Sandbox / Steven Universe Crystal Gems Human Allies

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

Connie Maheswaran

Connie Maheswaran

Voiced by: Grace Rolek

^{Click here for her appearance in Season 1}

^{Click here for her appearance in Seasons 2- 4}

^{Click here for her appearance in Season 5}

"Deep down, I know, that I'm just a human, but I know that I can draw my sword and fight!!!"

Steven's supportive, good-natured best friend. Due to her father's work as a security guard, she traveled around frequently with her family, until they moved to a town near Beach City. As a result, Connie didn't have any friends until she met Steven at a local parade, a year prior to the series. Steven saved her glow bracelet before even meeting her officially. Her real introduction comes in "Bubble Buddies", when he protects her from falling rocks, accidentally leaving them in a shield bubble. After their adventure, the two become inseparable good friends. While she's not always around to participate in Steven's life with the Crystal Gems, she does so with enthusiasm when the opportunity arises.

---

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: In The Movie, her new sword made by Bismuth is able to effortlessly shear a car in half.
• The Ace: Early on, Connie showed signs that she had the potential to be this. The girl was pretty much an Instant Expert at everything that she tried to do, and it appeared that the only things that were holding her back were both her lack of experience, and her own self doubt. She has become this fully by the time of the Movie and Future. Smart enough to get into college early, skilled enough with her sword to cut a car in half, and sociable enough to have made multiple friends outside of Steven. These are all things that contribute to Steven’s own growing feelings of inadequacy.
• Action Girl: There were a couple instances in Season 1 (fighting the training robot and rescuing Steven from Lapis' tower), but she takes a major spike in badass after beginning to learn sword fighting from Pearl early in Season 2.
• Action Girlfriend: Downplayed. While Connie trains to be a knight under Pearl, she and Steven aren't a couple, but do have a mutual affection for one another.
  • By the time of the movie, their relationship is a touch more serious. Connie impulsively kisses Steven on the cheek, which makes him blush.
• Action Survivor: In the beginning, she was this to an even bigger degree than Steven was, not even possessing any powers and having to rely on her intelligence and skills at sports to gain a victory in combat.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Connie is very mature for her age, knowing some things that most adults don't know of.
• Adrenaline Makeover: In the first and second intros, at least. In the first season, when she was a bit more shy and awkward, she was shown with a skirt, a short-sleeved shirt, boots, and a big floppy sunhat, carrying what appears to be A Wrinkle in Time. In the revised second season intro, starting with "Sworn to the Sword" (in which Pearl starts training her in swordfighting), she's wearing shorts, a sleeveless polo, sneakers, and no hat; and she's carrying a book under her arm and Rose's sword over her shoulder (which unintentionally spoils her receiving the sword in "Nightmare Hospital").
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • "Miss Knight" from Steven.
  • "Swashbuckling Swashbuckler" from her dad.
• All-Loving Hero: Despite her contrasting stern demeanor and love for combat, Connie is ultimately revealed to be this just as much as Steven is. There really isn’t anyone that she hates, and she is just as capable of emotionally emphasizing with an enemy and winning a battle through words, rather than with a weapon. This is probably best demonstrated whenever Steven is going on a rampage in his mutant form. Rather than defeat him through combat, Connie manages to rally everyone together and offer him emotional reassurance, turning him back to normal with love instead.
• Always Someone Better: Despite her skills in swordplay, it’s made clear that she isn’t anywhere near Pearl’s level whenever it comes to combat. It takes all the way until the series finales for Connie to finally best her in a sword fight, and even then Pearl was mind controlled by White Diamond whenever she did.
• The Apprentice: Connie becomes Pearl's swordfighting apprentice in the second season. At first Pearl was also teaching her other, decidedly less healthy lessons (namely that her own life is nothing compared to the one they want to protect), but Steven is able to talk them out of that part.
• Ascended Fangirl: Started off as a fan of high fantasy who idolized the Gems, then becomes one of their closest allies and fights alongside them.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Inverted. While Connie is the youngest member of the Crystal Temps (besides Pumpkin), she's also arguably the most mature and rational, in addition to her being the only human member.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: With Steven when they’re not Fused as Stevonnie. They briefly take on Pearl in "Sworn to the Sword", both take out two Gem Mutants together in "Nightmare Hospital", and fend off two corrupted Jaspers in "Gem Hunt".
• Badass Adorable: Connie is a dorky, book-loving child around Steven's age. She has also proved to be quite badass when the situation calls for it.
• Badass Bookworm:
  • Lends her tennis skills to help Steven wield a giant sword in "Lion 2: The Movie"; and not only charges into battle against Lapis Lazuli in "Ocean Gem", but afterwards saves Steven from a miles-high fall by teleporting up to grab him on Lion's back.
  • In "Open Book", her first reaction to seeing Steven harassed by the Connie doppelgänger generated by Rose's room is to start fighting it with her sword.
  • Proves to be quite the capable swordswoman in a relatively short amount of time, after learning how to fight from Pearl.
    • From the same episode as above, Connie also shows herself to be an impressive musician, with considerable skill at both the violin and singing. She can even do said tasks at the same time, which takes quite a bit of practice to get right. Then she uses the bow to fend off some seagulls before they eat her and Steven's lunches.
• Badass Normal: She's a normal person, but is still willing to jump into the fray to help Steven.
• Battle Couple: The Sword to Steven's Shield.
  Steven: We're a team! She's the strawberry...
  Connie: ...and he's the biscuit!
  Steven: And that makes us... Jam!
  Connie: Buds!
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Ever since she met the Crystal Gems, Connie has wanted to go on their magical adventures with them, getting involved in the action. She gets her wish in "Gem Hunt" but is, understandably, frozen in shock when she sees a Corrupted Gem for the first time.
• The Beastmaster: She is actually more prone to riding Lion in combat than Steven, especially after Steven learns to control his floating powers and becomes more mobile around the battlefield. After Blue Diamond shatters Rose's Sword in "Reunited", Connie switches to directing Lion and attacking with his claws and magic roar.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Connie's friendship with Steven began because he said they could be friends after Connie's emotional breakdown in "Bubble Buddies" from being stuck in the titular bubble and the thought of dying in it without anyone but her parents even noticing.
• Beneath the Mask: A girl who initially comes across as incredibly shy and bookish, turns out to love playing tennis, watching action movies, training in sword fights, and enjoys excitement in general, along with having a slight anti-authoritarian attitude.
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't act like a overgrown kid during an important mission around Connie. She'll give you the chewing out of your life. Just ask Lapis and Peridot.
  • Don't underestimate her skills or leave her out of missions to stay behind on Earth when she can offer emotional support; she doesn't take it very well, as noted in "Full Disclosure" and "Dewey Wins".
  • In "Full Disclosure", Steven learned that if you have something to say, it's best to tell her directly instead of just hinting and avoiding personal contact by indirect means like cellphone texting and/or voicemails.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Her big, round glasses just make her more adorable. Even when her vision is fixed, she just pops out the lenses to keep the look so her family and optometrist won't know she had her vision cured through an Indirect Kiss with Steven, who has Healing Spit.
• Best Friend: She is not only Steven's Implied Love Interest, but also his best friend, as he clearly states in "Onion Gang".
• Beta Couple: She and Steven have this dynamic when in comparison with Lars and Sadie's relationship. The Steven Universe: Art & Origins described Steven and Connie's romance as a "pure and innocent love", while the romance between Lars and Sadie is more "teenaged-ridden, angst". In the case of himself and Connie it's more along the lines of two people who understand each other perfectly. They just "get" each other. ... Though it must be said, Steven still does things now and again that defy logic to her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Connie is usually a polite, reserved, and friendly person. However, she is strong enough (and later skilled enough) to wield a BFS and can become significantly angered when she loses her temper, just ask her mother in "Nightmare Hospital", or Peridot and Lapis in "The New Crystal Gems".
• Beware the Quiet Ones: While she's reserved and quiet in contrast to Steven that doesn't mean she's any less skilled than he is.
• Beyond the Impossible: It was considered impossible for a Gem and human to fuse. Connie with Steven are able to do so because of the latter is also half-human.
• Be Yourself: Tells Peridot and Lapis this at the end of "The New Crystal Gems".
  Connie: It's impossible trying to solve problems if we are just trying to copy other people. What's the point of this? We'll never be the Crystal Gems. We are just the Crystal Temps. But we have our own way of doing things. So let's go back to that to fix this mess we made.
• Big Good: She becomes this in Future, as Steven has become too emotionally unstable to continue fulfilling the role and is actually the source of the conflict to begin with. Connie makes the most proactive effort to help Steven with his emotional issues. She encourages him to seek medical help, enrolls him with her mother, and contacts his father to come help. In I Am My Monster, while the other characters are being unhelpful and only thinking about blaming themselves, Connie manages to pull them all together and get them to focus on helping Steven, and manages to turn him back to normal. In the finale, she also plans out his travel schedule in a way that will help him continue to see both her and Lars despite the long distance they will all be at.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Very similar to Steven's.
• Big "NO!": Lets one out when Steven gets his gem forcibly removed by White Diamond.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Gives an exasperated "WILL YOU TWO CAN IT?!" to Lapis and Peridot after getting fed up with their attempts at playing the roles of Amethyst and Garnet instead of being themselves.
