performs this role for Connie by bringing her into his magical life away from her boring, lonely world.
• Magnetic Hero:
  • Like his mother, he appears to be very charismatic, easing a raging crowd in "Political Power" and motivating his friends and father in working out and Pearl to find strength to fight Sugilite in "Coach Steven".
    Garnet: [to Steven] But the truth is, we rely on you. Your voice inspires us, binds us, reminds us why we promised to protect the planet. You need to be that voice. For them.
  • Taken up to eleven when he defeats the Cluster by befriending it and convincing its component shards to be friends with each other and staying in the planet's mantle with each other.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: A power first seen in "Change Your Mind" with Pink Steven. He can let out a destructive shout which can crack hard surfaces and nearly knocks the tower-sized White Diamond off her feet. It's seen a lot more in Future, and is revealed to be a power he inherited directly from his mother. More specifically, one Pink Diamond accidentally traumatised Volleyball with and seemed to make an active effort to stop using out of guilt and fear.
• Male Might, Female Finesse: While Steven's skills have become more refined, his powers consists of super-human strength, super-human durability, and heavy hits with his shield; Connie's strengths lies in her practiced sword technique, fast attacks, and quick thinking.
• Manic Pixie Dream Guy: Steven is the literal magical half-Gem boy bringing excitement to the life of bored, lonely Connie.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Zig-zagged. Connie and Steven do present some type of femininity and masculinity, respectively. However, Connie prefers to fight with a sword and likes action/adventure; Steven prefers using his shield and has a liking towards romances.
• Mask of Sanity: Steven's habit of repressing his emotions has turned into this by Future. He looks fine at first, but as the series goes on, his unchecked traumas bleed through and it becomes very clear that Steven is not fine.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: In a sense; with the revelation from "A Single Pale Rose", Steven technically has too many half-sisters to count in the form of Amethyst, Jasper, the rest of the Famethyst, and all other Gems that were presumably made by Pink Diamond, and he's the youngest.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Steven worries that the Crystal Gems may secretly blame him regarding the death of their leader, Steven's mother Rose Quartz. Chances are he developed the notion after witnessing Pearl's outburst in "Rose's Scabbard" or Amethyst's argument with Greg during "Maximum Capacity".
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: In-Universe. The lovable and happy-go-lucky Steven gets into professional wrestling as a heel character, the rude and ruthless Rich Bastard Tiger Millionaire.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Steven" is Greek for "that which surrounds or encompasses" — a magnetic personality, acts as an emotional support for many, and he brings out the softer side of characters with hard defensive shells.
  • A more figurative meaning of Greek translation is "crowned". As the reincarnation of Pink Diamond, Steven is Homeworld's equivalent to royalty.
  • "Steven" is also a variation of "Stephen", the name of a Christian martyr who was stoned to death for denouncing the Jewish authorities. Like his namesake, Steven tries to go above and beyond to help others, often to his physical and mental detriment.
• The Medic: His spit can heal stuff. On top of that, he's the only one in the Mobile RPG that can provide healing, either with items or encouraging words. His tears can bring humans back to life, with powers of their own.
• Messianic Archetype: Steven bears many of the criteria for this trope. He is the son of a human (Greg) and a transcendent otherworldly being (Rose Quartz, who is even referred to as a "goddess" by Vidalia in one episode) who comes into his own and learn how to control his otherworldly power, including the power to create food (grow plant life), heal the injured (healing spit) and ultimately revive the virtuous (brings Lars back to life). He befriends and converts followers of his celestial parent's doctrines (Peridot and Lapis Lazuli) and is willing to sacrifice himself to his people's enemy (the Diamonds) and save his world in the process. This is especially telling in "Three Gems and a Baby", where three ancient beings (Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl) come bearing gifts for Steven and his weathered human parent (Greg) in a place that is not their own (Vidalia's house) set in December. In an interesting inversion of the trope, at the end of the fourth season, he sacrifices himself not to atone for the sins of humanity, but for those of his "divine" parent. Taken up to eleven in season 5 with the reveal that his mother was secretly Pink Diamond. Deconstructed in that one of the main themes of the show is that believing its your duty to sacrifice yourself to save humanity, or to atone for the sins of another, is actually really emotionally unhealthy.
• Metaphorgotten: He has a tendency to get carried away.
  "Steven's a big fat meanie!
  A big fat meanie zucchini!
  Let's chop it up! Chop-chop it up!
  And serve it with linguini!
  Al denteee! Al denteee! Al denteee! Al denteeeee!"
• The Millstone: Zigzagged. A fair portion of the episodes usually have Steven being the cause of whatever threat the Gems are facing, usually in a well-intentioned, but misguided attempt to help people. What keeps him from being a straight example is that Steven just as often fixes the problems he creates. As of season 2, he appears to be slowly growing out of this after having a better grasp on his Gem abilities.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: His shapeshifting powers give him an inverted case of this. His physical age is apparently dependent on the way he feels and behaves. He is literally as old as he feels.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: It's a blink and you'll miss moment but in "An Indirect Kiss" Steven is reflected in Amethyst's gem and instead of the five pointed star he had in his eyes, the reflection shows the four pointed star of a diamond. This was foreshadowing his mother's true identity as Pink Diamond.
• Mistaken for Transformed: A Running Gag is that other gems assume that Steven is a transformed Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond because he has her gem in his body. One Whole Episode Flashback shows the Crystal Gems trying to get baby Steven to "turn back" into Rose. It goes on so long that even Steven himself starts to doubt if he really is his own person or just another manifestation of his mother. The matter is finally resolved in "Change Your Mind" when White Diamond removes the gem from Steven and instead of Pink Diamond or Rose Quartz, it turns into another Steven, who outright states that Pink is "gone".
• Morality Pet: Steven tends to bring out the best in a number of people, humans and Gems.
  • The Crystal Gems will often indulge in whatever human activity he thinks up simply because he asks.
  • He is the only one Sugilite shows a kinder side to.
  • The Centipeetle will begin to calm herself if Steven is near.
  • Steven is the only Crystal Gem that Lapis will listen to.
  • Despite his Jerkass behavior, Onion truly values his friendship with Steven.
  • Steven's kindness toward Peridot is eventually returned, making him the first person she's expressed concern for besides herself.
  • He later becomes one to his Uncle Andy, bringing the guy around to accepting the Gems as part of the family.
  • He even manages to become this to Blue and Yellow Diamond, something his mother tried and failed to do!
  • He also manages to become this to White Diamond, albeit after he makes her realize she's not perfect.
  • Becomes this to Jasper as well, and certain circumstances lead to her deeply respecting him.
• Muggle–Mage Romance: He (a magical Half-Human Hybrid) is romantically interested in Connie (a human).
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • After Greg is kidnapped by Blue Diamond, and Garnet arrives after the fact, he realizes she had a very good reason for telling him not to go, and that he probably should have listened.
  • Has the reaction when he accidentally shatters Jasper during their rematch. He is also visibly traumatized after his apparent attempt to shatter White Diamond.

