Fridge Horror / Steven Universe

This is the page for Fridge Horror in Steven Universe. For Fridge Brilliance and Fridge Logic, see the Fridge Brilliance page and Headscratchers.Steven Universe respectively. For Steven Universe: Future, see the Fridge page for that series.

Warning: All spoilers are unmarked. It is highly recommended that you keep up with each new episode before reading these sheets.

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General

• The fact that Pearls are made not only to exclusively be a servant race, but a highly objectified one at that. As Peridot said they're literally made to stand around and look pretty, like a trophy wife. There's a creepy undercurrent to Yellow Pearl's snootiness (she's haughty about being enslaved) or Blue Pearl's meekness. The fact that the Gems are mono-sex (essentially space lesbians) oddly makes this creepier, since it's chauvinism from within.
  • Why are Pearls made to look like their owners? Besides showing off their owners, it makes them easier to identify if they try to run away. Say Yellow Pearl tries to run away from her Diamond and Jasper comes upon her. An ownerless Pearl? No big deal, she's Yellow Diamond's, and I can just return her, no different than returning a lost dog.
  • "A Single Pale Rose" implies that Pearls are physically incapable of disobeying direct orders from their owners. Imagine some of the terrible things Pearls have been forced to do on behalf of their masters. Worse yet, the case of CG!Pearl shows that these commands can remain in effect seemingly forever, even once the owner is dead and gone.
• Connie and her loneliness. If she hadn't met Steven, would this have developed into depression? What she said about only her parents noticing if she were to die was rather concerning...
  • There are a couple of moments that suggest that Connie's mother is an awful person, most notably treating parental love as a shut-down and complimenting the Gems on its use after they hand down a thousand year punishment on Steven. The idea that Connie was so distressed over what her parents would do to her that she attempted to run away with her only friend never crosses her mind, and learns nothing from the experience because she has the exact same problem later in the hospital episode.
• All of the Gems have been pretty gravely unsettled by the loss of Rose, with Pearl being hit hardest by her deeply personal relations with her, going into a pretty severe breakdown when her Rose button gets pushed. Now think about how long Gems are implied to live for (at least 6,000 years old and showing no signs of decay) and how hard it seemingly is for the Gems to adopt new ideas (they're still totally clueless about earth culture). It could be a millennium before this wound begins to heal.
• Steven, being half Gem, will likely outlive his father and all his fully human friends.
  • Maybe he realizes this and, taking a page from his mother's book, doesn't let it bother him.
  • Worse Fridge Horror: Steven's physical age is tied to his mental age and when he starts thinking like an adult, he physically starts aging. This could mean that the trauma of having to watch his friends pass away one by one will eventually end up aging him to the point of death...
• Some have discussed the possibility of Rose regenerating from her gem after Steven dies. But upon regenerating, she will immediately realize what this means. As an all-loving being and a mother, this will destroy her.
  • If Steven can't age, this can means two scenarios involving Steven being killed. One where the Gems failed to protect him, which will devastate them on-top of having to face Rose with their failure. The second is where they all died during a mission or while trying to protect Steven and Rose regenerates surrounded by the sight of her dead loved ones.
• We've been given to understand that Gems really only make sustained changes to their appearances when they 'die', retreat into their gem, and regenerate. The fact that all of the Crystal Gems look different in the flashbacks in "A Story for Steven" means that each of them has died at least once during Steven's lifetime.
  • Possibly twice. When we see Pearl regenerate in "Steven the Sword Fighter", Pearl appears to turn briefly into her form from the Pilot. So that means she used to be that Pearl as well.
    • Or, like in So Many Birthdays, they grew up for him.
    • That's unlikely, considering how they seem to be surprised about how Steven's age fluctuates based on his state of mind, implying it's not a normal thing for Gems. But it does bring about another tragic interpretation, if true: the Gems "aged" themselves because Rose's death forced them to be "older".
• Bordering between brilliance and horror, but why is Pearl the gem most desperate to leave Earth? Amethyst was born/created on Earth and knows no other life, Garnet is, literally, never alone, but Pearl lost the most important person in her life when Rose Quartz gave up her form. Pearl's been essentially alone ever since.
• What happens to a fusion Gem's consciousness when she's not fused? Is it tucked away in the back of her components' minds? Does she just stop existing until they fuse again?
  • Steven asks this question to Garnet in "Keeping It Together". Garnet clarifies that as long as Ruby and Sapphire continue to love each other, she'll never truly go away.
    • So if the fusion is powered by hate.....
    • Like Lapis with Jasper, that feeling will never go away
• According to Rebecca Sugar in an interview for the book Guide to the Crystal Gems, it's explained that when two Gems of a similar type fuse together the resulting fusion would only be slightly stronger than their component parts (meaning say if Pearl fused with another Pearl the resulting fusion would only be slightly stronger). It's explained that when two Gems of opposite strengths and properties come together it creates a Gem far stronger than the two (such as the case for Garnet and the other Gem fusions who are all noticeably stronger than the originals). With all that in mind consider; Jasper, a Quartz made Gem that was strong enough to go toe to toe with Garnet in a straight up fight and survived being caught in the center of an explosion. Then we have Lapis, a Person of Mass Destruction who stole the Earth's water and was easily able to hold her own against all three of the Crystal Gems. Now imagine how terrifyingly powerful Malachite must be and the damage she could cause if Lapis and Jasper's personalities ever completely meshed...
• The Gem Homeworld's motivations. Why are they so hellbent on expanding their empire? They don't require new resources for their existing society because they're just using other planets to create new Gems. Are they just interested in conquest for the sake of conquest? Building up against some equally terrifying enemy they're at war with? Just some kind of sick game between the Diamonds?
  • This leads to an even bigger case of Fridge Horror. As far as we know, new Gems can only be created by stripping worlds of life. And while they don't age, Gems aren't eternal, at least not with current technology; while something seems to remain no matter how badly broken they get, there's a point beyond which current technology and magic is incapable of repairing them to the point of coherence. (Though Rose was working on it.) Together, these facts imply that if the Gem Homeworld doesn't constantly strip other worlds of life in order to create new Gems, they'll face a slow but inexorable decline and collapse as more and more gems get broken beyond repair in accidents or combat. There may be a few ways out of this (it's unclear if there's a "sustainable" way to create new Gems, or if they can at least strip life from non-sentient worlds), but overall, it paints a very grim picture.
    • A more upbeat side-implication of this realization is that it's possible that Rose's creation of Steven (while obviously a genuine act of love with Greg) also represented her hope of discovering a more sustainable way of creating new Gems, freeing her people from the need to destroy worlds like Earth. Obviously, the process she used to create Steven himself isn't a solution (since it didn't create a new Gem, just re-purposed hers), but it's possible that gem-organic hybrids may have some way of reproducing without destroying worlds.
• Greg's absolute unwillingness to get involved in anything magic hits a lot harder when you realize that this is probably, in part, because magic rules governing Gems meant that his wife had to give up her physical form in order to give "birth" to Steven.
• Why didn't Yellow Diamond just send a Lapis Lazuli to destroy Earth at any point in the past few thousand years? We know that Lapis Gems are capable of unassisted FTL travel (because 'our' Lapis Lazuli traveled from Earth to the Gem Homeworld using just her water wings, without any special technology), and any Lapis is a Person of Mass Destruction on a water world like Earth - again, 'our' Lapis nearly caused a worldwide catastrophe without even meaning to. Given the apparent range of Lapis Lazuli powers, a single Lapis could have easily dropped from space at any time with no backup and caused severe damage.
  • One possibility is that Lapis Gems are, like Sapphires, extraordinarily rare (but not as valuable, because most Gem-controlled worlds have no water.) It's also possible that the Gems didn't realize or appreciate how powerful they are on a water-filled world, although this would require a fairly severe degree of Idiot Ball if they know even the most basic things about Earth's composition and how Lapis powers work. A third possibility is that Yellow Diamond didn't consider it necessary, trusting the corruption and the Cluster to handle things for her.
  • Also, it's very likely that Yellow Diamond lacks authority over Lapis Gems (given that they are blue), and that Blue Diamond doesn't share Yellow Diamond's lust for revenge and is therefore unwilling to devote a (possibly very rare) Lapis to a task she considers unimportant.
  • Another possibility is that "our" Lapis is unusual in some way, either in terms of being capable of FTL travel or having freakishly extreme control over water. It's also possible that a Lapis' control over a world's water increases the more time she spends there or something along those lines, so only a Lapis who had been stuck on Earth for thousands of years could pull the stunts our Lapis did.
  • Our Lapis may be, if not a perfect cut, just generally on a higher level than most based on how Future depicted a fight with others of her kind. More likely, Homeworld may not see Lapis gems as the sort to be used that way and don't really grasp how dangerous they could be in a conquest.
  • Peridot says at one point that because Homeworld is low on resources, Gems born in Era 2 don't have their full range of powers as their Era 1 counterparts, and the powers they do possess are weaker. Our Lapis is obviously an Era 1 Gem, but how many other Era 1 Lapis Lazulis still exist? Homeworld might not have sent another Lapis to handle Earth because they don't have any with that level of power that they can afford to spare.
• It's implied on several occasions that Rose may still be alive and conscious inside Steven's gem, and possibly able to see everything that's happening through it. This isn't the horror part; it's even a bit heartwarming. The horror part is that if that's true, she is watching him all the time, which is going to make his relationship with Connie a bit awkward as they get older.
  • It's even worse. All the times Steven, Greg and the Crystal Gems suffered or were in lethal danger. The fate of her fallen comrades. Steven being almost murdered because HER past came to bite him in the rear. Her friendship with Bismuth broken beyond repair for her dishonesty. The Broken Pedestal moments concerning her in several episodes. She has seen all of that and can do nothing to help or explain herself.
  • Fortunately, this has been Jossed by the series itself. The gem is just another half of Steven now, and doesn't contain Rose's consciousness in any form.
• We've seen corrupted Gems that turn into malicious monsters and shattered shards forced to fused with other pieces that become mismatched assortments of limbs. So what would happen if corrupted Gems were shattered and forced to fuse into clusters?
• While it is stated that World War 2 has not happened in Steven Universe, nothing is said about World War 1. Considering how there is no World War 2, World War 1 could have either been not as bad as in our world, or much worse then our world.
  • One can also notice the literature and slang of the world. Lord of the Flies exists, and (if it the same as our version) could indicate that a conflict did occur. Interestingly, the book refers to an atom bomb. Later in the show, when Connie is talking about nuclear families, Steven freaks out at the term nuclear. These might indicate that even if World War 2 as we know it didn't happen, nuclear weapons still exist.
• Considering that the entire cut of Rose Quartz gems were bubbled because one (allegedly) shattered Pink Diamond, what might have happened to the peridots when one called Yellow Diamond a clod?
  • Given the presence of "Squaridot" in Save the Light, probably nothing.
  • When a new product releases and ends up killing someone (someone recognized and iconic no less) it's pretty logical to recall it. When a reliable product that's been around for ages with minimal incident starts bugging out a bit, it's just a minor issue with one replaceable specimen.
• Dr. Maheswaran is supposed to be a doctor so dedicated to truth, fact, and rules that she won't even let her daughter watch medical dramas because they're not medically accurate, but... she can't even tell a human being from a Gem mutant, after multiple avenues of examination, including seeing that it doesn't have a head and blames its lack of heartbeat on a faulty stethoscope, which really shouldn't even be possible if the one she's using is "cheap". (Electronic ones can malfunction or be tuned incorrectly, but they're more expensive than the analog variety she uses, and unless the thing is in pieces, the only way for it to pick up nothing would be for the laws of physics to stop working.) She's a surgeon. If she doesn't think people need heads to live, what happens to her regular patients?
• Greg and Pearl agree that Rose "always did what she wanted". Almost every episode involves Steven ignoring rules or boundaries or the wants of others because, for good or ill, it's what he wants to do, and it causes as many problems as it solves. He takes after his mom! Imagine what it would do if what Steven wanted wasn't in the best interest of others...
• We know that Greg didn't have much income until he got his royalty check. He maintains his van because he lives there and likely grew a beard because he couldn't afford shaving and supporting Steven. He didn't even have health insurance because after Lapis first left earth, he was using a ruler to set a broken leg. Steven's financial support was hanging by a thread for a good part of the show.
• There doesn't seem to be any way to actually kill a Gem. Shattered Gem shards still have fractured consciousness, and even ground up dust is still alive in some sense as shown in Together Breakfast. Doing anything to "kill" a Gem seems to just subject them to an eternal And I Must Scream.
• The series has invoked Padparadscha having Heart Is an Awesome Power by way of her 'faulty predictions' actually still being surprisingly accurate, thus allowing others to pick up on details they might have initially missed (such as Lars pressing the wrong button or how she revealed to Garnet the latter being unknowingly insensitive). Imagine if Homeworld managed to use her to find out Pink Diamond's identity as Rose Quartz much earlier, or worse, found it out after they sicced corruption on the Crystal Gems on Earth...
• The sheer amount of corrupted monsters and gem artifacts on Earth, so many that even after thousands of years the Crystal Gems are still constantly dealing with them. Just how many causalities did the war for Earth create? How long will it take until the Crystal Gems would have completely cleared the Earth of those things short of a mass cure event as would happen later?
• Though the Great Diamond Authority did horrible things throughout the series, shattering them wouldn't have done anything but make things worse in the long run. For starters, who would even replace them? It's highly unlikely that Homeworld citizens are even capable of living in an anarchic society due to the Diamonds conditioning it out of them and any attempts would've been crushed rather quickly due to Homeworld's superior law enforcement.

Then there's the possibility that Homeworld forces would cotton onto the death of their superiors, promoting a full on attack against Steven and the Crystal Gems, which would up with imprisonment at best and execution/shattering at absolute worst. That's not counting the idea that the Diamonds would order their troops to lay waste to Homeworld so the Crystal Gems can't have it or any other potential contingency plans. That's before Homeworld descends into utter chaos with Diamond loyalists and independent opportunists using this power vacuum to either continue where the Diamonds left off or establishing their own reign of terror.It's possible that Homeworld ends up going to war with Earth, which eventually ends in their loss due to lack of resources, the Diamonds being shattered (making death permanent) and decades of human technological advancement. If the remaining Homeworld gems are corrupted, then curing them is no longer possible and if humanity gets it in their collective heads that they can invade Homeworld, then it's likely that the days of what remains of Homeworld are numbered, leading to either enslavement or death at the hand of mankind.

• Alternately, bubbling the Diamonds leads to an outcome where Diamond loyalists start a war, free the Diamonds and either allow them to continue their cycle of tyranny or decide they actually enjoy being tyrants themselves and refuse to hand power over, leading to a civil war with many casualties.
  • In either scenario, Steven and the Crystal Gems are going to have to fight their way out. If they lose, they end up dead. If they win, they'll have to watch their backs for the rest of their days due to gems who likely want to shatter them as retribution for overthrowing the Great Diamond Authority.
• If the Cluster Gems were enough to horrify Garnet and strong enough to stand against Steven and Connie, then just how horrific and powerful would a Diamond Cluster fusion be? Or what if the Diamonds had corrupted and what would the consequences be?
• Considering how Steven's mental state plummets immensely during Steven Universe: Future, it's actually very fortunate that he never corrupted during the original series. One could only wonder how badly things would've gone for him if he now had to deal with the fear and pain of realizing that his gem is beginning to corrupt.

Season 1

Together Breakfast

• Pearl's comment on possessing organic matter. The spirit had tried to take over Steven and with Word of God the scroll is implied to be the trapped spirits of Gems. Just what the hell is wrong with Homeworld and making Fate Worse than Death for their gems.
  • If Steven didn't happen to be holding the Together Breakfast when the spirit attacked, he would've been possessed by the spirit meaning the Gems would've been forced to fight Steven until either the spirit released him or killed him.
  • It brings up an even more disturbing question of why there would be a tool used to possess organics, which they despise and see as the pest and scum of the universe.
  • In The Return, Greg mentioned that many humans died during the Rebellion and neither Jasper nor Bismuth seemed surprised to see a human (Steven) among the Crystal Gems, suggesting that humans did fight alongside the Crystal Gems against Homeworld. In this case, Homeworld could have used the scroll or similar tools to seize control of humans, have them slip into the rebel's ranks and attack them once their guard was let down.

Frybo

• Think about the Gem shards. We missed out on most of Pearl's lecture about them, but based on their behavior and what we've learned since...it seriously sounds as though, during the war, a general took a Gem and shattered it, choosing to use its pieces to animate a giant army of slave-armour. But then, with what little remained of the Gem's shattered consciousness, the shards turned on its murderer, attacking and killing everything in its path.

Serious Steven

• Whilst inside the pyramid trap, Steven experiences severe vertigo and nausea anytime the traps rotate and reconfigure. He figures out that this is why they keep going in circles, but the Gems never experience this sensation. We find out why courtesy of Peridot MUCH later on in the series, who explains that as a race of world conquistadors Gems automatically adapt to gravity on all kinds of planetoids. This means their bodies wouldn't have even noticed changes, as they would have adapted to them automatically.

Giant Woman

• The stomach of the Big Bird had a lot of Gems inside of it...
  • We also see at least two human skeletons. How many people have been killed by Corrupted Gems throughout history?!

Tiger Millionaire

• Pretty much all the in ring action. Wrestling is something that relies a lot on communication between the wrestlers, to avoid actually hurting someone. All Amethyst does is slam or punch people without warning, which would already be incredibly dangerous even without the addition of her genuinely superhuman strength.
  • I imagine it's called an underground wrestling circuit for a reason.

So Many Birthdays

• The Gems honestly don't know what effect Steven's death will have on Rose's gem. It could release her, or kill her.
• Steven has to explain to the Gems what his dad does for him every birthday. How could the Gems not know? Have they never been to any of Steven's birthday parties? And then you realize it's also the anniversary of Rose's death.
• Since Steven's physical age is related to his mental age, and a later episode shows that Steven hasn't aged since he was eight, Steven is functionally immortal under the right circumstances -this could mean that he may outlive his human friends.

