Characters / Steven Universe — Yellow Diamond

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

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Yellow Diamond

Voiced by: Patti LuPone (English), Gara Takashima (Japanese), Giò Giò Rapattoni (Italian)

^{Click here to see her mural.}

"This is what White Diamond expects of all of us. From the thinnest flake of mica to the deepest, hardest stone, we all must make sacrifices for the sake of our perfect empire!"

The first Diamond to be mentioned and the second to make an appearance. She commands Homeworld's military, is in charge of the Cluster geo-weapon project, and is the yellow Gem depicted on the mural from "Serious Steven". She briefly appears in the extended theme song, and premieres properly in "Message Received".

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A-F

• Affably Evil: After discovering that Rose Quartz/Steven is Pink Diamond in "Reunited", she stops her rampage and in the following episode, agrees to help Steven cure Corruption and ceases her hostility towards him and even the Crystal Gems.
• Alien Invasion: In "Reunited", she and Blue Diamond attack the Earth in an attempt to get revenge on "Rose" for allegedly shattering Pink Diamond.
• Aloof Big Sister: To Pink, as revealed in "Jungle Moon". The flashback from Pink's point-of-view showed Yellow being cold and distant towards her, treating her like a nuisance while she was planning an invasion, and implying she doesn't view Pink as an equal, throwing an Acting Your Intellectual Age question at her younger Cheerful Child fellow Diamond. This is part of why Rose/Pink underestimated how she and the other Diamonds actually cared about her when she ultimately decided to fake her own death. However, "Familiar" reveals that Pink always managed to make her laugh, implying that Yellow wasn't all cold towards her.
• Anger Born of Worry: While she legitimately cares for Blue and Pink, the only ways she seems to know how to show her concern is to put on a professional face and reprimand them, upgrading to anger when it persists. She meets with Blue at the Human Zoo in "That Will Be All" to remind her that she is shirking her responsibilities, revealing her vulnerable side only at the end of her Villain Song. In the beginning of "Legs From Here to Homeworld", the first thing she does is demand an explanation for everything that has happened (why Steven looks and sounds nothing like Pink, why Pink faked her death, etc.), but she is noticeably less hostile, helping heal Nephrite at Steven's request and limiting herself to sarcastic quips.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Non-romantic example. As she sings to Blue, they will always miss Pink Diamond: "Yes, of course we still love her, and we're always thinking of her..." Yellow has a miserable expression when she sings the second refrain of this.
• Anti-Regeneration: Her lighting doesn't just poof Gems, it can keep them from regenerating for days.
• Ascended Meme: With every single occurrence of the fandom depicting her as a giraffe with a stretchable neck, it eventually happens during a dream sequence in "Together Alone".
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Both her shoulders and upper torso resemble armor, and she has a warlike and overtly aggressive personality compared to Blue Diamond.
• The Atoner: In "Homeworld Bound", it's revealed that she now seeks to make up for her "awful" Gem experiments by fixing the Gems she once shattered. She even tells Steven her intention to fix the shattered Gems made to create the Cluster!
• Ax-Crazy: It is clear from her first appearance that she has an extremely short fuse.
• Bad Boss:
  • Although very displeased with Peridot's apparent failure on Earth, she does offer a ship to retrieve her before the Cluster destroys it. Then Peridot insults her, and Yellow Diamond tries to kill her for it.
  • In "The Trial", while poofing Blue Zircon for suggesting a fellow Diamond was responsible for Pink's shattering may have been understandable, she then poofs her own Zircon. It's unclear whether this was because Prosecuting Zircon heard too much, or because Yellow was just lashing out at her for speaking at the wrong time, most likely the latter given that she didn't shatter Pink Diamond.
  • A flashback/vision from Pink Diamond's point-of-view shows Yellow Diamond casually threatening to personally shatter a subordinate and her entire crew if they fail her.
• Be Careful What You Say: She told Pink angrily to act like a Diamond and stop being bratty if she wants a colony. Well, when Pink got her colony and prepared to destroy the Earth... she grew to genuinely love it and ended up rebelling against Yellow.
• Benevolent Boss: Surprisingly, she has her moments too. She seems fond of Yellow Pearl and treats her with respect, giving her real work to do as her secretary instead of having her around to look pretty. Also, even when Peridot informed her about her failed mission on Earth, she did offer her a ship to come back to the Homeworld.
• Berserk Button:
  • Anything to do with the Earth or Pink Diamond's demise — poor Peridot's attempts to reason with her never had a chance. Ironically enough she also displays little patience for being flattered and fawned over. She clearly prefers others to be respectful, but concise.
  • Don't interfere with her attempts to get revenge on Rose Quartz for shattering Pink Diamond, even if you're Blue Diamond. Fortunately, her reaction to the truth is far more pleasant than one would expect.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Often serves in this role with Blue Diamond. They even invade the Earth together. It's also shown that Blue, Yellow, Pink, and White are part of this as a Dysfunctional Family archetype.
• Big Sister Bully: Not intentionally, but her constant dismissal of Pink, manhandling her for slights such as batting at her communication device, combined with her refusal to let Pink spare the Earth, led Pink to dislike Yellow and believe she never cared about her. In the present day she seems to have realized this, as she blames herself for Pink's "death". Then she snaps back when "Pink", actually Steven, fuses with a human and she poofs the Crystal Gems and a Jade for coming to Stevonnie's defense before locking up the latter. She finally realizes she's this after enforcing Homeworld's strict rules forces her to attack Blue Diamond.
• Big Sister Instinct: She holds Blue Diamond protectively when they are confronted with "Rose Quartz" in "The Trial", which is understandable considering Rose allegedly shattered her other fellow Diamond, Pink Diamond.
• Broken Pedestal: Peridot's faith in her is shattered when she finally reestablishes contact with her in an attempt to argue that the Earth is more useful intact, only for Yellow Diamond to make it very clear that she wants the Earth destroyed out of spite and revenge, rather than for any logical reason. Peridot ultimately turns on her when it's clear that Yellow Diamond won't see reason.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: She's one of the most brutal and short-tempered characters shown throughout the series, but deeply loves Blue and Pink and bursts into tears upon realizing how her behavior towards her littlest fellow Diamond drove her away.
• The Brute: Easily the most physically violent of her fellow Diamonds, and the one who is the best fighter. However, she's far from stupid, and despite her giant size is wickedly fast.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • She definitely has her moments.
    Peridot: I wouldn't have called just to waste your time with a report.
    Yellow Diamond: You already have.
  • When Steven complains that it's hard to talk with White Diamond, Yellow Diamond tells him that getting two and a half words in a conversation with White is a record. She bluntly says that White has been trapped in her mind and the only reason Steven got to talk to her at all was because Pink was White's favorite.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • When it comes to any planet except Earth, she treats planetary genocide like anyone would a desk job and seems more bored with it than anything else. Then again, we haven't seen any intelligent life aside from Gems and humans, so this may be understandable. It turns out that it's less she's bored and more she's long since devolved into doing it solely in an attempt to get White Diamond to give her any acknowledgement at all, something she knows is a distant or if not impossible goal. As of the Movie, she's liberated her colonies.
