Fanfic / The Darkness Between Stars

The Darkness Between Stars is a Steven Universe Dark Fic written by A Friendly Irin and Farla (the creator of Flawed Crystals) that attempts to rewrite the canon finale and explores the theme of justice vs idealism.

Set in an Alternate Universe where Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond weren't the same person, Steven and the Crystal Gems must put a stop to the Diamonds and their tyranny. Steven himself is afraid and he isn't sure if he can win this time. Over the course of the story, Steven interacts with the Diamonds and gets a glimpse of what society on Homeworld is really like while grappling with the possibility that he may have to shatter them and that he can't always save everyone.

Can be read here.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: The main goal of this fanfic. Various scenes are added into the fanfic such as for example Steven trying to talk to Yellow Diamond while she's checking on the production on Citrines or a scene where Steven tries to talk to a Homeworld Bismuth.
• Accidental Hero: Even though Stevonnie poofs White Diamond and uses her gem as a shield to protect themselves from Yellow Diamond, it's ultimately Yellow Diamond who shatters White with her thunder powers despite having other means to destroy the heroes.
• Adaptational Heroism: Steven himself gets this due to the fanfic's themes of justice vs idealism, with Steven leaning on the latter side, though he eventually proves himself to be a real hero throughout the story.
• Adaptational Karma: While Blue and Yellow Diamonds were hastily given a chance to side with Steven and White is humilated in canon, this fanfic changes it so that Blue and Yellow Diamonds are bubbled and White Diamond ends up shattered.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: White Diamond no longer has her People Puppet powers and instead has a Compelling Voice.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Diamonds are far worse than in canon due to the reader getting to see behind the curtain in terms of how they run the empire. White Diamond gets this due to her status as a Hate Sink compared to her canon self.
• Alternate Universe Fic:
  • The fanfic takes place in an alternate version of the story where Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz aren't the same person, several of the events retain elements from canon but play out differently and the ending itself is completely different to canon.
  • When asked by Steven what Pink Diamond was actually like, he assumes that she must've been Pink's Pearl, Pearl responds that she isn't Pink Diamond's Pearl like she was canonically, stating that a Diamond class Pearl needs to have a well rounded gem while her's is oblong.
  • Blue Diamond states that she considers the Song of Desolation to be a last resort because it turns any gems exposed to it into monsters that infest the planet. This is in stark contrast to canon where the corruption was an unintended effect of the Diamonds trying to obliterate the remaining Crystal Gems on the planet with their Corrupting Light in retaliation for Pink's death.
• Armour-Piercing Question: When Steven finally calls the Diamonds out on their behavior, he has one to ask of Blue Diamond:
  Steven: How many gems have you shattered?
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond are the main villains of this story and whose actions drive most of the conflict.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Unlike canon, human characters such as Connie and Steven (the latter being half human) bleed as shown during the fight with both Yellow and Blue Diamonds. Connie even has her spine broken when Blue kicks her, though Steven is able to heal her. A few chapters even have a content warning for vomiting.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Steven asks Blue Diamond how many gems she has shattered, she admits that she doesn't know and that she doesn't keep count, before asking if Steven is trying to shame her for her failures.
• Call-Back: The fanfic has a multitude of references to various episodes in the series:
  • When Blue Diamond is explaining how the Song of Desolation works to Steven, he
• Cerebus Retcon: In canon, Steven asking Yellow Pearl to just call him Steven was a lead-up to a one off gag. Here, its established that she is unable to not refer to "Pink Diamond" as anything but a Diamond. Pearl has to intervene and tell Steven that he'll end up breaking Yellow Pearl and the gem will end up in trouble if she winds up with conflict orders. Steven ends up letting it go, even though being referred to as a Diamond makes him uncomfortable.
• Cold Reading: During Chapter 5: Glass Diamond, Connie comes up with a plan that involves using this to convince the Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond that Pink's shattering was an elaborate prank and that he was both Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz.
• Compelling Voice: Unlike canon^note the author admits that White's powers were downgraded from puppet master to this, because they no longer fit her due to her not being an abuse metaphor in this fic., White Diamond's main power is that she can order gems to do whatever she says. After Steven calls out the Diamonds, she orders Steven to die, causing his gem to start killing him until Connie uses Rose's Tears to heal him.
• Dark Fic: Darker than the canon finale, but not as dark as their other work Flawed Crystals. For starters, it has the human characters shed blood and that's before the main protagonists reach Homeworld.
• Death by Adaptation: Due to Pink Diamond already being dead, White Diamond is the only character to actually die in the story.
• Decomposite Character: Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz are not the same person in this fic, due to Pink Diamond being shattered in the past. If anything, the canon explanation is used as part of an Impersonation Gambit by Steven.
• Dual Boss: Steven, Connie and the Crystal Gems have to fight Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond, who proceed to very nearly kill them all before Steven uses Pink Diamond's shards to stop the fight.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After shattering White Diamond and poofing Yellow and Blue Diamonds, Homeworld is finally free from the tyranny of the Diamonds. The epilogue has over the course of several years, Steven eventually shedding his martyr complex and living a normal life with Connie while fixing every corrupted Gem. Bismuth, Garnet and Connie form the Crystal Federation and create a democratic system on Homeworld. Even Jasper gets a happy ending of sorts, being uncorrupted and implied that she'll get to see the other Jaspers again.