Onion Trade

• The fact that Onion nearly destroyed the town out of sheer boredom.

Steven the Sword Fighter

• Pearl dying (temporarily) in front of Steven was horrifying enough, but she's also his Parental Substitute and is essentially his mother in everything but name. Losing her, however brief the period of time, echoes the biggest loss in Steven's life: the loss of Rose Quartz, his birth mother.

Rose's Room

• Pearl is quite horrified when Steven tells the Gems that he accidentally caused Rose's room to simulate all of Beach city, and is extremely relieved he's not hurt. If you think about what dangers misusing the room could result in, her fear is quite reasonable.
  • At the end, when the room is glitching out, Steven is just left falling through space when he makes a last wish that he wants to be back with the Gems, causing a door to open beneath him back to the real world. Pearl then mentions that the room can't handle simulating an entire city. Assuming if whatever magic the room runs ran out or broke down, would that have left Steven falling through space for eternity?

Coach Steven

• Why was Pearl so upset about not being strong enough to protect anyone? "Sworn to the Sword" shows that, in battle, Pearl would throw herself in Rose's way to protect her and take on the approaching enemy herself...but was so small and fragile that she died instantly every time. It's quite possible that Sugilite's near-fatal beatdown of Pearl brought up flashbacks of those days in the war when Pearl couldn't even put up a sliver of a fight to protect Rose.

Steven and the Stevens

• The alternate Stevens composed and performed a very upbeat song about how they are Steven and the Stevens, and they are going to make you smile. The episode ends with a Dark Reprise of that same song, but the lyrics have changed and are about Steven learning to be true to himself after watching himself die. Then you realize that this new Steven never got to hear the original version and does not know he's singing a reprise. Technically, he just happened to compose a song that happens to be almost identical to a song that was composed by his now deceased alternate selves, and the original is now lost to the sands of time.
• All the alternate Stevens melted to death. Unlike most variations of this story, those weren't just clones created from a magical or scientific source. Those were all real, but alternate, versions of Steven.
• What happened to the alternate universes from where the other Stevens came? Either they're all now missing a Steven or they collapsed when the time orb was destroyed. If it's the former, then Steven's friends and family will never know where he disappeared to, with the Gems and Greg most likely entering a Heroic BSoD due to the loss of their protege/son. If it's the latter, then it's entirely possible the other universes disintegrated in the same way the Stevens did, meaning everyone in them melted to death without knowing why it was happening.
• The hourglass shows that homeworld had already invented time travel before invading the Earth. After thousands of years of technological development, what kind of advanced time-controlling technology do they have now?

Monster Buddies

Mirror Gem

• Now that we've seen Homeworld and seen that their walls and daily objects are in fact fully sentient gems, it sheds a whole new light on the Crystal Gems having the mirror and the ways they regarded it. Particularly, the fact that they're surprised the mirror has sentience implies that either Homeworld used to be able to create non-sentient gems to fill these roles, or that the objectification is so ingrained that even the rebellion never bothered to consider them.
  • It also implies that imprisoning a gem in that manner may have once been considered such cruel and unusual treatment that it wouldn't even cross their minds that this may be the case with the mirror. And it's all but outright stated that it's our Bismuth who imprisoned her in the first place...
  • If a shift from non-sentient to sentient object gems happened in the time since the war, that may add another layer on to why Lapis was so horrified at what had become of Homeworld - she had to witness who knows how many gems in the same situation she had just escaped from.

Ocean Gem

• Did anyone else consider the fight pretty terrifying when you realize it was about our heroes trying to essentially put a Fate Worse than Death onto a youngish Gem who just wanted to go home? Sure, she was using the entire ocean to fight back, but she was using it for self-defense...
  • Considering how they reacted to her escaping, the real question is what they're so scared of that they will never let these gems leave the planet?
    • Later episodes strongly suggest that Homeworld doesn't know that there are any Gems left on Earth, and the Crystal Gems don't want them to find out, even if they have to re-imprison Lapis to keep them from finding out.
  • Remember though, Gem ages "are an illusion". Its doubtful physical appearance would've factored into fighting.
  • The entire ocean went missing. The folks at Beach City just treat it like it'll be a major problem for tourism, but the largest source of the planet's water has just disappeared!
• The revelation that Gem monsters used to be Gems themselves is horrifying enough, but it adds a heaping of horror to "Coach Steven". Pearl seemed concerned that Sugilite would never be pried apart. Could she also have been witnessing her two oldest, best, and only friends in the world on the brink of turning into a monster too? Has she seen this happen before?
  • Considering her forlorn tone of voice when explaining the truth to Steven in "Ocean Gem", it seems quite likely that she has.
    • And you're right. They all, minus Amethyst, saw their comrades and enemies turn into monsters. If it wasn't for Rose's shield...
• Really, everything about Lapis' predicament could be termed fridge horror. She was trapped in a mirror for an unspecified (but probably lengthy, given that it's been thousands of years since the Gem War ended) period of time, fully aware of everything around her but unable to do anything but follow orders. Of course she would freak out at the prospect of being captured again!
• The Gem monsters were all members of the Gem race once. Now mentally replace them with disturbed, traumatized people who may not be able to comprehend what's going on or what's happened to them...if they're lucky.
• Lapis Lazuli's eyes are mirror-like and she, in general, seems far more unstable than she does when she's healed. Why? The fact Gems can be corrupted is revealed by the Gems in response to the reveal of Lapis. What if Lapis was in the process of being corrupted into a monster during the episode, if not because of the damage to her Gem then perhaps her despair. This would also explain why the Gems instantly attack her: it's possible that they view her as already being too far gone to be saved and see it as a Mercy Kill. In addition, imagine what might have happened if Lapis had become a feral monster with her sheer power.
• The ocean withdrew into a pillar, then suddenly was released. The fate of any people on boats/ships might be pretty horrifying. The physics, as far as this troper understands it, would also mean Beach City would be washed away by a tsunami, which did not happen due to either artistic license or Lapis exerting a degree of control over the release, just enough not to hurt Steven's home (that's the argument he used, after all). Either way, it would not be enough for people on ships.
• Remember how Amethyst's crack slowly spread in "An Indirect Kiss", even when her gem had stopped taking damage, and it was implied she was close to death? It's quite possible that, if Steven hadn't healed her, Lapis would have died.
• Seeing how Lapis' gem was damaged and yet she was able to draw all the water from earth's oceans and have pretty darn good control over it, not only does one have to wonder what power she actually wields at full health, but also if the gem's caste system is based not just on rarity but also on their natural-born power, just how strong are the Diamonds if gems like Lapis are lower on the ladder?

Fusion Cuisine

• Garnet's concern for Steven's safety when the Gems are scolding him for trying to run away with Connie is that he could have gotten mangled in traffic, which feels a little out there compared to what Amethyst and Pearl suggested. Given everything we know about Garnet after "Future Vision" however, it's very possible that this would have been the most likely outcome had Alexandrite not intervened.

Future Vision

• Since Garnet can see all possible futures at any given moment, that means she sees tons of outcomes where Steven dies all the time (and futures where she fails and the Gems get hurt or worse). She all but spells this out herself at the end of "Future Vision".
  Steven, I see so many things that can hurt you.

Warp Tour

Space Race

• Pearl described the planets the warp pads lead to as "Gem-Controlled." Not "Gem Inhabited" or even "Gem Colonized" but "Controlled." That's a very specific and ominous choice of words, both for Pearl and the writer.
• Think about the major repercussions Pearl's relationships with Garnet, Amethyst, and Greg could've been had Steven been seriously injured or died.

On The Run

• If a facility like the Kindergarten is capable of churning out hundreds - if not thousands - of Gems based on all those holes, and each one is intended to be as strong as Amethyst, then how formidable would an army of Gems be if a whole planet was mined for raw materials instead of just one canyon?
• The Reveal of Amethyst's creation provides a little bit more: it's more or less confirmed at some point, the Crystal Gems turned on their fellows and protected the Earth...so what about all those Gem Monsters? Are they the Gems the Homeworld Gems made using the Kindergarten? The evil Gems the Crystal Gems were fighting against? Other Gems that sided with them to stop their fellows but ultimately fell? Some combination? All the combinations are equally horrifying when you think about it.
• At the end of "On the Run", it's left ambiguous whether or not the sound we hear is simply the music or one of the machines starting up again...
  • Alternately, Amethyst may have been incomplete when the Kindergarten was shut down, but managed to grow on her own in those 1,000 years and eventually come out long after the facility was shut down and all the other Gems created there had left and died/been corrupted. At least that was the implication that I read into Amethyst being "overcooked runt" according to Jasper. It would also explain how Amethyst managed to avoid the fate of all the other Gems on Earth save for Rose and friends...

Winter Forecast

• Garnet bestows her future vision powers on Steven. He is freaked out after just one instance of experiencing the possibilities and knowing the results of making the wrong choice. Garnet has to live with this all the time, plus the burden of knowing what the consequences are of the wrong choice for everything they do and every mission they undertake.

Maximum Capacity

• "The fight between Greg and Amethyst doesn't reach its peak until Amethyst shapeshifts into Rose, and it's implied she has done it before. What if Greg asked her to look like Rose in order to cope with the loss of his wife, but realized that it was unhealthy and not fair to the young gem? Amethyst probably went with it because she tried to fill the void left by Rose with Greg, but still felt resentment at him.
  • With Greg and Amethyst's fight, she turns into Rose to taunt Greg. What if the comment "Don't worry, Greg, I've seen your junk before" was not as innocent as previously thought?

Marble Madness

Rose's Scabbard

• Garnet lifts an ax that is Sugilite sized. Just how big were some of these Gems!?
  • On a related note, every weapon once belonged to a Gem that died in the battle 5,000 years ago. That means that not only did a lot of Gems die here, but the Gems are essentially graverobbing.
• Look at Pearl's angry expression when she looks back at Steven just before he falls. Does some part of her hate him for taking Rose away from her?
• It's a popular theory that if Steven dies, Rose will be able to regenerate from her gem. Is there a possibility that Pearl might not have been able to bring herself to save Steven after he fell because there was a part of her that thought that she might get Rose back?

The Message

• Lapis' message was a big turning point for that episode, but considering how far Homeworld Gem tech has advanced since she was last there (to the point that their communications technology is damn near incompatible with what the Crystal Gems have), how long do you think it's gonna take for whatever police/military force Homeworld has to realize that they have essentially a mole leaking out troop movements to enemy combatants? And what do you think they're gonna do to her when they catch her? Suddenly her fear of Homeworld seems WAY more justified.

The Return

• The fact that Peridot's ship is in the shape of a hand and it fitting with her recurring Giant Hands of Doom motif has been well documented, but the one time we get to see it from the wrist end, it has a large rectangular slot on the back not unlike an N64 cartridge slot. This begs the question; does this ship have something that fits into it, or does it fit onto something else?
  • On that note, Pearl and the others were instantly able to tell it was a ship, not some sort of hand-shaped monster (which, given everything else they've faced, wouldn't be completely out of the question). This means that they've seen one before, and possibly more, so if it does attach to something, it's not unique. There could be an army of whatever attaches to it.

Jail Break

• While Lapis may have control of the Malachite Fusion, for now, there's no way of telling if she'll be able to maintain it, or for how long (since Gems don't need to breathe, eat, or sleep, they could be down there conceivably forever.) And she and Jasper are right off the coast of Beach City. If Jasper ever manages to wrench control away from Lapis, or manages to defuse themselves, there will be hell to pay for the Crystal Gems.
  • Or worse, how long until they fuse into something that's no longer either personality, like Sugilite could have? Or if the toll of her situation and Jasper's mental influence drives Lapis to break? Imagine how devastatingly powerful a fused Gem monster of Malachite's caliber would be.
  • Even worse, what kind of toll will it end up taking on Jasper? She wasn't particularly stable to begin with, and with this, it's entirely possible she could snap too. And it should be considered that Lapis' influence on Jasper might not be very positive either, given her apparent despair at the time. If Jasper was bad before, what kind of monster could this turn her into?
  • It's increasingly looking like Lapis' sacrifice might have much worse long-term repercussions, than just letting the Crystal Gems fight it out with Jasper. With Fusion there seem to be two main factors between those fusing: Personalities and a sort of emotional resonance. As long as those fused are, more or less, in-sync, the fusion is stable. And while the fusion is going on, the primary personality traits of those involved mesh. Here we have Jasper, a brutal, unstable thug, that has recently faced a humiliating defeat, who has now been imprisoned at the bottom of the ocean. On the other, there's Lapis Lazuli. A traumatized gem, that still hasn't had any of her emotional issues resolved, and who has good reason to resent a great many people. For all that Jasper may be trying to manipulate her, Lapis might have a lot of underlying anger left inside her. So we have the raging Jasper, who might well give into her own despair the longer she's imprisoned at the bottom of the ocean. And Lapis, who has no hope of returning to a home she is familiar with, and could potentially be driven towards a desire towards revenge. That shared anger and despair could actually bring the fusion more tightly together, as their emotional states deteriorate, stabilizing the fusion. And with the level of power that Malachite is implied to possess, we could be looking at an Omnicidal Maniac. And both Lapis and Jasper have a fixation on Steven; Steven is one of the only individuals Lapis cares about and Jasper having transferred her interest in Rose Quartz onto him. So, an Omnicidal Maniac, that's potentially Yandere for the young protagonist.
  • Worse, how do you think Lapis is managing to maintain the fusion at all? Fusions typically require their constituent Gems to be in sync with one another. Obviously, Jasper doesn't want to be jailed at the bottom of the ocean...but would Lapis want to either, even if she's the jailer? Suddenly the two have something that very much unifies them, something that Lapis could exploit to hold it together at her own expense...

Season 2

Full Disclosure

• While it ultimately got resolved by the end of the episode, Steven did bring up a very good point; Connie and others he cares about can and have gotten hurt because of him. Connie nearly drowned when he was fighting Lapis in "Ocean Gem", and his dad broke his leg when Lapis' clone of Steven tossed his van with him in it. How long is it going to take, and how many more people are going to get hurt (or possibly killed) solely because they know him or have gotten involved with Gem stuff, before he finally resolves to break everything off with the people he loves so they can have normal, not dangerous lives? Especially now that the Homeworld Gems are gonna be coming for his blood after the events of "The Return/"Jailbreak".

Say Uncle

Reformed

• The Slinker managed to get into Amethyst's room. How often do monsters invade the temple? How safe are any of the gems in their rooms?

Sworn to the Sword

• Pearl's suicidal protectiveness towards Rose was already hard to watch, but then you remember Rose's powers include an invulnerable bubble and a protective shield. Pearl has probably taken a lot of bullets she didn't need to over the years.
  • Pearl training Connie to be willing to sacrifice her own life may bring to mind comparisons to child soldiers in the Middle East.
  • I just realized something horrifying regarding Pearl's situation with Connie. From what we've seen, Pearl is very devoted to Rose to the point where she basically worships the ground she walks on (and may have a crush on her possibly). So when Rose died to give birth to Steven, Pearl took it VERY hard. Her sometimes overprotective behavior towards Steven as evidenced by the flashback and her emotional outburst in "Sworn To The Sword" is because Steven is Rose's child/reincarnation. What if Pearl was secretly jealous of Connie's friendship with Steven? What if her physical and psychological training Connie to become a sacrifice for Steven was really an indirect attempt of getting rid of an unwanted rival for Steven's (platonic) affections, given how close Connie and Steven are? What if Steven's What the Hell, Hero? speech with Pearl at the end was really Rose calling Pearl out for manipulating an innocent human (especially one that her son/reincarnation deeply treasures) into becoming something akin to an expendable weapon in a war where the enemy is a lot tougher and powerful that even the Crystal Gems had a hard time fighting?
    • Alternatively she saw herself in Connie and wanted her to be to Steven what she was to Rose.
    • Or she saw Steven and Connie's Puppy Love and was trying to recreate her ideal of a relationship with Rose: Steven/Rose as the adored "Lady," Connie/Pearl as the faithful Knight, and no Greg equivalent to come between them.
• Think about what would happen if Connie continued this way of thinking in an actual battle? Not only would she either be injured or died, but the Maheswarans would rightly blame Pearl for this. Pearl would've been indirectly responsible for sending a little girl to her death...
• It's been implied that humans were in the Rebellion, presumably with the Crystal Gems; even if they were granted weapons and technology, the chances for a human in such a war would have been low. When Steven approaches Garnet and Amethyst about Pearl, their response is less surprise and more "Oh, this again." We know that Pearl was a zealot for Rose and would have tried to instill a similar fervor in the rest of the Rebellion— Would that include human "recruits"? How many people did Pearl brainwash into placing Rose above their own lives and were killed/poofed/shattered as a result? Given Pearl's disdain for humans, did she even see the humans as "real" or care that humans can't regenerate, or did she see them as purely expendable meat-shields for her beloved Rose?
  • Related: Was Pearl's outburst at the end something she and Rose had argued over during the war? Was that argument not merely Rose trying to dissuade Pearl from getting poofed on her behalf but trying to explain that she didn't want anyone throwing themselves to their deaths for her sake? Rose was rebelling against the Homeworld, after all, with its fanatical obedience to the Diamond Authority; did Pearl's well-meaning fanaticism just add more weight to the burden Rose had to bear?
• Pearl willingness to take a bulllet for Rose gets new context when we learn in A Single Pale Rose that the latter is secretly Pink Diamond, meaning that Rose being poofed would reveal the secret. However, Pearl having to take hits for Rose may have reinforced her devaluing herself (if not actually being the source of it).