  • In "Reunited", an excited Peridot asks if Yellow remembers calling her a Clod. She denies it with a bored expression before immediately zapping her with an Agony Beam.
• The Chains of Commanding: Despite being one of Homeworld's rulers, one gets the impression that she's "performing her assigned role" as much as the lower-ranking Gems, telling Blue Diamond that they have to appear as strong, stoic leaders and do their jobs. She also seems to have taken over the bulk of her fellow Diamonds' duties since Pink was "shattered", Blue's resulting depression caused her to neglect her duties, and White Diamond withdrew into solitude long ago — no wonder she's irritable. She seems to dislike over-the-top flattery and implies that she leaves the long-term strategizing to her Sapphires.
  • In 'Change Your Mind', she's forced to admit that she's been repressing her discontent with the way White Diamond does things for a long time, partly out of (well-founded) fear of White's reaction.
• Character Development:
  • For a long time in the original series, she's presented as a cold, ruthless, and ill-tempered tyrant who couldn't care less about organic lifeforms. As of Future, however, she dismantles the Gem Empire, becomes far more pleasant, and is now even willingly fixing the Gems she once shattered. She's also shown to now have plants in her private rooms, in contrast to her former disdain for organic life.
  • Pink Diamond resented how Yellow never listened to her; Steven encounters the same issue. Future shows that she has gotten better about her boundaries towards Steven and doing her best to hear him out when he's on the verge of a breakdown. It doesn't work, but it's the thought that counts.
  • Like her fellow Diamond Blue, she is disdainful of cross-fusions, to the point that she locked up Stevonnie for fusing at the Era 3 ball by accident. In Future, she works with Garnet to help calm down Steven without a moment's hesitation.
• Classic Villain: She represents Ambition, Pride, and Wrath.
• Color-Coded Elements: She can control yellow lightning.
• The Comically Serious: After giving a genuinely unsettling Shut Up, Kirk! to Peridot in "Message Received", being called a "clod" prompts a rather hilarious expression of shocked indignation. Unfortunately for those on the receiving end in "The Trial", said wrath suddenly becomes much less funny.
• Control Freak: She wouldn't allow the enthusiastic Pink to assist her in any way while colonizing a planet, not even allowing her younger fellow Diamond to contact the fleet commander on her behalf, getting irate when Pink merely touches her control panel and bats at the keys, though this is understandable considering Pink's attitude at the time.
• Cool Aunt: After her Heel–Face Turn in 'Change Your Mind' she, like Blue, becomes this toward Steven. She finally starts calling Steven by his name instead of Pink, and becomes protective of him, telling him to run back to Earth in her ship while she and Blue distract White, and later eyeing Jasper when the Corrupted Gems are cured to make sure she doesn't attack Steven. When the Diamonds leave Earth, her ship flashes a quick peace sign as a goodbye.
• Cool Big Sis: Yes, even as a villain she had shades of this. Yellow has been shown to always do what Pink and Blue want (especially the latter), sometimes without them even asking first, and even going against what she wants/would do. Pink wants a colony? Fine, she can get a colony. Pink's weird new half-organic form wants help healing a corrupted Gem? It's Yellow who first agrees to help. Pink's weird new half-organic form is really upset that the healing didn't stick? Yellow suggests that they might need White Diamond, even though she is terrified of White. White Diamond might not be happy about the rebellion and the past 6000 years? Yellow offers to take on the brunt of White Diamond's wrath. And when Blue was having her usual bad episode at Pink's room in the zoo, Yellow sung for her and then proceeded to immediately make plans for what Blue might wanted ("The window for preserving their specimens is closing." "Is that what you want? [...] Then there's still time.") After her Heel–Face Turn in the season 5 finale she mellows out a lot more, even disbanding the majority of her army at Steven's request.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Matching yellow hair and eyes.
• Deadpan Snarker: When not confused or enraged, Yellow usually keeps her responses to sarcastic quips.
  Steven: Let's go to Homeworld!
  Connie and Amethyst: Yeah!
  Yellow: Fantastic.
• Depending on the Artist:
  • Her neck was oddly thin-looking when she first appeared, something the show later made fun of with a Dream Sequence where her neck is absurdly long.
  • She wears a much shorter coat in "That Will Be All", but switches back to the longer one in "The Trial".
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Eventually, Pink Diamond went from worshiping her big fellow Diamond to secretly rebelling against her by posing as Rose Quartz. Pink was hurt and disappointed that she wasn't given the choice to spare the Earth, and believed that far from being a Cool Big Sis, Yellow was nothing but distant and cold.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She detonates the Diamond Communicator in an attempt to kill Peridot after Peridot calls her a clod.
• The Dragon: As the leader of Homeworld's military, Yellow functions as an enforcer to White Diamond.
• Dragon-in-Chief: She's generally acted as the public face of the Diamond Authority in Era 2, since Blue has been in mourning since the war and White was confined to her ship. She's also the most antagonistic Diamond towards Earth in the first three seasons, as she specifically oversees Jasper and Peridot, as well as the Cluster project.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: At first she accepts the explanation that Pink rebelled, Steven is a "new form" of Pink without the latter's memories, and only expresses hope that the memories will return. When they all return to Homeworld, however, she and Blue immediately fall back into treating "Pink" as their silly little fellow Diamond who exists to make them laugh. Steven understandably gets frustrated when he tries to have a serious conversation, and by the end of a rather disastrous ball she tells off Steven for fusing and locks Stevonnie up.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • She believes the Cluster will destroy the Earth any moment, unaware that it's been completely neutralized by Rose Quartz's son, Steven, with the help of one of her former subjects, Peridot.
  • After Steven escapes with Lars into Homeworld's depths in "The Trial", she thinks "Rose" is trapped with nowhere to hide. However, sometime after that, Steven manages to return to Earth, completely unaware of it.
  • She wants Rose Quartz destroyed after she shattered Pink Diamond, except the irony here is ten-fold after the revelation that Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz were the same person. She eventually finds out.
• The Dreaded: When Jasper drops her name, Lapis and Peridot give shocked expressions. In "Message Received", Garnet and Pearl are terrified by the prospect that Peridot will contact her. Being Pink Diamond's Pearl, Pearl is likely familiar with Yellow Diamond's personality.
• Early-Bird Cameo: First appeared in the extended theme song, and made her appearance in the second season.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: While her fellow Diamond Blue is a soft-spoken, reserved diplomat who is often quite lethargic and unmotivated these days due to her Excessive Mourning from losing a beloved family member, Yellow Diamond is a dynamic and assertive military general who rarely speaks below a commanding tone and buries herself into her work to try heavily and forget the pain of losing Pink Diamond.