N-R

• The Needs of the Many: Steven has spent virtually his entire life since his powers awakened putting other people or Gems first and pushing his own wants or needs to the side in favor of helping them. While he has been doing it for noble, selfless reasons, Steven Universe Future shows that this has led to Steven developing pretty significant psychological issues relating to not having developed good coping mechanisms or learning that sometimes it's okay to focus on himself.
• Never My Fault: Zigzagged. Usually Steven takes responsibility for his actions, but later he tends to believe that whatever bad things his mother did are also his fault. However, there are times when he tends to view the actions of others as a complete mystery even though he was partly responsible for it (i.e., being genuinely shocked at Navy's betrayal even though he and the others continuously tricked her and her team).
• New Superpower: Many episodes deal with Steven trying to deal with the emergence of powers he inherited from his mom, and gradually mastering them as the show progresses.
• Nice Guy: Steven is an amicable, outgoing, and carefree boy with a happy-go-lucky attitude that is appreciated by many of the citizens of Beach City in one way or another. Steven is also very kindhearted and compassionate, something which Pearl notes he has inherited from his mother, and he deeply loves his friends and family. He is friendly toward almost everyone he meets, rarely holds grudges, and is very non-discriminatory, never treating anyone with prejudice. No matter the situation, Steven will always go out of his way to support his loved ones, even if it means putting his life on the line, and he will avoid resorting to violence. He's one of the nicest guys in cartoon history.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In earlier seasons, it was usually his fault whenever something went wrong. However, he's matured more since then and now it's usually his mother's fault when something goes wrong.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Of the Gems who took on the "Pink Diamond" role on Homeworld, Steven (nice) is an All-Loving Hero who is kind to everyone and accepts others no matter what, Pink/Rose (in-between), despite being a Benevolent Boss who seeks to protect Earth and the Crystal Gems, can be insensitive towards the feelings of others and has a tendency to make careless decisions, and Spinel (mean) is the Ax-Crazy Big Bad who wants to destroy Earth as a result of being abandoned by Pink and having Gone Mad From The Isolation.
• No Indoor Voice: He tends to be pretty shouty from time to time.
• No Navel, Novel Birth: Despite being the only Gem who potentially could have a belly button on account of being half-human, he still doesn't, with his gemstone being in the place it would be.
• No-Neck Chump: He is short and pudgy enough to be drawn with no neck most of the time. In "So Many Birthdays", Steven is subject to Rapid Aging that makes him gain a visible neck as a teen, then lose it again as he reaches middle age. The former ends up carrying on when he's actually turned sixteen by Steven Universe: The Movie. This was even lampshaded by Amethyst in "Steven's Birthday" after he used shapeshifting to pretend he got taller:
  Amethyst: Dude, your neck!
  Steven: Oh, uh, what about it?
  Amethyst: You have one!
• Non-Indicative Name: Steven's middle name is Quartz, owing to his mom's Race-Name Basis culture, but he's actually a Diamond.
• No-Sell: As seen in "The Return"/"Jail Break", Homeworld Gems have access to weapons and force fields that can instantly disrupt other Gems, leaving them without a body for hours... but since Steven has an organic body rather than a construct, they don't do much more than make him feel strange.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Steven tends to get be rather "touchy-feely" with others.
• No Social Skills: Zigzagged. Steven is the only member of the Gems that knows how to function in human society and often guides the others in how to do so, but he is clueless about personal relationships beyond friendship, such as his being a Moment Killer in "Island Adventure". He outright says that it's a result of his upbringing.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Steven used to age normally until he turned eight and he's been stuck there for six years. However, on his fourteenth birthday he finally finds one sign he's still aging (a single facial hair), and finally looks older by the time he's sixteen in the movie.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Discussed and dealt with in "Steven's Birthday". After it's pointed out that Steven hasn't changed at all since entering adolescence, Steven tries to use his magic to "stretch" his body and make him look like he's grown. When confronted by the others about it, Steven worries that he'll look like this forever, staying a kid while watching Connie grow up. After a little mishap with his powers forced him to revert back to a baby against his will, he eventually returns to normal, but discovers there is hope for him yet — his first facial hair came in. Though "So Many Birthdays" shows that Steven's physical age is at least partly connected to his emotional age, and that he is not growing up physically because he still has the mind of a child. In this episode, he grows old rapidly when he feels old. It's possible that this may have a bearing on his life expectancy, potentially even rendering him immortal.
• Not Quite Flight: "Steven Floats" explains that Rose Quartz had the ability to jump extremely high, and then control how fast she came down, and as could be guessed, Steven discovers this power as well. It apparently evolves into pure Flight in Future.
• Not So Above It All: One that is more serious than most. Steven is genuinely sweet and friendly person, but he does have moments of being insensitive, immature, impatient, and having a dangerous mindset that he knows what's best for others to keep them happy and safe.
• Odd Name Out: For the record he's replacing his mother, Rose Quartz; incidentally "Quartz" is his middle name. He's also the only Diamond without the word Diamond anywhere in the title, but he later adds "Diamond" to his middle name.
• Official Couple: By the end of Steven Universe Future, he's become this with Connie; to the point where they plan to marry each other later in life.
• Older Than He Looks: Steven looks and largely behaves like a curious, excited child, so Connie does a Spit Take upon learning Steven is actually fourteen, and therefore a little over a year older than her. It turns out that Steven's half-Gem nature has been impeding his growth since entering adolescence. Greg's photo album shows Steven's appearance has barely aged since he was eight. By the time he's sixteen he's grown out of this, and looks like an actual teenager.
• The One Guy: Because Steven is half human and half Gem, not only is he the sole male Gem aside from Rainbow Quartz 2.0 and Steg who are both fusions originating from him, he’s also the only Gem with a biological sex whereas while all the Gems shown have female identities, they’re all sexless.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Steven is a cheerful, optimistic, boy who rarely gets angry at anyone and tries to see the best in those he meets. So, if he drops any of the above, it's a sign that something has gone very wrong.
  • In "Lars and the Cool Kids", Steven gets angry for the first time on-screen. He proceeds to call Lars, who Steven is usually nice to, a jerk after the latter called his mom "weird". Even Lars was shocked by this.
  • He spends most of "Warp Tour" extremely irritated because of a possible threat about to happen. Part of it is from sleep deprivation and the other part is from the Crystal Gems being condescending to him. He even gets into a fight with Pearl, the one who acts like a mother to him the most.
  • Steven goes through a major emotional uproar in "Full Disclosure" — having to face how the Homeworld Gems are a real threat almost made him cut ties with every human he knows, including his father and Connie. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
  • When Ruby and Sapphire's bad mood ruin the road trip in "Keystone Motel", Steven gets angry — really angry. It snaps them out of it immediately, more concerned for Steven's state of mind than arguing.
  • "It Could've Been Great" has Steven almost as furious over Peridot insulting Rose as the Gems are. When Steven is pissed off by what you've done, you know you've screwed up royally.
  • Steven looks legitimately pissed when he locks Peridot in the truck and interrogates her about the diamond communicator she took from the moon base in "Message Received".
  • Steven, unusually for him, shows no desire to befriend Marty in "Drop Beat Dad", largely since he remembers his dad's story about him. He's still willing to be civil though.
  • Upon seeing Kevin again for the first time since "Alone Together", his first reaction is a vicious snarl, and Greg gets taken aback when Steven declares actual hatred towards Kevin.
  • In "Steven's Dream", Steven gets so upset at Garnet and Pearl for keeping more secrets from him regarding Pink Diamond that he starts yelling at them.
  • In "Kevin Party", he and Connie both realize they're really desperate to see each other if they're willing to come to Kevin's party to do so.
  • The biggest example of this happens in "Fragments", where Steven's training causes him to lose his All-Loving Hero traits and become unhinged and violent. It eventually results in him shattering Jasper.
• Opposites Attract: Steven (outgoing, rash, and confident) has a mutual crush on Connie (shy, rational, and doubts herself).
• Orc Raised by Elves: It is revealed that his mother was actually Pink Diamond, the White Sheep of the Galactic Conquering Diamond Authority, Steven himself being raised by Gems who have rebelled against Homeworld's oppressive empire.
• Outside-Context Problem: Steven's the first known Half-Human Hybrid in the series, making the extent of his abilities a mystery even to himself.
• Overly Long Name: "Together Forever" has him announce that his full name is Steven Quartz Cutie Pie DeMayo Diamond Universe.
• Past-Life Memories: "Past-life" might not be the right word for it entirely, considering the unusual circumstances of his birth, but late into the series Steven begins to have dreams of events from his mother's past - specifically, her past as Pink Diamond, although he doesn't make the connection until Pearl finally reveals the truth. This ends up sending him into an existential crisis in the finale since, as White Diamond points out, it actually lends serious credence to her belief that Steven is just Rose/Pink burying herself beneath a new form and identity. The appearance of Pink Steven, however, makes it clear that Rose really is gone and Steven is indeed his own person, suggesting his flashes of Pink's life ultimately come more from his mother's gem resonating with places from her past more so than her actually being inside him.
• Personality Powers: Steven's powers thus far have mostly been protective or healing in nature, which is very fitting for a sweet and caring Nice Guy like him.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Inverted. Steven's associated colors are pink, while Connie's associated colors are blue (specifically, teal).
• Pink Means Feminine: Steven inherited his mother's pink gem, so he has a collection of pink powers despite being The One Guy of the whole Gem species. He doesn't seem to mind. Steven does have a number of stereotypically feminine qualities but isn't overtly effeminate.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In the beginning of the show, he's much weaker than Garnet, Amethyst or Pearl, but the little guy's strong enough to activate a car's airbag just by punching it. He's also been shown lifting a road case twice his height when stood on one end that took two grown men (and roadies at that, a job in which being strong is a requirement due to moving heavy equipment for the band) to carry.
  • "Steven vs. Amethyst" shows just how much he has has grown since the start of the show. In this episode, he not only does better than Amethyst in every training routine, but also has an all-out duel with her, which ends in a draw. During the duel, Amethyst uses her whip to drop Steven to the ground with so much force that it creates a crater in the stone floor of the ruins, burying him under the rocks. He still manages to get up, throwing away a rock bigger than himself and nearly hitting Amethyst in the process.