Keeping it Together

• Peridot said that the Fusion Experiments were developing properly. The fact that that was apparently what they wanted is horrifying and illustrates just how different the Homeworld Gems have become from the Crystal Gems.
• It's revealed that Homeworld used the remains of the fallen Crystal Gems in forced-fusion based experiments, to punish those that rebelled. Does Homeworld use the threat of using its own in horrifying fusion experiments or similarly horrible punishments, as a means of maintaining control through fear? It would go a way to explaining why Peridot is so determined to follow through on her mission if she thinks something like that is what will greet her if she fails.
  • It would also explain why Lapis was so meek and ineffective in Jailbreak. This was a Gem that triumphed in a 3-on-1 fight minutes after being freed from millennia of imprisonment, while her gem was cracked. Yet in Jailbreak, she cowers in her cell even when Steven offers her a way out, urging him to surrender so that Homeworld will go easy on them. That seems cowardly...but if Lapis knew about, or had been threatened with the prospect of, being shattered and used as experiment fodder, completely helpless, at the mercy of her tormentors and with no escape or relief from a living hell...no wonder she was terrified.
    • This is again implied in Catch and Release, where Peridot cowers in fear while saying "Oh my stars... You're going to harvest me?"
• At this point, every single Gem has shown that they each have some sort of serious emotional issue; Amethyst is insecure about her origins and her identity, Pearl has self-esteem issues and seems to be suffering from mild depression and Garnet fears that she will be unable to save her friends, despite her future vision.
  • Let's not forget Lapis, who was not only trapped in a mirror for who knows how long with a cracked gem, but even when she was free she found out her home planet had completely changed and eventually she sacrificed her freedom to imprison Jasper at the bottom of the ocean as the fusion Malachite - and to make things worse, she ominously embraces her fate as Malachite in Chille Tid. How has she managed to have so much willpower throughout all of this?
• Shattering a gem would split it into multiple pieces...so what happens to the consciousness of a Gem whose fragments have been used in multiple experiments?
• Garnet mutters to herself "so this is what they think of fusion" during her freakout. This might mean that Jasper's contempt isn't unique, but more like a generally accepted, bigoted opinion on Homeworld, which was possibly already widespread back when the Crystal Gems still lived there/under their command. This would give Garnet more than enough reason to fight with Rose: Rose, being the loving and wonderful person she is, accepted her as Garnet, while Homeworld wanted to keep her as Ruby and Sapphire. Remember, Garnet explained fusion as being like when you are more yourself when together with someone else, than when you are alone.
• While the Cluster Gems themselves are horrifying, it's not hard to think how this would've been Garnet, Pearl, and Rose's fates if they were shattered during the war.
• As of "Monster Reunion", we now know that some sort of Homeworld WMD type device was used to corrupt nearly every Gem on Earth. There is no indication that shards and mutants were immune to this. Now watch this episode again, and note that the main mutant tries to take on a more humanoid form before settling into a more monstrous form, just like Centipeetle did back in Monster Buddies...
• Fusion being taken as the Gems' expression of both physical and emotional intimacy makes the shard monsters even worse. These are gems who were brutally dismembered, all that's left are partial limbs. Homeworld basically chopped up a bunch of Crystal Gems and then forced the pieces to violate each other.

We Need To Talk

• Rose's response to Greg not knowing anything about her past? "That's a good thing." Just what has Rose done that she has this view to the point that she sees it as better someone close to her knows nothing about her past actions?

Chille Tid

• Steven discovers that Lapis and Jasper are still fused at the bottom of the ocean and Lapis is keeping her there by force. After the episode "Keeping It Together," Jasper's fate becomes a lot more horrifying.

Cry for Help

• Listen to the message at the beginning and try to look at it from Peridot's POV. To sum it up: She is stranded on a foreign planet with not only hostile enemies but the planet will explode very soon. Your support that might have been able to defend you has disappeared without you knowing where to and why and all attempts to leave or contact home doesn't work. Does anyone really blame her for losing her mind with every episode that she appears in, considering she has to deal with a terrifying scenario like this?

Keystone Motel

• Given Ruby's comment to Sapphire - "Don't you feel used?" - it seems that Ruby, at the very least (since Sapphire never explicitly says anything to this effect, only that she's just as angry as Ruby), felt violated by what Pearl did in the previous episode.

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

• This episode proves that more fusion monsters are on the loose and that they're wandering into populated areas.
• These shard fusions seemed more complete than the first ones. While they were just random bundles of limbs who didn't really do anything but flail around and scream, these ones were more of a humanoid form and seemed to deliberately seek out Steven. What if, whatever horrid process used to create these things is being perfected?
  • With regards to them seeking out Steven, if one listens more closely, you'll hear the groans are saying, "Help us, Rose"...
• If Connie and Steven hadn't been there to protect her, would Priyanka be dead now?
  • Seeing that they had been perfectly docile and harmless until a gem got close, it might be possible that nothing would have happened without one of the gems getting to the hospital or the mutants escaping.

Catch and Release

• Word of God says that Lapis was interrogated while Steven was unconscious in "Jail Break", which is how Peridot knows about Steven's healing spit. What exactly happened during that interrogation? Is that why Lapis was so broken when Steven found her?
  • Which adds the Fridge Brilliance of why the gems were in cells, rather than bubbles; so they could be interrogated.
• When Peridot is let out of the bubble, she sees all the others and assumes they're going to "harvest" her. What is harvesting, and why would she fear it so much? Apparently, Homeworld is low on resources and making undersized gems to conserve them. Reclaiming Human Resources?
• Is Homeworld society really militarized enough that Peridot's knee-jerk reaction to something unfamiliar (like a toothbrush) is to assume it's some kind of weapon?
• Given Peridots's fearful reaction to the towel, as well as her fearful look at Jasper's Gem Disrupter in "Jail Break", and it seems that Peridot may have had a Dark and Troubled Past of some kind back on Homeworld.This post presents the idea that Peridot had been regularly abused back on Homeworld.

When It Rains

• Even if the millions of Gem shards that make up the Cluster were made in the Kindergarten and not taken from fallen Crystal Gems, why would Homeworld want a fusion monster so large that it's bigger than the Earth? Do they think they can control it and use it as a Weapon of Mass Destruction?
  • Assuming that the Cluster's only purpose as a weapon is as a Doomsday Device for the Earth, and not something Homeworld wants to use again (which is fridge horror in itself both for the idea of seeing something that large approaching a planet and the idea that Homeworld might have a threat against it that warrants that kind of force), what is Homeworld going to do with it afterwards? Are they going to destroy it (or at least try, or will it just wander around space, smashing planets?
• Not that Amethyst's history was pleasant, to begin with, it gets even worse when you consider the possibility that she, and gems like her in the Kindergarten, were created just to be harvested for the Cluster.
• The Gem Mutants seem to be far more aggressive in Peridot's presence. Peridot herself explains that she wasn't "lucky" enough to have been there back then. But seeing that Peridots are specialized Kindergartners, who can say that the Mutants didn't mistake her for the old one?
• Where did Homeworld get all those Gem shards for the Cluster? Hopefully at least some were created specifically for the Cluster, because otherwise they would have had to use thousands of Crystal Gem, and even some of their own fallen, to get that many Gem shards.
  • Well, it had been thousands of years... but it's no less horrifying.
• This episode hints at a more sound explanation for the Gem Homeworld's Fantastic Racism against fusions and Peridot's earlier claim that Garnet was a "filthy war machine": fusions aren't just a subject of morally degenerate Homeworld experimentation, they were the basis for a prototype superweapon that could destroy planets. It's possible the only exposure newer Homeworld gems like Peridot have had with fusions is these experimental monsters, meaning that Homeworld gems may now associate the word "fusion" with the monstrous mutant gem experiments, a thought process which might have caused their looking down on "natural" fusions as well.
• To add to the pile of Fridge Horror The Cluster has become, think about what will happen after it emerges and destroys the earth, keeping in mind this is just from it regenerating, and considering the Shard Fusions behaviors in the past it will probably go after Homeworld next, and likely wipe them out considering it's the size of a damn planet, then go around the universe destroying all in its path without mercy for all eternity, considering the fact that gems, even when shattered, are immortal. So effectively, Homeworld created the real equivalent to an Eldritch Abomination. All for the sake of petty revenge...
• The "monsters" from "Keeping It Together" are forced fusions of a few gem shards that retain partial consciousness, are constantly screaming and look like horrifying messes of mismatched body parts. Among other things. Imagine everything that was horrifying about them, except in a forced fusion that is composed of a million shards instead.

Back to the Barn

• If Peridot's attitude is the Homeworld norm, no wonder Pearl was ready to jump ship with Rose. It's looking more and more like Homeworld is a Crapsack World (at least for the lower classes).
  • Especially if one recalls Jasper's own contempt-filled reaction towards Pearl. Until Pearl began suggesting that she could equal or surpass Peridot in her own field, Peridot seemed little more than bewildered and amused by Pearl. Given her remarks after that, Peridots might even be counted among the same general lower-class that Pearls occupy, which would make Peridot's clinging to that system all the more unsettling. The apparent fear she demonstrated around Jasper and fretful paranoia Peridot first displayed around Steven suggests that the lower-classes aren't just disrespected by the powerful castes, they might not even be safe around them. And, despite all that, Peridot is still having trouble accepting an alternative. That is a terrifying amount of control to have over the mind of your citizens, that they don't even think it's possible for someone to move beyond their station, or look for alternatives to a system where you live in fear.
  • So, why out of all the gems are Pearls the Servant Race? Maybe it's because pearls are one of the most easily replicated gems on Earth. Granted the fakes are made of plastic, but still.
    • Real but artificially grown pearls are still much easier to create than most gemstones. We can also have a lot better control of the color and texture of pearls created this way by breeding clams a certain way and blasting them with specific minerals, which fits in well with the "made-to-order" aspect of Pearls in-universe.
• Slavery has been a part of practically every culture since the dawn of human civilization. Now that we know Pearl's origins, and Rose's attitudes toward said origins are pretty obvious in turn, one really has to wonder how the two of them felt about that whole thing...
  • Steven's world has been confirmed to be an alternate Earth with differences from our Earth even before the gems intervened. Slavery may not have existed on such a large scale in this version of Earth.
• Where exactly did those cars Pearl and Peridot chucked over the horizon end up landing, exactly?
• Peridot's snide, contemptuous attitude towards Pearl even extends to touching Pearl without her permission (remember, a Gem's clothing is as much a part of their physical projection, that is to say, their body, as their hands and legs are), commenting on her appearance as if she wasn't a person while ignoring Pearl's obvious discomfort, and claiming ownership over her without her consent. We've met another Homeworld Gem who had a similarly cavalier attitude towards the physical autonomy of a "lesser" Gem, at least until that Gem turned the tables on her. Turns out Jasper isn't an exception among Homeworld Gems, she's the norm. Even a weak tech-type Gem like Peridot will immediately take the opportunity to lord her superiority over Pearl (who is basically made to be a decorative slave/handbag for upper-class Gems), at least until Pearl confronts and challenges her. Given the clear stratification in Homeworld Gem society, imagine for a moment just what kind of horrifying, miserable lives Gems like Pearl and Lapis Lazuli must lead on Homeworld...

Too Far

• Peridot's comment about how the newer model of Injector looks better pretty much confirms that Homeworld hasn't stopped making new Gems on other worlds.
• The confirmation that Quartz-type Gems are made to be powerful warriors, combined with the fact that the Kindergarten apparently produced Quartz Gems near exclusively and their implied high-rank in Homeworld's Fantastic Caste System, paints a very unpleasant picture of Homeworld society. Do they have an enemy of some kind that they need that many soldiers to fight, using the Kindergarten Gems as cannon fodder, or are all the soldiers necessary to keep the civilian Gem population from rising up in rebellion?
  • If 99.99% of the people "born" there are expendable, and the overlooked outlier is one of the very few with a nice quality of life, then the 'system' is defective, not Amethyst.
• If Amethyst had come out on time, she would have missed out on Rose Quartz and everything Amethyst enjoys about Earth. She might have even wound up in the Cluster.
• Quartzes are described as big and intimidating, made to be warriors. This adds another layer of senselessness to Pearl's sacrifices for Rose during the war: Rose was not only, by all accounts, a good fighter and not only did she have healing powers, but she was always meant to be a fighter, making it even plainer she could have handled the situation alone, and without having to retreat into her gem as well, probably. The second fridge horror comes in when you realize Rose is everything but an intimidating person made for the battlefield: her healing powers are based on her empathy and gentleness. Either she was a gentle person to begin with, which must have made her military training and her destined place into Homeworld's hierarchy as an intimidating warrior and Blood Knight positively hellish for her (thus explaining why she left in the first place), or she underwent one massive Character Development (remember, her calling Pearl "my Pearl" coupled with the information that Pearls are generally made-to-order might mean she ordered Pearl herself, that is if Pearl wasn't a gift).
  • Perhaps being a specific type of quartz (Rose, Amethyst, Jasper, etc.) defines a more specific role than just the general warrior/leader type. Perhaps Rose's healing powers come because she is less of a Blood Knight and more of a Paladin or Magic Knight.
    • Given the stark differences (design and power-wise) between Jasper, Amethyst, and Rose, it indeed seems to be at least two subtypes of Quartzes, which might mean there is a more specified role in store for the likes of Rose Quartz (if she wasn't the only one with her abilities and personality, that is- at the very least her healing powers seem to be unique and exclusive to her and Steven, and Pearl describes the healing specifically in the form of Tender Tears no other gem could replicate.) Even in our world, military personnel are usually assigned a rank and thus can be considered "soldiers" even if they are not in a combat role (medics, logistics, mechanics, etc.) If there were enough gems like Rose, she could have been assigned a role as described. Rose's tears could heal even cracked gems, which could be of vital tactical importance (giving her insight into Homeworld's wars, thus further disillusioning her even as she knew she used her abilities to help fellow gems.)

The Answer

• The audience finds out that not all fusion is viewed as wrong on Homeworld, just fusion between different types of gems. While Sapphire and Ruby are talking, Ruby says that fusion with other Ruby's has never made her lose herself the way fusion with Sapphire did. If fusion between different gems results in a complete mental transformation, then it's going to make Gems who try it less likely to want to keep to the caste system. After all, Ruby and Sapphire fused once and Sapphire immediately threw her life away to keep Ruby safe.
• Garnet was actually the first cross-gem fusion, and Homeworld had NEVER seen that before, it is basically 100% guaranteed that Garnet is the one who gave them the idea for the cluster. No WONDER Garnet was so upset about the clusters she found and Sapphire insisted that it wasn't her and Ruby's fault that Homeworld used cross-gem fusion as a punishment during the rebellion. Not only do they spit in the face of everything she is, she's the reason they exist.

Steven's Birthday

• One could only imagine the painful stretching Steven went through in order to maintain his "magical growth spurt". His bones, blood vessels, organs...

It Could've Been Great

• Peridot mentioned other "colonized planets". Does that mean there were other planets that already had life on it and the Gems just colonized there anyway?
  • Exactly how common is (or was) organic life in this show's universe? How many worlds worth of useless organic life have been purged and sterilized to further the propagation of Gemkind?
    • Why does Gemkind need to be propagated at all? Organic life is tied to the cycle of life and death, there's even a song about it in the show, but Gems are functionally immortal, they don't breed, and they don't grow: even the Diamonds, if they have the same biology as the rest of Gemkind, would have just begun existing at some point. There's something especially horrifying about the idea of a life-form suddenly popping into full, sentient, sapient, intelligent existence, and then building an entire hierarchy of "lesser" beings to do its bidding without caring about any of them or what their work is doing to the universe. If the Diamonds really are the oldest and most perfect Gems, they're more or less the god-queens of Gemkind and something like a biological parent or grandparent to the same Gems they casually discard and break whenever they like, and apparently, they feel nothing in doing so.
• The map of Earth on the Homeworld Gem console showed some... interesting tidbits of information about the landscape of the planet. Like the fact that Most of Siberia, Western Africa, and several other landmasses were completely gone. The map looked like it came straight from The Wonderful 101, and that version of Earth had fought off TWO alien invasions with the objective of destroying the human race. It's a subtle hint that even with Rose Quartz's interference, the Homeworld Gems did damage to the earth that could qualify as catastrophic in Real Life terms.
  • Not quite. The Western Part of Africa still exists, just attached to South America, and similar happens with India, Australia and other parts of the lands in the Indian Ocean. The crater in Siberia is undoubtedly Gems' doing, seeing as there is a Gem structure right in its center, though.
• The hole in Siberia seems bad enough, but it gets even worse when one considers its effects on prehistory. Since the exact time the Gems began this is unclear, this may have been during the time of the Bering Land Bridge, when ancient humans were passing through that way to migrate to the Americas. The Gems may have wiped out entire American civilizations before they had the chance to start.
  • Which would, on the other hand, make European colonization of America LESS horrifying than in the real world.
  • And if Gems drowned thousands of humans at that time, it would give much more chilling connotation to Garnet's line in the play in Historical Friction: "And you know, humans aren't very good swimmers."
• We saw what the Homeworld Gems had in mind for Earth. Now imagine what Homeworld actually looks like, based on the Earth colony plans.