• Big "YES!": Connie shouts this after revealing her eyesight was fixed.
  Dr. Maheswaran: What, your eyesight just "magically" got better?
  Connie: YES!
• Birds of a Feather:
  • With Pearl. Both are intelligent, have an attention to detail, and have a tendency to be overly hard on themselves in the face of perceived failure.
  • While Connie and Steven have a lot of differences between them, what allows them to grow closer together is how they both have feelings of being inadequate, having dorky interests, and Connie being the human who is the most directly involved with his gem life, leaves Steven feeling as though she is his greatest confidant.
• Blade Across The Shoulder: The second opening shows her carrying Rose's sword this way.
• Blind Without 'Em: She couldn't see well without her glasses, and when Steven tries them on, it's clear that they're quite strong... at least until "An Indirect Kiss", where getting an Indirect Kiss from Steven through sharing his juice had his healing spit cure her eyesight.
• Blood Knight: While she's fairly reserved, Connie has a love for battle and adventures.
• Blue/Orange Contrast: In "Mindful Education", Connie's vision of her problem is tinted blue, and later, Steven's shameful thoughts are tinted orange.
• Blue Is Heroic: Many of Connie's outfits consist of blue and she's a Kid Hero.
• Blunt "Yes": Combined with a Big "YES!" in "Nightmare Hospital", when Connie reveals to her mother that her glasses no longer have lenses because her vision has been restored (by Steven, in "An Indirect Kiss"). See the Big "YES!" section for the dialogue.
• Bodyguard Crush: She is training to be Steven's protector and has a crush on him.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Connie is training to be Steven's knight. And while Connie is definitely skilled in swordsmanship, Steven has an array of magical powers, superhuman strength, and much more.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Contrasting with her normally studious and cool-headed behavior, she tends to be loud and energetic in fights.
• Bollywood Nerd: Downplayed. She's not as stereotypical as most examples, but she is still nerdy. Connie is Indian-American and "Buddy's Book" shows both Connie's studiousness and independence in that she originally goes to the library with Steven to study and prepare for the upcoming school year, only to instantly halt her studies when Steven shows her Buddy's journal.
• Bookworm: In both the opening sequence and her debut episode, Connie is seen in the company of a book. She even got Steven into being one as well.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • When she and Steven are stuck inside his magical bubble, she reasons that they should probably stay and wait for the Crystal Gems to come and help them. While it wasn't done, it would've been a better plan.
  • Still stuck inside Steven's bubble, the duo ask for some help from Onion to use a harpoon gun to set them free. Steven draws a complicated picture, Connie just writes the word "HARPOON". Onion was able to understand the latter.
  • When she has to work with Lapis and Peridot in "The New Crystal Gems", Connie makes the wise decision that the trio should stop trying to be like the original Crystal Gems and handle things their own way as themselves.
• Boyish Short Hair: She's a Tomboy with a Girly Streak, and as "Kevin Party" had her waist-length hair cut into a chin-length bob with bangs. Starting with the movie, this is subverted with another Expository Hairstyle Change due to her hair regrowing to about half it's original length (just beyond her shoulders) during the prior two-year Time Skip that occurred following the end of the fifth season.
• Braids of Action: Downplayed. While Connie wears her hair braided (her hairstyle is a braid typically worn by female Kalaripayattu practitioners) and engages in action from time to time, she only styles her hair in a braid during her sword training with Pearl.
• Brainy Brunette: She has dark, brown hair. She is also one of the most sensible characters in the series and a Child Prodigy.
• Break the Cutie: In "Full Disclosure", after Steven, who had just managed to escape Jasper's ship, left a panicky message on Connie's home phone, this made Connie worry about Steven's safety. After a few more elusive voice messages and texts suggesting that they should break up, a tearful and upset Connie dares Steven to break up with her in person on a face-to-face basis; subverted when Steven reconciles with her and decides to continue being friends with Connie:
  Connie: Steven, I know you're here! Why are you hiding from me? [Steven sends her a text saying "I don't want to be friends anymore."]
  Connie: Steven?
  Steven: [over the phone] I can't be with you anymore, I have a destiny.
  Connie: [tearfully] Say it to my face! Say you don't want to be friends anymore! If you can do that — If you can do that, I'll leave you alone. And I'll just go back to having no friends. But I won't believe it until you say it to my face! [Steven climbs down and agrees to talk to Connie in person]
  Connie: Well?
  Steven: [tearfully] I still wanna be friends!
• Broken Ace: A highly intelligent girl who can be an Instant Expert at nearly everything she tries, but suffers from huge amounts of insecurity and for a while felt that she was unworthy to be a part of Steven's life.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl:
  • Downplayed with Steven — while he still remains The Pollyanna Nice Guy who is open about his emotions, he has a habit of not talking about the fear he feels of what could happen if he doesn't become what the Crystal Gems expect him to be or the intense guilt he feels over not successfully helping Bismuth, Jasper, or Eyeball. At both times, Connie has been the one he opens up to about said feelings and trauma, while she provides him with needed emotional support.
  • It stops being Downplayed and becomes completely Played Straight in Future. As Steven's emotional trauma begins to boil to the surface, he slowly loses his cheerful demeanor and becomes more filled with angst and prone to emotional angry outbursts. In contrast, Connie by this point has largely overcome all of her emotional insecurities and tries to be a source of emotional comfort for Steven despite his constant attempts to distance himself from her and everyone else.
• Brutal Honesty: When it doesn't involve lying to her parents about her secret life (which was resolved in "Nightmare Hospital"), Connie prefers to get to the point whenever possible.
• But I Read a Book About It: Averted, the knowledge she gained from reading a survival help book proves entirely useful in "Gem Hunt".
• Calling the Old Woman Out: Gives her mom an epic calling out at the climax of "Nightmare Hospital", right in the middle of being attacked by gem mutants.
• The Cameo: Connie had a cameo in Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Be prepared".
  • "That's the rules" and variations thereof.
• Character Development:
  • Starting out shy and nervous around others at the beginning of the series, Connie slowly grows to become more independent and self-confident, standing up to others and participating in Steven's Gem life when she can. "Mindful Education" further highlights her growth and confidence when she tells Steven how she instinctively attacked a schoolmate who bumped into her, and later how she apologized to him, made friends with him and took a selfie with him, something the Connie in the beginning of the series would have never done.
  • Initially, Connie had an idealized version of what Steven’s life and adventures were like. However, after hearing his story in “An Indirect Kiss” she realizes just how hard Steven’s life really is for him and resolves to be there for him the same way that he has been there for her so far.
  • Subtle, but the way Connie manages her anxiety has improved. Before, her anxiety would consume her until she finally couldn't handle it (i.e., "Alone Together", "Mindful Education", etc). But after the latter episode, Connie learns it's better to express her fears instead of holding them in.
  • Connie's relationship with her parents has significantly improved. In the beginning, Connie would lie to her parents out of fear that they would forbid her from being friends with Steven. After the events of "Nightmare Hospital", Priyanka promises to become more open-minded as long as Connie would stop the lying.
  • As to be expected, when Connie went on her first Gem mission in "Gem Hunt" she froze up when dealing with a Corrupted Gem, because up until then she always Steven as a partner and only dealt with Pearl's clones or mindless force-fused Gems. She gets better at reacting appropriately in "I Am My Mom" when she fights off Topaz and Topaz, especially when Steven becomes distracted.
  • Subtle, but Connie tended to emulate a "better" version of herself in hopes of being more special (i.e., "Sworn to the Sword", "The New Crystal Gems") but after the latter episode, Connie concludes that she should just be herself instead of trying to be a fake version of herself or someone else.
  • When Kevin invites her and Steven to his party in hopes they'll form Stevonnie, she shows up with a new haircut and a stylish dress. She's later seen chatting amiably with the party guests and fitting in with Kevin's cool friends perfectly, even though she and Steven are the youngest ones there. You would never imagine her doing this at the beginning of the series, but she's grown so much we don't even question it. It is briefly subverted later on, however, when she retreats into a corner of the party out of agitation and confusion and sits in solitude after witnessing Steven deliberately ignore all of her attempts to get his attention so they could reconcile (on Kevin's advice to bait her into making the first move), and hang out with Kevin and his inner circle for the entire party.
  • During the battle against Blue Diamond, when Steven and the rest of the Crystal Gems are incapacitated by Blue's pathokinesis attack (in which she forces others to feel her most-powerfully felt emotion at the time), Connie, unaffected by it (due to being a fully organic being), takes charge and with the help of Lion (who is also unaffected), attempts to attack Blue Diamond to free them. While the attack ultimately fails and results in the destruction of her sword, she continues to fight alongside the others to the end.
  • During the mission to Homeworld, Connie operates as something of a human missionary for the Crystal Gems, and especially a help for Steven. She comforts Steven after White Diamond skips the ball he threw to impress her, and then again when their accidental fusion into Stevonnie ruins the ball, gets the Gems poofed, and themselves imprisoned. She also provides Blue and Yellow Diamond advice to express their grievances about their totalitarian lifestyles and rule to White in order to help make things better (similar to how she and her mother mended fences), and after Steven's human and Diamond halves are separated after White removes his gem, helps them to reunite.