• Establishing Character Moment: Within minutes of her first appearance: "I've heard enough! I don't care about potential or resources. I want my Cluster, and I want that planet to die. Just make that happen."
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • She really seems to care about Blue Diamond, and bluntly telling her to stop grieving seems to be the only way she knows to snap Blue out of her depression. In "Change Your Mind", White all but states that taking care of Blue is Yellow's main emotional priority.
  • Her Villain Song, "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)?" admits that she still thinks about Pink Diamond. She can't even finish said song — in the last line, she lets go of Blue's hand and turns away, as though she doesn't trust herself to finish. As businesslike as she acts, it's clear that Pink Diamond's death affected her deeply. In "The Trial", she not only seems eager to shatter Steven (who she thinks is Rose) and be done with it, but when confronted with Blue Zircon's theory and accusations that either she or Blue had Pink Diamond killed, Yellow's response is to poof Blue Zircon by smashing her with a finger. She ceases her onslaught against the Crystal Gems the moment Steven manages to prove his true nature as Pink's Reincarnation.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Despite demanding deference and respect from her subjects, she is also annoyed by excessive butt-kissing, rolling her eyes at the likes of Holly Blue Agate or her own Zircon's brown-nosing. She also rewards those loyal to her, as shown with Yellow Pearl.
  • When Steven reveals that he has Pink Diamond's Gem, she's notably horrified and stops the onslaught against the Crystal Gems. She also agrees that the Corrupted Gems need to be healed. When venting to "Pink" about being The Unfavorite, she doesn't blame Steven for the disparate treatment and actually laughs when Steven tries to cheer her up.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She's unable to understand why Pink Diamond would have a Zoo to store humans, even while under the assumption that she did so because she saw them as trophies of her conquests.
• Evil Is Petty: Her interest in the Cluster has less to do with science, and more to do with having it destroy the Earth out of spite. She also tries to kill Peridot by remotely detonating her Diamond communicator after the latter talks back to her and calls her a clod. This turns out to be doubly petty with The Reveal Homeworld is running low on resources. "That Will Be All" reveals that she wants Earth destroyed so she doesn't have to think about Pink Diamond's death and the sadness that comes with it; while understandable, she's basically willing to kill billions of innocents in a selfish attempt to escape her own sorrow.
• Evil Laugh: Well, maybe not an evil laugh, but she otherwise lets out one of these in "Familiar".
• Exotic Eye Designs: Like Jasper's, hers are more detailed than the rest of the cast. She has thick eyelashes, yellow irises, and, as said above in the general folder, diamond-shaped pupils.
• Face-Revealing Turn: What she does in the extended opening.
• Fantastic Racist: When Peridot mentions all the life that's flourished on Earth, Yellow Diamond says "Organic life" with noticeable disgust on the first word. Even after her Heel–Face Turn, she still shows shades of this, as evident by the look on her face when watching the humans attending Sadie's concert. She is also initially disgusted and horrified at the revelation that White is off-colour.
• Fatal Flaw: Wrath. She is so intent on destroying Earth that she commissions the creation of a Cluster (violating countless shattered Gems in the process) and seeks to destroy Earth in spite of the many resources it could offer to Homeworld. While she loves her fellow Diamonds and does try to hold back her temper, she has snapped at them as well. It gets even worse with The Reveal that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond, which means that Yellow has unknowingly tried to kill her fellow Diamond and said fellow Diamond's son multiple times while mourning her.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Downplayed; Yellow Diamond hated organic life even before Pink Diamond had ever set foot on Earth, but only escalated into self-destructive hatred of such to avenge Pink.
• Final Solution: She wanted to shatter Rose Quartz's entire Gem type for the Rose we know of rebelling against and shattering Pink Diamond. Blue Diamond instead chose to spare them, albeit as bubbled prisoners.
• Five Stages of Grief: Has a foot firmly in the "Denial" and "Anger" stages of grief, wanting to remove every trace of Pink Diamond so she doesn't have to think about her and feel the sadness that comes from her loss. But if you push her buttons, even Blue Diamond isn't safe from her ranting.
• Foil:
  • To her fellow Diamond, Pink. Pink was a spoiled little brat demanding for her own colony, whereas Yellow was a serious matriarch who colonized multiple planets. Pink was unaware of the damage she was doing to her colony, whereas Yellow wanted organic life to be destroyed. It's reflected best in the ideals Pink expressed as Rose Quartz. Rose sincerely valued all life and sought to protect it, while Yellow Diamond utterly hates all organic life, not just humans, and wishes it to be permanently annihilated. Rose loved and cared for each Gem under her command, while Yellow Diamond sees them as mere drones who are rather replaceable. Even their names are similar and both are voiced by Broadway actresses. However, Pink constantly fails to take her fellow Diamonds' feelings into consideration, whereas Yellow is always looking out for them.
  • Also, to her other fellow Diamond, Blue. Aside from their masculine/feminine personalities, Yellow Diamond copes with the death of Pink Diamond by completely repressing her own emotions, destroying everything that reminds her of her grief, and sees grief itself as useless feelings.
  • Also, to Dr. Maheswaran, according to "Jungle Moon", where the former is being portrayed by the latter as a symbolically similar treatment toward their younger family member/daughter, Pink Diamond/Connie. However, unlike Priyanka, who managed to see the error of her ways and reconcile with Connie before she damaged their relationship even further, Yellow refused to allow Pink to give up her colony and took away her control of Earth just because she won't complete it, and lives to regret how she treated Pink by seemingly allowing her to be destroyed along with their relationship.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling:
  • Yellow and Blue (responsible) and Pink (foolish). After Pink's Heel–Face Turn, the roles are reversed.
  • This trope is Zig-Zagged between her and Blue in the present day during Steven's trial. While Blue does act depressed and unable to function in her normal daily life, at the very least she's insistent on continuing the trial properly. Yellow, on the other hand, while determined to keep her forces in line, treats the trial like a Kangaroo Court.
• Forced Transformation: She can alter the physical forms of other Gems, as shown in "Legs From Here to Homeworld" when she forcibly changes Nephrite's form. It's implied that this was her contribution to the corruption attack. In Era 3 she turns this power towards restoring the physical forms of the Gems she shattered and also making cosmetic changes for Gems who want them.
• Four-Star Badass: In charge of the Gem Empire's military force, and the more martially inclined of the Diamonds. Unlike Blue, she doesn't mess around and would immediately press her advantages to quickly turn the table during fights.

G-O

• General Ripper: Yellow Diamond is incredibly trigger happy and thoughtless to other lifeforms, to the point she was willing to have Earth destroyed by the Cluster out of pure spite.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: Upon seeing Steven again in "Reunited", she immediately dashes over and proceeds to stomp on him.
• The Ghost: Mentioned by Jasper in "The Return", and can briefly be seen looking menacing in silhouette in the extended intro, but does not appear in the show until "Message Received", the second to last episode of the second season.
• Go to Your Room!: Inflicts this on Stevonnie at the end of "Together Alone".