Message Received

• Peridot's entire relationship with Steven and the Crystal Gems almost completely imploded, due to her inability to articulate her well-meaning plan. Poor Communication Kills at its finest. Perhaps even literally, going by the effort the Crystal Gems were putting into trying to thwart her.
• The fact Yellow Diamond's Pearl seems so smug to Peridot is funny at first... until you remember her kind's station on Homeworld. She's probably like that because her authority over Peridot is about the only power she has.
  • Despite Yellow Pearl's stuck-up and snobbish attitude, pay close attention to her body language. She flinches when Yellow Diamond speaks in just mild annoyance. She is panicked as she's explaining what's going on and immediately points to Peridot. When Yellow Diamond reaches for the Communicator, Yellow Pearl backs away at the mere sight of her hand. Considering what we see of Yellow Diamond, it's not hard to imagine what relationship they have.
• As stated on the nightmare fuel page, those communicators have probably been used by the diamonds to kill any gems who piss them off or fail their mission, which would explain why they can self-destruct devices remotely.
• Peridot says that they can't sacrifice all of Earth for "one geo-weapon." This strongly implies that the Cluster, that horrific, Frankenstein-ish and necrophiliac monstrosity is not just a singular experiment. It implies that there are many more Clusters. That Homeworld produces things like that regularly.
  • The term "geo-weapon" gets a lot more horrifying when you realize that a Gem calling something "geo" is likely analogous to us calling something "bio". This means that these are the equivalent of Biological experimentation for them. What's worse is that the Cluster experiment might be just one type of these experiments and there are different types of geo-weapons out there, all made from the equivalent of human experimentation.
• The way Peridot identifies herself, by facet and cut, implies this is how gems are identified individually. Pearls are round, which leads to the implication that as far as Homeworld is concerned, they don't have identities.
• Peridot shrinks when Yellow Diamond mentions her manager. In fact, this is the first time we've even heard about Peridot having a manager - all of her distress signals have circumvented the manager and gone straight to Yellow Diamond. Looks like Peridot and her manager don't have a very good relationship.
  • Even more so, as Peridot is silent at the mention of her manager. And Peridot does not do quiet.

Log Date 7 15 2

• While very innocuous at the time, during their stargazing Garnet and Peridot note that they can actually see Homeworld's galaxy. While it's not so amazing being able to catch sight of a distant galaxy while stargazing, this comment also indicates that the Homeworld Gems represents, at the least, an intergalactic civilization. Their technology was already astounding when they were recognized as an interstellar society, but the fact that they could traverse the distance between galaxies thousands of years ago makes them several orders of magnitude more advanced than we already knew they were. What's more, apparently their own galaxy was found wanting when it came to their imperialistic, resource-grabbing tendencies.
• Peridot wonders where she is going to put the Crystal Gem star on her clothes. It was a harmless remark until we watched Too Short To Ride and learned the only way for her to get said star is by getting poofed.

Season 3

Super Watermelon Island

• What happened to the Watermelon Stevens with all that upheaval?
• Lapis Lazuli's control over Malachite seems to lapse fairly quickly once the Crystal Gems arrive, but did it really? While Lapis very much cares for Steven, there hasn't been any real indication that she's let go of her animosity for the rest of the Crystal Gems. How much of that fight was Jasper taking control and how much of it was both Jasper and Lapis coming together on one of the few things they have in common?
  • What is most likely Jasper actually argues that the Gems had done horrible things to Lapis and that they should have some fun. After that, Malachite's powers seem to go through the roof, she summons her wings, walls of water and so on. It seems, Lapis actually couldn't resist the idea of making the Gems suffer, even if it meant working together with Jasper.
• The Watermelon that Steven possesses winds up being chosen for the sacrifice because of Steven's unfamiliarity with their rituals. Steven sent an innocent sentient being to their death by complete accident. And didn't seem to care at all.
  • On the (slightly) bright side, Steven was in control the whole time, so the Watermelon Steven he was possessing couldn't feel a thing.
  • On the darker side, that would also mean that Steven felt the watermelon Steven die.
• Back when Steven first sent the Watermelon Stevens away, he ordered them to learn from Baby Melon, which sacrificed itself in order to stop the Watermelons from attacking the Gems. The Watermelon Stevens on the island has all come to an agreement that a member of their society has to be sacrificed every now and then, presumably as a means of appeasing Malachite. Looks like they learned a lesson about sacrifice for the greater good...kind of.

Gem Drill

• What will happen when Yellow Diamond realizes that the Cluster never took form?
• So, the Earth is saved, and the Cluster is happily making friends with itself inside a bubble. But if that bubble pops...
  • The episode "Reunion", eventually shows that the Cluster has gained enough control of itself to not only keep from destroying the Earth, but also help in taking down Yellow Diamond's ship.
• Just how long has the Cluster been conscious down there saying, "Have to... Want to.. Need to... FORM!!!!"?

Same Old World

• With what we've learned about how Lapis ended up in the mirror brings up some very unsettling implications. How many completely innocent Gems were subjected to horrific treatment or even experimentation by Homeworld for no crime other than 'we think you're a Crystal Gem' with no process of law or CONCERN of whether or not they're actually Crystal Gems or not? Reality Subtext makes this much worse when you consider This has happened in real life, and especially brings to mind how easy it was in Nazi Germany to get sent to a death camp with no way to defend yourself.
  • In addition to the aforementioned reality ensuing, this is very similar to Locked(in) Syndrome, a syndrome in which the victim is completely paralyzed, but is able to witness all. They can see, but they can't speak or communicate. Every single muscle in their body, with the possible exception of the eyes, is completely paralyzed. Many victims can be mistaken for dead if not examined properly. Imagine being able to see everything around you for ages, but not being able to move or communicate at all.
  • How many of the Cluster gems are just loyal Homeworld soldiers that were mistaken for Crystal Gems?
• If the "shatter them all and let the Diamonds sort it out" approach is the default approach, Lower ranking Homeworld Gems must live in constant fear of pissing off the wrong Gem and getting shattered.
  • Which begs the question; what would count as pissing off the RIGHT Gem?
• Lapis going into a complete trance as they pass over the Galaxy Warp and almost letting Steven slide off her hands, their hands actually briefly separating before she breaks and catches him (and, boy, if she hadn't...). In addition, this was very indicative of PTSD, something that was later confirmed by Lauren Zuke, a storyboard artist, and writer for the show.

Barn Mates

• If her time with Jasper traumatized her so much that she's reluctant to associate with water for a while, to the point that it takes a while for her to use her water powers to hit down the Roaming Eye, will it be a problem in the future?
• Thinking of what would have happened to Peridot had she have no reason to return to the barn could be argued as this.

Hit The Diamond

• The fact that Yellow Diamond sent the Rubies to a doomed planet on the off chance that they might be able to pick up one of her agents. Imagine what would have happened to them if the Cluster had emerged on-schedule...
• Given the possibility that the Cluster was still going to emerge, if Yellow Diamond assumed it was late and not stopped altogether, she might have been sending the Rubies on a Snipe Hunt to get rid of them.
• Assuming the Ruby squad are typical of the Ruby type in general, it's entirely possible the primary grunt force of the Gem empire has the mentality of children. That... isn't pleasant.
  • And that's not even considering the left thigh Ruby, who the others refer to as "Newbie", meaning she was possibly created relatively recently (to the point that this might be her first mission entirely).
    • According to Rebecca's concept drawings, this really is Leggy's first mission, and she was literally born yesterday.
• As mentioned under Fridge Brilliance: the Rubies are uniformly not very bright and considered expendable foot soldiers. This brings up more unfortunate possibilities about Homeworld. Either the Rubies are MADE to be stupider or denied any more education than the bare minimum required for their job.
  • It's also possible that the Diamonds started making Rubies with an even lower average intellect in order to better control them after the Rebellion. That even might have been their reasoning before, for better control.
  • Why do the Rubies automatically believe everything they're told, not even questioning it? Insubordination and disobedience, even accidental displays of such, are harshly punished on Homeworld, which goes double for lower-ranking, "expendable" Gems. It's possible that the Rubies were either conditioned to never question a superior, or saw some other Gem getting punished for doing so. On Homeworld, Rubies believing everything they're told and never disobeying orders might be a survival tactic to not get shattered by higher-ranking Gems for showing "disrespect".
• The Rubies from Garnet's story were generally identical in how they thought and the Crystal Gem's Ruby, while not a genius, is still a lot smarter than the Ruby Squad. With the revelation from Peridot in "Too Short To Ride" that Era-2 gems are made by conserving resources, it's likely that to not lose out on Rubies' primary attribute (combat strength) their intelligence was scaled back instead.

Steven Floats

• If Steven had been just a little further over, he could have hit a plane.
  • If he had jumped higher, he might have left earth's gravity field and - floating ability or not - not have made it back down. We don't know for absolute sure, if Steven depends on air or not, so he might survive that, but the Gems would certainly look for him everywhere BUT in space...
• So, I wonder how Kofi's going to react when he found out that Garnet broke into his car?

Too Short to Ride

• Apparently Homeworld has been running low on natural resources for a long time now, and more recently made gems have been made a lot weaker and less powerful because of it. If they become desperate, Earth could very well be targeted again.
• So either Peridot's having any powers at all is a fluke, or Homeworld has been lying to the newly made gems and telling them they don't have any natural abilities of their own and making them reliant on Homeworld tech to function for some reason...
• The Gems have an interstellar empire...but are still running low on resources. There are a few ways to interpret that, from them lying about the resource shortage to better control their minions to them just being that careless with the Planet Looter thing, and none of them are good.
• Yellow Diamond's desire to destroy Earth for revenge and not caring about its possible, unique resources becomes even more heartless and petty given Homeworld is running low on resources.
• How many Gems are being created with little-to-no powers due to the shortage? What could justify continuing to make Gems at the same rate instead of slowing down to compensate for the shortage?
• So Peridot's got a new power, which is great! But if she hadn't been able to access the power/didn't have it in the first place, Amethyst would've thrown her tablet into the ocean, once again leaving Peridot in a tech-less despair. Not to mention it would've broken a lot of Peridot's trust for Amethyst.
• When Amethyst pulls a Look Behind You, so she can cheat Mr. Smiley at the ring toss game, there's a twist: the distraction (Onion trying to light the roller coaster on fire) is actually happening. What's Smiley's first reaction when he sees this? "No! I'm still paying off the last lawsuit!" Rides at his park have caught on fire before?
  • Or Onion has damaged a ride before, which is probably worse.
• Peridot mentioning that Homeworld is lacking in resources explains a lot about her initial fear of being "harvested", which is probably a deadly euphemism for being shattered and rendered down for their gem's component parts so new gems could be made.

The New Lars

• Steven can project himself into other humans. Now, Steven's too kind and innocent to do anything bad with it, but imagine the amount of damage he could do if he wasn't. Particularly given, as shown with the Watermelon Stevens, the death of the host won't hurt him.
  • Worse, he wasn't trying to possess Lars. What happens if he can't learn to control this power and keeps doing it?

Beach City Drift

• A gem fuses with someone else out of hatred in order to beat someone they couldn't defeat alone. Who are we talking about here, Steven in this episode or Jasper.
  • The difference is that both Steven and Connie chose to fuse, instead of one of them pressuring the other into it. They may have done it for the wrong reasons, but there's no indication that either of them didn't have a choice.
• Given how angry he got after Stevonnie showed he no longer had a hold on them, is it possible that Kevin might go after Steven and Connie for revenge?

Restaurant Wars

• Kofi was chasing around Steven, a child, with a branding iron! What if he managed to catch him with it?
  • What would the Gems have done to Kofi if he had caught Steven?
• Everybody's, including Steven's, complete disinterest in Ronaldo's misery. Even though the break-up and following moping are played for laughs, it's unsettling to see Fryman simply roll his eyes at his son's depressive attitude. He offers no concerned or supportive words, not even a pat on the back. We've seen before that Fryman has no clue how his children feel and that he often pushes them too far for too little reward, and with Ronaldo's need to feel like a piece of a bigger puzzle, it's not fair to assume it comes from his father's failure to care for his emotional and mental health.
  • Makes Peedee's actions in "Keep Beach City Weird" far more unnerving. Yes, letting Ronaldo believe in over-the-top conspiracies IS dangerous but given Fryman's indifference towards both his sons' happiness, it could be that Peedee is the only one in the family that cares/aware of how fragile his older brother's mental state is. Thus Peedee is forced into the role of family peacekeeper/caretaker he isn't ready for. And who in turn is looking/willing to look after Peedee??

Kiki's Pizza Delivery Service

• Kiki was having that nightmare every night! If things had continued the way they had, would she have had a nervous breakdown over them?

Monster Reunion

• How many other Gem Monsters were loyal Homeworld Gems who only stayed behind in a desperate attempt to find their friends and retreat before the Diamonds essentially used a Gem nuke to corrupt them all?
• The way Gem corruption is described sounds like the Diamonds basically gave them all brain damage.
• It's brief, but Steven described Centipeetle's drawing of the weapon that corrupted her as "a sound". Sonic resonance can cause gems to fracture and crumble and Jasper and Peridot both came with Resonators that destabilize Gems on contact, so whatever corrupted the gems might have been a prototype weapon, or possibly a much larger, WMD version of whatever became the Gem Destabilizers.
• The episode has frightening stuff as is...but just imagine it from poor Centipeetle's POV.
• Greg mentioned that at the conclusion of the war, Rose could only save some of her friends. We now know that the white flash caused all the gems exposed to it to turn into gem monsters. It's likely that Rose's shield was the only thing able to deflect it, which is why only the three Gems survived it; every other active Gem was turned into a monster because Rose was unable to extend her shield that far.
  • In that case, it could mean that they had to watch the other Crystal Gems turn into monsters. And, using Centipeetle as an example, the process is very painful.
  • Imagine if Rose hadn't gotten her shield up in time or if her shield failed to work against the Diamond's corruption beam. Rose, Pearl, and Garnet would've become monsters like the rest of the Crystal Gems. Amethyst would've remained in the Kindergarten and not gotten attached to Earth culture. Rose wouldn't have met Greg and Steven would never be born. Without Steven, Lapis would still be stuck in the mirror. No Crystal Gems meant that Peridot would've continued monitoring the Cluster unimpeded leaving the Cluster free to destroy the Earth meaning nearly all of the characters would be dead by now.
  • The mirror Lapis was trapped in was right in the line of fire when the beam went off. If she hadn't been trapped in the mirror, she would have suffered the same fate.
• Centipeetle and her crew, even in their corrupted state desperately wanted to reunite with each other...for several thousand years. There are no words to describe how painful that has to have been.
  • Even worse, considering they all appear to be the same variety of Gem, it's entirely possible that them being crewmembers made them the closest things Gems can ever get to being family.
• The fact that the Homeworld Gems were still retreating up to the Diamonds' attack. This means the Diamonds were so deadset on unleashing it, that waiting for their own people to be safely out of the blast radius was not something they considered. Is it any wonder Centipeetle is growling while she draws their picture despite having been a Homeworld soldier?
• The Diamonds unleashing the Corruption beam is already Nightmare Fuel but becomes even more disturbing when you remember that Homeworld had planted the Cluster within the planet's core meaning the Crystal Gems were already doomed. Homeworld could've have easily faked surrender and pulled their troops out, sparing more Homeworld soldiers and allowing the Crystal Gems to think they won, then waited until the Cluster emerged destroying the Earth and the Crystal Gems. Apparently, the idea of the Crystal Gems having a victory, even if a false or short-lived one was too much for the Diamonds who proceeded to inflict a A Fate Worse Than Death on the rebels and even on their own troops out of spite.
• The whole episode brings up an unsettling point about corrupted gems. Centipeetle's attack in the first episode was an attempt to reach the warp pad to find her crew, a motivation she kept after being partially healed. Corrupted gems still hold a measure of their original personality and motivations regardless of their appearance and lacking the mental clarity to fulfill them.

Alone at Sea

• Jasper is now psychotically obsessed with fusing Lapis to reform Malachite and tracked her down all the way from Mask Island to do so. Who's to say she won't keep coming after her until she finds the barn? Where Lapis has much less water to fend her off with?
• Jasper isn't exactly wrong about Lapis. While Jasper was the one that pressured her into the fusion in the first place, Lapis' easy dispatching of her demonstrates quite clearly that Lapis didn't need to fuse in order to protect Steven from Jasper. And while Jasper was unpleasant and partially responsible for Lapis' captivity, that was only one of many grievances that Lapis had built-up and presumably taken out upon Jasper. While Lapis has undeniably bounced back psychologically and recognizes the wrongness of her actions, these recent events reinforce just how bad of a place she was in at the time.
• The fact that Jasper isn't insulting, but admiring Lapis for the way she poured all her hatred into keeping Malachite fused. Just what kind of twisted stuff is Homeworld teaching Gems? That if someone can overpower you, you should be happy about the prospect of serving them, even to the point of giving up your own identity? That you deserve to be tortured if you have even a small moment of weakness? That you shouldn't hesitate to destroy yourself mentally and physically for power? And given just how harsh the caste system is, it's possible that Jasper's Sanity Slippage was worsened by the fact that she literally could not understand the mental openness and togetherness that comes with fusing. It all paints an even more nightmarish picture of what Homeworld life is like, which hardly seemed like it could be possible after everything we've already seen.
  • If Homeworld fosters the mentality that you should bow to anyone who can overpower you like that, then it explains the mentality of how Yellow Diamond treated Peridot, as she expected her domineering commands to have made Peridot bow to her.
• The Reveal, according to Word of God, that Jasper carries a deep self-loathing due to her origins and refuses to tolerate failure or weakness on her own part adds a new, very disturbing layer to her addiction to Malachite...
• Every single thing Jasper says in this episode is something straight out of an abuser's mouth. Many trauma survivors were able to identify that, and they were also able to identify that many people in abusive relationships get back together again and again and again, much like Lapis and Jasper desired.
• Jasper threatening to shatter (basically kill) Steven makes sense in that she thinks Steven is Rose and thus a Gem, not a human. How would she have reacted in knowing that Steven doesn't need to be shattered to die?
• Malachite is the second-longest sustained fusion, after Garnet. What holds a fusion together isn't just "compatibility" or "harmony" or "love", it's a desire to remain fused that keeps them stable. Jasper is under a ton of pressure, both because of her own self-hatred and her apparently very illustrious reputation on Homeworld for being flawless, and Lapis is (or was) full of suppressed anger at being confined. Despite being openly unhealthy and mutually abusive, they wouldn't have been able to stay together that long if being Malachite wasn't meeting their emotional needs. It's just that the emotional needs being met were their worst ones.

