Nightmare Fuel / Flawed Crystals

Flawed Crystals may be a text only RPG but that doesn't stop it from being one of the most horrifying Steven Universe fanworks out there. This is a story that in spite of its funny and heartwarming moments and its attempts to fix what the authors saw as wrong with the canon direction of the series, really doesn't pull its punches when it comes to the dark aspects of the original show and the various questions left unanswered.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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General

• Connie bleeding after getting bitten by a shark enemy early on, justifying her fusion with Stevonnie the entire game.
• During the various dialogue options regarding Jasper and her memories, you can either tell the Crystal Gems that you intend to make up for your mistakes or that you think Jasper is better off in her amnesiac state. Unsurprisingly, some of them are disturbed if you tell them you intend not to restore Jasper's memories.
• If the player fails to liberate any of the gems from corruption, the game will say that Stevonnie got weaker. Steven becomes frustrated, saying that he just wants them to listen to him. When Connie asks what it's all about, Steven denies it and the dialogue ends.
  • If the player gets themselves corrupted after enough failures, Steven becomes corrupted early and you end up having to fight him.

The Alpha Kindergarten

• The Alpha Kindergarten is as dark and bleak as it was in the main series, with the background music being a dark ambience — namely, the eerie "Alien Signal" from Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. The enemies being representations of Amethyst's issues and their overall hardiness also adds to the atmosphere. The fight with Amethyst has her corrupted form experience some Body Horror whenever she uses her shapeshifting to represent her body dysmorphia.

Bad Endings

• If you try and lie to Jasper by telling her she was always a Crystal Gem, Connie will become disgusted with you and tell her the truth. After this, Jasper leaves in terror and Steven orders everyone to go after her. When Connie defies him, Steven bubbles Connie before he corrupts with him describing it as lovely despite the Body Horror mentioned. He then tries to order the Crystal Gems to go after her, only for them to turn against him, realizing that he's been corrupted.
• Asking Jasper if she loves her friends or Pink Diamond more causes Jasper to turn against the party, though she's an Anti-Climax Boss. When Steven notices the corruption near his gem, he laughs. However Steven then turns on Connie, telling her that he doesn't need her anymore before corrupting. What really makes this ending nightmarish is this bit of dialogue:
  Corrupted Steven: You know, I was thinking. Why do we NEED to heal the gems at all? Aren't they already happy in their bubbles? So we don't have to worry about them. Everything's already perfect!
• If you kill Steven during the final boss fight, Connie survives and goes to check on him. The description is quite horrifying to say the least, with the main take away being that without his gem, Steven is reduced to a fleshy blob. Not even Rose's Tears are able to resurrect him.
• If you allow Steven to bubble your entire party, the narration will mention that they're all safe. Forever. In the end, it's likely that a corrupted Steven is now living in The Room forever with the Crystal Gems unable to oppose him and likely replaced with more obedient servants.