  • Throughout the second half of the epilogue Future season, Connie demonstrates how far she truly has come since the beginning of the series:
    • She has made other friends outside of Steven and the Crystal Gems and become more outgoing and confident. She still, however, maintains her relationship with Steven, and the two seem on the verge of finally entering romance, which is confirmed when she becomes enamored when he serenades her with a picnic and song in the very place where they first officially met. When he proposes marriage and living fused together as Stevonnie permanently however, she defers the former and declines the latter due to their young ages and wanting to retain her individuality, while maturely assuring him that, as much as they love each other, they don't need to rush into such a huge step just yet.
    • When Connie later notices Steven's out-of-control powers and declining mental health (which stem from his years of suppressed emotional trauma, his feelings of purposelessness in the world, his family and friends moving on in life without him, and a growing self-loathing complex), out of concern, she convinces him to see her mother at the hospital for a check-up, and later participates in an intervention for Steven with his father and the Gems.
    • After Steven's issues reach their peak and trigger his meltdown/transformation into a Corrupted Gem Kaiju, Connie bands together with the rest of Steven's loved ones to restore him to normal. After returning from helping Beach City evacuate with Lion and discovering everyone blaming themselves for Steven's current state, Connie takes charge, similar to how she did with the Crystal Temps a long time prior, and tells everyone that though they might be right about that, feeling sorry for themselves won't help, and that they need to focus on what Steven currently needs most. After everyone bands together in a group hug to show Steven that they love him unconditonally, Connie is the last one to join. She promises him that his family and friends will care for him just as he always has them, and seals the deal (and her love for him) with a kiss on the bridge of is nose, which finally calms him down, reverts him back to normal, and allows him to let out his years of emotional baggage.
    • A few months later, as Steven prepares to leave Beach City to travel the country and find himself, Connie helps him organize his trip, and also make plans to meet with him during her college touring and visit Lars in space with help from Lion. Finally, before Steven leaves, the two share their first on-screen, lip-to-lip kiss, officially signifying that they are now finally a couple.
• Character Tics: Tends to put her hands on her head when feeling stressed.
• Chekhov's Gun: Her glow bracelet, which first appears in "Gem Glow", is essential in distracting the worm monster in "Bubble Buddies", her debut episode.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Had a prominent appearance in the first opening, but doesn't appear until the seventh episode, "Bubble Buddies".
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Swordsmanship, mentioned in "Steven the Sword Fighter", becomes an essential part of accompanying Steven and the Gems on missions, starting with Pearl training her in "Sworn to the Sword".
  • In "Lion 2: The Movie", she says that the most interesting thing in her life [to that point] is tennis practice. Later on, after Lion takes them to Rose's armory, and they're confronted by a robot from Rose's armory, she uses her tennis moves to take on the robot shooty thing.
• Cheerful Child: While she does keep it hidden under emotionally reserved rationale, under the right circumstances, Connie shows that she can be just as enthusiastic about something and energetic as Steven.
• Childhood Friend Romance: She and Steven met as pre-teens and developed a friendship and eventual romance. When Steven proposed to her in Future, Connie politely rebuffed but stated it wasn't a "no" but a "not now", showing she wants to marry him when the time is right.
• Child Prodigy: Connie is very intelligent for her age, knowing a lot about boats, reading a variety of books (she enjoys reading fantasy novels like The Spirit Morph Saga and A Wrinkle in Time, but also non-fiction books for fact), having proficiency in tennis, violin playing, and sword fighting (the latter of which even Pearl, a master swordsman, was impressed with how quickly she picked it up), having an extensive vocabulary, and even managing to find loopholes in her parents' many rules. In "Gem Hunt", she is shown to be prepared and intelligent when it comes to surviving in the wilderness, thanks to reading a book about the subject.
• Child Soldier: Was on her way to becoming something like the bodyguard version of this for Steven while training with Pearl in "Sworn to the Sword". Thankfully Steven snaps her out of it.
• The Chosen Wannabe: Connie envies Steven's supposed "magical destiny" and wants to have one of her own, as seen with her interest in fantasy stories like The Spirit Morph Saga. This never leads to any ill will between them, and Connie Jumped at the Call when offered an apprenticeship under Pearl.
• Clark Kenting: Connie actively refers to this, wearing empty frames with no lenses after Steven fixes her eyesight to cover up her involvement in magic, even referring to them as her "secret identity". True to form, even her mother takes a year to notice that there isn't any glass in her glasses anymore, and only then because Connie actively pointed it out to her.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Connie's main hindrance is her lack of self-confidence.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Steven, especially in the early seasons. She would often object to some of his crazy and ill-thought-out ideas.
• Color Motifs: The majority of the clothing she wears is blue or green, and Word of God mentions that if Connie were a Gem, she'd be a teal one. invoked
• The Confidant: To Steven. While he is generally open about his feelings, Connie is the one he's the most honest with about his doubts, insecurities, and fears. It's because of her Steven doesn't enter the Despair Event Horizon when both of them get locked up by Yellow Diamond for fusing.
• Consistent Clothing Style:
  • Connie generally tends to dress in minty green or blue, and a lot of her outfits consist of a lightly-colored shirt paired with a navy blue skirt or pants.
  • In Future, contrasting her more varied wardrobe in the first series., Connie's outfits nearly exclusively consist of a short-sleeve polo, khaki shorts, ankle socks and sneakers.
• Consummate Liar: If "Nightmare Hospital" is any indication, Connie is pretty good at lying under pressure, mostly because her parents are too strict to be honest with. This gets deconstructed in the same episode, as lying is still lying and it only serves to hamper her already strained relationship with her mother, who reconciles and asks her to be more honest with her, and her mother agrees to be more open-minded about Steven and issues involving the Gems.
• Conversational Troping: Goes into a rant about consumerist mass-market appeal, Cliché Storm fantasy tropes, Executive Meddling, and invokes Fix Fic and Fanon Discontinuity in regards to The Spirit Morph Saga. invoked
• Cooldown Hug: Gave this to Steven in "Full Disclosure" and "Mindful Education" when he was going through an emotionally stressful situation.
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Zigzagged. Connie only admires breaking rules that are oppressive ones, she doesn't have a problem for fair and sensible laws.
• Cool Sword: Connie wields Rose's Sword in combat and uses one of Pearl's during training.
  • After Blue Diamond shattered Rose's Sword in "Reunited", Bismuth forges her a new one that somewhat resembles He-Man's Power Sword and is better proportioned to her.
• Cosplay: Dresses up as Lisa from the Spirit Morph Saga in "Open Book".
• Crazy-Prepared: Whether it's sneaking snacks into a movie theater, getting a head start on her schoolwork, or even being a Crazy Survivalist, Connie will most likely be prepared for it.
• Crazy Survivalist: Connie has studied up like crazy on wilderness survival, and mentions she thinks they'll be necessary for some future disaster on Earth, with or without Homeworld's intervention. The advice she has is actually pretty good, not crazy - pine needle tea is a good source of vitamin C (just not a nice one), keeping up your intake of nutrients is important, and keeping contact with other travellers is vital. Contact with hostile alien light monsters is not covered in most reputable manuals, though.
• Crush Blush: A subtle example occurs in "An Indirect Kiss", when she drinks the durian juice and also ingests some of Steven's healing saliva, and her face glows for a moment as her eyesight is magically healed, making her corrective lenses obsolete.
• Cultured Badass: Connie loves to read (see Genius Book Club), one of her other hobbies is playing tennis, and she can play the violin.
• Culture Equals Costume: During her sword training with Pearl, Connie's outfit and fighting style were inspired by Kalaripayattu, an Indian martial art which originated in the 6th century BCE. The Maheshwarans, of course, are ethnically Indian.
• Cute and Psycho: Not Connie herself, but her cloud construct counterpart definitely is.
• Cute Bookworm: She's adorable, shy, self-doubting, and commonly seen in the company of a book. Somewhat subverted, however, in regards to her friendship with Steven; she's comfortable enough around him to let a much more excitable side show.
• Cute Bruiser: She's a cute kid who can also easily wield a BFS.
• The Cutie: Connie is a shy, dorky, polite, and adorable young girl.
• Daddy's Girl: Zigzagged. In the beginning, Connie had a strained relationship with Doug to the same extent as Priyanaka because both of them having a similar overprotective, controlling nature, except Connie's strained relationship with her mother was given slightly more emphasis. But even before Doug's Character Development with his wife, he was shown to be very protective of his daughter, and they have a good relationship by the time of "Doug Out".
• Dark and Troubled Past: She had virtually no friends because of her parents constantly moving around and wasn't allowed to enjoy life because her parents deemed "safety" more important, both of them unintentionally becoming Abusive Parents to her. She also gained many insecurities that makes her think she has a "boring" life.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • "Sworn to the Sword" focuses on her learning swordsmanship from Pearl, along with a few other less healthy ideas.
  • "Nightmare Hospital" has her share the spotlight with her mother and their relationship.
  • And while "The New Crystal Gems" is this for Connie, Lapis, and Peridot, she's the viewpoint character and protagonist of the episode.
• Deadpan Snarker: Rare, but she has her moments of being deadpan, such as when she jokes about cutting off Steven's hand in "Lion 2: The Movie", and in that same instance quickly understands that by poking/tickling Steven she can provoke a reaction from Rose's secret armory.