    Amethyst: See?! I dropped you from the sky, but you almost just won, using a rock!
  • If that's not enough indication, in "Bismuth", he manages to defeat the titular character, a powerful Gem herself that is able to fight the other Crystal Gems on an even footing, by himself despite the fact that she was genuinely trying to kill him and he was holding back because he didn't want to fight her.
  • In "Lars' Head", Steven manages to fairly effortlessly move a huge boulder several feet that several Gems — one a fusion of two and the others Conjoined Twins — could hardly even budge altogether.
  • Justified, as he's actually the son/reincarnation of Pink Diamond.
  • Even during Future where he is now a proper teenager who can drive, he's still shorter than most of the other adults in the story.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: He uses his Gem powers in "Steven's Birthday" to look the part for being 14 years old, but this backfires horribly, as Amethyst warned him that stretching his body (or rather aging as he also changed his voice) for a long period of time has consequences. Said consequence is regressing him to his baby appearance, and after a while he turns back to normal.
• The Pollyanna: Despite some of emotional problems of the other Crystal Gems that he has to deal with (including the belief he has about them blaming him for Rose's "death") and some issues he himself needs to work out, Steven is continually optimistic and hopeful. He becomes moodier in the movie and especially Future, ironically as he no longer has to solve other people's problems.
• Positive Friend Influence: There's almost nobody in Beach City whose life hasn't gotten better by befriending Steven. He gets Connie out of her shell and she grows more confident in herself, helps Amethyst through her self-esteem issues which leads to their fusion into Smoky Quartz, is a great emotional support to Pearl's PTSD, helps Kiki to be open to her sister about the things she is and isn't willing to do for her, helps Sour Cream and Buck to deal with their Daddy Issues and so on.
• Power Glows: When using his super mode in Future his entire body glows bright pink.
• Power Incontinence: The first time he activates one of his powers, he often has trouble turning it off, like when he grows multiple cat heads on his body in an attempt to shapeshift into a cat. When fretting about his age, Steven's shapeshifting kicks in and causes Rapid Aging. In "Alone Together", he fuses for the first time by accident. In "Bubble Buddies", he summons his bubble force field for the first time and is unable to dismiss it, while in "Steven Floats" his slow-falling ability leaves him trapped in midair.
  • While he's learned greater control over the Time Skip prior to The Movie, Spinel's rejuvenator basically sends him back to where he was at the start of the series, and he has to find his "pieces" to regain control.
• Primary-Color Champion: Played with; he's got blue jeans and a yellow star on his shirt, but his shirt, sandals, and weapon are pink, a color he inherited from his mother.
• Progressively Prettier: In the first half of season 1 his Fat Comic Relief aspect was more emphasized as he appeared more overweight and with an ape-like design that was prone to Wild Takes. From the second half of season 1 onwards his more emotional side was emphasized by giving him bigger eyes and a smaller mouth, and by the Time Skip of The Movie he had evolved into a full-fledged Big Beautiful Man.
• Prone to Tears: Apparently can't cry on command, but tears up easily:
  Steven: I guess I'm just too tough to cry.
  Pearl: Just this morning you were crying about snakes.
  Steven: [in tears, whimpering] They don't have any arms!
• Protagonist Title: His first and last name are the title of the show.
• Psychic Powers: While Steven is unconscious, he is able to project his mind onto a mental plane where he can connect to the minds of others, letting him communicate with them, enter their dreams, or take over their bodies (though the last is only shown working on Watermelon Steven and humans, the latter of which requires the subject to be asleep). To a lesser extent, he's The Empath even when he's awake. "Reunited" implies that these abilities come from his Diamond heritage, as Yellow and Blue are able to recognize him as Pink from his psychic aura.
• Psychoactive Powers: Steven's power tends to hinge on The Power of Love. Every time he's used it successfully, it's been in the defense or service of someone he cares for or loves. But since "House Guest", he is also concerned that his self confidence affects his abilities as well. His newly gained floating powers are controlled by yet another aspect of his emotional balance; he's able to speed up his descent with sad thoughts, and slow himself down by thinking about things that make him happy, like the Crystal Gems. In Future, this is taken to its logical conclusion, where depression makes him heavy enough to immediately crater the ground.
• Punch Catch: Catches Jasper's punch during their fight in the first episode of Future, she compliments him on it.
• Pungeon Master: Steven loves to make his awful puns.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Steven is the master of these, often making these when trying to convince the gems to let him do something.
  Garnet: I can't say no to that face.
• Puppy Love: With Connie; they're close friends (given that they're both early-pubescent), and they trust and care about each other a lot. In "Steven's Birthday" he reveals that he expects to marry Connie when they both grow up (and that he expects her to become the President).
• Quirky Curls: He has curly, dark brown hair and is quite the energetic one.
• Quirky Ukulele: Steven is a quirky, slightly feminine boy who lives with his magical guardians, the Crystal Gems. A ukulele is his signature instrument, and most of the songs he composes In-Universe are played with one. However, by Future he's switched to acoustic guitar, and he ends up giving his ukulele away to Pearl.
• Raised as a Host: Rose Quartz died passing on her Heart Drive to her son, Steven, which makes most Gems think they're the same person. White Diamond, in particular, proclaims that Rose created Steven not to be her son and his own person, but as an organic vessel for her to hide from her old life. In fact, this has been a concern for Steven himself. However, Rose's video states otherwise, noting that while she will always live on in Steven, he's his own person. Said subversion is proven true when White pulls out Pink's gem. While it initially makes Pink's form, it then goes to Rose's and then Steven's form. It solidifies to become Pink Steven, who shouts that Pink Diamond is gone.
• Raised by Dudes: Inverted. While his father is in his life, Steven lives with and is primarily raised by the Crystal Gems, members of an alien race who are femme presenting. Played straight when Steven was a baby.
• Rapid Aging: Steven can cause this on himself with his Gem powers. This is because his physical age is controlled by his state of mind. Thus, he is literally only as young as he feels. Steven's lack of aging is noticed and discussed between Greg and Connie in "Steven's Birthday", where Greg notices he hasn't changed at all ever since entering adolescence while looking through a photo album. Steven's physical age isn't completely controlled by his state of mind though, as there are other factors, such as "magically stretching" his body, that can force him to change against his will.
• Rare Male Example: He is a boy on a team of Magical Girl Warriors, and follows more traditional Magical Girl tropes than any of them (All-Loving Hero, Friend to All Living Things, healing powers, pink magic, etc.).
• Really Royalty Reveal: Turns out to be the son of Pink Diamond, the fourth member of the Diamond Authority and Gem royalty. Because he has her gem, that makes him the new Pink Diamond.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He truly fits this trope in "Fragments", where he trains seriously with Jasper and gains a new form that incorporates a lot of muscle, all while his incredible power and skin tone retains its pink coloring.
• Rebel Prince: As a reincarnation of Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond, he is essentially Gem royalty, and yet is opposed to Homeworld.
• The Redeemer: Steven reforms almost every gem he meets, including the Diamonds. Although Jasper is a downplayed case as her turn is just out of Defeat Equals Respect rather than an actual change of heart.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Steven is goofy, outgoing, and wears a pinkish-red shirt, while his best friend Connie is more quiet, intellectual, and wears blue in the first intro and several episodes (for example, "Alone Together").
  • The Blue to Spinel's Red. Spinel is very open about her feelings and trauma, in addition to being Ax-Crazy, while Steven is calmer than her and tries to talk her down. Fittingly, Steven wears a blue shirt, and Spinel has a reddish coloring.
• Refreshingly Normal Life-Choice: Steven lives with his family of aliens who fight monsters daily. Being a kid however, he tends to find a lot of the more mundane things other humans do just as exciting. In "Lion 2: The Movie", Connie grows insecure when she experiences some of the exciting things Steven's life entails (a secret armory, a killer training-bot, a magical pet lion with a sword in its head), thinking that the things she's interested in (like going to the movies) are dull and unexceptional by comparison. Steven shoots this down immediately.
  Connie: I don't know why you hang out with me! I'm so much more... less interesting than you! And obviously you have some sort of magical destiny. Why would you even care about something like Dogcopter?
  Steven: Why?! Because it's Dogcopter! He's a dog, and a helicopter, and a cop! He shoots missiles out of his butt, and he's gonna save the world! Dogcopter is very cool and important... to me.
• Reincarnated as the Opposite Sex: Steven's unique relationship with his mother has elements of Reincarnation, as she effectively gave up her life energy and power gem to him to give him life. He is also able to access certain memories and devices of hers. However, it is made clear that even if Steven can be considered a reincarnation, Death of Personality applies as he and Rose are clearly different people.
• Relationship Upgrade: He and Connie start off as friends in the first season and slowly transition into best friend territory. It's unclear on when they became an Official Couple but there were moments that showed that both of them had romantic interest in each other as far back as season 1. Steven proposed to her in Future but Connie states that while she wants to marry him, it's not the right time to. By the series finale, they share their first on-screen kiss and are planning to visit each other regularly.
• Replacement Goldfish: It's implied that Pearl sees him as some sort of replacement for Rose, which possibly fueled Steven's beliefs that the Crystal Gems resent him for Rose not existing anymore. It's unclear if the others see him this way. In "Diamond Days", the Diamonds essentially do the same thing by forcing Steven to fill his mother's role and constantly referring to him as "Pink" despite his obvious discomfort. In this case, though, they literally believe him to be the same person until he proves otherwise. By Steven Universe: The Movie, they accept he's his own person, but still want him around because of how much he reminds them of Pink — even if Steven finds them kind of annoying.
• Rescue Romance: With Connie. They have mutual crushes on each other, protect one another from danger, and their relationship started after Steven saved her from falling boulders.
• The Resenter: In "Prickly Pair", as Steven tells Cactus Steven, he doesn't want to vent his problems to the Gems because he feels like they'll either react poorly and/or in a way that'll irritate him; he feels like Pearl will fall apart leaving him to pick up the pieces, Garnet will once again demonstrate patronizing wisdom by having all the answers and Amethyst will smugly demonstrate her maturity by actually helping.
• The Roadie: His father having been a rock star, one of Steven's secret dream jobs is to be a roadie, and he gets to live out that dream for Sour Cream's rave in "Drop Beat Dad". While he is capable of lifting a box that would require two adults to carry, he forgets to do a proper mic-check.
• Royal Blood: As the son of Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond, he is the second generation of the Diamonds, (yet ironically he is the only one with blood.)