Greg the Babysitter

• Even before the Ferris wheel, Sour Cream could have hurt himself many times over simply because Rose failed to realize he could be hurt.
  • If that had happened, just imagine how Vidalia would have reacted and what might have happened if she made good on that death threat to Greg.
• It turns out that Gem obliviousness to human fragility wasn't a quirk on Peridot's part; even Rose, who loved the Earth and all its inhabitants, had no idea that you can't just let a baby do what it wants. Imagine if she and Steven could exist at the same time. How exactly would her mothering of Steven have gone even with Greg nearby?
• The Gems also had no idea that humans could change from babies to adults. Rose envied this quality once she learned about it, and gave up her gem durability and a millennia year lifespan to become a helpless infant that would change into something new. Garnet says later on that Rose did many things the Gems could not understand, and creating Steven was one of them. No wonder Steven picks up on their resentment about him being his mother.
• More like Fridge Sadness, but Vidalia was raising baby Sour Cream totally alone. Marty not being there was one thing, but she didn't have anyone else to help her, not even family members. It's possible she was estranged from her family or they disowned/refused to help her for getting pregnant out of wedlock.

Gem Hunt

• While Steven's desire to help the Corrupted Gems is noble, he really took it too far — He dropped his protective bubble to get closer to one of the corrupted Quartzes. While Connie was there. What would have happened if the Quartz became defensive and started to attack the two of them separately? Steven would have his bubble and shield, but Connie would have frozen up. Steven came dangerously close to endangering his best friend's life.

Crack the Whip

• Jasper would have shattered Amethyst mercilessly if Stevonnie hadn't stopped her. Has she done this before to other Crystal Gems?
• Garnet left Amethyst to "hold down the fort", but clearly didn't see Jasper coming in her future vision or they'd have all stayed behind. Can you imagine how Pearl and Garnet would have felt if they came back from looking for Jasper only to find out that Jasper found Amethyst first and shattered her, plus potentially harming Steven and Connie?

Steven Vs. Amethyst

Bismuth

• Were there others in the Crystal Gems that agreed with Bismuth's views? Is that why Rose kept their fight a secret from the others?
• The Breaking Point is a weapon specifically designed to completely shatter Gems. Imagine what would happen if she successfully used it on Steven during their fight in the underground forge? The Crystal Gems are not gonna be happy...
  • Not just the Crystal Gems, imagine Lapis's reaction. The flashback in "Same Old World" revealed that it was Bismuth who poofed Lapis before she was placed in the mirror meaning Lapis already has a reason to hate her. Now imagine Lapis finding out that the gem who was indirectly responsible for her millennia-long hell is not only still around but ALSO KILLED her only friend and the person who set her free in the first place. Yeah.. she's not gonna be happy about that either also AND given Lapis was able to fight the Crystal Gems by her lonesome while injured AND that the characters reside near the ocean...
• Rose made the best choice when she rejected Bismuth's Gem-shattering weapon. Since previous episodes established that Gems are still sentient even when shattered and Homeworld is fully willing to exploit that, using it would've created more problems for the Crystal Gems because not only would they have to deal with Homeworld soldiers, but they would also have to fight a full army of angry, destructive, and unstoppable mutants created from the Gem shards. Even if that wasn't the case, many have pointed out it would likely have simply escalated the war rather than ending it.
• Lapis' backstory reveals it was Bismuth who attacked and poofed her, a fleeing civilian. Not only does this show that even civilians wouldn't have been safe from what Bismuth intended with the Breaking Point, but just imagine if she'd had it at the time.
  • On that note, how would Bismuth have felt if she found out that the Crystal Gems had allowed Peridot, a Homeworld Gem who still wears Yellow Diamond's symbol, into their ranks? Given her opinion on Homeworld Gems, it's unlikely that Steven or the other CGs would be able to convince her that Peridot has changed...
• Imagine if the Rebellion HAD listened to Bismuth or Bismuth was still with them in the present without changing her mentality. Peridot and Lapis would've been shattered on sight. Amethyst might have been too.
  • It all comes to question: if the Crystal Gems had adapted to Bismuth's mindset, the Earth would've been destroyed by the Cluster (assuming that it's still around) because of killing Peridot without question nor knowledge of the Cluster's existence.
• Bismuth's gem being inside Lion could be why Rose never trusted Pearl with all of her secrets. What else has Rose been keeping from the remaining Crystal Gems?
• One thing Bismuth calls out Rose for doing is hiding her from Garnet and Pearl, and from the other Gem soldiers. This wasn't just Bismuth wanting to show off the Breaking Point; Bismuth's loss hurt the Crystal Gems since they lost a blacksmith and a dear friend. This is shown when Pearl, who has been struggling with Rose's death, immediately leaps into Bismuth's arms when the latter reappears.
• Given Bismuth attacked Rose, the Crystal Gems leader, she was committing the highest form of treason in war, which would merit death in traditional armies. Bismuth wanted to be shattered when Rose rejected her idea.
• Garnet never once seems to be aware of Bismuth's plans or the possibility of what ultimately happens between her and Steven. Garnet has to actively search the future and pick visions, and it's clear Bismuth is one of her best friends. So likely as with her failing to see Pearl's lying to form Sardonyx, Garnet probably didn't feel the need to do such when it came to Bismuth. This means that she trusted Bismuth THAT much that she never considered a possible future where she was an enemy...only to find out she'd developed genocidal ambitions and tried to murder both Rose and Steven for disagreeing with them. Imagine how much the Awful Truth had to hurt her.
• Bismuth only thought the other Crystal Gems from the rebellion had been shattered. The Diamonds' corruption weapon, the forced fusions and the Cluster...learning about those is going to devastate her.
• Homeworld has plenty of gems and the resources to make more, and the Diamonds don't seem to care about the well-being of their subordinates. None of this can be said about the Crystal Gems and Rose Quartz. The Breaking Point could have ended the war, but not in the way Bismuth had meant it too; if it fell into enemy hands, it would hit the Crystal Gems a great deal harder than it could ever have hit Homeworld. Bismuth made a weapon ideally suited to destroying her own team and is too blind to see it.
• Garnet accepted Steven's decision to keep Bismuth bubbled, despite only going on his word and having the possibility of convincing Bismuth to forget her grudge. But it's likely that she used her future vision to see all possibilities, including unbubbling Bismuth. Which means that Bismuth really is too far gone to ever consider reason, even from her close friends. Alternatively, it's that Bismuth wanted to be shattered, but being bubbled would give her peace of mind.
• Bismuth offhandedly refers to Steven as a "meatball" before being formally introduced, and probably can't tell that he's half gem, but nevertheless welcomes him to the Crystal Gems... how many other humans were among their ranks? This also makes Sworn to the Sword even darker than it was previously.
  • It also implies that Bismuth, and possibly some other Crystal Gems, didn't exactly see their human allies as equals.
• As a weapon of war, the Breaking Point is as Awesome, yet Impractical as it gets: it's short-ranged, slow (requiring a lengthy recharge time in between shots), hard to aim (dealing little to no damage unless it strikes the enemy's gemstone directly), and useless when facing more than one foe. All of these flaws more than outweigh the benefits of its One-Hit Kill abilities. However, there's one situation where these flaws can be nullified: if your enemy is already helpless and no longer in fighting shape. In other words, foes who would be just as easy to simply poof and bubble, just like Rose wanted to. Which means, the Breaking Point isn't a weapon, it's an execution device! Its only use is to inflict more pain on Gems who already aren't a threat anymore.

Beta

• How many of the Cannon Fodder Gems made in the Beta Kindergarten were thrown into the meat grinder for Homeworld, and how many were "defective" because Homeworld rushed things?
• The ending of the episode has the holes dug into the rock full of corrupted Gems. How many has Jasper caught already!?

Earthlings

• Jasper heavily implies that for Homeworld Gems, being made in the "wrong" shape for their caste or changing their form to something outside their original body type is pretty much an instant death sentence. How many Gems are shattered for the crime of basically having a birth defect moments after being made, or being the Gem equivalent of trans?
• So apparently The Corruption is contagious. Did any of the Crystal Gems become corrupted when, after escaping the Diamond's final attack, they tried to reach their former fellows?
  • Or is Corruption more like the Gem equivalent of insanity? Did Jasper finally collapse under all the psychological trauma and stress she had gone through? Being Malachite had obviously done a huge number on her mental health. And given her lamenting "Nobody I fuse with ever wants to stay." the Gem Monster breaking the fusion and running away might have just been the final straw for Jasper's mangled psyche.
• Corruption can be transmitted from fusion, and erodes higher reasoning in the infected gems. Considering what fusion is, this effectively makes it an STD version of Rabies. Or if you subscribe to the "corruption of the mind" analogy from "Monster Reunion", Corruption could be considered to be like a computer virus.
• While Jasper was found and defeated while she was still in the planning stages, imagine what would have happened if that hadn't, and she'd managed to break all those Corrupted Gems to her will and let them loose on Beach City all at once, like she planned?
• Of all the gems that Homeworld could have sent as Peridot's escort, they chose Jasper. In light of this episode, we now know that Jasper has some massive psychological hang-ups, and perhaps even trauma, when it comes to Earth. It certainly wouldn't have been any sort of secret to Homeworld what her past was with the planet, and while she's a powerful gem it couldn't have been that difficult to substitute in a few other gems in her place. Rather they sent a gem that has reason to hate the Earth and the Crystal Gems to the point of desperation and instability. Did they perhaps pick her because they expected her feelings about Earth would motivate on her mission? Or did they not even care about the mental health of a loyal, strong gem at all?
• If the corruption attack that corrupted all the Gems still on Earth was a combined attack of some short by the three remaining Diamonds...just what would it have done if Pink Diamond was still around?
  • Even worse, who's to say they couldn't do it again? At least they don't seem to know that there are Crystal Gems still on Earth. Yet...
• Jasper actually looks grieved and shocked when Steven reveals that he didn't know "Rose" had done something terrible to Pink Diamond. This means that either she started to believe Steven when the latter said that he wasn't Rose, or that for Rose hurting a Diamond was But for Me, It Was Tuesday. If the former were true, Jasper would have realized she had thrown away her chance to be saved for nothing. If the latter were true, Rose is even more dangerous than Jasper once thought.
• Another thing about Jasper. With her obsession about fighting Rose (Steven), it's easy to forget that she was originally there to serve as an escort for Peridot whose purpose for being on Earth was to check on the Cluster, you know the geoweapon that originally scheduled to explode at any moment. We don't know how much Jasper knew about the mission apart from her job, so it's quite possible she had no idea about what the Cluster was but if she did, then it opens up a bunch of horror about Jasper's recent behavior. After defusing from Lapis and being rejected for a refusion, does Jasper attempt to contact Homeworld to escape from a planet she knows is doomed like Peridot did. Nope, she continues to go after Steven/Rose despite logic dictating that Steven/Rose is dead anyway due to the Cluster (She doesn't know the cluster has been deactivated). This means Jasper was so focused on her revenge that she didn't care about dying in the oncoming planetary explosion as long as she got to Rose first. Alternately, she's already failed to protect her original diamond, failed her current diamond's mission, recurrently lost to the rebels and failed to get any measure of justice for Pink Diamond. Add to how Jasper mentioned about how those that don't fall into the Diamonds Order must be purged and Jasper may have wanted to be shattered.
• As of Season 5, we now know that Jasper's Diamond was alive, standing right in front of her, and offering to heal her and take her back. And Jasper rejected the offer.

Back to the Moon

• A small one compared to the rest of the episode, but imagine being Lapis, a repetitive trauma survivor (to the point that, in 'Jailbreak,' it was shown that being prisoner is all she knows now), seeing Amethyst in Jasper form and being asked by 'Jasper' if she'd like to be a prisoner.
• Just what happened with Pink Diamond's death that is traumatic for Pearl that she's left trembling and horrified from it? This is Pearl, the Crystal Gem who actually talked proudly about the War in the past. Whatever it is can't be good...
  • It could be that she realizes, as Garnet does, that Steven is learning his mother's darkest secret in a scenario where they can't provide an explanation or context. Steven's entire view of his mother is being shattered and they can't do anything about it because of the Ruby Squad.
  • And then the real explanation comes out, and it's worse than any of that. Just before it happened, Pearl was ordered by Pink Diamond to never speak of the shattering again in the aftermath, because Pearl was the only other gem that knew the full truth of the situation. Because of Pearl's status as a servant first and foremost, this very literally renders her unable to speak about it at all, in any capacity.

Bubbled

• The premise. Steven is stuck out in space, with no way to get home, and only has a small bubble protecting him from the vacuum of space.
• Eyeball's weapon is a chisel. Under the Diamond Authority, even low-level Rubies have weapons made specifically for breaking gems.
• Steven briefly ponders what might happen if his Gem were separated from his body. While the fandom has wondered this all along as well, it's a little disturbing to see it brought up in canon, since it may end up being foreshadowing...
• Steven learns the hard way in this episode that Gems won't necessarily react positively to discovering that he's (basically) Rose Quartz. It's probably good that he learned this lesson now and not, say when the show inevitably takes the Crystal Gems to Homeworld.
  • With the revelations of A Single Pale Rose, we now know that this could have even gone a lot worse. If Eyeball had kept analysing the color of Steven's gem, she may have realized it was the same color as Pink Diamond's... who knows what she may have done in that situation.
• For the first 14 years of his life, Steven had believed his mother to be an All-Loving Hero, a Badass Pacifist, and one who could inspire friendship and understanding in all living beings because the Crystal Gems have put her on a pedestal. In the span of 2 days, every single ideal about her was consecutively shattered in the most brutal, nightmarish way possible. If he thought his feelings towards Rose was complicated before, it just got exponentially worse now.

Season 4

Kindergarten Kid

• How would the fight with Jasper have gone if she had been able to use this particular Gem Monster?
• If Peridots are that durable, how hard was Garnet squeezing her in "Catch and Release"?
• If Peridots are made to be that durable, what kind of stuff are they expected to deal with on a daily basis?

Know Your Fusion

• If Steven and Amethyst hadn't fused into Smoky Quartz in time to save Garnet and Pearl, what would've happened in the crumbling room? Would they have died?

Buddy's Book

• How long did it take Buddy to travel to all those locations, and how many times did he nearly die?

Mindful Education

• When Steven's emotions break up Stevonnie on their second session, we see Bismuth, Jasper, and Eyeball - followed by all of them forming together to create Rose. After Season 3's finale, Steven is effectively traumatized by thinking about his mother now, compared to the brief moment of complicated feelings in Steven Floats preventing her from being happy thoughts to him. But just how bad does it go now, knowing what his mother did - and how much worse could it possibly get than breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing and losing control of his own powers?

Future Boy Zoltron

• So just how long will it take for Steven to work off the debt for Zoltron? He's pretty good at it, with or without future vision, and thus Mr. Smiley may have him there for a couple of weeks.
• Future vision is established to work by presenting outcomes to whatever option the seer considers taking. Which means that, up until The Answer, Sapphire had been so thoroughly whipped by Gem societal structure and so resigned to her future that the thought of doing anything else had never even crossed her mind.
  • What's worse is that Sapphires and any other seer gems are probably socialized to think that way. Back in The Answer, Blue Diamond is enraged by the fact that things did not work out as Sapphire had said they would. From a detached, tactical standpoint, it would make sense to try to keep the seers as passive as possible so that their predictions actually come true. Blue Diamond probably knew that Sapphire's predictions weren't 100% infallible and why, making the decision to break Ruby a tactical one, on top of being punished for committing a taboo.
  • This also makes Sapphire's actions in The Answer make more sense - Ruby's actions taught her that the future isn't set in stone, and she's now fascinated by her own capacity to assert what she wants (seeing more of Earth, protecting Ruby) in a way that cleverly mirrors Peridots empathy.

Last One Out of Beach City

• Did the police find the car? If so, they can trace it back to Greg and arrest him for running a red light and evading the police?
• With later seasons revealing that Pearl was essentially programmed to unquestioningly devote herself to Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz as a slave, and that even through all the trauma Rose put her through in forcing her to be complicit in the fake shattering (which caused the war, thus killing innumerable amounts of gems) and making her fight in the war, Rose still chose Greg over her. And "died" to create Steven, thus abandoning her again. This episode was about Pearl confronting the psychological trauma and abandonment issues caused by Rose, which gave her severe PTSD and emotional problems.

Onion Gang

• Steven's invokedreaction to the kids wanting to kill an innocent beetle that won a takes on a tragic note when you remember the trauma he went through the past season: learning his mother turned Bismuth into an Un-person for attacking her a weapon that would shatter Gems, failing to save Jasper because of Rose shattering Pink Diamond, and having to send Eyeball drifting into outer space when the latter tries to cut off his gem in the bubble. Steven's been in real life or death situations, and seeing Onion treat it as a game triggered the baggage that one Cooldown Hug with Connie wouldn't cure.
• Having an Expy of Frisk is quite disturbing when one sees Soup participate in the bug squishing, given that when you play in Undertale it's the player that forces Frisk to either spare or kill monsters in the game. Frisk in canon is theorized to be a Pacifist since you only find out their name at the end of a True Pacifist Run; Soup in contrast happily joins in the competition like a Genocide Run player, or a soulless Frisk.

Gem Harvest

• The Gems were ready to attack Andy when they perceived his play roughing with Steven as actual harm. It's sweet until you realize that if Steven encounters a similar play roughing and one of the Gems come in unexpectedly, they would most likely seriously injure said person.
• What if Andy had missed catching Steven with his plane?