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It's quite apparent that Yellow Diamond has a volcanic temper, particularly if it involves anything related to Earth.
• Hanging Judge: During "The Trial", Yellow is determined to get "Rose" shattered no matter what and is clearly only going along with the formality of the trial because Blue wants to, and she keeps questioning Defense Zircon's line of thought that Rose was most likely framed.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Though she relents her attack at the end of "Reunited", it's clear that Yellow Diamond is still a firm believer in Homeworld's strict rules and caste system.
  • Later, as of "Change Your Mind", it's clear that Yellow's adopted a proper Heel–Face Turn alongside Blue.
• Heel Realization:
  • She has one at the end of "Reunited", in which she finally discovers that Steven/Rose is Pink Diamond and stops her rampage.
  • She has a bigger one in "Change Your Mind", when Steven questions how perfect a society that's forcing her to harm her own family is and it hits her she attacked Blue. This in turn causes her to realize why Pink would rather live on Earth in the first place.
• Hellish Pupils: Her pupils are diamond-shaped.
• Hidden Depths: Yellow Diamond is first presented as a wrathful, unreasonable tyrant. Later episodes show her trying to be a voice of reason to Blue Diamond. If the end of the song "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)" is any indication, she's still heartbroken over Pink Diamond's death. While she's not the perfect objective decider Peridot saw her as, it seems like she genuinely values reason and objectivity and strives toward it to an extent, but anything to do with the Earth and the subject of Pink Diamond's demise is a hot button issue.
  • In "Reunited", we learn that the reason for all her anger comes from self-loathing, as she blames herself for Pink Diamond's death.
  • In "Change Your Mind", it's implied by Blue Diamond that Yellow is actually quite miserable having to carry out the ruthless doctrine laid out by White Diamond, and having to hold everyone — including herself — to such draconian expectations.
• Humans Are Ugly: It took just one glance at the human Steven, who is masquerading as "Rose Quartz", to make her decide to want to shatter "her" immediately. She seems to have stopped having this belief at the end of "Reunited", and it's likely that she was just looking for reasons to shatter "Rose Quartz" immediately.
• Hypocrite:
  • She rebukes Blue for still grieving over Pink's death all those millennia later, but she herself is very emotional on the topic, being willing to destroy hundreds of perfectly serviceable Quartzes and other Gems and a perfectly good colony planet simply because they remind her of Pink.
  • Yellow also took away Pink's colony partly because she thought she was being ungrateful, yet Yellow only gave it to her so she'd stop bothering her. Not to mention despite everything Pink did to fix her fellow Diamonds' relationship with each other, she repaid her with frequent punishments and neglect.
  • In "Change Your Mind", she accuses Blue of hurting a fellow Diamond, even though she (and Blue) hurt Pink in the past, with Yellow even physically manhandling her at one point. Blue magnificently calls her out on it.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Yellow frequently abuses Pink, whether she does so by physically manhandling her or just being cold and distant towards her. Yet, when Yellow believes Pink to have been shattered by Rose Quartz, Yellow becomes hell-driven to get revenge on Rose, whether it be by blowing up the planet she's on with the Cluster or attempting to shatter the person she believes to be Rose at the trial. Additionally, despite imprisoning Pink's son Steven in a prison tower as punishment for fusing with Connie, she eventually resorts to telling Steven to return to Earth safely with his friends, even if it means she and Blue will have to face White's wrath alone.
• Inelegant Blubbering: "Change Your Mind" shows that she's one of the "Ugly Crying" variant. She's stoic, hardhearted, and struggles not to feel, but she does have a breaking point, and when it's reached she collapses into tears, her face a wretched mask of anguish.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking:
  • In "Message Received", as it becomes increasingly apparent that she's Not So Stoic, she begins shouting to the point where her voice breaks in the middle of interrupting Peridot.
  • In "Change Your Mind", her voice breaks again when she's going on her Motive Rant.
• Insane Admiral: According to Peridot, she's more or less the commander-in-chief (or at least one of them) of the Gem military, and it seems to take very little to incite her to use it.
• Ironic Name: Yellow Diamonds are the birthstone for Virgo, and Virgos are associated with order, intelligence, and cold calculation. When she finally appears in the show proper, she does fit the bill at first, but as her talk with Peridot goes on, it becomes readily apparent that for however much a being of logic she might be, she's clearly also a vengeful and spiteful being who would gladly destroy the Earth for payback against the rebellion.
• It's All About Me: She is shown to be an extremely arrogant ruler who shows no concern about non-Gem worlds and does not care about any valuable resources that the Earth may contain, as long as she gets her Cluster. Keep in mind, Homeworld is currently low on resources and producing weaker Gems as a result. That said, at least part of it seems to be motivated out of hate for the rebellion and Rose shattering Pink Diamond.
• It's All My Fault: While she doesn't show it externally, she genuinely does blame herself for Pink's shattering.
  How miserable. I knew Pink couldn't handle her own colony. But I gave in, and now I'm to blame for her fate.
• It's Personal: It's pretty clear from what's seen of Jasper that the Homeworld Gems who remember the war hold a certain degree of hate for Earth and the Crystal Gems. Yellow Diamond, however, takes this hate to extremes: In her eyes, the destruction of Earth, its billions of inhabitants, and whatever resources that could be useful to Homeworld are secondary to the personal satisfaction of finally wiping the symbol of Rose's rebellion and Pink Diamond's death off the star charts. As of "Change Your Mind", she does appear to be warming up to the Earth a little, as she refers to it as Pink/Steven's home and is later shown having fun with White and Blue in Rose's fountain, which is located on Earth, while curing the Corrupted Gems.
• Jerkass: Just from her introduction it's clear she's probably the most vicious, spiteful character in the show.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Though she's not exactly the nicest and is not handling Pink Diamond's death any better, Yellow Diamond is right that Blue Diamond can't continue to grieve and obsess over Pink Diamond. She also observes that Blue Diamond is neglecting her leadership duties and wants her to be responsible again.
  • When Pink Diamond was trying to get her attention, Yellow Diamond manhandling her was out of line but she stops Pink cold by asking her why she doesn't act like a Diamond if she wants to be treated like one. When Pink receives a colony it turns out she has no real interest in ruling and finds the actual work of running a colony to be very boring, proving Yellow's point correct.
  • Steven understands her point when she angrily demands an explanation for why "Pink" is in a new form, and why didn't Steven say who he was at the trial. Fortunately, she accepts Steven's explanation when he says he doesn't have Pink or Rose's memories, or he would have told her.
• Kick the Dog: Has a bad habit of this.
  • In her first appearance, she tries to kill Peridot with a bomb after Peridot insults her.
  • "The Trial":
    • She calls Rose Quartz really Steven hideous and claims they should shatter her on the spot for her appearance.
    • Poofing both Zircons for daring to speak out of turn also definitely counts.
  • She casually threatens to shatter a subordinate if she doesn't do her job in a flashback in "Jungle Moon".