• Empty Shell: White Diamond's Pearl is this instead of being directly possessed like in canon. White Diamond "fixing" Centipeetle turns out to be this, though Steven is able to revert this and then calls White out for not actually fixing her corruption.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Inverted with White Diamond. For all of her power, she goes down in one hit from Stevonnie once they're actually able to fight back. Even Jasper was able to put up more of a fight when she did battle with Stevonnie.
• Final Boss: White Diamond only shows up near the end, resets Centipeedle without actually bothering to fix her, nearly kills Steven and is poofed by Stevonnie before being shattered by Yellow Diamond's energy attack.
• Foreshadowing:
  • There are several hints throughout that Yellow Diamond is completely dissatisfied with the way the Great Diamond Authority is run, eventually culminating in her ranting to Steven late in the fic after he calls her selfish.
  • Upon seeing White Diamond, Connie compares her to Atlas holding up the world. When White is shattered by Yellow's lightning, Homeworld falls apart due to White holding the planet together.
• Hate Sink: When White Diamond finally appears during the Era 3 ball, she has no redeeming qualities. After Steven gets her to fix Centipeetle, he realizes that she didn't actually bother to fix her corruption, only resetting her which is reverted by Steven. When Steven finally calls the Diamonds out on their awful behavior, she tries to get Steven to die, driving him to fuse with Connie and poof White Diamond. Unlike Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond, White is the only who is shattered and isn't saved.
• Impersonation Gambit: After Pink's shards are found, Steven ends up having to impersonate Pink Diamond due to her shards creating an aura. This allows the heroes to trick the Diamonds into thinking that Steven is Pink Diamond. When it becomes clear that carrying Pink's shards in a box is impractical in the long run, Pearl creates a replica of Pink's dress, allowing Steven to hide Pink's shards in the dress.
• Killed Off for Real: When Pearl explains to Steven what really happened to Pink Diamond, it's revealed that Pearl shattered Pink Diamond. The only other character who dies is White Diamond.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Once White Diamond is shattered, Homeworld starts tearing itself apart. It turns out that White Diamond was holding the planet together. Her palace collapses and the other two Diamonds are poofed, allowing the heroes to bubble them.
• Moral Myopia: Blue Diamond believes that nobody understands her grief yet hypocritically has no problem with shattering other gems for upsetting her. Several of the characters call Blue Diamond out on her self-centered pity, pointing out that she has no right to claim that others don't understand her pain when she doesn't even try to understand all the gems she's shattered.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Steven's speech to White Diamond, showcasing how far he's grown:
  Steven: “It’s no trick. We’re more than you think we are, and you’re not perfect yourself! We can do things we weren’t made for. We can become better instead of pretending we’ve always been perfect. And we will! You think we have Homeworld under control, but the truth is, rebels are everywhere! There are off-colors and fusions living just beneath the surface, learning how to live their own lives, and people are gonna keep joining them. You can’t keep everyone down forever! People keep realizing this isn’t the way things need to be – that this isn’t the way things should be –”
• Ordered to Die: After making it clear that he doesn't want to shatter White, she has this to say:
  White Diamond: “You are correct, Rose Quartz, it will not end that way. Your little game, the mockery you have made of our empire and our authority, ends here and now. You believed you knew better than us. You believed you could defy us. You believed yourself better than what you were. All these things you told yourself and all the gems you perverted. All were lies. You are and were always our gem, to use and to discard as we pleased, and now, you will obey your final order: Die.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Garnet is a normally stoic gem who aside from a few occasions can always be counted on to keep a cool head in any situation. After Steven manages to narrowly prevent him and the others from being killed, Garnet is overcome with fear and dread because she rightfully fears the possibility that the Diamonds could shatter them.
• Painting the Medium: When Blue Diamond and White Diamond use their powers, their speech is bold.
• Rage Breaking Point: After having to put with the Diamonds trying to kill him, then actually getting to see how awfully they treat him after thinking he's Pink Diamond in addition to seeing how Homeworld Gems suffer under their rule, Steven finally has enough:
  Steven: “THE REBELLION WASN’T A JOKE!”
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: After Steven accuses Yellow Diamond of being selfish, Yellow Diamond points out that he abandoned the other Diamonds by pretending to be shattered, ended up leaving a mess that Yellow had to clean up and that she's had to do everything herself because Blue Diamond and White Diamond would rather shirk their duties to the empire to grieve over Pink Diamond then pull their weight and help her. All of this would be correct except that Pink Diamond was shattered centuries ago and that Steven has spent most of the story impersonating her to get close to the other Diamonds.
• Save the Villain: Deconstructed. Steven believes that if he just reasons with the Diamonds enough, they'll help uncorrupt all the corrupted gems and stop their awful actions. It's shown that the Diamonds are awful, even when they try to do good things such as sending all corrupted gems to "Pink" or complying with their other requests. At Throughout the story, Steven is opposed by Connie or Bismuth, who believe that the Diamonds are irredeemable. For what it's worth, Steven and the gems do end up saving Blue and Yellow Diamonds by taking their gems and bubbling them and unlike the other gems, they're never released or have their gems fixed.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond's final fate is to end up bubbled.