Three Gems and a Baby

• Apparently, Pearl was so desperate to bring back Rose that she was this close to ripping out Baby Steven's gem. It's unknown just what would have happened had Pearl gone through with it but there are some ideas, one of which being Pearl succeeding in bringing Rose back. If that happened...just how would Rose have reacted to Pearl (and by extension Garnet and Amethyst) killing her son?
  • No matter what would have happened there, think about how Greg would have reacted.
  • It also begs the question of exactly how Steven's gem is a part of his body. A regular gem has her form coalesced around it, but Steven is a flesh-and-blood being, and we know he can feel pain in his gem. He probably can't be poofed like a regular gem, since his body is an actual physical object rather than a Hard Light projection, but does that mean his gem is basically just a regular organ for him? How vital is it? If it's ever cracked, will it bleed?
    • "Change Your Mind" reveals that without his gem, Steven would've likely become extremely weakened and died.
• Also, in the scenario that Pearl presented, a centenarian Rose is trapped inside a helpless infant, in And I Must Scream, unable to reform without killing Steven. Rose would have gotten what she had wanted, only to realize it wasn't great at all, but she wouldn't want to sacrifice her son to reform since he will only get a human lifespan and she will get an eternity.
  • There's nothing that says Steven will only live a human lifespan, surely being half-Gem will arguably increase that significantly, not to mention various episodes show that Steven can alter his age based on how old he 'feels'.
• With The Reveal in "A Single Pale Rose", it's possible that Pearl was willing to rip out Steven's gem, and was physically prevented from doing so because Pink Diamond ordered her to keep her identity as Rose a secret, and ripping out Steven's gem would have revealed it to be diamond-shaped to Garnet and Amethyst.
• There is also the fact that the Gems kidnapped Steven and drove away with him in the middle of a blizzard. If they had gotten stranded, and if the van heater hadn't been working, Steven could have succumbed to frostbite.

Steven's Dream

• The Diamond Authority still believes that the Cluster is active and will detonate. Now think about what would happen if they were to find out that the Cluster had bubbled itself.
• Garnet catching Steven when he's falling to the ground can seem pointless because he has the power to float- unless one remembers that with his powers tied to his emotions, specifically the need to think happy thoughts to float, it's likely Steven would have fallen to his death due to the barrage of negative emotions from his father's kidnapping and Steven's failure to save him.
• Imagine what Pearl must have felt like during this episode. First, Steven shows her a picture of the Palanquin, reminding her of one of the most traumatic nights of her life. Then Steven starts yelling at the Gems for not telling him anything about Pink Diamond's "shattering", while all the time Pearl desperately wants to tell him the truth but can't do so due to Pink Diamond's orders.

Gem Heist

• The abuse Holly Blue gives to the Amethysts. Has she ever beat one of them?
• Holly Blue mentions Greg was "thrashing about" when he first came. What kind of "thrashing" did he do?

The Zoo

• The Zoomans have never known pain or sadness. Yet it's stated that they are the descendants, thousands of years removed, from the ones Pink Diamond put here. So labor pain doesn't happen to birth new Zoomans... but what happens when a Zooman reaches the end of their lifespan? Can the Gems predict the end of life so they can pluck that Zooman away? Do the food or flowers contain some sort of drug to keep them mostly calm and placid even when they realize one of their numbers is gone and they miss them? And if they don't die of old age, what kills them? Is it like Logan's Run wherein at a certain age they're designated to leave the Zoo and die because Pink only likes the young and pretty ones?
• Where are the children in the zoo?
  • It's possible that the population is on directed to reproduce at generational intervals, i.e. around every 20-25 years, in the name of orderliness. That could be the reason of the Choosening, as the youngest generation has reached adulthood.
  • It's also possible that the Zoo is more larger than we've seen and the area where Greg and Steven were sent to is just one of many sites. There could be a reserved site for human children similar to a literal kindergarten or petting zoo or maybe humans who've been paired off in The Choosening and about to have children are transferred to another facility to live with other human families.
• While the Zoo may seem like a paradise for the Zoomans now, with all of their physical needs cared for, try to imagine what it must have been like for the first humans who were abducted back when the Zoo was first built and the gems running it were just starting and initially had no clue about human needs. Given gem's different physiology compared to organics, probably had no idea about humans needing good nutrition from food and water, physical activity, air, or being fragile compared to gems (think Peridot pushing Greg off a roof to test if he could fly not knowing a fall from that height was fatal). How many humans died from starvation, dehydration, sickness or injuries before Homeworld worked out ways to keep them healthy? And that's not considering the humans that may have wasted away or even killed themselves out of grief from being whisked away by alien entities to an unknown environment far away from home and loved ones. Suddenly, Holly Blue's line about humans not taking well to captivity became just darker.
• The Zoomans live in a Gilded Cage, where the Gems in charge meet their basic needs. Going to Earth would actually be the worst possible thing for them: they'd encounter hoarding of resources, blatant and deliberate cruelty, war, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and a disregard for basic decency. All in all, at this point they're better off with the Famethyst as their caretakers.
  • The Zoomans would be unequipped for all of those horrors in addition to the normal responsibilities of life on Earth. The Zoomans are dependent, uneducated, and have no familiarity with Earth technology, laws, jobs, customs, or social expectations.
  • Which is also a clear parallel to what usually happens when a domesticated animal loses its owner and has to try and survive on its own.
  • That is if the Zoomans can even survive the Earth if they make planetfall there courtesy of the Diamonds or the Famethysts. With regards to the pathogen side of history, it has left its mark on humanity. While gem-side assistance (especially with Rose's Tears or Steven's Spit) can help combat nasty plagues like Smallpox or Black Death with consideration that modern human history depended on pandemics like this to reach current medical standard levels, even relatively common illnesses like a common flu can destroy a human whose immune system hasn't fought off an infection like that. And consider that the Zoomans likely have no need for vaccines since illnesses was culled and they lived a life that reduced illnesses to null, they would be torn apart by pathogens if they did get released back onto the Earth without human doctors specifically giving them vaccines to help the Zoomans' immune system detect and fight off more common human infections.

That Will Be All

• Blue Pearl seems to take on her Diamond's mood, including her droopiness. Is this because she has to, or because subconsciously she's emulating her boss?
• According to Yellow Diamond's song, Agates are made to "terrify". Holly Blue Agate has an electric whip. Now skip back to Earthlings and watch how Jasper reacted to Amethyst's whip.◊ She was terrified, at least until she realized Amethyst couldn't actually hurt her. What has Jasper (or any other Quartz for that matter) been through to make her react that way?
  • For that matter, remember back in "Catch and Release" and how Peridot reacted to Steven's rolled up towel? Whatever horrors an Agate put Jasper through, Peridot might have also endured.
    • Adding to this, in "Message Received", Peridot shrunk in on herself after Yellow Diamond told her she'd be reported to her manager for her "incompetence". What if Peridot's manager is also an Agate?
  • Both Quartzes and Peridots have been shown to be hardy. An agate could put them through a lot of pain and abuse before they poofed.
  • Blue Agate hits her soldiers at the drop of a hat. How does she punish them when they actually mess up?
• Yellow Diamond mentions that Lapis Lazulis are made for terraforming. Considering their water manipulation powers and the fact that Gems do not need water, this most likely means that Lapises strip a planet of all of its water and according to Ocean Gem, a single Lapis is capable of this. How lucky was Earth that the Gem Homeworld wasn't in any hurry to remove its water?
  • It also throws Lapis's first encounter with the Crystal Gems in Ocean Gem into a new light: the reason Lapis could be so cavalier about extracting an entire planet's hydrosphere and condemning all life on it to extinction is because that is her job.
    • Even worse? Terraforming is shaping the planets themselves, not just the water. It only says Lapises terraform, so there might be another type of Lapis that can bend the rocks. Solids do more damage than liquids.
    • Likely not. Water is capable of most natural terraforming on its own, able to cut through rock when fast enough or slowly seeping into solids and causing them to crumble to pieces. Of course, this puts even more terrifying possibilities into light, as Lapis could potentially be capable of carving huge fissures into planets or saturating them until they burst.
  • In "Same Old World" Lapis mentioned she was only supposed to be on Earth for a short while. What if the reason she was there was because the Diamonds planned to have all of the Earth's water sucked up, thereby dooming all organic life on Earth which would remove the Crystal Gem's main reason for rebelling. While it ended badly for Lapis, it's perhaps fortunate that Bismuth managed to poof her before that could happen. For that matter, has Lapis helped destroy any other planets with life on it as her role as a terraformer? In Alone at Sea Lapis did mention that she'd done terrible things..
  • The Gems' architecture seems to utilise water decoratively, like in the Sea Spire. It's likely Lapis would have had to do something like that.
• When Sapphire makes up a story about how she saw Blue Diamond requesting more humans in the future, Blue becomes dejected, announcing her wish to save humanity from the Cluster. Yellow Diamond asks Sapphire if the Cluster emerged yet, which it hasn't (and it never will, but they don't know that). But what Yellow says after is most concerning. "Then there's still time". Still time to "save" humanity. Still time to pluck humans from Earth, away from their friends and families in an attempt to protect them from a threat that no longer exists. It seems like in her attempt to save the situation, Sapphire might have just made matters far worse...
• Yellow Diamond has been dealing with her grief over Pink Diamond's death by destroying anything that had to do her (ex: shattering the Earth (Pink's former colony) via The Cluster). The only reason The Zoo containing the zoomans, Earth-born Quartzes including the bubbled Rose Quartzes still exists is because Blue Diamond has been preserving it as a shrine in Pink's memory due to being unable to move on from her death meaning the lives of everyone in the Zoo are dependent on Blue Diamond remaining in mourning and refusing to let go of the past. Should Blue recover from her depression and decide that she doesn't need the Zoo as a Tragic Keepsake anymore, then there would be nothing preventing Yellow from razing the Zoo and everyone in it.

The New Crystal Gems

• Lapis and Peridot also act rather inconsiderately to Connie when the worst thing she did was walk in on their toilet adventure. At least with Andy, they had an excuse in that he was bullying them and shouting at them to Get Out!, but Connie is a Nice Girl. How long will it take for the duo to learn to be kinder to strangers?
• When Peridot and Lapis's argument endangered Yellowtail's life — What would've happened had Jenny's car not been beneath him to crash into safely? Who would've gotten hurt had Yellowtail's truck not hit the "It's A Wash" sign?

Storm in the Room

• Suppose Steven could have summoned the real Rose using the Room. That would mean he'd have a way for Greg, Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst to find closure, and to perhaps have their leader back. It would also mean Rose would have to adjust to being fourteen years out of the loop, a Fish out of Temporal Water, as well as to the Gems' new power structure. Then you throw in Gems like Jasper and Eyeball wanting her blood, to the point where they attack Steven. Would the room get destroyed?
• Steven when calling out the hologram of his mother asks if she was suicidal, and made him so that she would bear his problems. Cloud!Rose calmly tells him that he knows that it's not the case, after seeing her video, but then we learn Pink Diamond faked her death and permanently became Rose Quartz, believing that Blue and Yellow wouldn't mourn her. So one could say that Rose was suicidal, in the existential sense.
• More of a fridge tearjerker, but Steven knowing how to dye human hair (specifically what was pink human hair) makes a lot more sense when he tells Cloud!Rose that because of his desire (or everyone's desire for him) to be more like his mom, he's thought of dying his hair pink. Several times.
• After Steven tells Cloud!Rose she's not his mom, she replies with "I'm not?" How sentient exactly are these cloud people, and how much do they believe themselves to be real? What about Cloud!Connie and the residents of Cloud!Beach City?

Room for Ruby

• At the end of the episode, Garnet didn't just show up with the "Sorry for your loss" balloon. She also had a "Welcome to the party" balloon, presumably for Navy, which means she foresaw at least one future where Navy genuinely grew to like Earth. How is that going to feel for Steven?...
• As of this episode Steven's track record of befriending Gems is the following: three (Peridot, Lapis, Centipeetle) versus four (Bismuth, Jasper, Eyeball, Navy). The Famethyst were the only ones who didn't need persuading at all to help. Will this do a number on his confidence?
  • This really deserves some expanding — "Mindful Education" showed just how traumatized and guilt-ridden Steven was for being unable to befriend Gems; and the first three Gems made it very clear of their hostility, Navy used Steven's kindness from the start to get what she wanted. Basically, Steven was already hurt by being unable to befriend openly hostile Gems...what will his emotional state be after thinking he was befriending a new Gem when the said Gem was just using him.
• Last time we saw the Rubies they were drifting in space with no control over their movement. How exactly did Navy aim for Earth and land like a meteor? Where did she get the propulsion power? Did she have . . . help?
• This whole situation could have been avoided if the Crystal Gems had been honest with the Rubies from the beginning about where Jasper was. This is the first time Steven, like his mother, has deceived and hurt other Gems. It seems that hurting others despite good intentions may be In the Blood.
• Based on Eyeball and Navy's behavior, a pattern has emerged, one that has been hinted at since the Ruby Squad first appeared. The overarching question since their first appearance has been "Why send these idiots to find someone as apparently important to Homeworld as Jasper?" Because they aren't mere idiots. They are SIMPLE. There is a major difference. These Rubies are steadfast in their goals and personalities. This can make them easy to manipulate, but this is a double-edged sword. As Eyeball and Navy demonstrate, once they get wise, they will make sure that neither side makes the exact same mistakes again. And considering how Eyeball and Navy really are, there is a VERY good reason Homeworld trusted the mission to their team. They are deceptively good tacticians, making up for their lack of strategic prowess by turning the tables with alarming effectiveness.

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

• Did Lion run for hours across barren land instead of going directly to the desert trash heap because he had to? Is there something about that location which prevents quicker access? If so, why? That seems to be a strange overkill feature to guard trash.

Doug Out

• It's likely that Connie cosplaying as "Veronica Cucamonga" and her dad and Steven thus going along with it by calling her by said name is the only reason Topaz and Aquamarine didn't target her that night, since her name was on their list. Remember that when Aquamarine finds out her name two episodes later, she immediately sends Topaz to capture her.

Are You My Dad?

• Given the way Topaz was holding all the captured humans so that she Fused over their mouths, she could have easily smothered them. And they were like that for days apparently.
  • And going from the above, their body parts were exposed, so what would have happened had Topaz been careless and injured them on their face, hand, leg, head, or all of the above?
• Suppose "Steven" had been one of the humans. Then Steven would have been curb-stomped as easily as Connie was. The Crystal Gems would have been none the wiser.
• A terrifying thought: What if another human, most likely a child, were to use the phrase "my dad" in close proximity of Aquamarine and the Topaz soldiers. Given how literal they are and their lack of seeing humans as anything other than talking organics, what's to stop from taking the human referred to as "My Dad"?
• Just how hard did Aquamarine throw Steven into that tree? Just think about it, he's able to deal with things MUCH worse than that and be mostly okay. (take Steven vs Amethyst and his fight with Bismuth as an example) The fact she threw him hard enough to actually make him hardly able to move and that she knocked him out is kind of horrific compared to what he's dealt with before.

I Am My Mom

• The only reason Steven found out what happened to his missing friends was because he happened to witness Connie's capture. What would have happened if he hadn't? Steven's friends might have all been taken off-planet with him none the wiser. Would Steven have ever found out what happened to them? Would he have even been able to work out that they'd been kidnapped by Homeworld? Would anyone? It doesn't seem likely, since the Crystal Gems weren't even aware that there was an Aquamarine and a Topaz on earth until he told them. And even if he had, how would he be able to go after them after Navy stole the Roaming Eye?
• The Crystal Gems' worst fears have come true: Steven has turned himself in to the Diamonds, possibly knowing that he won't return. They may have Peridot to repair a transportation device and Lapis's water and flying towers, but how long will it take for them to create a rescue vehicle? What's more, even if they make one before the Diamonds can shatter Steven, Homeworld is vast and the Diamonds have an intense security system. How will they pull a second Bavarian Fire Drill when breaking into the Human Zoo was a task into itself?
• What is Greg going to think knowing his son sacrificed himself for his Beach City friends and the Crystal Gems?
• What's more, what will Peridot's reaction be on hearing that her report on humans was used to enable Steven's capture?
• What will Dante and Martha's reactions be when they learn that Lars is still on the ship because everyone forgot about him?
• At first, Crystal Gems telling Steven to jump out of the ship and Connie calling his name is all sweet and heartwarming. But when you realize that Lars is still on the ship... If Steven actually listened to them, Lars would be left there alone, and since everyone would be celebrating that Steven saved himself too, it'd take some time for the others to notice Lars is missing. Steven at least knows what he's getting into; he has a huge knowledge about the Gems and Homeworld and has his powers. Lars has none of this. One can only hope that if Steven didn't sacrifice himself, Aquamarine and Topaz wouldn't be satisfied by having only one human, and would come back.
• Let's suppose that the Diamonds realize that Steven isn't Rose, but rather is carrying her Gem and her powers. Suppose they decide to remove Rose's gem to judge her independently. What would happen to Steven?
• After A Single Pale Rose, we realize that Pearl knows for an absolute fact that Rose Quartz didn't shatter Pink Diamond, but Pink's last command keeps her from telling anyone this. She has to watch her Diamond give himself up for a crime that he did not commit, and there is nothing she can do about it.

Season 5

General

• This whole season is Nothing Is the Same Anymore. There is no more status quo, no more comfortable slice-of-life episodes that stand far apart from the trauma of Topaz and Aquamarine kidnapping humans and The Reveal in “A Single Pale Rose”. This is a whole new show, and one the viewers have to get adjusted to.