• Declaration of Protection: Decon-Recon Switch. In "Sworn to the Sword", while she is being taught swordsmanship by Pearl, the older Gem also decided to have Connie believe that in order to protect Steven more efficiently, she would have to think she was nothing in comparison to him and suicidally protect him without regards to her own equally precious life. However, by the end, Steven manages to convince Connie (and Pearl) that they should protect each other as partners and not like a "master/servant" type of relationship.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Connie serves as this for the Badass Normal. While Connie is more than capable of holding her own, there are multiple instances, like confronting the Gem mutant in “Gem Hunt” and her attempt and failure to attack Blue Diamond in “Change Your Mind” that having drive and natural skill sometimes just isn’t enough to overcome how utterly out of their depth someone can be.
• Desperately Seeking A Purpose In Life: Connie is envious over the magical destiny that she believes he has and desperately wishes that she could have one of her own to compensate for her boring, mundane life. Later on, Connie loses this trait as she starts to become more of her own person and more confident in herself.
• Deuteragonist: For the most part, if an episode has Connie in it, she'll play secondary protagonist to Steven.
• Didn't Think This Through: Connie decides to permanently run away with Steven after the disastrous first meeting between their parents with no destination in mind, no supplies, and without telling anyone where they are going. Luckily, Alexandrite catches up to the bus they’re riding on and puts an end to that idea almost as quickly as it began.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: She laughs at White Diamond for being childish, which actually embarrasses White.
• Disappointed in You: Connie shows this reaction towards Steven after he returns from surrendering himself to the Diamonds. Steven acts like it wasn’t a big deal and Connie is left so frustrated at his nonchalant reaction to the emotional anguish that his actions caused both her and everyone else that she leaves him on the beach and doesn’t talk to him or even text him for several more episodes afterwards.
• Divine Date: She's Steven's Implied Love Interest, and, Steven himself, being the son of a Diamond, is Semi-Divine. After all, as a certain saying goes, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend".
• Don't Tell Mama: And Papa. When she's introduced into Steven's magical world/adventures, Connie is adamant of not telling her parents in fear that their reaction would be to separate her and Steven. This is deconstructed because lying to them only worsens their already strained relationship.
• Don't Think, Feel: Receives this advice from Amethyst. She's so concerned about technique and practice she freezes up when it came time to fight a corrupted Jasper. Instead of worrying about something she can never be ready for, she should instead take the initiative.
• Dork Knight: Downplayed. While Connie has a long way to go before officially becoming an Ace, she does have a few of the requirements — She's exceptionally bright and mature despite her age, is able to pick up swordsmanship relatively easy (something that Pearl complimented her on), and shows a knack for leadership when she reins in both Peridot and Lapis for their immature and destructive behavior. And, she doesn't hide her geeky, lovable side.
• Dying Alone: When she entered into a Heroic BSoD in "Bubble Buddies", she wasn't worried about her actual death, she was more scared about dying without making any other friends or having anyone else besides her parents care about her dying.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She has a prominent appearance in the first opening, and she would not be introduced in the show proper until "Bubble Buddies".
• Earn Your Happy Ending: At the end of the series Connie still gets to maintain her relationship with Steven, and even has plans to keep in touch with him despite the long distance, has made multiple friends that she can call her own, and is well on her way to attending and graduating from college.
• Elegant Classical Musician: She can play the violin extremely well, and mentioned that it was one of the few things she enjoyed in her life before she was introduced into Steven's magical world.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism: Her logical and more serious demeanor (Stoicism) contrasts Steven's openly emotional and expressive attitude (Emotions).
• Enmity with an Object: Connie hates an abacus her parents use to calculate how long she's grounded.
• Everyone Has Standards: While she may have hated the ending to The Spirit Morph Saga, she wasn't going to let it come between her friendship with Steven, who did like it.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: For the first four seasons and the start of the fifth, Connie had waist-length hair. However, in the fifth season episode "Kevin Party", she is revealed to have cut/had someone cut her hair down to chin-length with bangs. This change happened at some point following Steven's return from Homeworld in "Lars' Head", and their ensuing fight in "Dewey Wins" over the aftermath of his surrender, which led to an estrangement between them that lasted a few weeks. Following the two-year Time Skip between the end of the fifth season and Steven Universe: The Movie, her hair has regrown to shoulder-length and she wears part of it back with hair clips while retaining her bangs. She keeps this style throughout the epilogue Future season.
• Extreme Doormat: Due to her parents' strict nature, she is fearful of ever upsetting them if she does something she thinks they won't approve of.
• Eye Motifs: She wore big-rimmed glasses over her eyes for the first half of the series before Steven accidentally gave her perfect vision via his magical healing saliva. Her cosplay of Lisa has an Eyepatch of Power over her right eye. And, see her Rule of Symbolism section.
• Eyepatch of Power: Invoked. In her cosplay of Lisa from The Spirit Morph Saga, Connie's outfits include of an eyepatch over her right eye.
• Facial Profiling: Averted. Before it was confirmed that she was of Indian heritage, Connie was speculated long before of being Indian due to her dark skin and prominent nose.
• Fangirl: She loves the Spirit Morph Saga, although she didn't like the ending. To a lesser extent, Under the Knife.
• Fatal Flaw: Insecurity. Connie is insecure about her place in Steven's supposed magical destiny and honestly doesn't see why he would want someone as mundane as she in his life. This comes to a head in "Sworn to the Sword" when the insecure Pearl projects her own feelings of insecurities onto Connie, teaching to not care about herself in order to protect the "more important" Steven, thus worsening her already low self-esteem. Character Development helps erase this bit by bit.
• Fat and Skinny: The slim and lean Skinny to Steven's round and chubby Fat.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Downplayed. Connie is a Tomboy with a Girly Streak who likes action, adventure, and trains with swords. Her mother, while not girly is much more cautious and has a job as a doctor, which is usually viewed as a feminine profession.
• First Love: Connie is Steven's first and only true love.
• Foil:
  • To Steven. As one of the people around Steven's age and his closest friend, she functions as one to him (also doubling as The Lancer). In contrast to Steven's control-free, magical-filled upbringing, Connie grew up in a very restrictive household and had a normal life. In terms of personality, Steven is energetic, not good at lying, nonviolent in every way, and has a healthy amount of confidence; Connie has proven to be an efficient Consummate Liar, is usually mellow in comparison to Steven, likes action and adventure more than Steven, and (initially) has low self-confidence.
  • To Pearl. Both are the Insecure Love Interests to someone who is a Quartz Gem or, rather, a Diamond. (Pearl with Rose, Connie with Steven), with said relationships starting because the Quartz Gem showed some form of kindness to them. Other similarities include a Dark and Troubled Past with control playing a factor in it (Pearl's "role" in Homeworld, Connie having overly restrictive parents), having a desire to be special, being knights to the Quartz Gem, skilled in swordsmanship, Badass Bookworms/Cultured Badasses, they learn to develop more confidence over time. However, while Pearl hides her insecurities with arrogance, Connie is more open about them. And while Pearl thought of Rose as a goddess-like figure and is only coming to terms that Rose wasn't perfect, Connie is aware of Steven's positive and negative qualities right from the start. And on a more subtle note, Pearl teaches Steven about Gem culture but Connie introduces him to human culture.
  • To Greg. Both are the human allies of the Crystal Gems, have an Interspecies Romance with one of them (Greg with Rose, Connie with Steven), and are insecure about the place they have in a magical world. However, while Greg prefers to not get involved in magic Gem business (unless if the situation calls for it), Connie jumped at the chance to go on magical adventures. Also, while the Crystal Gems took a long time to come to respect and actually be nice to Greg (especially Pearl), it didn't take as long with Connie (Pearl was even happy to be her teacher).
  • To Peedee. They are both mature for their age and have proven to be slightly more cynical in regards to Steven's endless optimism. Peedee is more cynical, while Connie is realistic (not entirely overly optimistic, not completely cynical).
  • To Ronaldo. Both are humans who have a desire to be special and an interest in the abnormal (Connie with high fantasy/magic, Ronaldo with paranormal activity). While Ronaldo actively seeks out a chance to be part of the magical world, he never really gets directly involved in the source (i.e., the Crystal Gems) while Connie never did seek it out, but the magical world opened up to her.
  • To Pink Diamond of all people, concerning their relationship with their parental figures. They both tend to be submissive to their respective parents' controlling nature and secretly act out their personal lives out of fear of disappointing them. However, while Connie manages to stand up to her parents and change them for the better, Pink failed to convince Yellow and Blue to let her relinquish her own colony, and continued to rebel against them without their knowledge.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Downplayed with Steven. He mentions in "Bubble Buddies" that he remembers her from last year's Beach City parade float after she dropped her glowing bracelet, which he found and wanted to return, but she was long gone. Though she initially didn't recognize him, once Steven mentioned the parade she remembers him being on one of the parade floats... with soap bubbles in his hair.
• Free-Range Children: Deconstructed. The only reason Connie is able to go on dangerous missions with Steven and the Crystal Gems is because she lies about where she's going because of her fear of her parents forbidding her from hanging out with Steven if they found out. This comes to a head in "Nightmare Hospital", when both she and her mother discuss their own faults in the relationship (Priyanka and Doug's overly strict attitude and Connie's lying). After the events of the episode, this is reconstructed — Connie is allowed to on missions as long she keeps her parents informed of her whereabouts and doesn't lie to them anymore.