  • In addition to poofing the Crystal Gems and imprisoning Stevonnie in a prison tower in "Together Alone", she also poofs Lemon Jade after she stood up for the Crystal Gems and expressed her joy at not being the only cross-gem fusion.
• Kick the Morality Pet:
  • She and Blue Diamond perform a dual one in a flashback in "Now We're Only Falling Apart", in which they reject Pink's offer to spare the Earth.
  • In "Together Alone", she once more overrides "Pink's" authority over the ball (which is explicitly the thing Pink holds dominion over in the Authority) and completely refuses to accept any of the things Steven desires to do outside of what's "accepted", to the point of once more threatening to override Steven's authority and do the ball herself. She also gets furious at Steven and Connie for fusing to the point of poofing their friends and imprisoning them as punishment.
  • A brief time afterwards in "Change Your Mind", she actually ends up attacking Blue Diamond for trying to take Steven's side, even if it's visible in her face that she's regretting it the entire time. When she tries to justify it as upholding the Gem empire's "perfection", Steven points out any order which forces her to assault her own fellow Diamond cannot be perfect, which puts an end to both her rampage and her support for White's form of order.
• Knight of Cerebus: Her introduction just shows how vicious she is.
• Lack of Empathy: She's shown no regard for anyone else but the other Diamonds, including Steven.
• Large and in Charge: Easily the biggest non-fused Gem seen thus far, standing over 50 feet tall. The Pearl she uses as a secretary easily fits in Yellow's palm. But she's still one head shorter than White.
• Laser-Guided Karma: She was a Big Sister Bully towards Pink, physically manhandling and just being straight up cold towards her, leading to Pink Faking the Dead and causing Yellow to grieve for millennia. Yellow being physically violent towards Pink also comes back to bite her when Blue attacks her with an energy ball, and she's later forced to face that, since Pink is now truly gone, she can never truly apologize to her for what she had done.
• Leitmotif: "Message Received" gives her a personal variation of the Diamonds' distinct rising/falling synth rhythm. At first, hers is less harmonious and more subdued than Blue Diamond's, seemingly fitting her clinical nature. However, as she becomes progressively angrier and more unhinged, so does the theme, incorporating drums and a much more menacing synth crescendo. She's also the only one of the Diamonds thus far to have a secondary theme, a trilling echo that plays whenever she's about to do something violent.
• Lightning Bruiser: As seen in the fight with the Crystal Gems, she's strong enough to easily smash her way out of her ship and lift wreckage off of Blue, and when she goes on the attack, she dashes forward with incredible speed and knocks Steven unconscious despite him having put his shield up.
• Light Is Not Good: All Diamonds, yellow ones in particular, stand for the energy of the sun according to gemstone mythos. It doesn't stop Yellow Diamond from attempting to kill an entire planet out of spite and revenge.
  • Light Is Good: Like Blue and eventually even White, she makes a Heel–Face Turn in "Change Your Mind" and stops her tyrannical ways.
• Mama Bear: In "Change Your Mind", she directs an angry look at Jasper as she prepares to attack Steven under the belief that he's Rose Quartz, before brushing it off with a smile.
• Mean Boss: When Peridot calls her, she makes it clear she doesn't care about the opinions of the people working for her at all.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Yellow Diamonds are the birthstone for Virgo, and Virgos are associated with order, intelligence, and cold calculation. These are the standards she holds herself and her subjects to, although as mentioned above, she's ultimately willing to sacrifice all of this for revenge.
  • Yellow Diamonds are one of the more common colors and as such more likely to be used for industrial lasers and technological applications than for jewelry, fitting YD's pragmatic, no-nonsense personality.
• Misplaced Retribution: Blames all Rose Quartz Gems for the actions of the Crystal Gem's Rose shattering Pink Diamond, wanting them shattered in turn.
• Mood-Swinger: The bereavement of Pink has made Yellow very erratic. Sometimes she acts like the strong, calm, logical leader that Peridot and Holly Blue see her as, but in the next moment she's yelling and poofing Gems left and right. Because she has repressed her grief and internalized the blame for Pink's shattering, Yellow is constantly causing herself emotional harm. And when anyone reminds her too much of the tragedy, she lashes out like a wounded animal.
• Moral Myopia: Yellow Diamond had no moral qualms about creating a Cluster out of shattered Gems or leading an interplanetary empire with blood on its hands. However, the death of Pink Diamond emotionally devastated her, to the point that she seeks to destroy Earth in retaliation. It likely helps that she sees herself as responsible for Pink's alleged death in the first place, however.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Is an extremely competent and powerful general and fighter despite her slender build.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • You wouldn't think it would be possible for a tyrant like her but, it seems that, like Blue, she regrets the way she treated Pink and wishes she could take it back so Pink could still be alive.
  • She looks worried as Steven regains consciousness, after she and Blue have realized he was telling the truth about being Pink Diamond. She nearly lost her family member a second time, and would have turned out to be Pink's shatterer like Defense Zircon theorized.
  • The biggest one comes during "Change Your Mind", when Steven's Armor-Piercing Question leads her to realize that not only was her strict enforcement of White Diamond's ruthless policies the very catalyst for Pink Diamond's rebellion, but that same doctrine has led her to attack Blue Diamond. This time, she finally breaks down and progresses to a full Heel–Face Turn.
  • In "I Am My Monster," she laments that her mistreatment of Pink and Steven led to Steven becoming Corrupted. Connie tells her and the others to pull herself together.
• My Greatest Failure: In "Reunited", it's revealed that she didn't believe that Pink was ready for a colony, but she gave it to her anyway so she'd stop whining. Pink seemingly gets shattered because of this, and Yellow's been carrying the guilt of being responsible for the circumstances of her family member's apparent death for 5,000 years since.
  Yellow Diamond: How miserable. I knew Pink couldn't handle her own colony. But I gave in, and now, I'm to blame for her fate.
• Never Be Hurt Again: She wants to destroy everything related to Pink Diamond with the full intention that she and Blue Diamond will stop grieving over her.
• Never My Fault: One of Yellow's many flaws, and to further drive the point home that not even the Diamonds are anywhere near flawless. While she does have legitimate reason to be angry at "Pink" for faking her death and causing her and Blue to grieve for millennia, she never once takes into conideration that it was her and Blue's treatment of Pink that drove her away, as evident by "Legs From Here to Homeworld" and "Change Your Mind", even telling Steven "Ugh, Pink. How many perfectly adequate Gems did you have us ruin?" in the former episode and outright stating that Pink abandoned them in the latter episode. Subverted as she eventually does realize that it's her fault in a My God, What Have I Done? moment.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • She's so anxious to secure the Cluster that her reconnaissance missions inadvertently draws attention of its existence to the Crystal Gems.