The Trial

• If Blue Zircon is right and one of the Diamonds shattered Pink and covered it up by framing Rose, that means that all the hatred and violence that followed was for nothing, including the corruption of Earth's remaining Gems. Who knows what lengths they might go to conceal it...
• There's a very good chance Yellow Diamond won't stop at poofing Blue Zircon for accusing the Diamonds of killing Pink Diamond and framing Rose Quartz. Yellow Zircon might suffer the same fate, if she isn't merely bullied into keeping it under wraps.
  • On the bright side, Maya Petersen stated on her Twitter that they were just poofed, so we won't be seeing their shards anytime soon.
  • While Defense Zircon accusing two Goddess-Empresses of murdering one of their own was bad enough, seeing as she was the one who requested Blue Diamond's palanquin which Steven escaped in, the Diamonds will likely suspect her of treason for conspiring to help a war criminal escape.
• Given some revelations in "A Single Pale Rose", Yellow and Blue Diamond nearly executed their sister. Also, Blue interrogating Steven about Pink's death becomes extremely horrifying when you realize that Rose was Pink Diamond. Talk about a plan to frame yourself Gone Horribly Right!

Off Colors

• How many of the Off Colors' fellow outcasts have they seen hunted down like animals and shattered for the crime of being imperfect?
  • Fluorite confirms in the next episode that they've been down there for eons. It's a wonder that none of them have Gone Mad From The Isolation...though then again, you may find yourself wondering about Rhodonite and Padparadscha.
• The very existence of the Shattering Robonoids is this. Wandering machines that seem programmed to hunt down 'Off Color' or fugitive Gems and kill them on sight. And these things are roaming Homeworld in what seem to be significant numbers. Just let that prospect sink in a little bit and what it says about Homeworld in general.
• Imagine if the shattering robonoids had existed during the Rebellion. Rather than sending soldiers to square off against the Crystal Gems, Homeworld could have used the robonoids to target and shatter them from a distance without going near them. They would've won quickly with that type of tech...
• The existence of the Shattering Robonoids also proves that Bismuth's plan to take on Homeworld and shatter the Diamonds with the Breaking Point was doomed to fail, if that wasn't obvious from the start.

Lars' Head

• Lars doesn't seem that changed outside from his skin and hair color after his resurrection. However, taking into account the likely possibility of Lion being a part of the pride from "Buddy's Book", and Lars' lack of interest for food despite having not eaten for days...hoo boy. He's only a teenager. That's too early to be thinking about immortality. He already freaked out over the fact that he was resurrected from the dead and seemingly has no pulse now.
  • It gets even darker when you consider that maybe Lars can die, just not naturally (after effectively becoming a zombie) but in order to, he'd have to be Driven to Suicide. On the brighter side, at least he'll have Steven and the Crystal Gems to hang out with indefinitely. And of course, his new Off-Color friends.
  • Imagine how Lars' parents and Sadie will react to the news.
  • Paying closer attention to the dialogue reveals that Lars' heartbeat hasn't stopped, but instead just slowed considerably, which means his metabolism must have slowed to a creeping crawl after the resurrection, which would make sense of his lack of hunger... But it would also mean that not only is Lars functionally immortal now, he's also not going to age properly any longer. Recall the turmoil Steven went through with Connie back in Steven's Birthday, and now apply that to Lars and Sadie. Even if the two of them do end up having a happier relationship now (which is likely, thanks to Lars' Character Development and the fact that Sadie is not one to hold grudges), sooner or later Sadie's biological age will overtake Lars' in the same way Connie has already overtaken Steven, and the gap will only continue to grow.
  • Alternately, it could be that Lars and Lion are sustaining themselves using Steven's gem, which is why Lars no longer seems to need food. However, that would make their (un)lives dependent upon Steven. What would happen to them if Steven died?
• If Steven wants to create another portal, he'd had to sacrifice a living being and cry over them. Steven is also a Friend to All Living Things who doesn't want to hurt anyone. Small wonder that the later episodes don't see him trying to experiment with that.
• Pearl mentions planning to use Centipeetle's drop ship to rescue Steven. How did Centipeetle react to the news that Steven was kidnapped?

Dewey Wins

• Dewey lost in the mayoral campaign not just because his rival was more competent; for the first time in a while, a major tragedy arrived outside of his control. While it wasn't completely Steven's fault, because how was he supposed to know that his accumulating actions to reason with Peridot and save his father would lead to his friends being kidnapped, the Gems failed to protect the humans. Dewey was pretty much treated as The Scapegoat, discounting his heartless remark about replacing Lars at the Donut Shop.
• It's really lucky that Steven is liked by almost every Beach City citizen and the Gems are seen and appreciated as the local oddities; if this was another show, the town could easily turn against him for what happened at the end of season four.
  • Adding onto that, will someone actually take notice of Steven and Crystal Gems? Ronaldo pointed it out in an early episode, but that was more for his sake. What if someone else who genuinely cares about Beach City confronts the fact that the protagonists are indirectly causing trouble to his/her home?

Raising the Barn

• Lapis left Peridot and Pumpkin essentially homeless. Peridot in later episodes doesn't take this well. Assuming Lapis does return, her remorse and guilt won't be enough; she and Peridot will have a lot of baggage to work through, and perhaps a What the Hell, Hero? argument.
• Lapis also won't fight to protect the Earth, even for Steven, because Homeworld terrifies her. The Crystal Gems have lost a highly formidable ally.
• Lapis was willing to take not only Peridot and Pumpkin away from their home, but also Steven. Imagine the fear from his guardians that the person they thought could be trusted essentially kidnapped their child.

Gemcation

• Looking back over the last few times Pearl covered her mouth in distress when hearing anything related to Homeworld/ Pink Diamond, no matter how small, "Gemcation" casts these occasions in a different light: Were the circumstances simply too traumatic for her to do so back then? Or did she at some point in the moments want to tell Steven what she knew about both topics (which she even admits in the episode proper), but couldn't?

Back to the Kindergarten

• The Kindergartens can't support any organic life. There are only two on Earth. Try not to imagine how much life would have been wiped out if the Earth had become a Gem colony as originally planned.
• Peridot was only cheerful for the past few seasons because she was caring for Lapis, and learning more about the Earth with her.
• If we go by the symbolism, the Kindergarten is meant to symbolize Lapis and Peridot's relationship, platonic or otherwise. The Kindergarten is infertile, toxic, and unsustainable for any life. If Lapis returns, she and Peridot won't be able to repair what they had. Or rather, if they try, have a long road ahead of them.
• Why would the Kindergarten drain life from plants that were perfectly healthy within a day of them being planted with compost brought in from elsewhere, when the Injectors were deactivated millennia ago? Could there still be Gems under the surface trying to grow, but lacking the nutrients to do so?

Sadie Killer

• Finally Sadie gets to show off her singing chops and become part of a new group, without her mother barging in and becoming a Control Freak. What other opportunities did Sadie miss, either because of her job or her mother being overbearing?

Kevin Party

• Due to Lion being with Connie, Steven had no way to go back to Lars for a while.
• Try not to think about how Kevin talked to Connie to convince her to come to the party, due to Kevin being a creep.
  • Even Kevin doesn't have the gall to be a creep to a little kid, as evidenced by him quickly bailing from the rave in "Alone Together" when Stevonnie splits apart. A jerk maybe, but not a creep.

Jungle Moon

• The flashback in the dream indicates that getting rid of organic life is normal for a colony, but setting up a moon base doesn't involve mass extinction or land mass destruction.
• How much of what Pink did on Earth was either a direct result of observing and trying to imitate Yellow and/or trying to gain her respect?
• The flashback also puts Yellow and Pink Diamond's relationship, and Yellow's grieving over Pink, in a new light: it's like her daughter was killed.
  • The same can be said for Blue, who also might have viewed Pink like a daughter. No wonder she was so depressed over her death!
    • We know for certain that Blue was on Earth during the rebellion, and it's heavily suggested that Yellow and White were there too, judging by Centipeetle and Lapis' flashbacks to the gem corruption attack. They must have been giving Pink a chance to prove herself and now all three have to live with the knowledge that they were present at the scene and didn't intervene. We've even heard Blue Diamond lament that she didn't help.
• During Stevonnie’s dream, it’s pretty easy to imagine Pink Diamond as a child. She demands attention, messes with Yellow’s work the way a younger sibling would, throws temper tantrums, all behavior that you would expect out of a spoiled kid. Why is this Fridge Horror? Assuming that this reflects her actual maturity (because space rocks and age is kind of a weird thing to think about,) that would mean that Rose Quartz, or potentially one of the other Diamonds, literally murdered a child...

Your Mother and Mine

• Steven brings up the possibility that Pink Diamond could still be alive. If so, then the corruption light, the Cluster, Blue Diamond's five-thousand-year-long mourning, and Yellow Diamond seeking to destroy Pink Diamond's legacy to forget her...it was All for Nothing.
• If Pink Diamond is alive and on Earth, Yellow Diamond planting the Cluster in the Earth's core to destroy it may have unintentionally put her fellow Diamond in massive danger.
  • Just imagine how Yellow would feel if she found out she unintentionally killed Pink with the Cluster. Even worse, how would Blue feel?
• Look at the first silhouette shot of the Diamonds looking over Pink's shattered remains. Despite only being in silhouette Yellow and Blue's emotions can clearly be seen; Blue is openly shocked and despairing, Yellow is more subdued but still clearly devastated. White... is a blank state. The front on silhouette betrays no emotion whatsoever. Did White even care about Pink's demise, beyond losing a valuable Gem? This gets even more disturbing if you consider the fan theory that White knew Pink faked her shattering...

Pool Hopping

• Are we sure those kittens were abandoned? What if there is a frantic mother looking for them?

Can't Go Back

• The very fact that the Diamonds could use that orb to watch any part of the Earth at any time.
• The implication that the colony Gems attacked human settlements.
• Blue's lines in the flashback imply that Pink had essentially been made a Puppet Queen for her own colony.
• The fact that one of Pink's excuses is how "their cities were too difficult to dismantle". This confirms that yes, ancient civilizations like the Mesopotamians did exist in this timeline. Gems set humanity back thousands of years.

A Single Pale Rose

• The revelations here have many horrific implications:
  • Hundreds of innocent Rose Quartz gems were bubbled away (and would have been shattered if not for Blue Diamond's sentimentality) because Pink Diamond decided to host her rebellion. They had nothing to do with it!
  • Also, thanks to Pink, thousands of humans are stranded in a zoo far from home, left to the mercy of their Amethyst watchers and Blue's mercy. Humans that never can return home because they are little better than pets.
  • Steven isn't a Quartz. He's a Diamond. Which means, not only is his middle name a misnomer, but also he's the enemy that the Crystal Gems thought they were fighting for years. No wonder Garnet and Amethyst are shocked.
  • Eyeball's, the Diamond's, and Jasper's trauma was All for Nothing. Also, Jasper unknowingly manhandled and threatened her own beloved Diamond.
  • Pink faked her death and permanently became Rose Quartz because she believed that Yellow and Blue wouldn't mourn her, and that they'd leave the Earth alone. What was her reaction when she saw her sisters slamming Earth with the Corruption Beam, hurting enemies and allies alike?
  • All the gems fighting for Homeworld were doing so in order to avenge Pink Diamond's death. Rose conducted the rebel army in killing her own grieving subjects.
  • Pink/Rose's lines in this episode, combined with the previous episode lines from Blue in the flashback, implies that Pink started the rebellion in the hopes that it would give her an excuse to stop development on the colony, only for Yellow and Blue to all but take control.
  • Pink was against permanently shattering a Gem. That's because she didn't want to actually hurt anyone physically. But her actual death ended up wrecking the Crystal Gems, as we see with how they reacted to Steven being born and existing. There is also how her soldiers like Eyeball and Jasper were traumatized, how Bismuth was poofed for eons, and how Pearl had to keep this information to herself.
  • Pink wanted to "surrender" the Earth to the Crystal Gems by faking her death. She ended up dooming it by accident, with how Yellow ordered the Cluster to be formed and destroy the Earth from the inside out.
  • Rose Quartz is as large as Pink, and looks older than the cheerful Womanchild. Despite outer appearances, however, Pink couldn't grow up from being a capricious child: she Didn't Think This Through with how her "death" and ordering Pearl to never tell the truth to anyone would affect people. Pearl for two seasons had to let Steven believe that his mother was a murderer and a hypocrite. Also, at any time, Pink could have sent a message to Homeworld saying "I'm not dead, I just wanted the Earth to survive," but didn't because she wanted to be Rose Quartz forever and shed her old identity. She treated Greg and other lovers like toys and not really considering their feelings until Greg made it clear he wanted to communicate with her. It makes her speech to him about how Gems can't change more heartbreaking: she knew she couldn't stop being Pink Diamond, no matter how much she posed as Rose Quartz.
  • Rose lied to everyone, including Greg, about her old identity. Note that Rose probably got pregnant with Steven the usual way babies are made, and she hid from him that she was a Diamond, aka the most powerful Gem in existence. It was still consensual, but that is a huge thing to lie about when you are carrying someone's child. Now think again about Greg's worries about how caring for Steven would potentially differ from raising a normal child.
  • In "Storm in the Room", Steven outright accuses the fake Rose of only creating Steven and "dying" in the process to be able to escape from the consequences of her actions. Whether or not this is true is still up in the air, but since it turns out she caused the entire war to happen in the first place, this only throws more fuel to the fire, especially given how impulsive she was about it all with catastrophic results. Chances are, Steven will have to confront his already-negative views of his mother in yet another new light.
  • On numerous occasions throughout the show, Garnet has said horrible things about Pink Diamond. Pearl had to listen to someone badmouthing her Diamond, completely unable to speak in her defense.
  • The Crystal Gems only rebelled because a Diamond prompted them to, and they only won because they had a Diamond secretly helping them. All their independence, all their victories, all of that was a lie.
• When Blue Diamond grieved in front of Pink's palanquin, she lamented that she "should have done more". At first that might be taken as sending more soldiers during the war, but it's worse than that. Given how dismissive she was of Pink when she insisted the Crystal Gems were too much of a problem to keep colonizing the planet, Blue feels that if she had taken Pink seriously earlier, rather than dismissing it as regular colony growing pains, her beloved sister would still be alive.
• Pink Diamond created fake gem shards out of dirt, which makes Pearl uncomfortable. It seems weird until you realize that Pink essentially made a bunch of fake dismembered gem corpse pieces. Not at all helped by the fact that she swallows them later (so they'd poof out when she's "shattered") meaning, from Pearl's point of view, her Diamond just ate a bunch of very realistic-looking gem corpses.
  • You also have to wonder if this traumatizing sight is the reason she now hates eating so much.
• Pearl's undying love for Rose has already been portrayed as a quite unhealthy obsession up until now, and this episode adds a whole new layer as she was originally Pink Pearl, and was literally made to be Pink Diamond's slave and unthinkingly obey her every command. Suddenly you have to wonder just how much of her current autonomy only exists because Pink told her it should.
• More like Fridge Nausea Fuel, but previously it was assumed that Steven's gem was only skin-deep. Now that we know that it has a sharp edge, it means it must be lodged deep within his bowels.
  • Since he's had it his whole life, we can probably assume that his internal organs developed around the gem, so no immediate problems there if none haven't already arisen. However, having something sharp and pointed like that inside of you is a ticking time bomb; if he got hit severely enough in the stomach to jostle the gem a bit, it could potentially cut something important and cause internal bleeding.
• Garnet and Amethyst had no idea about Rose's real identity. Now, Amethyst was born after the war and has only indirectly been involved with Homeworld and the Diamonds so while she'll be surprised and maybe a little mad she probably won't care that much. Garnet on the other hand lived through the war, she dealt with every horrible thing it threw at them, lived through the Diamonds's wrath over Pink's shattering, spent thousands of years believing in and trusting Rose Quartz. And it was all a lie. Not only is Garnet going to be furious but she (or Ruby or Sapphire) may even lash out at Steven and Pearl.
• In Garnet's retelling of how Rose's rebellion started, she mentioned that Rose had found relationships with the humans of earth. Pink Diamond created an entire zoo housing humans she kidnapped and Blue Diamond said she had a weird fascination with them. The Zoomans may have very well been Pink's harem.
• The Zoo has a second, possibly more heartbreaking Fridge Horror to it. It's entirely possible that Pink started it early on in her growing admiration for humanity and only afterwards realized it was wrong...but remember, it's Era 1, when the Gempire had explicitly not had faster than light travel other than the Warp Pads and making it to the Zoo at sublight travel would take decades...which the Zoo doesn't have as both the Crystal Gems and Diamonds are shown needing to take a ship there. This means at that point if she wanted to rescue the Zoomans and bring them to Earth, she'd have to leave Earth for decades, something her sisters and the Crystal Gems would've surely noticed. While early in the war she could've used the warp pad to teleport to a closer area to take them there, it's shown by the time the rebellion started her fellow Diamonds were already on her back for not taking the Earth colony seriously and trying to get rid of it, meaning they likely wouldn't tolerate her 'abandoning her duties' to hang out with her 'pets' at that point. It's entirely possible that Rose wanted to rescue the Zoomans, but due to circumstances she simply couldn't, which adds another dose of guilt and strife to what Rose is already living with.

  • Actually, it turns out that Blue Diamond created the Zoo, but only because she misinterpreted Pink begging her to spare the native Earth life. How do you think Pink felt about that?
  • Actually, Homeworld did have faster-than-light travel in Era 1, as evidenced by Pink Diamond's ship.