The Endgame + Rose's Room

• The endgame after freeing all of the gems (except Jasper) really sets the tone for the finale. The gems want to celebrate, but Steven would rather go and save the Homeworld gems affected by the Diamonds's corruption. When Stevonnie talks this out among themselves, with Connie noting that Steven is suffering from Compassion Fatigue and gets him to relent. You can either either talk to Garnet to go to Homeworld or go fix Jasper to help her get her memories back.
  • Jasper's un-corrupting sequence has Steven buried alive with Jasper. The change in music really shows how bleak things are for Jasper, though depending on how you treated Jasper throughout the game, it's either the easiest sequence in the game or one of the hardest. If you mess up badly enough, you can wind up with one or two Bad Endings.
  • After Jasper is uncorrupted, it's shown that Steven himself is now suffering corruption. Having fused with the gems' minds to free them from their corruption, Stevonnie ended up absorbing their corruption into their own gem. The game's description states that their flesh is disfigured and in some parts suffering from necrosis. It takes Jasper (if you did her sequence properly) to snap them out of it.
  • Unfortunately, it doesn't completely take. Stevonnie starts seeing a copy of Rose (a part of his mind) who reveals what happened after Pearl showed Steven her memories of Pink Diamond's shattering. It turns out he created a fantasy which is the events of "A Single Pale Rose", with Steven admitting that he wished Pearl told him that's what happened instead. Bismuth points out how little sense it makes, Amethyst considers it dumb, and Jasper considers it a betrayal of the worst kind.
• Once Stevonnie and the Crystal Gems are trapped in Rose's Room, Rose describes what she (i.e. Steven) wanted the gems to be, and the results range from off-key to horrifying. The best part of the twist is that Steven's fantasy is exactly how the show decided to resolve its conflicts:
  • Steven's version of Garnet references "The Question". Rose admits she never loved Garnet for who she was and only loved the idea of her. She wanted to be better than Garnet, so she tore her down and invented problems in their relationship so she could have Ruby and Sapphire's relationship the way she wants: drama, forgiveness, and a wedding. All of this so she could "fix" their relationship on her own terms. To Garnet's credit, she has such confidence in her relationship that even this couldn't break her apart, causing the phantom Rose to leave in a petulant huff.
    The Bound's description: Dependent.
  • Steven's version of Bismuth references "Made of Honor" by having Bismuth believe that Pink Diamond shattering herself makes sense. It's implied that Steven never got over the trauma of Bismuth nearly killing him because he paints her as hateful while he heals, loves, and forgives people and also solves problems. Bismuth is merely boggled, and assumes that Steven believed that Pink shattered herself because she was afraid of facing consequences, despite being untouchable. Rose then backpedals and tries to make it about her hatred, and when calmly responded to, screams that Bismuth should hate her back.
    The Shattered's description: Hateful.
  • Steven's version of Peridot is the least disturbing, referencing her defeat in "Reunited" and lack of presence in "Legs From Here to Homeworld". Peridot is a bit annoyed that Rose thinks she's stupid enough to get poofed by Yellow Diamond but doesn't see it as a big deal. Rose corrects Peridot, telling her that the green gem had to be swept under the carpet because all of the horrible things she did under the Diamonds' orders. Rose couldn't forgive that, so she didn't. She knew she couldn't forgive the Diamonds for their actions and couldn't give herself a happy ending unless she ignored their evil actions. Peridot would've reminded her of that, and when she apologizes, Rose flips out, and points out that she's apologizing here.
    The Derelict's description: Insensitive.
  • Steven's version of Lapis references her role in "Reunited", where she ambushes Blue Diamond before fighting alongside the Crystal Gems. Peridot thinks she's cool, but Lapis points out that she wouldn't have actually said and done such a thing. Rose makes Lapis's trauma about her and blames Lapis for not wanting to get over her depression and PTSD; to this version of Rose, Lapis's value as a person is what she can do for her and what she should be. Out of all the fantasy versions of the Gems, Lapis is disturbing due to how subtle Rose is about how she views Lapis compared to the other gems.
    The Drowned's description: Pathetic.
  • Steven's version of Pearl references "Familiar" and is happy in slavery, with has no wants or desires other than Rose-Steven's approval. Because Pearl having feelings about everything, caring about everything, and freaking out all the time is too tiring to deal with. She admits she should've wanted Pearl to be free, but actually wanted her to stop caring about anything except what she wants, even saying she wanted Pearl to be her Pearl, with a horrified Pearl cutting her off and telling Steven to stop looking like Rose.
    The Lost's description: Obsessive.
  • Steven's version of Amethyst references "Together Alone", in which Amethyst couldn't care less about gems like her being murdered by the Diamonds when she can care about the Diamonds' fancy party instead. The Room Rose tells Amethyst that she didn't care about the others as long as Amethyst was safe; in contrast, Amethyst admits that she wouldn't be happy until they were all safe.
    The Wretched's description: Insecure.
  • During all this, Steven for his part feels utterly horrible that he'd create such a fantasy and begs the gems not to leave him. After defeating each puppet version of the rooms, Stevonnie ends up in pain due to the corruption and starts losing abilities. The worst part is to them, it feels like their stomach is rotting from the inside out.
• Once all the puppet versions of the Crystal Gems have been defeated, the final battle takes place. The scene that plays is a reference to "Change Your Mind" before revealing that it was how Steven actually felt, with White Diamond representing Steven's want to control the other Crystal Gems and make them what he wants them to be. Pearl, Bismuth, and Peridot tell Steven they forgive him, much to his despair. Lapis tells him no, and Steven's eyes light up before Lapis tells him that he's done nothing that needs forgiveness, much to his frustration. You can tell Rose-Steven that you forgive him or don't. Either way, Steven defuses with Connie, which sets the scene for the final boss.
  • Steven's transformation sequence is described from his perspective. At this point, the corruption has caused Steven to become delusional. He believes that he's perfect the way he is and that he doesn't need to be cured. He describes himself as being on all fours with a large muscular right arm and hair similar to his mother's. The juxtaposition of Steven's description of his transformation and the horror and sadness of the Crystal Gems coupled with Steven using the Room to create the places in Beach City Steven loves most makes it clear that his corruption has caused him to stop thinking straight. When the Crystal Gems decide that he won't see reason and decide to fight him, Steven flips out and declares he'll bubble them.
  • Corrupted Steven's appearance. During the sequence where Jasper talks to him, Steven notes that his mouth and teeth are overgrown like a monstrous dog, his eyes are a freaky psychedelic pink as his hair with his right arm twisting and bulging in an impossible shape.

The Perfect Crystal

• The Perfect Crystal. A shard fusion of The Great Diamond Authority's rulers (White Diamond, Blue Diamond, Yellow Diamond, and Pink Diamond) found in a bubble and is the embodiment of Steven's guilt for the deaths of the four Diamonds. Whereas the Room Rose is upfront about her idealized versions of the Crystal Gems, the Perfect Crystal is hidden and bubbled away. The build-up to the fight makes effective use of minimal horror, with the short build-up to the fight being more than enough to convince the player of its power.
  Perfect Crystal's description: Guilt.
  • Furthermore, their appearance invokes Body Horror and Surreal Horror with the narration describing colour sprouting from the shard fusion, each representing the Diamonds and being unable to tell if their form is heads or hands due to them shifting everytime you look at them, akin to a magic eye picture.
  • The narration describing Pink Diamond's fingers shooting forward and dealing immense pain to one of your party members whenever it uses Rose Cut or Brilliant Cut.
  • The description when White Diamond uses Silence. It speaks for itself:
    The singing stops. You didn't realize the specters were singing until this point, but they were. A constant hum of sound and motion, so simple it faded into the background almost immediately. Now, for the first time, you hear silence. And then you come to realize it's not just them. The silence is everywhere. You can't even hear your own breathing. You feel faint, lost, undefined, like ink dissolving into water, the whole of your being unspooling to try in vain to fill this terrible void. You want to cry, but no sound comes out.

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