S

• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: In Steven Universe: Future, there are various episodes showcasing that Steven suffers from anxiety brought on by his fantastical life and Samaritan Syndrome, struggling to function in peace-time when he is so used to fixing everybody else's problems.
  • In "Snow Day", his responsibilities with Little Homeworld have turned him into a Workaholic and refuses to spend leisure time with the Gems like they used to because he doesn't want to be seen as a little kid anymore.
  • In "In Dreams", he admits to having forgotten how to be a friend without the excuse of a crisis to fix.
  • In "Bismuth Casual", Steven fears he can no longer relate with regular humans, completely flopping in his first impression with Connie's human friends due to his unorthodox family and having never attended human school.
• Samaritan Syndrome: Deconstructed. Steven is so used to helping other and solving their problems that it has become a part of his identity. So, when he fails to get through to someone, he will be devastated. Future takes this trope to its logical conclusion. Steven has spent the entire series helping people with their problems with little care or concern for his own well-being. By the time of Future, everyone's lives have improved to the point that they no longer need his help and have moved on. This leaves Steven with a crippling sense of loneliness and purposelessness. Furthermore, his powers are growing to respond to his negative emotions as well, meaning that there's a chance he could accidentally hurt people. This makes him feel even worse and leads to him further bottling up his emotions and problems. He has no healthy way of expressing himself out of fear of his power and he does not have anyone he feels he can relate to for this for a variety of reasons.
• Sanity Slippage: Steven slowly suffers from this trope throughout Future.
  • Beginning with "Little Homeschool", we are shown that Steven has an unhealthy amount of repressed anger, resulting in him getting a new power where he turns pink and gains violent tendencies whenever he's angry. This trend continues throughout the series. Steven also seems to have an unhealthy obsession with helping people, which comes back to bite him later.
  • In "Rose Buds" and "Volleyball", Steven is shown to be experiencing repressed trauma related to the whole Pink Diamond/Rose thing and all the horrible things she did, which seems to be the other major trigger for Pink Steven mode. As usual, Steven bottles up his feelings.
  • In "A Very Special Episode", Steven runs himself ragged trying to help multiple people at the same time, eventually collapsing from exhaustion. Unlike the other examples on this page, it's Played for Laughs, and it's ambiguous how much of this episode is even canon anyway.
  • In "Snow Day", it's revealed Steven has a constantly-busy schedule and refuses to ever take a day off.
  Amethyst: Man, you had a better work-life balance when the Diamonds were trying to destroy the planet.
  • Steven's sanity takes a nosedive in "Little Graduation". He discovers that Sadie has broken up with Lars and is now dating a person named Shep, the Suspects split up and Sadie is performing alongside Shep, and that Lars and the Off Colors are going into space after the graduation. Steven has a nasty mental breakdown over all of this, and accidentally uses his powers to trap everyone in a dome. The cherry on the cake is that Steven projects his issues onto Lars instead of admitting that he's the one who needs help. No wonder he leaves Little Homeschool, which makes it worse as he now feels that he has no purpose anymore.
  • In the next episode, which is an even bigger Wham Episode, Steven has taken up gardening, except he named all his plants after people he knows and talks to them, even stating that the flower named Lars is stuck in the ground and can't run off into space. This is Played for Laughs, but the rest of the episode is not. Steven's pet cactus gets used as an emotional punching bag for Steven to vent his bottled-up feelings on. This comes back to bite him when the cactus learns to talk and starts repeating the things that Steven's said about the gems... right in front of them. This causes Steven to get mad at and abuse the cactus, who does not take it well and attacks him, mutating into a botanical monstrosity. At the end of the episode, Steven learns that he shouldn't talk about his problems at all. The most heartbreaking part is that the gems know something is wrong and keep reaching out to Steven, but he rejects their help because he feels like he can't talk to them.
    Pearl: Is there anything you need to talk about?
    Steven: I think I've said enough.
  • In "Growing Pains", Priyanka makes a diagnosis that Steven has been through so many high-stress situations (both physically and psychologically) at such a young age, that his body chemistry reacts in a manner disproportionate to the stimulant. Simply put, the relatively minor Era 3 problems that he has been facing (his friends leaving to bigger and better things, Connie turning down his proposal, etc.) feel like the life-or-death scenarios of Era 2 to him, giving him anxiety attacks that manifest as Power Incontinence.
  • It eventually hits a point where he begins to put others in danger starting with "Mr. Universe", crashing Greg's van after giving him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech for never giving him a proper childhood.
  • In "Fragments", Steven seeks out Jasper and trains with her to control his powers in order to prevent them from causing any harm, but Jasper proves to be a bad influence on him, with him getting progressively more and more unrestrained to the point where his All-Loving Hero traits completely disappear. His rematch with Jasper then ends with him shattering her, though he's able to revive her later on.
  • In "Homeworld Bound", it only gets worse. After realizing that White Diamond was the source for all his problems and trauma, Steven attempts to shatter her by using White's puppet powers to force her head against a pillar. Afterwards, he begins to go under a transfomation similar to the one he went through in "Fragments", but with his hair starting to resemble Pink's.
  • In "Everything's Fine", Steven desperately denies that there's a problem and tries to act like his old helpful self, only to end up breaking Little Homeschool. It comes to a head when the Gems, Greg, and Connie finally get him to talk and he spills everything about shattering Jasper and trying to shatter White Diamond until he finally breaks down and calls himself a fraud and a monster before transforming into one.
• Sanity Strengthening: After the events of "I Am My Monster", Steven gradually becomes mentally well once more, and in "The Future", he even mentions seeing and talking to an actual therapist.
• Save the Villain: While Steven is able to successfully help other Gems (i.e., Peridot), that also means that there are others who simply don't want his help for a variety of reasons, but due to his All-Loving Hero nature, he becomes distraught over the idea of not successfully helping out someone.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Gender Inverted, as Steven tends to play the "energetic guy" with Garnet, Pearl, Sadie, Connie, or Lapis as the "savvy girl".
• Say My Name: A consistent receiving to this trope, to the point of being a Phrase Catcher.
• Secret Handshake: Sorta, with Lars. Instead of high-fiving, they high-five each other's chest. It's not as Ho Yay as you might think.
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: His empathy is so powerful that he was able to see and experience what Blue Diamond is going through, despite her being on the other side of the Earth.
• Self-Perception Shapeshifting: Steven's shapeshifting operates on this principle. Which results in him not aging for a couple stable years of his life, and then rapidly aging into elderly and baby forms when he sees himself as especially decrepit or infantile. He eventually synchronizes his self-perception to his natural aging.
  • In Steven Universe Future this escalates into Steven transforming into a monstrous Kaiju to reflect believing himself a monster that destroys everything around him.
• Semantic Superpower: His "healing" spit is extremely versatile, being able to improve another's vision, restore broken bones, fix cracked gems (thus healing Gems), and fix broken objects.
• Semi-Divine: The Diamonds are treated as gods by the other Gems, and it's revealed Rose was Pink Diamond, which essentially makes Steven the Gem equivalent of a demigod.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • The Sensitive Guy (openly emotional, friendly All-Loving Hero) to Lars' Manly Man (rude, abrasive grouch).
    • Becomes a Downplayed Trope in Steven Universe Future, as while Steven is still a dorky All-Loving Hero and Lars retains his Deadpan Snarker tendencies, Lars has now Took a Level in Kindness and is more open to talking about his feelings, whereas Steven became more stressed and emotionally unstable. This results in their usual roles getting reversed in "Little Graduation", with Lars helping Steven with his emotional issues.
  • In Future, he becomes the Manly Man to Greg's (as in, his own father) Sensitive Guy. Steven becomes more aggressive with his newfound powers and temper issues, while Greg always remains his emotional, encouraging Good Parent.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • Compassion runs in Steven's family, and as mentioned above, he got it from both his father Greg, and his deceased mother Rose. Regarding Rose, he has the tendency to get starry-eyed when excited and/or happy, and go out of his way to help people in need. And like Rose, who is actually Pink Diamond, Steven struggled to fulfill his family's expectations of him, which went to tragic extremes in Pink's case when she was alive.
  • In Future, he is shown to have some of the other Diamond's personality flaws (albeit internalizing them instead of projecting them) and it is Played for Drama. Years of solving other people's problems and the added responsibility of managing the school has turned him into a Workaholic with a volital temper like Yellow Diamond, his attempts at trying to control his confused emotions causing him to alienate himself from his loved ones like Blue Diamond, and he will sometimes psychologically project his own insecurities onto others like White Diamond.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Jasper and Peridot really did a number on Steven's emotional health. That's not counting his encounters with Bismuth, Eyeball, Aquamarine, Spinel, and the other Diamonds (especially White). This becomes majorly apparent in Future as his character arc involves being unable to properly live a normal life now that the battle is finally over.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • He doesn't only wish Lars and Sadie was romantically involved, he once assumed they were married already. This gets deconstructed as it inspires very invasive efforts to get them together, and Steven gets far more upset than either of them when they ultimately don't, but he does eventually accept it.
  • After learning that Garnet is a fusion between Ruby and Sapphire, Steven wants to know more and more about them and tried to help some relationship problems they were having.
  • He also encourages Pearl to go talk to Mystery Girl a.k.a. "S".
  • Implied with Pearl and Pink Pearl/Volleyball, as he smiles and gets teary-eyed when Mega Pearl, their fusion, mentions that now they have each other.
• Ship Tease: With Connie. They have many romantic-like moments together and a lot of people ship them.
• Significant Birth Date: Steven's birthday is on August 15th, which is the same day when Steven Sugar, Rebecca Sugar's brother and his namesake, was born.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: He normally wears a pink shirt with a star, which was left over from his dad's music days and also signifies he is a Crystal Gem. In the "Diamond Days" arc, he has to switch to Pink Diamond's outfit while fulfilling her duties. While he doesn't seem to mind, it's unnerving that the Diamonds expect him to be the same family member who can fit into the social cog, when Pink rebelled to escape that role. His shift back to his usual outfit in the four-part arc finale is also significant in itself, as it shows Steven is done trying to play by Homeworld's rules.
• Single Specimen Species:
  • As a result of the unique circumstances surrounding his birth, Steven is the first and only human-Gem hybrid in existence.
  • After his mother's death, he's the only being in existence with a pink diamond for a gemstone.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Steven has never shown any romantic interest in anyone but Connie. Evidence includes no past mentions from or others of having a past crushes on anyone, a downplayed Love at First Sight towards Connie, and Garnet mentioning she hasn't seen a future where Steven did not propose to Connie.