  • Another bit of Fridge Tear Jerker: With this new revelation, all of Rose's decisions leading up to Steven's birth take on a potentially morbid possibility. Overcome with guilt about what happened to the rest of the Crystal Gems as a result of her grave miscalculations about how Homeworld would react to the presumed shattering of her Diamond persona, and realizing after starting a true relationship with Greg, she didn't truly understand how life on Earth worked, Rose (or rather, Pink Diamond) decided that the only way she could make up for it was to give up her own existence, by giving her Gem and power to the people of Earth as atonement for her mistakes.
  • Garnet appears to be literally unable to ask questions, based on her line in "Know Your Fusions". Remember that Rose told her "No more questions" in "The Answer", much the same way that she told Pearl "Never speak of this again" in this episode. It suggests that Rose still had a Diamond's absolute authority even when she doesn't intend to use it and even when her "victim" has no idea she's a Diamond. Who else may be laboring under unintentional unbreakable orders? (Word of God implies that she can't, but the showrunners have been known to be misleading.)
  • In the movie, Garnet asks questions for the first time since that day, after her gems were reset, implying that the above us true.
• Rose/Pink Diamond seems to have some real problems with empathy. While she has a huge amount of compassion, she doesn't seem to understand how her actions (which are often thoughtless and selfish, despite being well meaning) make others feel. She didn't consider how her apparent death might make the other Diamonds feel (and she seemed to think the best way of getting out of colonizing Earth was to START A CIVIL WAR) and she didn't handle the Greg/Rose/Pearl triangle well at all (Word of God says she loved them both and didn't see why she couldn't have both). It's likely that with her fascination and admiration for the way humans grow and change she decided to give up her form to bring Steven into the world for a chance to become human herself, without really thinking about how it would affect the people around her, especially the Gems (who seem to be handling it far worse than Greg, especially Pearl).
• Rose Quartz's Superpower Lottery becomes this when one realizes that it means the other Diamonds are far more powerful than they've shown thus far and are hiding a lot of powers, given how many Rose has. Just what are the other Diamonds truly capable of?
• Rose didn't just ban Pearl from talking about her past as Pink Diamond, she also indirectly banned Pearl from ever talking about her own life before that happened. Pearl's entire life would have been based around Pink Diamond until that point. She's literally unable to speak about her own early experiences, anybody she knew before Earth, her adventures through space, the real reasons for her guilt over the Corruption, and many of the events that caused her PTSD and issues. Pearl will always have to keep a huge chunk of her life completely to herself, never really able to speak of it no matter how much she wants the other person to know. No one besides Rose will ever hear all of Pearl's story. It's no wonder Pearl can't let go of Rose.
• As pointed out above, the trauma of the fake shattering may be the root cause of some of Pearl's quirks like hating to eat and never shapeshifting, indicating that Pearl really does need help to get past what happened. Just how many of Pearl's issues did Rose cause with her actions that day? And how can Pearl ever move past them when she's physically unable to talk openly about what happened with the people she loves? She's basically forced to keep all of her emotions about that time unhealthily bottled up, thanks to Rose.
• So, we already saw in the episode "Three Gems And A Baby", that Pearl of all gems had tried to rip out Steven's gem because she wanted Rose to come back. And we all know that Blue and Yellow Diamond are both willing to kill Steven without remorse, they do not know what Steven's birth meant to Rose/Pink, and overall Pearl can easily be assumed to have better morality than them. So even if they find out that Steven is their nephew, chances are, they are still going to kill him, perhaps even with much more determination than before, hoping to get Pink back after all those years.
  • Well, White did try to kill Steven by ripping out his gemstone to bring back Pink, and it... didn't turn out well, at least for her.
• Lapis fled the Earth because she was terrified of the Diamonds. If she'd known that Steven was himself Pink Diamond, that the Crystal Gems had one of the Diamonds on their side, that might have tipped the scales just enough to make her stay on Earth.

Now We're Only Falling Apart

• Sapphire and Ruby split again, only this time it's going to be for much longer. Last time they fused again when they saw they were hurting Steven with their fighting; what's going to happen to Steven to convince them again?
• Also, Sapphire takes out her anger on Ruby, who tries to reasonably point out that Rose lied so well to everyone and hid the truth. Maybe Ruby wasn't wrong when in their previous fight that Sapphire acts like Ruby is stupid.
• Pink Diamond is shown to be Obliviously Evil to the damages to Earth she was doing and its life because she was on the Moon Base the whole time. Did the same thing happen with Blue during her previous colonies?

Reunited

• If not for Steven's shield holding out, Yellow Diamond stomping him into the ground could have killed him, and possibly shattered his gem. The Crystal Gems only barely managed to get Blue to her knees; with the two of them teaming up, without Steven manifesting Pink's aura Blue and Yellow would have beaten the Crystal Gems eventually, probably shattering them afterwards. They would never have gotten closure about Pink, nor discovered that she was still alive.
• How does Yellow feel upon finding out she nearly killed her beloved Pink, both at the trial and during the fight against the Crystal Gems?
• Prosecuting Zircon shedding a Single Tear as a result of Blue Diamond's aura may not be due to Lack of Empathy, but may also due to having suffered a ton of emotional pain like Lapis (who was locked away and abandoned for thousands of years without any support systems, servants, Pearls, or a family).
• Though this may be a good thing, Blue and Yellow's ships being destroyed likely means that they are unable to get back to Homeworld, and from the point of view of the Homeworld Gems, not only has Rose Quartz shattered Pink Diamond, but she may have also shattered Blue and Yellow Diamond as well.
• Was the bubbled Tongue Monster still inside the barn when it was destroyed after Lapis dropped it on Blue Diamond? Let's hope she'd be more sensitive than that, but she was likely shattered if she was still in the barn at that point.
  • For what it's worth, Joe Johnston claims they probably moved her to the Burning Room after a few days.
• Blue and Yellow Pearl, at least, were probably in their Diamonds' ships when they crashed.
• What will happen to Eyeball and Aquamarine when Blue and Yellow Diamond find out what they did to Steven?

Legs From Here to Homeworld

• Blue is surprised that there are any Gems left on Earth as she assumed that the power beam sent by her, Yellow, and White obliterated every Gem left on the planet. That's right, the Diamonds were merely trying to kill the Crystal Gems (and any Homeworld soldier who couldn't reach a ship or warp pad in time) and instead created hundreds, possibly thousands of monsters by sheer accident! She and Yellow have no idea about them, until the gang introduces them to Centipeetle.
  • The implications could lead to an even worse revelation, that while Yellow and Blue had intended on wiping out all of the Crystal Gems, it's entirely possible White influenced the beam that instead corrupted the Gems on Earth, doing so behind her fellow Diamonds' back.
• Based on Centipeetle's words towards the Diamonds, it would seem that corrupted Gems retain no memories of their monstrous states.
  • Given that, with her body and vocabulary but not her mind restored, all Centipeetle could say was frightened pleading that they were all going to perish, it's possible that the main (or even only) reason the Gem monsters attack people is because they're just frightened, forever stuck knowing that there's an attack just about to hit and knowing they're too slow and can't do anything about it.
• White Diamond's temper scares Yellow Diamond. Let that sink in.
• The implications of White decimating her own home planet.
• White Pearl seems so devoid of feeling, and is also missing an eye. For White Pearl to operate in an acceptable manner befitting the servant of Homeworld's divine being, she cannot be logically cracked or anything. But yet she has facial scarring.
  • Just the fact that White Pearl is showing permanent scars, despite Gem's ability to shapeshift and regenerate. Either White Diamond can do something to Gems that permanently damages them (and did it to her Pearl for some reason), White Pearl was ordered to assume an apparently damaged form, or she chose that form.
    • Even worse: Word of God confirms that the form a Gem chooses is a reflection of their psychological status. Whatever happened to her, literally scarred her for life in more than a way
• White's Pearl's missing eye has had some people believe White moved her gem from that spot somehow. Its current location is where Pink's gem was...
• White Pearl is apparently even higher-ranking than Blue and Yellow Diamond due to her Diamond's ranking in itself.
• White Pearl is the first Pearl to not be voiced by Deedee Magno-Hall, and is instead voiced by White Diamond's actress, Christine Ebersole. White Diamond literally took away White Pearl's voice.
• White Diamond doesn't necessarily look old, but she has that air about her. At this point, Yellow and Blue feel even more like Pink's sisters than parents, acting as a barrier between her and an abusive mother.
• Pink Diamond's faked shattering, the war; all of that was considered Pink Diamond's playtime according to White Diamond, and then White sends Steven to Pink's room... it's no wonder it seems that Pink would rather consult with Blue and Yellow instead.
• In this episode, we learn that Centipeetle a.k.a. Nephrite was one of Pink Diamond's followers and that she was also against "Rose Quartz" for "shattering" Pink Diamond. From several episodes ago, we have also learned that not only was Rose Quartz actually Pink Diamond, but that Steven - the person who initially tried to cure her - is basically Pink Diamond reincarnated. If and when Nephrite is fully, permanently cured and finds out the truth, how is she going to react to Steven being her Diamond? Will she be relieved, be shocked, feel betrayed? Only time will tell...
• Yellow Diamond mentions White poofing and bubbling the other Diamonds as a punishment. However, due to how extremely high White Diamond's Time Dissonance is, she likely sees it as equivalent to grounding them.
• When Greg asks Garnet if he should be worried, she says Steven will be fine, not saying which Steven she means, or if the others will be fine.

Familiar

• This episode reveals that many of the structures on Homeworld (such as the pillars, statues and Blue Diamond's comb) are actually alive. Just imagine what kind of life they must be living.
• While sitting at Pink's vanity, a drop of sweat rolls off of Steven and lands on a pebble, bringing it to life. Given Rose and Steven's shared healing powers, it seems that this is how the Pebbles were created. There's actually a whole bowl full of pebbles, but considering how Pink's tears could bring things to life, and considering her very poor relationship with the other Diamonds, one wonders if Pink wept over the Pebbles.
• In Steven's dreams we see both Pink Diamond and Pink Pearl playing together and hiding it from the other Diamonds and Blue Diamond warning Pink that White Diamond is angry and threatening to take away her Pearl, which at the end of the episode we see actually happened (Pink Pearl became White Diamond's puppet mouthpiece). Pink Diamond's second pearl's (our Crystal Gem Pearl) appearance incorporates the colors of all four diamonds (she wears pink, blue, yellow, and white). This isn't a design choice made from affection. It's meant to remind Pink of what happened to her original pearl and the that the other diamonds can step in anytime they feel like it. It's a WARNING.

Escapism

• This episode reveals that not only can Steven take over the bodies of other beings against their will, he can do so to a Watermelon Steven on Earth all the way from Homeworld, which is implied to be in a separate galaxy. Let's just say that it is very, very fortunate that Pink Diamond and Steven turned out to be the White Sheep of the Diamond Authority.
• The Watermelon Stevens are sentient, sapient beings. Odds are this applies to the one Steven possesses. That particular Watermelon Steven is mangled and dried out throughout the journey, and presumably perishes on the shore of Beach City. While you could argue Necessarily Evil, there's no denying that Steven's adapted plan ended up costing a life. We can only hope that it remained unconscious the whole time.
• The Watermelon shark, while obviously a threat to Steven, shows that Steven’s powers have (unintentionally) affected the lives of others once again: Melon sharks (and presumably other melon creatures) have invaded earth’s oceans, and by extension it’s ecosystem on a much larger scale than that of the island. Also, it’s existence means that either some Watermelon Steven was growing Watermelon sharks for some unknown purpose, or some melon creatures are evolving into predatory species on their own at an alarming rate, neither of which is particularily good.

Change Your Mind

• With the revelation of what happens if his gemstone is removed from his body, go back to Three Gems and a Baby and the horror truly sets in. Not only would Pearl have harmed an innocent baby but it would’ve been All for Nothing since Pink/Rose is truly gone.
  • For that matter, if Eyeball had managed to successfully remove Steven's gem, she would have been disbelieving to see it was Pink Diamond's gem, and thrashed thoroughly by Pink Steven.
  • And as traumatic as his Gem being removed was for Steven, it by all logic should have been far worse. If not for (presumably) some last trace of Diamond magic allowing Steven's Gem to be removed smoothly, then when White pulled it out it would have torn a huge hole in his torso, which would have killed him almost instantly.
    • At which point, Pink Steven would have formed, and realized that his human half was gone beyond recall. The limited degree to which he lashed out was scary enough, we can only imagine what he'd do in those circumstances.
• The reveal of Pink Steven shows us an entity that is, by all accounts, the pure Gem half of the Steven we know and love. And he's practically emotionless, unfeeling, and brimming with so much potential power that even White Diamond can't scratch him, teetering into the point of being a Physical God by the series' standards. While he gains his emotions back upon moving to re-fuse with Steven, it's not hard to think about the fact that Pink Diamond - the most outgoing and positively emotional Diamond of the four - has been just about completely overwritten by an emotionless entity that would be nigh unstoppable without Steven as its tether.
  • It also gets worse if you subscribe to the theory that Pink Steven's horrific "she's gone" scream means the Gem half is filled with bitter hatred and raw emotions that it can't safely exert without destruction in its wake. Steven may come to love thyself, but his emotions over abandonment and the loss of his mother combined with all the stress she inadvertently heaped upon his shoulders went downright explosive in that one moment.
  • Steven is half-human. As revealed in "So Many Birthdays", he could still potentially age and die, even if slower than normal. What would happen to this unstable Gem half should his human half bite the dust while they're or they're not separated?
• Steven managed to Earn Your Happy Ending: he uncorrupted all the Gems that were affected by the Diamonds' final attack on earth, the Diamonds have respected his wishes to leave him and the Crystal Gems on Earth, and he earned his freedom thoroughly. Except... now we have thousands of Gems who were fighting against each other appearing, and confused about how much time has passed. Heck, Jasper definitely needs some time to process that she nearly accidentally shattered her Diamond as well as learning that Pink lied to her and other soldiers. It seems that Steven has just opened a can of worms.
• This was also covered in the Nightmare Fuel and Fridge Brilliance pages, but when we got to see the pleasant image of Steven seemingly dying in front of us, we witness the location of Steven and the location of his Gemstone. The two are several stories apart from each other in height. He had been dying, because White had dropped him from a terminal height and he was suffering from internal wounds that would have otherwise been fatal, had he and Pink Steven not re-fused in time.
• Does Pink Pearl remember her five thousand years or more as being White Diamond's pawn? If so, does she realize that Pink is gone forever? If not, where can she go? Steven has gone through this process with his Pearl already; is he going to have to help Pink Pearl through her trauma?
• Furthermore, how will Pink Pearl feel about the Crystal Gems Pearl? Or Greg, for that matter?
• As the Diamonds are un-corrupting all the Gems that they screwed up, Yellow and Blue are more happy and sociable than they've been in the entire series. This begs the question... were Yellow and Blue once similar to Pink in demeanor, only for centuries of White Diamond's iron-fisted "parenting" to damage their minds and souls to the point that we saw them in the series? Not only would it explain why they fear White and lean on each other so much, but it also explains their grief over losing Pink- even if she was going down the same path until right up to the Rebellion.
  • This is even more horrifying when you realize that things like that happen in Real Life.
• Even though Steven got through to White and is now on good terms with the Diamonds, what's stopping them from continuing their roles as galactic tyrants? Steven may have repaired their family-like relationship but he never once called them out onscreen on their crimes such as the discriminate social hierarchy they upheld on Homeworld or the damage they were doing to the colonized planets. For all we know, they're just going to go back to oppressing gems in the lower classes and plunder innocent planets, along with potentially destroying the civilizations and alien life that belonged to those planets, for their resources. But hey, at least they'll do it as a loving family right?
  • Steven's plea to White Diamond to let everyone be themselves so she can be granted the same mercy, as well as Blue Diamond's acknowledgment that the Homeworld Gems are suffering under Homeworld's ways, at least gives the possibility that they'll grant their lower gems more freedom of expression. Doesn't solve the interplanetary genocide, though. Doubly jarring given this line from "Familiar": "I'll show them all the error of their ways/and stop their spread of terror across space", implying that it was part of Steven's original goal to talk them out of continuing their conquest, but this was implicitly forgotten.
  • Additionally, Rebecca Sugar confirmed in a podcast that cross-gem fusion has been legalized, so it looks like the Diamonds and Homeworld really have changed for the better. Again, doesn't solve the interplanetary genocide, though, but the only alien life we've seen other than Gems have been animalistic and unintelligent.
  • Thankfully, Yellow Diamond does mention near the end of The Movie that she's dismantled her armies and ended the colonization of worlds, so that issue apparently did get resolved, just not on-screen. Assuming she's being remotely honest, anyway...
  • Speaking of the galactic conquest and genocide, what do the intelligent lifeforms of the universe (if they're any) view the Diamonds and the Gems? Do they fear them, hate them, or both?!
• White Diamond suggests that Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz used Steven as a Meat Puppet (which fortunately, turns out to be wrong). In the extended theme song, Rose, while holding Steven in her hands, displays unsettling Hidden Eyes and has an almost sinister smile on her face...
• A throwaway line in the flashback at the beginning of the episode has Blue mention that Pink has been dragging her heels in terms of "dismantling their [e.g. the humans'] cities." That period of time saw the rise of several of Earth's first urban centers — Uruk, the Indus Valley, Memphis in Egypt. How many early civilizations were nipped in the bud before Pink realized what the Gems were doing?

Save the Light

• There's a brief exchange in the game when Hessonite and Pearl cross swords; Pearl refuses to back down and bravely defies her, but Hessonite brushes off her challenge and instead tries to condescendingly charm Pearl into putting down her sword and coming with Hessonite to be her Pearl. Her "even without my Prism, I'm something of a legend" comment comes off as akin to a socially powerful creep attempting to seduce a vulnerable victim into sexual compliance by bragging about their achievements and high social standing.
  • Put together with the earlier instance in the TV series of Eyeball acting... weird over the idea of getting her own Pearl, and we're beginning to see a pattern: Era 2 Gems like Peridot, and Civil War-era Gems like Jasper, seem to view Pearls as purely ornamental and are dismissive of them for having no function, but the two Era 1 Gems we've seen treat Pearls like lust objects, or worse, concubines.
    • As if their reactions to having a Pearl weren't enough, keep in mind the... less-than-modest attire of the three un-fused Homeworld Pearls (barring OUR Pearl, of course) that we've seen so far.
• A single Prism that was reluctant to do its job created an entire RPG's worth of monsters, including bosses, that can operate independently, sustain their forms when nowhere near the Prism, exhibit various powers and weapons, and are confirmed to attack civilians. It's not hard to imagine that an army of motivated Prisms could devastate an entire planet overnight.

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