• Freudian Trio: Of the Crystal Temps, she is the rational and mature Ego to Peridot's overly logical Superego and Lapis's emotional Id.
• Friendless Background: She never had a single friend before she met Steven. It's implied that it's due to her family moving around a lot, but her shyness may have been a factor as well.
• Fusion Dance: Connie is apparently the first human ever to fuse with a Gem; Steven is half-human/half-Gem, so this may have something to do with it.
• Gamer Chick: Connie might be a gamer; as seen in the short "Video Chat", her laptop has Colonization V, a spoof of the real-life video game Civilization V (the real Colonization has no sequels). She also has Empires & Eras II and Conqueror Kings II (spoofs of Age of Empires II and Crusader Kings II, respectively) and Grid, a spoof of the popular gaming platform Steam.
• Genius Book Club: She has a copy of A Wrinkle in Time in the opening and The Catcher in the Rye in her first appearance.
• Genki Girl: Downplayed. She's still quite reserved, but can be very enthusiastic about going on adventures.
• Genre Savvy: Being a fantasy geek herself, Connie's clearly aware that Steven, not her, is the main character of the story. Deconstructed, in that it causes her to develop an inferiority complex, which in turn leads her to embrace Pearl's ideas about sacrificing her life for Steven, but Steven defies this trope and insists that Connie fight as his equal. On a lighter note, she demonstrates an expansive understanding of young adult novel tropes.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The brutally honest, no-nonsense Firm Hand to Steven's emotional healing Gentle Touch.
• Giant's Knife; Human's Greatsword: Starting in "Nightmare Hospital", Connie uses Rose's sword, which is a normal-sized sword... for the 8-ft tall Statuesque Stunner Rose Quartz. This sword is destroyed by Blue Diamond, and replaced by Bismuth with a sword more properly proportioned for her height.
• The Glasses Come Off: A unique example. Connie's eyes were improved by Steven's healing spit and only puts them on to not make her parents suspicious, but takes them off during her adventures with Steven. From "Nightmare Hospital" onward she goes without them altogether, having shown her mother that she was only wearing them to fool her.
• The Glomp: Gives one to Steven after he reunites with his gem.
• Glory Seeker: Wants something extraordinary in her perceived uninteresting life.
• Good Is Not Dumb: A sweet, dorky girl who's mature for her age and can be quite logical.
• Good Is Not Soft: Especially after Character Development. While she is usually reserved and polite, when the chips are down or when her patience has run out, she shows that is not one to take lightly.
• Grade Skipper: In Future, Connie goes to college when she's still fifteen.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Cheerfully says "Itadakimasu!" before eating a breakfast Greg cooked up in his van. Justified as it's a traditional greeting before a Japanese meal, and she's been shown to be knowledgeable on a variety of topics.
• Grew a Spine: Part of her arc has her standing up to her controlling parents.
• Growing Up Sucks: Connie inverts this trope, which is meant to contrast with Steven who plays it straight. As Connie grows older, she becomes much more independent and confident in herself, manages to make friends on her own, and even gets to attend college early. As Connie’s life continues to go on an upward trend, Steven feels worse as his is continually spiraling down. Though, Connie does have her limits about not wanting to grow up too fast as demonstrated by her turning down Steven’s proposal to her, claiming that it wasn’t the right time but assuring him that she would accept one day.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted with Steven — while she uses a BFS, Steven mainly fights defensively and supportively, with his attacks being either magical disabling effects or throwing his shield.
• Handicapped Badass: Zigzagged. Connie was visually impaired at the beginning and had to wear glasses. She would help Steven on his dangerous adventures but her eyes were eventually healed by Steven's spit.
• Handshake Substitute: She and Greg both high-five each other and say "human beings".
• Hates Being Alone: Connie's greatest fear is being all alone in the world.
• The Heart: Of the Crystal Temps. Doubling as acting as the group's Only Sane Woman, keeping them on track and encouraging them (through a "The Reason You Suck" Speech) that they should just be themselves.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: "Sworn to the Sword" is about Pearl teaching her swordfighting, the second opening has her carrying Rose's sword, and after her debut, whenever we see Connie in battle against a supernatural opponent, it's with a sword.
• Heroic Ambidexterity: Connie is shown to be ambidextrous in "Sworn to the Sword". When she is training, she is seen holding her sword with her right hand, which is bandaged up her forearm to her elbow; when she fights Pearl with Steven, she is using her left hand occasionally. (Whether this is due to training or is inherent isn't made clear, and her other appearances show her favoring her right hand.)
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Goes through an emotional breakdown in "Bubble Buddies" after Steven's numerous attempts to set them free from his magical bubble leads to possibly being trapped at the bottom of the ocean.
  • In "Mindful Education", when she had accidentally tossed a classmate over her to the floor as reflex out of a simple shoulder bump. Thankfully, Garnet helps her out from her funk.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Connie appears to have self-esteem issues; she doesn't think of herself as special, especially in regards to Steven's life.
• Hero-Worshipper: Subverted. While Connie does admire the Gems, it's not because of their ideals, but more because of their fighting/adventure filled life.
• Hidden Depths:
  • A line she gives in "Gem Hunt" reveals she's aware of the natural problems of humans, being not using alternative fuel sources.
  • In the same episode mentioned above, Connie is able to use a broken piece of wood to easily slide down a small slope in the snow-covered area. This small action indicates she may know how to snowboard.
  • The short "Video Chat" shows that Connie is a Gamer Chick.
  • "Are You My Dad?" has Connie shows her skill in art, as she comes the closest to drawing Steven's description of Aquamarine. Her art style is specifically in the anime style.
• Hidden Eyes: In "Bubble Buddies", her glasses glare over seconds before she has a breakdown.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Most of her parents' overbearing attitude is played straight, but they use a freakin' abacus to estimate how long to ground her.
• Holding Hands: Usually with Steven, especially when they fuse into Stevonnie.
• Honorary True Companion: To the Crystal Gems. Because of her school life and tennis practice, she doesn't regularly go on missions with them, but is considered part of the team.
• Hot Librarian: Downplayed and only applies to the High School AU promos — in this alternate universe, Connie appears to be the librarian, as she is almost always in the library and at the head desk area. But since she's still a child in the promos, she's more like a "cute" librarian.
• Humans Are Bastards: Downplayed. Connie doesn’t have any malice towards humanity, but believes that they are already heading towards their demise, as lampshaded in "Gem Hunt":
  Connie: Well, I like to be prepared. When civilization collapses and this world ends, I need to be ready to build the new one.
  Steven: Yeah, I guess if Homeworld invades Earth, things could get pretty crazy for humanity.
  Connie: Forget Gems, humans are already starting their own demise! Peak oil, Steven! How do we handle terminal decline without alternate energy sources?!
• Humans Are Diplomats: Informed by Word of God. When asked what kind of Gem Connie would be, Rebecca Sugar replied a teal Gem — green for her fighting and blue for her diplomacy. invoked
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Almost said word-for-word in "Lion 2: The Movie". After Lion takes her and Steven to Rose's armory, Connie expresses doubts that she deserves to be there. And before that, she questioned why Steven, who has such a magic-filled life, would want to be with someone as normal as she.
• Iconic Outfit:
  • The first outfit she wore in the series — short-sleeved t-shirt, blue-green dress with a bow to match, yellow socks, and orange boots.
  • Her Kalaripayattu outfit that she wears during her sword-training sessions.
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Her logic for making the pine needle soup for her and Steven in "Gem Hunt" — it's not exactly the best tasting, but it's healthy and will keep them warm.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Subtle, but another reason why she enjoys going on adventures with Steven is because she is able to be free of her parent's strictness.
• I Just Want to Be Loved:
  • A wholesome example in "Bubble Buddies"; she panics when trapped in Steven's bubble shield underwater, and is worried that only her parents will care about her being missing and Dying Alone. Steven offers to befriend her so she doesn't need to feel alone.
  • In "Full Disclosure", she is so distressed at what happened to Steven that she almost breaks into tears when he thinks of discontinuing their friendship, only for Steven to admit he still wants to be friends with her, and she wants to be a part of his universe.
  • When he reverts to a baby in "Steven's Birthday", she resolves to be by his side no matter what the age difference, ready to help him at a moment's notice.
  • In "I Am My Mom", she is upset at Steven boarding Aquamarine's ship, believing he's the only one who can make things right between the Diamonds.
  • When he returns in "Dewey Wins", she is disappointed that Steven gave himself up without a fight when their combined skills as Stevonnie could have been more effective, given their special friendship.
• I Just Want to Be Special: In "Lion 2: The Movie", she tells Steven she's envious of him and his powers and doesn't understand why he would hang out with someone as uninteresting as she.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: While trapped at the bottom of the ocean, she laments to Steven how she doesn't have any friends and only her parents will miss her. Steven cheers her up by vowing to be her friend.
• I Know Madden Kombat: In "Lion 2: The Movie", she uses tennis shots in order to bounce fireballs back at the berserk robot that launched them.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: She believes having seen a few episodes of a soap opera are sufficient for her to have "gotten the gist of" romance.
• The Immune: Blue Diamond's spell of sorrow can only inflict Gems, which Connie can bypass with no problem. Unfortunately for her, she is still vastly outmatched by her opponent anyway.