• Sins of Our Fathers: One of Steven's biggest conflicts is him having to deal with the unexpected fallout of his mother's decisions. She was the leader of a rebel faction who had to make difficult decisions, many under circumstances beyond her control, to get what she wanted and she made plenty of mistakes. Becomes more emphasized when Steven learns his mother, Rose Quartz, was Pink Diamond and more about what led up to her decisions. As such, Steven grows more disillusioned with his mother as time passes and he has to deal with her enemies who, because of their lack of understanding on what Steven is, pass the buck onto him. While he loves his mother, Steven seems to be frustrated about his mother's mistakes, even if he does grow more understanding of her. This is especially true in the Diamond Days arc, as he's treated the same as Pink Diamond was by the other Diamonds, which means he is unable to make meaningful impact as an Internal Reformist and has to resort to violence to get out. He even notes that he gets what his mom went through.
• Skilled, but Naive: While Steven becomes more competent and is Wise Beyond His Years, he still has an overly idealistic mindset that sometimes causes more trouble than good.
• Smarter Than You Look: As out there as his behavior may be, the plans he comes up with often involve inventive, outside the box thinking that the other Gems can't necessarily replicate. It's implied, especially in "The Test", that Gems underestimate Steven's abilities and intelligence. Whenever he learns some new tidbit of the Awful Truth, there seem to be subtle hints that he has better understanding of what is hidden from him than the other Crystal Gems give him credit for, and he's also good at understanding why some secrets are kept.
• So What Do We Do Now?: The entirety of Future offers a deconstruction of Steven's life so far by slotting Steven in a world where intergalactic peace is ensured, he no longer has to face danger at every corner and can finally think about himself... something he's never even considered doing in the first place in the span of 5 seasons and a movie. This causes his brain, once trained on Chronic Hero Syndrome steroids, to suddenly be hit hard by every single traumatic experience that has happened in his life in the span of 4 years tops and make him experience severe PTSD manifested as Power Incontinence, where every instance of stress, no matter how minor, will send him into a frenzy, while simultaneously being incapable of dealing with a reality where he doesn't have to be everyone's savior anymore. Ultimately by the end of the series, Steven does get the help that he needs, and also figures out what to do with himself- leave Beach City on a cross-country tour. Of course, his friends and family will still always be there for him when he needs it.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • The Homeworld Gems did not count on Steven's existence, and one of them put their plans on hold to figure out exactly what he is. They also didn't see his ability to No-Sell their disruptors coming.
  • Peridot wasn't expecting him to grab onto her leg while she tried to get away in "Friend Ship".
  • Had he not shown kindness to Peridot, the Crystal Gems would have never learned about Yellow Diamond's plan to use the Cluster to destroy the Earth. Her eventual Heel–Face Turn as a result is an even bigger blow to it, as she chooses to help save Earth when she could have gotten a ride back home and ultimately is crucial to defeating the Cluster.
  • His Telepathy proved to be the killing blow to Yellow Diamond's five-thousand-year-long Long Game with the Cluster, as he manages to convince it to bubble itself as a result.
• The Spook: Steven's medical form in "Growing Pains" lists his social security number as "N/A", implying his birth was undocumented. He presumably still has a driver's license, though, which states in real life sometimes issue to otherwise-undocumented residents.
• Starring Smurfette: Steven is the youngest of the team and the main protagonist, the only male member of the team (unless one counts Lion), and the only male Gem (and only Gem with an actual sex) ever to exist.
• Stepford Smiler: "Mindful Education" reveals that Steven has started slipping into this trope when his Fusion with Connie reveals he's begun hiding large amounts of guilt and uncertainty over recent events behind his smile and jokey demeanor. This gets worse as the series goes on, and especially during Future, where he basically can no longer hide his problems behind a smile, and ultimately breaks down.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Steven is something of a Shoujo-esque take on the archetype. He's an excitable Large Ham All-Loving Hero who wears his heart on his sleeve, tends to act without thinking, extends a kind hand to anyone, and cherishes his family and friends above all else. That said, his energy is more Keet than Hot-Blooded, he's In Touch with His Feminine Side, and is also The Heart who prefers to make friends with his enemies rather than fight them, which works since the series places a lot of emphasis on love and understanding.
• Stock Shoujo Heroine: Steven is a Rare Male Example between this and a Stock Shōnen Hero. He's an excitable boy who is In Touch with His Feminine Side and is an All-Loving Hero. He also has a pink color motif that he inherited from his deceased mother.
• Stone Wall: Steven's shields have shown incredible durability, enough to withstand even the strongest of Gem weaponry, but he initially had no offensive powers. Eventually though, he finds various offensive uses for his bubble, starts using his shields as projectiles, and gets strong and skilled enough to effectively fight unarmed. In Future, he discovers some outright destructive powers. Although the movie shows Steven may still choose to fight completely defensively, in which case he's damn near impregnable.
• Stout Strength: A Big Fun kid who possesses superhuman strength.
• Strong and Skilled: After Steven's powers really start to develop, Connie's apprenticeship inspires him to learn to use them effectively. By the third season, he's found highly dexterous means to defend and attack with his shields (both by himself and in concert with Connie), and can beat a seasoned warrior like Bismuth with relatively little use of his powers. By the movie, he's easily more powerful than any of the other Crystal Gems, but can effectively defend himself against Spinel's onslaught essentially just going hand-to-hand.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Steven strongly resemblance his father, to the point Vidalia even says he looks just like he did. In "So Many Birthdays", he's temporarily turned into an adult, making his physical resemblance to his father painfully obvious. Heck, the resemblance is much more noticable when seeing Greg as a younger man in flashbacks.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Zigzagged with Connie. Steven is very mature for his age, but has a tendency to make rash decisions unlike the level-headed Connie; plus, both are prodigies. And while he may be physically stronger than her, she's the more aggressive of the two.
• Super Mode: Gains one in Future that causes him to glow bright pink (reminiscent of Pink Steven), giving him enough power to curbstomp Jasper. This mode also works on his Fusion forms, and with different powers to boot, as evidenced by Smoky Quartz gaining super speed. Deconstructed in the second half of Future when we discover that this pink mode is the result of Steven suffering from PTSD due to all of the traumatic things that have happened to him throughout the series, which has negatively affected his body's ability to properly handle stress. Because of this, his body now reacts to any kind of stressful situation as if his life were in danger, activating pink mode. To make things worse, since this mode responds to Steven's negative emotions, it becomes more unstable as his mental state deteriorates; and because Steven hasn't mentally healed from all the trauma, he has no ability to stop it.
• Superior Successor: While not there yet, there's some indication his abilities may ultimately surpass Rose's once fully mastered. He has shown on occasions to develop powers she never had on top of hers. He's already surpassed her at healing Corrupted Gems, as he's succeeded in getting much further than she ever did with Centipeetle. Bismuth already considers him morally better than Rose for being willing to reveal the Awful Truth about her when Rose couldn't. That's on top of, due to his half-gem heritage, him being able to fuse with Connie while Greg (being a full human) failed to fuse with Rose.
  • In "Change Your Mind", the full extent of Steven's potential is seen when White Diamond forcibly removes his Gem. Gem!Steven is capable of not only shrugging off White's People Puppet blasts with little effort, he can take a full powered blast from White, the other Diamonds, and the mind-controlled Crystal Gems at the same time. His battle aura alone is able to crack White's chamber and bring the Empress of Homeworld to her knees.
  • Come The Movie and he's managed to do what his mother never could: reform the Gem Empire and liberate everyone. He's also able to fuse with his dad to become Steg.
• Super Spit: Rose Quartz could heal people with her tears. Steven has the same ability, but with his spit.
• Super-Strong Child: Being half-Quartz Gem, Steven is significantly stronger than a boy his age should be. He effortlessly catches Amethyst and manages to keep Lars from being crushed; he is able to offset the imbalance of the laws of physics inside the Gem palace with little difficulty, including hugging onto a pillar that drops into a Bottomless Pit while one of his hands is still holding a plate of waffles; and he's able to effortlessly rappel up a wall once he gains his footing, even with an exceptionally powerful gravitational force trying to suck him down. Being half-Diamond explains this even better.
  • In "The Return", he hits the dash on Greg's van hard enough to set off the airbag.
  • In "Joy Ride", he picks up Jenny Pizza and moves her away from Peridot's pod.
  • In "Nightmare Hospital", he is able to hold back a 7-foot-tall Gem Mutant with nothing more than his shield and effortlessly fling Connie through the air as they fight.
  • When acting as Sour Cream's roadie in "Drop Beat Dad", he is able to lift a heavy box with one hand and little-to-no apparent effort, while Sour Cream himself can barely lift it with both hands. He later single-handedly moves a road case twice his height that required two adults to carry with little effort, causing a shocked Marty to ask "What's [Greg] feeding that kid!?"
  • In "Bismuth", he is slammed into a wall by a large, heavy metal statue thrown by Bismuth, and is able not only to withstand the blow with no serious injury, but is also able to lift the statue and hurl it back at the Gem.
  • In "Tiger Philanthropist", after Amethyst quits their tag-team wrestling duo, Steven keeps fighting adult tag-team wrestlers solo. And wins constantly. (Though by the end of the episode, he deliberately throws his final match.)
  • By the time of the movie, a 16-year-old Steven is strong enough that even with his powers crippled, he manages to lift Spinel's massive injector off the ground.
• Super-Toughness: A large rock to his face doesn't do more than scratch him. Steven has apparently never needed to go to a hospital and can withstand the weight of a fishing boat on his chest with no apparent distress. Being slammed from a great height into the ground hard enough to make a sizable crater in solid rock by Amethyst harms him, but he's able to walk it off. The only time he gets visibly injured is when another Gem attacks him without holding back. "Growing Pains" shows Steven has gotten plenty of non-visible injuries he rapidly recovered from, but he certainly must have been less damaged than a regular human would be.
• Superpowered Evil Side: In "I Am My Monster", Steven's rage and self-hatred boil over and he transforms into a giant, corrupted monster. While mindless, in this form he is larger than the temple, is strong enough to overpower Alexandrite and the Cluster and shrugs off the Diamond's powers.
• Support Party Member: Like his mother, he has a shield as his weapon and the ability to heal others using spit. While not entirely useless in a fight (though this could be attributed to the fact that he's a child) his Gem doesn't give him any outstanding offensive capabilities.
  • He's not a defensive party member. He's the only defensive party member, and his powers have saved the Gems and Connie numerous times from attacks that would have destroyed them.
  • The later seasons show that, while he is still in a supporting role, he can annoy, distract, blindside, and sometimes combo with other fighters, like having them use his shield for a Fastball Special.
• Sword and Sorcerer: The Sorcerer (is half-Gem with an array of magical abilities) to Connie's Sword (a human who uses a BFS for combat).
• Sword/Shield Contrast: The shield to Connie's sword. He's a defensive person who wants to protect others, not hurt them, even if they're his enemies.