  • Her Revenge Before Reason attitude towards the destruction of Earth (she'd rather see Earth destroyed as revenge for Pink Diamond's shattering than keep it intact and utilize its resources despite the fact that the Gem Homeworld is in critical need of resources) turns Peridot against her, causing her to defy Yellow Diamond and join the Crystal Gems. Peridot would be instrumental in stopping the Cluster.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Yellow (mean) is a short-tempered Bad Boss, Blue (in-between), while initially as bad as Yellow, seems to have Took a Level in Kindness in recent years thanks to Pink Diamond's "death", and Pink (nice) is an All-Loving Hero and a Benevolent Boss who cherishes and wishes to protect organic life.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Even moreso than most other Gems. She endures being thrown by the Cluster while in her ship, punches her way out of the wreckage, and stands tall completely unscathed.
• Noble Demon: While Yellow's normally spiteful and cruel, she displays a nicer side to herself as time goes on. She is always watching over Blue, trying to gauge her reactions and shield her from anything that might upset her unnecessarily. In contrast, Blue doesn't even seem to consider that Yellow is still mourning Pink too, until the latter breaks down at the end of her song "What's the Use of Feeling Blue?". She even stops her attack on the Crystal Gems for Steven when she finds out that he is Pink Diamond, and in "Legs From Here to Homeworld" isn't angry that he doesn't have Pink's memories. In "Change Your Mind", she finally learns the error of Homeworld's ways and drops the "Demon" part, even admitting the only reason she couldn't act on her Being Evil Sucks mentality is fear of White's wrath.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When she finally gave Pink Diamond her own colony, the Earth, Pink ends up loving it and faking her death causing Yellow to grieve for millennia.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Upon seeing Steven again, she immediately goes in for the kill.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Similar to Jasper, her design is a lot more detailed than other characters, with extra lines in her face and neck (this is especially obvious juxtaposed against Yellow Pearl). This is quite effective in making her stand out as someone important, as well as making her overall slightly unsettling to the viewer who had gotten used to the style other characters are drawn in.
• Not Me This Time: Of the two Defense Zircon directly accused of Pink Diamond's shattering, Yellow's actions pegged her as the logical suspect. However, she really didn't have anything to do with Pink's "shattering", and was simply lashing out when accused of killing someone she loved as family.
• Not So Above It All:
  • She admits to Blue in "That Will Be All" that she also misses Pink, having loved her dearly. But she uses it as a point that she and Blue can't let grief cripple them.
  • When Steven says maybe Yellow should try failing to get White's attention, Yellow actually laughs and says she misses "Pink"'s jokes.
  • When Spinel does a handstand and makes a joke about 6000 years not being a very long time in the Movie, Yellow Diamond suddenly bursts out laughing. Of-course, she actually does think 6000 years isn't very long, but she laughs at it like it's the first joke she's ever gotten.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Peridot describes her as the epitome of logic and calculated reasoning. While at first glance she appears to fit the part, as her argument with Peridot wears on, Yellow Diamond begins to lose her cool, to the point where her voice starts breaking. As mentioned above, she also reveals that her interest in the Cluster isn't so much scientific, as it is petty vengeance against Earth itself.
  • At the end of her Villain Song, she comes very close to outright breaking down from her grief over Pink Diamond's death.
  • In "The Trial", she displays anger when Defense Zircon starts to point out the various flaws with Pink Diamond's death, and getting accused of it along with Blue Diamond leads to her promptly poofing both Defense and Prosecuting Zircon. Given the reveal she truly was innocent of the crime, it was likely the latter more than the former that enraged her.
  • She's visibly distressed upon finding out that Steven/Rose is Pink Diamond and has a visible look of concern on her face.
  • She actually cries after having a Heel Realization in "Change Your Mind", without Blue doing anything to cause it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When Peridot called her a clod, Yellow Diamond looked absolutely furious before trying to blow her up. When the Defense Zircon accused her of shattering Pink Diamond, her expression remained neutral as she got to her feet... and promptly started poofing both her and the Prosecution Zircon.
  • A positive example happens in "Reunited", in which she has a visible look of concern on her face for Steven when she discovers that he is Pink Diamond. Yellow hasn't even shown that much concern for Blue (or in this case, Pink herself) before. The revelation that Rose Quartz is Pink Diamond leaves her so stunned that she is left speechless.
  • She finally breaks down in tears in "Change Your Mind" upon her Heel Realization, and assumes that it's Blue making her do it. Blue tells her she isn't.
• One-Hit Kill: She can emit a yellow Agony Beam from her hands that poofs a gem with one shot if it connects.

P-Y

• Perpetual Frowner: Is almost never seen without an angry scowl on her face.
• Personality Powers: Yellow's Signature Move is a bolt of electricity that destabilizes a regular Gem's form instantly and inflicts pain onto her fellow Diamonds. This reflects her cool and efficient way of managing her Gems and her tendency to lash out whenever her authority is questioned or whenever someone tries getting her to open up. Between her Heel–Face Turn in "Change Your Mind" and "Homeworld Bound", she eventually learned how to alter a Gem to their preferred state, showing that not only has she learned to look past physical appearance, but has developed a cause in undoing her inhumane experiments.
• Pet the Dog: For all the tyrant she is, even she's not without moments of kindness.
  • A small note — she seems to treat Yellow Pearl well, compared to her treatment of Peridot. She politely asks her who's calling on the Diamond line and then calmly takes over the call from there. She even allows Yellow Pearl to speak to her in an annoyed tone (albeit her attitude wasn't towards Yellow Diamond). Going back to Peridot, YD was perfectly willing to send a ship to get her before she called her a clod.
  • Her Villain Song in "That Will Be All" is basically her trying to snap Blue Diamond out of her depression and to convince her to move forwards. She even asks the Pearls to sing to Blue Diamond to help her feel better. It's also implied she genuinely misses Pink Diamond too. And when Sapphire makes up a false story on getting more humans for Pink Diamond's human zoos, she's inspired to come up with a solution to remedy Blue Diamond's grief (though possibly at the cost of Earth).
  • During "The Trial", Yellow clearly didn't take it as seriously as Blue did and simply wanted to punish 'Rose' as quickly as possible. Given how hard she tries to lock down her feelings, and how she blames herself for Pink's death, that trial was probably extremely painful for her. It's possible that just like her interest in getting more humans off Earth in "That Will Be All", Yellow's only there because it interests Blue and gets her to act.
    • When Blue Diamond's composure breaks during the trial, Yellow puts her hands on her shoulders and calls a recess, long enough for Blue to pull herself together.
  • In hindsight, her keeping Jasper and giving her a high rank and status in her court are this, given Yellow views the rest of the Earth-born Gems with disgust and it's implied Blue Diamond's desire to preserve Pink's things is the only reason any of them are still around. Of course, there's also the fact a completely perfect and incredibly powerful "Ultimate Quartz" stronger than a Topaz isn't exactly easy to come by.
  • "Legs From Here to Homeworld" has her take a level in kindness.
    • She's willing to work with the Crystal Gems to heal the corrupted Gems and is even willing to face White Diamond's wrath to ask for her help, all because Steven asked her to.