• Implied Love Interest: She has quite a bit of Ship Tease with Steven, and the Gems all ship the two of them.
• Important Haircut: Cuts/has her long hair cut into a chin-length bob with bangs at some point between "Dewey Wins" and "Kevin Party" which makes her look like she's changed a lot since Steven last saw her.
  • Connie's voice actor, Grace Rolek, says in an episode of the show's podcast that Connie may have done this to help deal with "moving forward", and although her relationship with Steven is very important to her, she needed time to invest in her personal growth independently from a magical best friend. Connie herself even somewhat confirms this in the same episode, citing that she felt she needed a change from her signature long locks, and that taking a shorter hairstyle would allow her to unlock a new side of herself. invoked
• In Harm's Way: Despite (or because) of her parents always being concerned with her safety, Connie really enjoys going on adventures with and getting into dangerous situations with Steven. When Steven narrowly manages to shield her from an exploding robot in "Marble Madness", her reaction is positively ecstatic.
  Steven: Are you OK?
  Connie: I love hanging out at your place!
• Insecure Love Interest: She initially doesn't understand why Steven, who has such an interesting life, would ever want to be with someone as uninteresting as she. A few appearances later, this doesn't seem to bother her as much.
• Instant Expert: Under Pearl's tutelage, Connie picks up swordmanship extremely fast. Pearl lampshades Connie's fast progress in "Gem Hunt".
• Intergenerational Friendship: She comes to form this relationship with Greg — whenever she feels stressed about Gem life, he'll offer her emotional comfort and advice.
• Interspecies Friendship: Excluding Steven, Connie is one of the few humans (besides Greg) to have an actual friendship with the Crystal Gems, especially Pearl.
• Interspecies Romance: Connie (human) is mutually very fond of Steven (half-human, half-Gem).
• Intertwined Fingers: With Steven, especially when they fuse into Stevonnie.
• Jumped at the Call: She grew up as a huge fantasy geek, of course she'd be excited to become a proper heroine herself!
• Kid Has a Point: Lying to her parents notwithstanding, Connie was right on how their controlling nature was doing more harm than good to her and their relationship.
• Kid Hero: While Connie may not save the world or hunt Gem monsters on a daily basis, she's not afraid to do one or the other when it come times to.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Extra points for Connie deciding to be a knight for Steven. Besides that, Connie looks up to the Crystal Gems and will jump at any chance to prove herself to them.
• Lady and Knight: Pearl encourages her to see herself as the Knight to Steven's Lord, a mindset Connie eagerly adopts. Unfortunately, Pearl went so over the top for it that she unintentionally made Connie's self-worth issues worse than they already were, until Steven realizes the problem.
• The Lancer: To Steven, as she also acts as a deuteragonist to his protagonist whenever she appears — he is an overly honest young man raised in a non-nuclear family and is accustomed to the magical happenings in his life; Connie is more secretive at times when she has to be, raised in a usual nuclear family, and is quite amazed at Steven's magic-filled life.
• Large Ham: Has moments of this, as seen when she uses her violin bow to scare off seagulls trying to get Steven's biscuits at the beginning of "Sworn to the Sword".
• Laugh of Love: Has romantic laughs with Steven during their moments together, including the first few times they Fused.
• Lead You Can Relate To: Some audience viewers may see their introverted shyness and yearning for friends from Connie's perspective and readily identify with her situation.
• The Leader: Unofficially for the New Crystal Gems (later going by "The Crystal Temps"), as she is the Only Sane Woman of the bunch.
• Leitmotif: "Connie".
• Like Parent, Like Child:
  • "Storm in the Room" shows that Connie can be just as much as a worrywart as her mother.
  • "Doug Out" shows that Connie gets her dorkiness, hamminess, and even insecurity when it comes to comparing herself with others from her father.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Downplayed. Connie is Steven's Implied Love Interest and like Greg (Steven's father), she's an Insecure Love Interest who was raised by strict and controlling parents, and they eventually Grew a Spine as a part of their individual Character Development. Unlike Greg, Connie managed to reconcile with her parents and establish a better relationship while Greg never has.
• Limited Wardrobe: Downplayed in Future. The majority of her appearances seem to have her wearing the exact same shirt in different colors paired with the exact same shorts. That being said, she does have other outfits.
• Little Miss Badass: In "Sworn to the Sword". You have to give her credit for going toe-to-toe with Pearl when she and Steven took her on. They both lose, but Pearl's exhausted state afterwards indicates that Connie gave her a bit of hell.
• Living a Double Life: After getting more involved with Steven's world, Connie also began hiding it from her parents, fearing that if they knew they would immediately forbid her from being friends with Steven. "Nightmare Hospital" deconstructs this lifestyle, with Priyanka explaining that Connie hiding things from her and Doug is as wrong as the two of them being overly strict, and that all of them need to be honest with each other.
• Living Emotional Crutch: It is subtly hinted that Connie is becoming one for Steven. First, after the events of "The Return"/"Jail Break", he tells her about how scared and upset he is concerning the Homeworld Gems and Lapis' Fusion with Jasper; after his retelling of the story, she promises to be this for him when he needs to talk to someone. Second, in "Steven's Birthday", he overuses his stretching powers too much and reverses back to a baby; throughout his time as one, nothing calms him down... except Connie's reassurance to him that she'll be there for him when either his father or the Crystal Gems are busy. Third, when Steven has a catastrophic emotional breakdown over having to repeatedly fight and destroy his enemies in "Mindful Education", it was only Connie's comforting and wise words of it being okay to talk about the bad things he did plus a Cooldown Hug that calmed him down so they could fuse into Stevonnie.
• Locked Out of the Loop: The plot of "Full Disclosure" centers on Steven not letting her into the loop about what went down in "The Return"/"Jail Break". It nearly ruins her friendship with Steven, but she eventually gets let in by the episode's end.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Downplayed. Connie had waist-length hair and likes some typical girly things, but not as much as Steven does.
• Loophole Abuse: Despite her obedience to her parents, Connie is not above exploiting loopholes, such as not buying snacks at a theater and instead bringing them from Steven's home.
• Lovable Jock: One of her hobbies include playing tennis and she's a shy, friendly girl.
• Lovable Nerd: She's dorky, intelligent, a big fan of a fantasy-esque series, and is completely endearing.
• Love at First Sight: Downplayed. It was more like "attracted at first sight" when Connie first met Steven, but they had to spend time getting to know each other before coming to the conclusion that they loved each other.
• Love Bubbles: With Steven (since she's his Implied Love Interest) in "Bubble Buddies". They spent almost the entire episode stuck in Steven's magical bubble (thanks to Power Incontinence) and a lot of their interactions come off as Ship Tease, especially since, in the beginning, Steven endearingly behaves like a boy trying to talk to his crush.
• Love Makes You Stupid: In "Sworn to the Sword", Pearl's training and preying on Connie's desire to protect Steven eventually convinced Connie to sacrifice herself for whatever comes after Steven, similar to how Pearl would sacrifice herself for Rose. The thing is, Pearl can regenerate, Connie cannot, and Steven quickly realizes how detrimental that mindset is for Connie.
• Luminescent Blush: Connie experiences a few throughout the narrative scenes of "An Indirect Kiss", and at the end, when sipping from Steven's juice box, her eyesight is magically healed by Steven's magical saliva which got into the juice box.
• Male Might, Female Finesse: Connie's strengths lie in her practiced sword technique, fast attacks, and quick thinking; and while Steven's skills have become more refined, his powers consist of superhuman strength, super-human durability, and heavy hits with his shield.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Zigzagged. Connie and Steven do present some type of femininity and masculinity, respectively. However, Connie prefers to fight with a sword and likes action/adventure; Steven prefers using his shield and has a liking towards romances.
• Master Swordsman: Not yet, but she's on her way to becoming one thanks to Pearl's teaching and her own natural fast learning.
• Mayfly–December Friendship: She is arguably the closest human to have a genuine friendship with The Ageless Crystal Gems.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Connie is friends with Steven Universe and her last name is Tamil for "Lord of the Universe". In addition, it's one of the names of the god Shiva, who's also known as Cosmic Dancer — considering that she can do a fusion dance with someone born to a human father and his mother was from another planet.
    • This is played for laughs and lampshaded in "Sworn to the Sword" when she starts sword training:
      Pearl: We begin with a bow, first to me, your teacher. [Connie bows] And now again, to your liege.
      Connie: [bows to Steven] Okay, my liege.
      Steven: Miss knight.
  • Her first name may be an English version of "Kahaani", which means "story" or "fable", and Connie seems very interested in stories.
  • "Connie" is Irish for "strong-willed", "wise", or "hero". With Character Development she becomes more confident and willing to call out others for their mistakes ("strong-willed"); a Brainy Brunette Child Prodigy who shows a surprising amount of maturity for someone her age ("wise"); gradually becomes a Kid Hero who helps protect Earth ("hero").
  • "Connie" is also a feminine derivative of "Constance", an alternate form of "Constans", an old Latin name meaning "constant", indicating her willingness to be by Steven's side, as noted in "Full Disclosure", "Sworn to the Sword", and "Steven's Birthday".
• The Millstone: Averted. In "The New Crystal Gems", both Lapis and Peridot think Connie will be this with the former being the most skeptical of her help. But, it turns that Connie's level-headedness and leadership skills are the key when dealing with the immature, destructive natures of the other two.