T-Y

• Tag Along Kid: He does have a much bigger role than most other tag-along kids due to the fact that he has powers that could help, but he's unable to use them. Also, he's the main character so most of the stories center around him and he's actually pretty helpful in a fight when he needs to be.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Steven's true weapon of choice is his words. He hates fighting, and has bested enemies several times his own size and power with words alone. In true heartwarming irony, this is how he was saved from his corrupted state in the episode "I Am My Monster". Everyone talked to Steven to calm him down and assured him they were there for him during their Cooldown Group Hug and a healing kiss from Connie.
• Tautological Templar: A tragic variant. In "Everything's Fine", Steven has gotten so self-deluded and obsessed with helping others, he will not accept that he's having a destructive effect on his surroundings, brushing off the damage as normal or something he can fix. He's desperately trying to deny what's happening to him in the hopes that this behavior will somehow fix everything.
  Steven: I know who I am: I'm Steven Universe! I help people, I don't... hurt them.
• The Team Normal: He was originally one at first, however as the series progressed, he grows out of this as he gets more and more control.
• Telepathy: A unique ability of his that even Rose didn't have: he seems to be able to communicate with others mentally when he is unconscious, including entering their dreams if they're also asleep. Though given the other Diamonds are familiar with Pink's "aura" when Steven talks to them telepathically, Rose may have just been hiding this power to keep her cover.
• Tell Me About My Mother: Steven often talks to his father and Maternal Substitutes about his Missing Mom, Rose Quartz, who gave up her physical form when he was born. A later episode has Greg tell Steven the story of how he and his mother met, or more specifically the version where he didn't leave out his crappy former manager.
• Tender Tears: Steven is generally very soft-hearted and cries when his emotions run high. See specific episodes for examples.
• Terrible Artist:
  • In "Shirt Club", Buck turns his "Guitar Dad" drawing, showing Greg impossibly buff with Cross-Popping Veins all over and meant to advertise his guitar classes, into t-shirts, not for Steven's intended purpose but as an art phenomenon showing how funny and naïve Steven's love for his dad is, much to his dismay.
  • In "Escapism", while in a Watermelon Steven's body, he draws this in the sand to show that the Crystal Gems need backup, leading to nothing but confusion from Greg and Bismuth.
• Third Eye: While Steven doesn't actually have a third eye, Garnet kisses him where his third eye would be whenever she wants to grant him future vision.
• Third-Person Person: Occasionally speaks in the third person. For instance, he provides the Title Drop in "Story for Steven" when asking his dad to tell him a story.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: He can throw his buckler-sized shield, then easily summon another one. He gets a lot more skilled with them by the third season, being able to accurately throw several in short sequence.
• Tomato in the Mirror: While he knew his whole life he's half Gem, it wasn't until he saw Rose's Video Will that Steven understood himself to be as much her reincarnation as her son. Much later, Steven discovers he's actually half Diamond.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • In "Ocean Gem", he's able to summon his shield at will and destroy a bunch of Ditto Fighter water constructs that were easily overpowering the other Crystal Gems.
  • In "The Return", he once again summons his shield, now much larger than before, to protect the Gems from a powerful blast by Peridot's ship. Doing so causes him to collapse, though.
  • In "Sworn to the Sword", Steven takes on several Pearl-Fighting-Holograms, demonstrating full control over both his shield and bubble techniques.
  • In "Friend Ship", he is able to summon his larger shield twice and his smaller shield once, even throwing the latter with enough accuracy to hit Peridot in the face (it did nothing but annoy her, but it was good aim). He does collapse after the summoning the large shield the second time, but that's still an impressive leap from his last major showing. He also grabs Peridot's leg while she's trying to escape by flying away. She has to detach her own foot in order to escape.
  • In "Crack the Whip", he and Connie spar, and they both do very well, Steven summoning multiple shields at once with no sign of fatigue.
  • In "Steven vs. Amethyst", he and Amethyst go toe-to-toe in a brutal, no-holds-barred match that pushes them both to their limits.
  • In "Bismuth", he manages to survive against the far more experienced and powerful Bismuth, who was actively trying to kill him. He ultimately ends up defeating her by impaling her on Rose's sword in self-defense.
  • In "Earthlings", he fuses with Amethyst to form Smoky Quartz, proving that he can actually fuse with other Gems.
  • In "Reunited", he puts up a good fight against Blue Diamond herself, serving as the Crystal Gems' defense/support while also attacking her. And while he was stomped unconscious by Yellow Diamond, he was able to defeat both Diamonds by telepathically reaching out to them and revealing his true identity as Pink Diamond, ending the fight.
  • In The Movie, he's become more adept with his powers after the Time Skip. His Not Quite Flight is vastly improved, and he even projects spherical force fields onto his hands to guard against Spinel's punches.
  • He takes more levels in Future, even training with Jasper.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Played for Drama. As Future progresses, Steven's buried resentment starts to come up more and more due to his Shell-Shocked Veteran stresses, which are themselves exacerbated by Steven not having any more major problems to distract himself with as he tries to handle the changes in his life.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his issues are resolved (or at least are being dealt with) in the series finale, Steven regains his kind disposition, and thoughtfully gives his loved ones gifts before leaving Beach City.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Steven's involve lots of unhealthy junk food.
  • Steven loves "fry bits", the little bits of french fries that sink to the bottom of the fryer.
  • He loves Cookie Cat ice cream sandwiches, but unfortunately for him, they become discontinued in the first episode.
  • He seems to like strawberries a lot. Given that strawberries are in the same family as roses, this isn't completely surprising.
  • Other miscellaneous favorites are pizza, hot dogs and donuts (particularly pink-frosted with sprinkles).
• Tragic Monster: Becomes one at the end of "Everything's Fine" as a result of his suppressed trauma and self-loathing finally boiling over and corrupting him, turning him into a giant monster. Thankfully, he reverts back at the end of "I Am My Monster".
• Troubled Teen: In Future, in the 16-year-old Steven suffers a nasty case of Sanity Slippage, gaining temper issues in the process with his powers spiraling out of control. Heck, he becomes a literal monster at the end of "Everything's Fine".
• Truly Single Parent: Steven is capable of asexual reproduction, as noted in "Watermelon Steven", when watermelon seeds infused with magical saliva come to life as sentient offspring.
  • He also uses his magical saliva to create Pumpkin, a living pumpkin with doglike tendencies.
  • In Steven Universe: Future, after he pricks his finger, he brings Cactus Steven into existence after putting healing saliva on his finger and touching a cactus.
• Tuckerization: Named after and inspired by Rebecca Sugar's brother Steven, who is also one of the show's background designers.
• Turn the Other Cheek: There have been times when people that he loves have hurt him (or even tried to kill him), but he is always quick to forgive them. And it's not because he's an idiot. He genuinely doesn't want to be angry at the people he loves. Or the people he knows. Or his enemies, for that matter.
• The Unchosen One: As opposed to Connie, the Gems, Steven himself and part of the audience thinking Steven has some great, planned destiny ahead of him, Rose had no such expectations (not even in regards to his gender). She just wanted him to live his life happy as himself. Steven is shown taking comfort in this knowledge, since it means a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders in regards to possibly not living up to some great destiny Rose had planned for him and disappointing her, especially since after learning about her darker secrets he had started to think that the only reason she gave birth to him was because she wanted to dump all her problems on someone else's shoulders. That said, it still ultimately falls to Steven to do what his mother couldn't and right the wrongs of the Diamonds (including Rose/Pink) because they keep coming after him through either Mistaken Identity or Revenge by Proxy, things made possible only because of his unique circumstances. Steven Universe Future hangs a weight on this as he's still been imposing expectations and responsibilities on himself to be the one who fixes everything for everyone else, to the point of neglecting his mental health.
• Underestimating Badassery: The Crystal Gems have often underestimated Steven's abilities and intelligence. Steven gets fed up with it in "Warp Tour", to the point he gets into an argument with Pearl, who is the most motherly to him. This has faded by season 2, where he's treated like a full member of the Crystal Gems.
• Unreliable Narrator: Absolutely everything that happens in the show must be seen through the eyes of Steven, who never actually narrates. As such, things that Steven is uncomfortable about or doesn't want to talk about never make it into the story unless they're forced in by another character. In "Steven's Birthday", it's revealed that Steven hasn't aged in many years, most likely since he stopped living with Greg, and he doesn't talk about it because he doesn't want Connie to know she'll continue aging without him. He's known this since the beginning of the series, when he already had a crush on Connie, but the audience doesn't find out until Steven overhears Greg talking to Connie about it in the episode before the 2A finale. The question of what else Steven may be hiding is still up in the air.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Steven has multiple abilities that are both unique to him and potentially really useful, including a powerful shield, healing spit, and a Green Thumb that can create hordes of monsters that can easily overwhelm the Crystal Gems, but initially lacked the know-how to use most of it. Connie becoming Pearl's apprentice spurred him onto training more seriously, after which he becoming increasingly Strong and Skilled.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: The biggest difference between him and Rose's upbringing is Rose received very little actual emotional attention and believed Pearl was the only one who truly cared about her, while Steven was raised with genuine love and affection by everyone around him. He also had Greg to raise him to be moral in places Rose lacked, ultimately making him more morally good than his mother.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Downplayed. While Steven remains a Nice Guy, he's more mature, moody, and prone to angry outbursts in Future, in addition to openly complaining about the Crystal Gems' flaws (whereas before he looked up to them more than anything) and being a Workaholic. He also starts to suffer a nasty case of Sanity Slippage.