    • When the topic of White Diamond comes up, Blue is upset at even the mention of her name. Pearl explains to Steven that White isn't like any other Gems, nor even like "them", the Diamonds, and the camera pans back up to Blue looking distressed and Yellow, a supportive hand on her shoulder, looking at her with understanding.
    • Given that she comforts Blue when discussing White Diamond, braces herself as they reach Homeworld, and takes the lead and intends to do the talking (and therefore draw the ire) of White, it appears that when the Diamonds interact Yellow puts herself between the sensitive Blue, weird silly "Pink", and the one Diamond unquestionably scarier and more powerful than they are.
  • In "Familiar", she wishes Steven good luck in reaching out to White Diamond, and notes that Pink always managed to make her laugh.
  • In "Change Your Mind", when Steven tries breaking the ice between the Diamonds and the Off Colors, Yellow actually tries to smile.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Implied to be the reason she took Jasper and treats her far better than any of the other Earth-born Gems (who all went to Blue Diamond and are implied to have been on the chopping block otherwise): Jasper is completely perfect and far more powerful than any regular Quartz (even more so than a Topaz). As much as Yellow hates the Earth, those aren't easy to come by. Also, she didn't wipe out life on the Jungle Moon Base because it wasn't necessary for the colony.
  • Yellow is an interesting version of this; most people wouldn't kill because they think it's wrong. Yellow doesn't shatter a Gem as long as they're still useful. When Steven shows her and Blue how the Gems have been corrupted on Earth, Yellow considers it a waste rather than being remorseful for causing so much death and suffering. Basically she has a hard time understanding something existing for the sake of it rather than serving a specific purpose.
    Yellow Diamond: An army has a use, it can go and fight a war. A Sapphire has a use, she can tell you what it's for. An Agate terrifies, a Lapis terraforms...
• Psycho Electro: Somewhat downplayed, since she isn't exactly crazy and psychotic. However, she is still a narcissistic genocidal tyrant who clearly has a very bad case of a Hair-Trigger Temper and her aura and powers usually take the form of yellow lightning. She very much subverts this by the end of the series.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: She has a tendency to speak this way when she's losing her temper.
  Yellow Diamond: "You. Are out. Of line."
  "You are to leave the Cluster to grow. It will tear apart the Earth, and I will take immense satisfaction in erasing that hideous rock off of our star maps! Is! That! CLEAR?!?"
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: Her desire for Earth's destruction is based more on grief than pure disgust or spite; she wants to wipe out anything that reminds her of Pink Diamond.
• Quit Your Whining: Her Villain Song, "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)?", at its core, is Yellow Diamond's hard-worded yet well-meaning attempt to get Blue Diamond to stop grieving for Pink Diamond and go back to leading Homeworld.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives a scathing one to Peridot when she tries to argue to spare Earth and questions her. Which then gets turned on her.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Before turning into a Bad Boss. She accepts Peridot's reason for using the Diamond line, thanks her for her report and tells her that she'll send her a ship shortly. Even when Peridot says that she crashed the ship herself, the worst Yellow Diamond says is that she'll inform Peridot's manager of her incompetence (which is entirely reasonable, since by omitting any mention of the Crystal Gems, Peridot made it sound like she lost a valuable ship through sheer negligence).
  • "Jungle Moon" reveals she was also this towards Pink Diamond. She was perfectly willing to let Pink watch her invade a planet to build a new Gem colony, and she only snaps at her after Pink messes with her communicator and throws a tantrum over not having her own colony. Considering how Yellow treats other Gems under her command, that is a major improvement.
• Red Herring: When Blue Zircon concludes that only a Diamond could have enabled Pink Diamond's assassination, Yellow begins destroying all witnesses and demands "Rose's" swift execution. Coupled with her get-on-with-it demeanor during the trial, she's suddenly looking very suspicious. However, Pink Diamond was really "assassinated" by herself. Yellow was completely innocent, was rushing the trial because (as was stated before) she wanted to move on with their lives, and simply enraged at being accused of murdering her own fellow Diamond.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Yellow is aggressive and quick-tempered, compared to Blue who is mostly melancholic these days.
  • Both she and Blue serve as the blue to Pink's red, as they are more serious and less exitable than she is.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Even after accepting Steven as Pink Diamond, she continues to have an attitude towards him, though it's still an improvement on how she treated Pink.
• The Resenter: Yellow Diamond has some mild, one-sided rivalry with Steven/Pink Diamond. In "Familiar", she's resentful that White Diamond met with Steven/"Pink" but hasn't given her an audience in ages, despite the many planets she's conquered.
• Retired Badass: In-between "Change Your Mind" and The Movie, Yellow admits to having disbanded her armies and liberated her colonies.
• Revenge Before Reason: Homeworld is starting to lose access to vital resources, and Earth could potentially help the empire in unique ways. But Earth is also the place where Rose Quartz's rebellion was focused, and a symbol of what Pink Diamond was killed over, so Yellow Diamond wants the planet destroyed, regardless of whatever resources Homeworld could harvest out of it.
• Rule of Symbolism: White Diamond summarizes her personality towards her relationship to the light spectrum.
  White Diamond: Poor Yellow. Her impurities absorb all the blue in her light. She's so strong, but so weak when it comes to blue.
• Shadow Archetype: She is this to Dr. Maheswaran, being what would happen if she refused to relent on controlling her daughter, basically allowing Pink to be indirectly destroyed just because she still thought she was doing what's best for her.
• Shock and Awe: She has the power of lightning. She's capable of firing electricity from her hands potent enough to poof a Gem in one hit in similar fashion to the Gem Disruptor weapons. It's likely the Gem Disruptors are based on her power in the first place, especially since similar patterns of energy appear on Gems affected by each.
• Shoulders of Doom: Wide and pointy, like pauldrons.
• Sigil Spam: A yellow Gem can be seen on the mural in "Serious Steven", surrounded by a sun symbol. The Gem disruption devices that Jasper and Peridot use are yellow, and the prison cells in their ships are guarded by a yellow energy force field.
  • She also favors the Era-2 Great Diamond Authority symbol — the tripartite version consisting of White, Yellow, and Blue triangles — over the Era-1/Era-3 GDA symbol featuring four diamonds.
• Silence, You Fool!: She electrocutes her own prosecuting Zircon for smugly thinking the trial was "over". Having Blue Zircon's defense implicate Yellow herself as a potential suspect in Pink Diamond's murder, rather than sealing a guilty verdict for Rose, and also tipping off Blue Diamond to the fact that someone is trying to cover something up in regard to Pink Diamond's death, Yellow knows this case is anything but closed. She's actually innocent of the deed in question, but her haste and rage simply make her look guilty to all outside observers.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: As it turns out, despite never showing it, she blames herself for Pink's apparent death. And, as of "Change Your Mind", it's clear that she hates having to be so ruthless in punishing those who go against Homeworld's rules, particularly when Blue goes against them.