• Morality Pet: To the Crystal Gems, especially Pearl. She is probably the first human they treat with respect and as a friend.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Downplayed. Connie isn't ruthless, but is certainly more aggressive than Steven is.
• Muggle Best Friend: Of all of the characters, human and Gem, Connie is Steven's best friend.
• Muggle–Mage Romance: She (a human) is romantically interested in Steven (a magical Half-Human Hybrid).
• Mundane Made Awesome: In "Lion 2: The Movie", Connie mentions that tennis practice is the most interesting thing in her life so far. Later on, her tennis skills prove useful in defeating the robot that goes after her and Steven.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: She's a young, normal human with arms as thin as strings. That said, she's able to wield Rose's sword with relative ease, and in "Mindful Education" easily swung a classmate roughly her size through the air and slammed him to the ground without a thought.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Went through a Heroic BSoD in "Mindful Education" because of the shame she felt for accidentally hurting a fellow classmate (Jeff).
• Neat Freak: Keeps a tidy appearance and maintains a proper schedule whenever possible.
• Nerd Action Hero: Started off (and still is) a Lovable Nerd who is very mature for her age. She Took a Level in Badass and is slowly becoming a Master Swordsman.
• Nice Girl: Connie is respectful, brave, and a true friend to have.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Of the Crystal Temps, she is the "Nice" to Lapis's "Mean" and Peridot's "In-Between". Of the trio, Connie is the most sensitive, mature, and thoughtful.
• No Social Skills: In the beginning, Connie had zero trace of a social life to speak of outside her relationship with her parents. Even after making her first friend with Steven, she is still shown to be far more introverted and anxiety ridden compared to his more outgoing and optimistic nature. This slowly starts to become averted as time goes on and Connie eventually manages to make her first friend on her own in the form of Jeff and is seen talking to other people at Kevin’s party. By the time of Future, it has disappeared entirely as Connie now has multiple friends outside of her friendship group with Steven and has enough emotional intelligence to know how to let Steven down gently when he proposes to her, how to help Steven with his culminating emotional issues, and how to rally up the Gems and Diamonds and Greg to help return Steven back to normal from his Gem mutant form.
• Not So Above It All: While Connie is often very level-headed, she has her moments of acting rash and impatient.
• Obfuscating Disability: Up until "Nightmare Hospital", Connie pretended to still need her prescribed glasses even though Steven's healing spit gave her perfect vision.
• Odd Name Out: Of the Crystal Temps, she is the only one with a completely human name.
• Official Couple: By the end of Steven Universe Future, she's become this with Steven; to the point where they plan to marry each other later in life.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: While Connie sometimes wields Rose's 8-foot sword with both her hands, she is capable of easily holding it with only one. Despite the sword's size, it doesn't appear to be particularly heavy.
• One-Hit Kill: Rose's Sword allows Connie to easily poof Gems.
• The One with a Personal Life: The Crystal Gems consist of aliens, Steven, and a full human, Connie. The aliens are The Needless, generally disinterested in human interaction, and only go into town when Steven asks or if there's a monster. Steven regularly goes into town and interacts with the citizens and his dad, but still lives with the Gems. Connie is Steven's best friend and the only one who doesn't live in Beach City full time (as her parents' careers mean she moves a lot). In between helping the Gems, she goes to school, takes tennis and violin lessons, and (initially) hides her involvement in any of this from her parents.
• Only Sane Woman:
  • Particularly in the early part of the series in comparison to Steven, who's quick to act but doesn't think things through. It's Connie that gets through to Onion by simply writing "harpoon gun" instead of making a diagram like Steven, and she tries to call attention to the obvious problem of freeing themselves from Steven's shield bubble with a roller coaster.
  • She's also this to Peridot and Lapis in "The New Crystal Gems", thinking responsibly compared to their antics.
  • One last time again in the finale of Steven Universe Future, big time: when everyone gets overcome with grief and guilt for not having been able to help Steven (who ended up turning into a monster) she's the one to snap them out of their Heroic BSoD, giving them a Rousing Speech about how it's not the time to lament the times they hurt Steven but to find the way to be there for him when he most needs it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In "Mindful Education", Connie is distracted and hardly interested in her training, a vast attitude change from previous episodes. She later admits to having accidentally hurt Jeff, a classmate from her school, and feels awful about it.
  • In "Kevin Party", she and Steven both realize they're really desperate to see each other if they're willing to come to Kevin's party to do so.
• Opposites Attract: Connie (shy, rational, and doubts herself) has a mutual crush on Steven (outgoing, rash, and confident).
• Ordinary Middle School Student: Before meeting Steven and taking sword lessons, she would just go to school most of the time.
• Part-Time Hero: Inverted. While she does go to school and tennis practice, she wants to make more time for heroics.
• Passionate Sports Girl: Downplayed. While "passionate" may be too strong of a word, Connie admits that playing tennis was one of the few things she enjoys in her life.
• Performance Anxiety: In "Alone Together", she admits to Steven that despite wanting to go to a few of her school dances, the idea of so many eyes on her made her too anxious. With some help from Steven, she opens up to the idea. At the end of the episode, after they defuse out of Stevonnie, she's seen laughing and smiling with Steven as everyone stares.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Inverted. Connie's associated colors are blue (teal specifically) and some of her casual clothes are orange, while Steven's associated colors are pink. She later wields Rose's sword and scabbard, which are pink. In "The New Crystal Gems", she wears one of Steven's spare pink T-shirts with a star on the front.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Connie has a thin build and isn’t very tall compared to the other humans on the show, but she is still strong enough to carry Rose’s sword and even run while holding it and is a capable combatant in her own right.
• Plucky Girl: She shows subtle hints of this in the first season, bringing her own snacks to the movie theater in "Lion 2: The Movie" since her parents don't allow her to buy snacks at the theater, and having the Gems (as Alexandrite) pose as Steven's mom in "Fusion Cuisine", and more promninently so in the second season, ultimately convincing her mother that swords are not toys in "Nightmare Hospital" and agreeing to keep her parents more informed about her life activities (while not divulging Stevonnie's secret to them), and developing a strong friendship with Steven throughout the series.
• Pointless Band-Aid: Inverted. Connie wears a band-aid during her sword training in "Sworn to the Sword", but it's useful given the strict and disciplined sword training Pearl was giving her.
• Positive Friend Influence: After having been on the receiving end during the main series, Connie attempts to be on the delivering end in Future as Steven’s mental issues and PTSD further spiral out of control. While it does take a lot and Connie has to rally the other Gems and Greg to help her, she does ultimately manage to help Steven in a positive way after his trauma reaches its breaking point.
• Primary-Color Champion: Downplayed. The only time she wears anything red and blue is during her sword training with Pearl, with consists of a dark blue Kalaripayattu outfit with a red cummerbund on her waist.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: While she appeared in the original opening credits for a moment as the town flashes past, the second opening makes her appearance much more prominent, having her carrying Rose's sword, chasing after the van and appearing on the beach along with the other main characters at the end.
• Prophetic Names: Her last name is Tamil for "Lord of the Universe". Guess who she befriends.
• Puppy Love: With Steven. They have almost kissed. In "Steven's Birthday", Steven is already assuming that they will get married when they're older.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Connie originally did need glasses, but as of "An Indirect Kiss", her vision was restored by Steven's healing spit. Not wanting to explain to her parents and optometrist how her sight was magically fixed, she pops out the lenses on her glasses and keeps wearing the frame, except when around Steven and the Crystal Gems. About a year later, she reveals this to her mom and stops wearing them completely.
• Really Moves Around: When Connie is introduced in "Bubble Buddies", she says her family moves around a lot because of her dad's job as a private security guard. This is never referenced again, doesn't really make sense once we find out her mother is a doctor, and she keeps living in the same house until she goes to college.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Downplayed. Back whenever Connie was a Shrinking Violet, she was prone to wearing feminine looking dresses. While she never abandons them entirely, as Character Development sets in and she becomes more confident and evolves into more of an Action Girl, she starts wearing them less and less in favor of jeans and shorts.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Peridot and Lapis in "The New Crystal Gems" for acting like bratty children instead of their actual ages.
• Rebellious Spirit: Justified and downplayed. For the former, she grew up with overly strict and controlling parents which gave her a desire to have some freedom in her life. For the latter, Connie is a law-abiding person who has no problem with following orders or laws, she just doesn't like oppressive ruling.
• The Redeemer:
  • A downplayed version compared to Steven, but Connie also played a role in helping to reform the Diamonds, providing Blue and Yellow Diamond advice to express their grievances about their totalitarian lifestyles and rule to White in order to help make things better, while comparing it to what her own life was like living under the rules of her two parents.
  • On top of that, Connie is also able to cause Steven to revert back from his Gem mutant form by assuring him that she and the others would always be there for him regardless of what happened, though she needed a bit more help to pull that one off.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Connie is more quiet, intellectual, and often wears blue or blue-green, while her best friend Steven is goofy, outgoing, and wears a pinkish-red shirt.
  • Connie is the Red Oni to Pearl’s Blue Oni, being far more enthusiastic and aggressive whenever it comes to combat while Pearl is emotionally reserved and graceful.