• Vague Age: For the first couple of seasons Steven's exact age is kept very unclear, and episodes can read with him being pretty young. In "So Many Birthdays", when the Gems tell him they don't celebrate birthdays he decides to take a stroll on the boardwalk, where he gets depressed and starts to change to a teenager, a young adult, middle-aged, and a bearded senior citizen with his age fluctuating based on his mood and the Gems decide to cheer Steven up to restore him back to normal. It's not until "Steven's Birthday" that we find out he's fourteen but apparently stopped aging after he turned eight. The fact that he both looks and acts a lot younger than he really is, and what that could mean for him socially, is actually discussed seriously.
• Vegetarian for a Day: He decides to try vegetarianism shortly after turning 17, and has stuck to it for a month as of "Snow Day". Garnet muses that she thought they were in a "pepperoni timeline" after mistakenly predicting he would want pepperoni pizza, suggesting multiple timelines where he abandons or never commits to the decision. Later in "Mr. Universe" he was seen eating a burger (though it could potentially be a veggie burger) and in "Fragments", when training in the woods with Jasper, he caught and cooked a fish (though considering Steven specified "vegetarian" instead of "vegan", it’s likely he only became a vegetarian for the diet and not for any morality reasons).
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Gender Inverted and downplayed. Steven is very protective of Connie, but it's mostly Ship Tease since they're both so young and Steven is a pacifistic person. Nonetheless, you do not harm Connie. He even gave Pearl an angry look when she took Connie's sword training too far in "Sworn to the Sword".
  Steven: Keep your hands off my Connie!
• Vocal Evolution: While he speaks with a high-pitched voice in the first 22 episodes of the series, Steven's voice pitch fluctuates depending on his shape-shifted age in "So Many Birthdays". As of "Monster Buddies", his high voice has changed permanently to a moderately deeper register, deepening a little further from the movie onwards to reflect his more mature appearance that matches his chronological age. All this is a deliberate choice on the part of his voice actor, whose voice had already broken by the time he started the part.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Amethyst teaches him to use shapeshifting in "Cat Fingers", but Steven lacks the discipline to properly control it. He seems to have better control as of "Steven's Birthday": He manages to stretch his body for an entire day, but the strain eventually rebounds, temporarily turning him back into an infant.
• Warrior Prince: The Diamond Authority are the God Emperors of Homeworld. That said, he's the son of Pink Diamond.
• Warrior Therapist: Steven is starting to show shades of being one, especially in his encounters with the Centipeedle Mother and the Cluster. His encounters with the Diamonds and Spinel have him graduate to a full fledged one.
• Weak, but Skilled: Steven is the least physically powerful of the Crystal Gems, but he has a wide range of supportive or defensive powers that when used in conjunction with each other allows him to fight on par with at least Amethyst.
• Weaksauce Weakness: He easily gets sick in rotating objects (i.e. the teacups).
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Steven's gem weapon is a shield, inherited from his mother, signifying his pacifistic nature and desire to defend his loved ones while carrying on Rose's legacy. This pacifism carries over into the weapons his fusions with the other Crystal Gems have, but is colored by their relationship as his elders and become outright toyetic, reflecting his perception to them as a Kiddie Kid. He gains a parasol as Rose Quartz, a yo-yo as Smoky Quartz and suction cup gauntlets as Sunstone.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy:
  • One of those rare mother-son combos and is not remotely played for laughs except in a few instances of Black Comedy, due to being posthumous. Steven's mother, the saintly and flawless Gem revolutionary leader Rose Quartz, is not strictly speaking "dead" and still exists in some ways in Steven himself; Steven understandably feels enormous pressure to live up to her legacy, complicated immensely when he begins to discover that his legendary mother had more than a few skeletons in her closet and did things that Steven can't wrap his head around, justify or understand. Him failing to follow in her footsteps leads to him fearing that whatever aspect of her that survived judges him for not being like her.
  • And due to heavy legacy of his mother, Steven is also this to the Crystal Gems, always trying to prove he's mature and can handle anything even if he's not. In a private conversation with Connie, Steven alludes to his reason for wanting to have powers like his mother is mainly due to fearing the others won't want to hang out with him if he doesn't.
  • Additionally, much of this is imposed by everyone but his mother herself. As she implied in one episode and then made explicit in a later episode, she had no grandoise plans for Steven. She wanted him to live his life happily and being himself.
• What Could Have Been: In-Universe. Had Steven been born a girl, his name would've been "Nora".
• What Does He See in Her?: Connie wonders why a boy with superpowers who seems to be destined for bigger things would hang out with an ordinary girl like her.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He calls out the Crystal Gems for constantly withholding answers about Rose and Pink Diamond thinking he's not ready yet, which leads to Steven going to Korea with Greg to find out for himself.
• White Male Lead: Steven is a member of a team where most members are sexless, agender and female-presenting aliens who all have different body types, colors and ethnicity codings. Many of them are attracted to each other and to other female and feminine people, coding them as lesbians/wlw. The half-Gem Steven, by contrast, is Caucasian (likely Italian and even Sephardic Jewish ancestry based on some subtle hints), uses he/him pronouns and has only expressed attraction to a girl. It's notable that he enjoys wearing female-coded clothing and make-up occasionally, and that when fused with others, they use a they/them pronoun set.
• Wholesome Crossdresser:
  • In "Sadie's Song", he performs at Beachapalooza while wearing make-up, high heels and a very feminine dress that shows off his belly button. He not only pulls it off, nobody in the audience makes fun of his style or even bats an eye, and the only comment about his appearance is Nanefua telling Kiki that the "Special Mystery Guest" gimmick had Steven written all over it. The only other comment they make is noting it's better than when he did it nude two years prior.
  • In "Diamond Days", he has the Pebbles make a version of Pink Diamond's outfit in his size for him to wear at the ball because he feels he should "dress for the occasion". He doesn't seem to mind wearing it.
• Wingding Eyes: When he's really happy, his eyes have stars in them. They've occasionally turned into other things, like tear drops when he thought Steven Jr. (a goat he considered his son) died.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Despite his usual demeanor, he often displays a surprisingly high level of maturity when it really counts. A perfect example is provided in "Mr. Greg". Even Connie admits that Steven spends most of the time stuck "being the adult for a bunch of super-powered children" who are thousands of years older than he is.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He becomes this in the episode "I Am My Monster", when his self-loathing, combined with unchecked traumas,feelings of purposelessness and uncontrolled powers, corrupted him and turned him into a pink Kaiju-like monster. Luckily, he gets better, thanks to a combination of a cooldown Group Hug and a healing kiss from Connie.
• Workaholic: "Snow Day" reveals that he's now a full-fledged Little Homeschool teacher who wakes up at 7:13 am every day to run errands around town several hours before classes start. When he abruptly quits his position, he struggles to pass the time meaningfully.
• World's Strongest Man: Not just because he's the only male (presenting) character in the series with powers, but because of his special half-human, half-Gem heritage; Rebecca Sugar says this is because Steven's ability to grow and change as a half-Gem meant his abilities evolved in ways other Gems' couldn't. With the reveal he's actually half-Diamond, this means his power has likely surpassed even the remaining three's in some ways, as two of his transformations imply;
  • His Pink Steven self is the embodiment of all his gem powers, simply given form, and it is able to knock White Diamond and her controlled Gems - including the two other Diamonds - on their butts without even trying.
  • When he becomes Monster Steven, the combined might of the Crystal Gems, the Diamonds, Lapis Lazuli and the Cluster are unable to actually overpower him - the only way he's "defeated" is with a large-scale Cooldown Hug, the thing he emotionally needed the most.
• You Are Not Ready:
  • Steven's kept in the dark about Gem history, mostly because you can't walk ten feet through it with stubbing your toe on an Awful Truth. Pearl is the most adamant about it, while Amethyst has no trouble talking about it (though she doesn't actually know much more about it than Steven does, due to not experiencing the rebellion). Steven finally gets fed up with this in "Steven's Dream".
  • In "A Single Pale Rose", Pearl decides that Steven is finally ready for the truth. She sends him into her memories so that he can witness the circumstances surrounding Pink Diamond's shattering.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • One of Steven's catchphrases is an emphatic "Aw, come on!" Usually when something that should have been perfect goes totally pear-shaped.
  • In "Bluebird", he says "Are you kidding me?" when Aquamarine and Eyeball re-fuse due to their hatred of him, and his facial expression shows that he is just completely done.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: In Future, Pink Steven begins manifesting within him whenever he gets too overwhelmed with emotion.
• Your Size May Vary: Sometimes he looks fairly large and bulky, sometimes he looks like a dwarf who needs a stool to reach the kitchen counter.