• Super Breeding Program: In an attempt to hopefully convince Yellow Diamond to help him uncorrupt the gems on Earth, he learns from Yellow Diamond that she created a system designed to efficiently create and search out ideal gems while weeding out defective ones. Steven eventually manages to convince Yellow to send all defective gems to him in future (hoping he can save them).
• Take That!: Though an Alternate Universe Fic, the story follows the canon plotline quite closely, with several scenes being direct analogues but portrayed very differently, with characters pointing out how awful and morally bankrupt Steven would be if he behaved the way he did in canon. Particular examples include:
  • The canon twist of Rose Quartz secretly being Pink Diamond is called out as absurd and impossible on multiple levels, with the Crystal Gems ending up shocked that the diamonds are stupid enough to believe it when they come up with it themselves.
  • Connie performing a similar maneuver against Blue Diamond as she did in canon results in her being swatted like a fly by the titan, gruesomely injuring and nearly killing her. Bismuth also points out how irresponsible it is to let her fight alongside the Crystal Gems at all when, as a human, she is so much more vulnerable.
• The Social Darwinist: Yellow Diamond serves as this due to her eugenicist policies. During a routine check on the newly emerged gems, Yellow reveals that she has a system created so she can quickly get rid of gems she views as defective.
• Take a Third Option: Throughout the story, Steven is told that he'll have to shatter all of the Diamonds to free Homeworld of their tyranny, but Steven believes that if he reasons with them enough, he can avert his current dilemma and if it doesn't work out, he can simply bubble them. In the end, Steven shatters White Diamond but goes back to save the other 2 Diamonds so he can bubble them, effectively allowing him to fulfill both options.
• Team Mercy vs. Team Murder: Steven wants to talk things out with the Diamonds and bubble them as a last resort. On the other hand, certain characters such as Bismuth and Connie believe that the Diamonds are irredeemable and that shattering them would liberate gemkind. Despite Steven's attempts to reason with them while impersonating Pink Diamond, the Diamonds prove unwilling to change their mind. White Diamond in particular is a Hate Sink and is the only Diamond who ends up shattered. When her death ends up causing the Diamond palaces to crumble due to White holding Homeworld together, Steven still insists on saving both Yellow and Blue Diamonds, and ends up managing to bubble them. By story's end, Blue and Yellow Diamonds stay bubbled while Steven spends his days tireless uncorrupting the Corrupted Gems on Earth.
• This Cannot Be!: After Connie heals Steven's gem with Rose's Tears , White Diamond is completely unable to fathom the idea that a gem could disobey her. Cue Villainous Breakdown.
• Time Skip: The epilogue takes place over several years after the fall of the Great Diamond Authority.
• Villain Has a Point: Despite the Diamonds being nothing but despotic dictators, even they have a few valid points.
  • White Diamond cuts through the other Diamonds' sentimentality to point out how dangerous "Pink"'s prank is to the structure of a caste society:
    White Diamond: “This is important, Blue. If there is a way to change a gem, that is… concerning. You understand, yes? If gems can take other gems’ identities, it could invite chaos to the whole empire. Imagine if Pink’s little prank happened in reverse? A quartz pretending to be one of us?”
  • Yellow Diamond points out that the other Diamonds retreating from their work to throw pity parties for themselves has been disastrous. Someone has to make sure the trains still run on time.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • When Steven calls Yellow Diamond selfish for her eugenicist policies, she snaps, going on a rant about the stresses she's endured since the other Diamonds threw in the towel.
    Yellow Diamond: I’m selfish? I’m selfish?! After you [Pink] abandoned us, left me behind to clean up your mess?! You have no idea how much I’ve done – how much I’ve had to do because of what you did! We can’t all run off and pretend to be shattered or mope around crying all the time or lock ourselves up and pretend the world doesn’t exist no matter how much we want to! Someone has to do the work! Someone has to put the empire over their own whims! Someone has to keep resources moving and keep gems in line and take everyone’s whiny, idiot calls all the time because no one else is bothering to do their jobs and, and, and…! Everything – everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for the empire.”
  • After Steven survives White Diamond's final order and throws her perfectionist ideology back in her face, White Diamond loses it and tries to Murder-Suicide all of Homeworld.
  • After Stevonnie poofs White Diamond, Blue Diamond panics and screams at Yellow Diamond to do something because she believes they intend to shatter White's gem.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Chapter 4: Now We're Only Falling Apart and Chapter 8: Unfamiliar have a content warning at the beginning due to Connie vomiting after being swatted aside by Blue Diamond, and Steven vomiting after being directly exposed to Pink Diamond's shards while wearing a dress resembling hers respectively.
• Walking Spoiler: Though talking to White Diamond is one of Steven's goals, most of the mentions about her fall under this due to her status as Final Boss.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: After lunging at Steven, Connie and the gems when her final order fails to shatter Steven's gem, she blames him for losing control of herself.

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