• Sparing the Aces: Notably, the one Earth-born Gem she actually took for her court and treats with anything other than disdain is the completely perfect "Ultimate Quartz" Jasper.
• Static Electricity: Her method of healing.
• The Stoic: She adheres to literal stoicism as a rather unhealthy coping method for dealing with her own grief over Pink Diamond, by bottling up all of her emotions and repressing them, and destroying everything that will make her bottled feelings rise up and boil over.
• Strong and Skilled: She's this in contrast to the Unskilled, but Strong Blue, being far more mobile and frighteningly decisive in her attacks in what is thus far shown. Justified, as Blue is the leader of the nobility while Yellow is the leader of the military.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Her ability to poof Gems with her Shock and Awe powers is the apparent basis of the Gem Destabilizers.
• Super-Strength: Her physical strength is sufficient to poof a Gem with a poke of her finger or hurl a thick slab of wall as big as she is flying with one hand.
• This Is Unforgivable!: She decides that Peridot defying her orders and insulting her warrants Peridot's execution. In "The Trial", she also decides that Blue Zircon accusing both her and Blue Diamond for orchestrating Pink Diamond's death warranted her being poofed.
• Three-Point Landing: After she emerges from her ship just moments after it was destroyed by the Cluster, she jumps down and executes such a drop.
• Time Dissonance: In The Movie, she refers to 6,000 years as "nothing".
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yellow Diamond has been compared to a businesswoman, wears huge shoulder pads, pants and Power Hair, and isn't talented at remaining stoic. Blue Diamond herself is introduced (in a flashback) wearing a cloak and gown and sitting on a throne like a traditional queen and always speaks calmly even when she's losing her (very short) temper and ordering an execution.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Downplayed, but she does lighten up a little after reuniting with Pink Diamond (as Steven). She's also shown to be much more cheerful and social while curing Corruption alongside Blue and White near the end of "Change Your Mind".
• Tough Leader Façade: She deals with her grief for Pink Diamond's death by putting on a stoic, logical front, bottling up her grief, and destroying anything related to Pink Diamond.
• Tranquil Fury: When accused of potentially killing Pink Diamond, rather than shouting or growing visibly furious as she typically does, she remains entirely silent before slowly rising to her feet and poofing the Zircon who suggested it. When the truth behind Rose's death is revealed, it becomes clear that Yellow was so offended by the accusation that her immediate response was to violently imprison everyone in the courtroom.
• Trying Not to Cry: Yellow Diamond may pretend she has a heart of stone, but even she can crack like glass.
  • Her body language and voice at the end of her song "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)?" suggests that she is trying to be strong for Blue Diamond's sake, despite her own grief over Pink Diamond's death.
  • Whenever she's affected by Blue's Emotion Bomb, she does her best to resist it.
  • Later, in "Change Your Mind", she struggles visibly to avoid breaking down after her Heel Realization, begging Blue Diamond to stop using her powers... except that Blue isn't using them. That's when Yellow finally starts crying in earnest.
• Tsundere: Type A. While she acts like an abusive Jerkass most of the time, it's clear that she cares deeply about Blue and Pink Diamond, and hates having to punish those who do not conform to Homeworld's ways — she just doesn't admit it.
• Tsurime Eyes: Yellow Diamond's eyes are slanted upwards and is vindictive, ruthless, arrogant, and quick to anger.
• The Un-Favourite: Yellow resents the fact that she works tirelessly on hundreds of Gem bases, yet is unappreciated by White Diamond, who hasn't said so much as two words to her in over a millennium whereas Pink can be invited over for pleasant conversation all while failing to manage even a single colony.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: As far as her own side is concerned. She off-handedly told Pink Diamond to act like she deserved her own army and planet to rule, not realizing Pink was just desperate for her attention and acting out, eventually leading Pink to believe that Yellow and Blue didn't care about her, culminating in Pink leading a rebellion against Homeworld and eventually faking her own death.
• Unwitting Pawn: She's unaware Pink has been playing her and Blue like a violin ever since she grew to love the Earth. It gets a bit sad when you remember she genuinely loves Pink.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: While she doesn't acknowledge it directly like Blue, her thoughts while fighting the Crystal Gems are not of satisfaction at finally crushing the last remnants of the group that caused Pink's alleged death, but of calm reproach to herself for causing the situation in the first place by giving Pink her colony.
• Villainous Breakdown: It all starts with her revenge plan to destroy Earth ruined when the Cluster turns against her, prompting her to personally try to kill Steven. Then, when "Pink Diamond" turns out to be "alive" and returns to Homeworld, with Yellow seemingly forgiving her for her betrayal, she's not the same person Yellow remembers and breaks one of Homeworld's sacred rules, enraging Yellow further. Finally, when Blue Diamond straight-up defies and attacks her to defend Steven, it was the last straw.
• Visual Pun: She represses her emotions and grief for Pink Diamond's death by bottling them up and hardening her own heart, symbolized by her gemstone lying in the center of her armor-like chest.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Seems to have this dynamic with White Diamond, as "Familiar" implies that at least part of the reason for her obsessively conquering new worlds is a bid to get White's attention. She is mildly jealous that "Pink"/Steven was able to get an audience with White despite being a complete failure as a Diamond. In "Change Your Mind", she all but states that her villainy is just an attempt to please White.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She justifies her colonizing many planets as it being for "the sake of the empire".
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Her purpose is to colonize worlds to propagate her Empire, leaving them empty shells unable to support life by the time she's done with them. She does this mainly in a vein attempt to win White's approval. When her fellow Diamond Pink was supposedly killed on Earth, she responds by creating the Cluster to destroy it from the inside out.
• The Worf Effect: Her electrokinesis, which has managed to poof every other Gem she's used it against, was resisted by Blue Diamond and disabled by Steven.
• Workaholic: Implied, by the look she has in the flashback scene with Pink Diamond, while she displays her usual apathy and resolute attitude, for one moment during her work, she smiles. This naturally befits her "businesswoman" aesthetic. According to Pearl, "Yellow Diamond oversees all aspects of Gem production on every single one of her colonies, and when she's not doing that, she's off with her army conquering the next one".
• Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": Has committed multiple genocides, but doesn't view organic life as having worth and sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. Her subjects see the benefits to Gemkind, implying she justifies it by how it profits her people. Her desire to destroy Earth and kill off all life on it, however, is far more personal and the cover story is that it was destroyed as collateral damage to defeat the Rebellion.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Her eyes glow yellow.
• Your Size May Vary: Her first appearance depicted her Pearl as only just coming up to her knee, while her second depicted her as being able to comfortably carry two Pearls in the palm of her hand. The latter scale was kept going onward.
• Number Two: Is the second oldest Diamond and the presumed second highest ranking Gem in Homeworld who leads their military and along with Blue and Pink, is ranked lower than White but still has enough authority and influence in her own right. Although there’s the fact that White only ever let Pink speak with her and doesn’t seem to care much for Yellow and Blue’s endeavors.

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