Pink Steven (Season 5 spoilers)

Pink Steven

Voiced by: Zach Callison

"She's gone."

Steven's separated Gem half, which creates a pink Hard Light construct in his image when White Diamond tears Steven's gemstone from his body.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: During "Change Your Mind", White Diamond rips Steven's gem out, and the resulting being overpowers even her. Even more than that, his very existence is undeniable proof to White Diamond that Steven is not his mother, causing her Villainous Breakdown.
• Ambiguously Evil: One can interpret nonfatally hurting the Gems White possessed as pragmatic or downright amoral.
• Ambiguous Gender: As he lacks Steven's organic body, he has No Biological Sex like full Gems, but one can imagine he's male like Steven.
• Beehive Barrier: Instead of a bubble, his shield is formed by shard-like rhombuses coming together to make oblong coverings the instant he is attacked.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He almost never speaks. But whatever you do, don't push him too far...
• Brutal Honesty: He's exceedingly blunt in telling White Diamond that Pink Diamond is "gone", first in a simple whisper and then in a full-on shout.
• Crater Power: When he gives his unholy shriek to White Diamond, the very act spontaneously creates a crater beneath him.
• Creepy Child: While Steven's human half keeps his personality but none of his power, Pink Steven keeps all of his power but none of his personality. As a result, he shows absolutely no emotion on his face throughout, even when he's screaming at the top of his lungs at White Diamond, loud enough to smash a giant crater into the concrete floor. He completely pulls a No-Sell on her attacks and indifferently turns her power back onto the possessed Diamonds and Crystal Gems, flinging them all across the room. This is a Steven without any compassion, love or care for others, a completely ruthless machine with a singular goal, and no qualms about hurting those he loves in order to reach it. He becomes less creepy the closer he gets to Steven's human half, suggesting that his emotionlessness is based on proximity.
• Creepy Good: Scary as hell, but still one of the Crystal Gems.
• Deadly Force Field: Besides blocking attacks, his shield can explode into a very powerful shockwave.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Not only does he manage to protect himself from all of White Diamond's attacks, he manages to beat her in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• The Disembodied: He's Steven's gem separated from his human body. Like a typical Gem, he can make a new one, but unlike them it's not a perfect replacement, just a means to the two halves getting back together.
• Dissonant Serenity: He shows absolutely no emotions on his face, but screams with so much hatred, rage, and loudness it knocks over White Diamond.
• Good Is Not Soft: Does not hesitate to knock the crap out of White Diamond, and even the Gems she's controlling, after she attacks him, making Steven's human half beg him to stop.
• Hell Is That Noise: There's something... bestial in the reverbs of his scream.
• Humanoid Abomination: He has no facial expressions, walks on air like a glitched-out video game character, and when aggravated, lets loose an unholy wail that knocks three Diamonds over like discarded dolls. He's a being of raw power scrubbed of all traces of Steven's conscience, insecurities, and limitations.
• Literal Split Personality: When Steven's gemstone is pulled from his body, it forms Pink Steven. Steven's human half keeps his personality, but he's left horribly weakened, and most likely dying. Pink Steven is a Superpowered Evil Side with a single-minded focus on getting back together as quickly as possible.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: When he insists Pink is gone, he shouts the last word so hard he creates a crater beneath him, splits the ground in four, and staggers White Diamond by breaking her pedestal.
• Not So Stoic: Screams at White Diamond that Pink Diamond is gone, and has a joyous expression on his face upon reuniting with Steven's human half.
• No Name Given: Not referred to by any name in-series, as he's just considered part of Steven. He's not even credited separately from Steven, though "Pink Steven" was used during production.
• No-Sell: White's Mind Control powers are unable to affect him due to his shields, even with all the Gems she was controlling joining in.
• One-Shot Character: Obviously, Steven's gemstone is in every episode, but it never manifests separate from Steven's body outside "Change Your Mind".
• Painting the Medium: The show is usually very liberal with how characters are drawn, but Pink Steven is deliberately designed to look as close to Steven's model sheet as possible, including and exaggerating the blank stare. It produces an unnaturally "neutral" look that highlights his disturbing lack of expression.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's the same size as regular Steven, so he's about the same size as a Ruby. He's still a Diamond, and incredibly powerful. White and all of the Gems she's controlling can't so much as touch him.
• Power Floats: He slowly floats to the ground when formed, and when he makes a crater below his feet, he remains level with the rest of the ground, walking ahead on thin air.
• Power Glows: Like White Diamond, he is visibly made of light, signifying enormous power.
• Pure Is Not Good: Being away from Steven's human half leaves his gem in severe Heroic Safe Mode at best. At worst he comes off as sociopathic, even willing to hurt his allies if they're put in his way.
• The Quiet One: He's averse to talking, only making a two word sentence (and repeating it loudly) when White Diamond refuses to understand he isn't Pink Diamond, and laughing when reunited with his other half.
• Reincarnation: His appearance confirms that although Pink's gemstone remains along with some Past-Life Memories, he is completely his own being and that Pink is well and truly gone.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: Inverted as is usual with Gems; while forming, he takes Pink Diamond's shape, then Rose's, then Steven's.
• The Soulless: Ironically, Pink Steven lacking his body gives him all the traits one associates with a character losing their soul: he's lost most or all of his emotion, empathy, and morality, and has a single-minded desire to get them back.
• Suddenly Shouting: He goes from being very quiet to shouting loud enough to crack the ground he's standing on when White Diamond insists on asking where Pink is.
• Superpowered Evil Side:
  • Without any of Steven's restraint, his Gem self proves more powerful than anyone imagined. All of Steven's powers are tied to, and moderated by, his emotions. This half has no emotions of any kind, which makes him capable of even overpowering White Diamond herself.
  • In Future, Pink Steven is even more this trope as Steven turns pink while under intense stress and anger. Notably, Steven-as-Pink Steven seems to manifest all of Pink Diamond's hitherto-unseen destructive powers, as well as become much more offensive and powerful during combat.
• Technically Naked Shapeshifter: His form mimics both Steven's organic body and the clothes Steven usually wears.
• That Man Is Dead: Played with. He makes it terrifyingly clear to White Diamond that he is now Steven, and not (wholly) the Gem's previous resident. His appearance and outburst represent the end of Steven's arc in accepting himself as his own person, and not as Rose Quartz or Pink Diamond, who the Diamonds and other Gems had previously insisted he was.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: His eyes seem to always look off into the distance.
• Tranquil Fury: Even when he screams at the top of his lungs, his face remains expressionless.
• The Unfettered: His sole concern is reuniting with Steven's human half, ignoring anything that doesn't interfere and reacting violently towards anything that does.
• Unflinching Walk: Walks slowly and ceaselessly while trying to get back to Steven and merge together again, in spite of White Diamond's threats and attacks.
• Walking Spoiler: Pink Steven's formation answers a question fans have pondered for years as to the nature of Steven's being, proves demonstrably that Steven is not his mother and that Rose is truly gone, does not appear until a major confrontation at the end of the fifth season, and leads to the resolution of the show's major Myth Arc.
• When He Smiles: Upon reaching Steven's human half, they both share the same joyous expression as they merge back together.

Monster Steven (Major Spoilers for Steven Universe Future)

Monster Steven

Steven, involuntary shapeshifted into a colossal beast-like half-Gem monster after perceiving himself as one during his last and biggest mental breakdown.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's left unclear if Steven turning into the monster was the mere result of his shapeshifting abilities reacting to him feeling like a monster, similarly to the time he felt old on his birthday and started aging rapidly, or a form of corruption akin to the one the Diamonds inflicted on the gems on Earth.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The largest single being introduced in the series, it towers over even White Diamond, and is about twice as tall and five times bigger than her. The only thing bigger than it is the Cluster.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: He has very dark sclera, and much like the other corrupted gems, he has succumbed to madness.
• Broken Tears: When the Crystal Gems, Diamonds, Spinel, Greg, the Cluster, and Connie finally get through to him with their love, he starts openly weeping.
• Draconic Abomination: A huge reptilian creature born from Steven's anxiety and self-loathing.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The monster is present in the antagonists shot from the intro of Steven Universe Future from the very beginning, but he's not properly introduced until the second-to-last episode, where his true nature as Steven's monstrous form is revealed.
• Face–Monster Turn: He's Steven, corrupted by his unresolved trauma and self-loathing boiling over.
• Final Boss: He's the final antagonist the Crystal Gems have to face, being Steven himself.
• Freak Out: He's the result of one, being essentially the incarnation of Steven's Impostor Syndrome and repressed trauma induced panic attack. As a result, he's lashing out at everything around him without any real malice.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: He ominously does this in the intro, pointing his significance above the other antagonists. He also does it in his featured episode right before he releases a shockwave powerful to knock everyone down, even the Diamonds and their ship.
• His Own Worst Enemy: The result of having an unsure thoughts of his future combined with his past trauma transformed Steven at the moment his anger provoked his meltdown.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: The entire objective of the Crystal Gems during the fight is to find a way to reach the true Steven beneath the monster and calm him down from his rampage. Stopping Steven by hurting him is left out of the question by everyone.
• Jagged Mouth: Much like the Corrupted Quartzes, he too has has fangs that are fused with his lips.
• The Juggernaut: The creature is near unstoppable; not even Lapis with her powerful water bindings, the Diamonds with their new-found powers or the Cluster itself are able to hold him for too long.
• Kaiju: He's as big as the mountain that the temple was built into.
• Long Neck: Has a very long, serpentine neck, adding to his reptilian appearance.
• Main Character Final Boss: He's still the Steven we all know, the hero of the story - he's simply transformed into something beyond his control. Thus, the story's final objective is for the other heroes - the friends he's made from both strangers and enemies - to help calm him down.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: White Diamond mentions that this monster "is not Steven anymore" when trying to link with his mind, and Sapphire confirms that if they don't do something soon, he would be trapped in that form and state of mind forever.
• Morphic Resonance: The shapes of his horns evoke Steven's hair, the upper half of his head is notably similar (especially the nose and eyes), and his body is the same pink colour as Steven's during his breakdown.
• Non-Malicious Monster: It's easy to see from his expressions that he's mostly confused and angry, never directly attacking anyone, just destroying the scenery and unleashing a defensive shockwave, and not resisting when his family comes to give him a Cooldown Hug.
• No-Sell: The Diamonds use of their abilities to help Steven end up being nullified, even White Diamond was unable to reach Steven with her powers.
• Not Zilla: Some traits on his design resemble Godzilla, both being long-necked reptilian humanoids created by negative human actions, in this case internal turmoil rather than nuclear weapons. His spikes even glow just before he unleashes his power.
• Post-Final Boss: For the Steven Universe series as a whole: with the greatest Homeworld threats taken care of, most of Future focuses on the fallout Steven has been left with - his pent-up trauma, his steady identity breakdown in peacetime, his growing lack of emotional control, his support structures starting to come apart, and his increasingly desperate attempts to find a solution - which finally boils over into Monster Steven, the Crystal Gems' final confrontation in the series. Befitting the trope, while taking him down proves to be a serious team effort, the whole thing is resolved much quicker than the climax of the original series.
• Psycho Pink: A rare male example. But while not exactly psychotic, he is definitely extremely dangerous.
• The One Guy: He's the only male Gem Monster.
• Scaled Up: Once Steven comes to think that he is a monster, several sharp scales burst out from his skin until he turns into a creature that resembles a draconic dinosaur.
• Superpowered Evil Side: The creature is a culmination of Steven's guilt and trauma, seeing himself as an irredeemable monster after shattering Jasper and attempting to shatter White Diamond, and he's so powerful and unstoppable that not even the Cluster or the Diamonds themselves are able to stop his rampage, at least alone.
• Super-Scream: The only ability Steven uses in this state is a screech, powerful enough to knock over all three of the Diamonds and their ship, dispel Lapis's water chains, and even force Garnet to defuse (if only for a moment).
• Talking the Monster to Death: The Crystal Gems restore Steven by reassuring him that everything will be okay, and his family and friends are there for him even at his lowest points.
• Tragic Monster: He's the result of Steven having, in his own words after the fact, a big meltdown. He's brought back to normal once everyone brings themselves together to shower him with love and assurance.
• Walking Spoiler: It comes with being the territory of being Steven's form of self-anger and own thoughts of being a monster.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Steven becomes this thing when his trauma and pain finally overflow and explode, causing him to turn himself into a rampaging monster.

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