• Reflexive Response: After months of training to fight with the Crystal Gems, someone (Jeff) barely bumps into Connie while she's walking down the hallway at school. She reflexively grabs them and judo throws them through the air, slamming them into the ground before she realized what she was even doing. When she realizes exactly what she's done, she is horrified by the fact she reflexively attacked an innocent person for no reason.
• Relationship Upgrade: She and Steven start off as friends in the first season and slowly transition into best friend territory. It's unclear on when they became an Official Couple but there were moments that showed that both of them had romantic interest in each other as far back as season 1. Steven proposed to Connie in Future but she states that while she wants to marry him, it's not the right time to. By the series finale, they share their first on-screen kiss and are planning to see each other regularly.
• Renaissance Man: Gender Inverted. She plays tennis, is a good singer and skilled violinist, is an amazing swordswoman, and is even an expert as a survivalist.
• Rescue Romance: With Steven. They have mutual crushes on each other, protect one another from danger, and their relationship started after Steven saved her from falling boulders.
• Rule of Symbolism: Before having her eyes healed by Steven, Connie wore pink-tinted glasses. And in the episode her eyes were healed, Steven is recalling a Gem mission that made him worried about his future with the Crystal Gems. And the last scene, has her taking out the pink lenses before placing them back on her face. In other words, prior to this point, Connie had a rose-colored view on Steven's adventures with the Crystal Gems. But, by the end, she is able to clearly see how stressful Steven's job is.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Gender Inverted. Steven is the outgoing and emotional one, while Connie is more level-headed and reserved.
• Say My Name: "STEEVEN!"
• Scary Shiny Glasses: What happens in her debut episode when she reaches a breaking point from Steven continuously saying everything will be okay.
• Ship Tease: With Steven. They have many romantic-like moments together and a lot of people ship them:
  • In "Alone Together", they dance together and Connie catches Steven as he falls, leading to them blushing with their faces inches apart. Then as they laugh and touch foreheads, they end up fusing for the first time.
  • In "Winter Forecast", there's a lot of Steven/Connie shipping, especially in the first few minutes and at the end.
  • In "Open Book", there's a lot of Steven/Connie moments. Cloud!Connie even switches to a wedding dress when she's trying to pressure Steven into admitting his feelings (about the book).
  I know you like her, and I know you want her to like you, too. That's why you can't tell her, but you want to tell her...
  I know what you really want! I know how you really feel!
  That's why you can't tell her the truth. But you want to! You want to tell her! Tell her, Steven!
  • In "Love Letters", Connie and Steven trying to take a selfie at the beginning.
  • In "Steven's Birthday", Steven and Connie wonder how his apparent lack of aging will affect their relationship as they grow up, often sounding like they're particularly thinking of a future love life.
  • In "We Need to Talk", they spin and dance at the beginning, blushing, and end up fusing into Stevonnie.
  • In Steven Universe: The Movie, as Connie is preparing to leave for space camp, she blushes, then kisses Steven on the cheek and rushes off as he stands there blushing.
  • In "In Dreams", Steven has a dream about Camp Pining Hearts where Steven's self-insert Dream Sue kisses a girl, and she changes to Connie.
  • In "Bismuth Casual":
    • Steven and Connie give each other loving looks while Steven's driving to the roller skating rink.
    • Steven's discussion with Bismuth reveals that they both want to talk about hanging out with Connie and Pearl respectively, and it reads like two people talking about their crushes -especially since it's all but confirmed that Bismuth has a crush on Pearl.
    • When Steven tells Connie he's not having fun, he makes a very dramatic confession... About roller skating. It is implied that to Steven, this isn't about roller skating at all.
    • When a skate-off is announced, Steven and Connie fuse, and their first idea is to skate as Stevonnie. After unfusing, they spend the rest of the night holding hands.
    • Really, the entire situation looks like a double-date. Both Bismuth/Pearl and Steven/Connie went there to have fun, and both pairings had heavy teasing.
• Shrinking Violet: Before her Character Development, Connie was usually a shy and reserved girl.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: For the first part of the series, Connie's attire usually consisted of dresses, t-shirts and skirts, and t-shirts and shorts. As she goes on more adventures with Steven and gains more confidence, she starts wearing less dresses, more shorts, and starts putting tank tops into her ensemble.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Connie is quite polite and reserved, especially when in comparison to Steven, but she has a determined attitude, sword skills, and is not one to take lightly.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Connie's main romantic interest has always been Steven. She's never mentioned a past crush or even had a crush on anyone else in the series. And while she turned down his proposal in Future she clarifies she wants to marry him, but at the right time.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Connie is extremely fond of Steven Universe — an upbeat, forgiving, and optimistic young man who promised to be her friend when they were first properly acquainted and later stated that he wants her to fight by his side as an equal.
• Sixth Ranger: She's basically an unofficial Crystal Gem at this point, all things considered. In "Rocknaldo", Steven outright states she is a member of the group.
• Sleep Cute: Shown cutely snoozing on Steven's shoulder in "Ocean Gem".
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: From season 2 and onward, Connie usually sports sleeveless tops.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Connie has a small cameo in "Rocknaldo", but is the catalyst for Steven calling out Ronaldo for his egotism as well as being indirectly responsible for the latter's Character Development.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Wears oval-shaped glasses and has proven to be a Badass Bookworm and Only Sane Woman. Following the events of "An Indirect Kiss", Connie can now see normally without her glasses thanks to the healing powers in Steven's spit. However, in order not to agitate her parents and optometrist, she pops out the lenses of her glasses and puts the frames back on, only taking them off when her parents aren't around. She ditches them entirely after her mom finds out.
• Specs of Awesome: Zigzagged. On the "specs" part, she does wear glasses upon her introduction, but doesn't have to after "An Indirect Kiss", when Steven's healing spit gives her perfect vision. She decides to forget the lens and keep the frames. The "awesome" part is played as straight as possible, especially after she learns proper swordfighting skills.
• Strong Family Resemblance: This picture◊ of Connie in "Storm in the Room" shows how much she resembles her mother, especially around the eyes with wrinkles and hair style. The only thing she got from her father are his Big Ol' Eyebrows.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Zigzagged with Steven. Steven is very mature for his age, but has a tendency to make rash decisions, unlike the level-headed Connie; plus, both are child prodigies. And while he may be physically stronger than her, she's the more aggressive of the two.
• Stronger Than They Look: Connie is a Weak, but Skilled, scrawny, young human. But she's able to wield Rose's BFS with relative ease.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Thanks to her upbringing, she tends to be more serious than Steven and is usually more reserved, but is still very energetic and upbeat regardless.
• Super-Reflexes: A non-superhero example. As shown in "Mindful Education", Connie's reflexes have been honed to such an extent that she reacts to a perceived threat before she knows what's she's doing, as she attacked a fellow student who bumped into her without realizing it until after the fact.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Invoked in "The New Crystal Gems". In an attempt to protect Beach City while the Crystal Gems are away, she, Peridot, Pumpkin, and Lapis decide to mimic them. In this team, Connie becomes the "new" Steven complete with her dressing up in his Iconic Outfit.
• Sword and Sorcerer: The Sword (a human who uses a BFS for combat) to Steven's Sorcerer (is half-Gem with an array of magical abilities).
• Sword/Shield Contrast: The sword to Steven's shield. She's aggressive and willing to play rough when it's time to do so.
• Tagalong Kid: Inverted. Of the Crystal Temps; Connie may be the only child of the group, but she acts as their unofficial leader.
• Talking the Monster to Death: In true heartwarming irony, in the Future episode “I Am My Monster”, this is how Connie saves Steven from his corrupted form with a combination of heartfelt speeches, a Cooldown Hug with help from the other Gems, Diamonds, and Greg, and sealing it off with a True Love's Kiss.
• The Team Normal: She's the only human who fights alongside the Crystal Gems. In season 2, Connie starts learning how to swordfight, with the explicit goal of helping Steven and the Gems protect the planet. She uses Rose's sword, but the sword itself isn't magic at all. While she can fuse with Steven to become the Badass Abnormal Stevonnie, she herself doesn't have any supernatural powers. She's just a regular human girl with a quick wit and a big-ass sword.
• Tell Me How You Fight: After taking swordsmanship training from Pearl, Connie style is similar to the Kalaripayattu technique. She gives quick and hard hitting moves while being light on her feet.
• Token Good Teammate: Of the Crystal Temps. While Lapis and Peridot aren't exactly evil, they both can be astoundingly insensitive. Connie not only acts as the "token good", but also as the group's moral center, Only Sane Woman, and unofficial leader.
• Token Human: Shares this spot with Greg. She and Greg acknowledge that they're the only pure humans working alongside the Crystal Gems. Perhaps even more so than Greg, since Connie is also the only purely human Crystal Gem (Steven being a human-Gem hybrid) with not only Steven calling Connie a "Crystal Gem", but Pearl both training Connie to be Steven's partner in combat and allowing Connie to keep and wield Rose's sword.
• Tomboyish Baseball Cap: She is occasionally seen wearing a red baseball cap backwards.
• Tomboyness Upgrade: Connie was originally a shy girl who was prone to self doubt. After she got over her insecurity though, she evolved into a Hot-Blooded Action Girl and accomplished sword fighter who is also somewhat skilled in hand-to-hand combat.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Connie likes adventure/action more than Steven, is the sword to his shield, and loves to train. She also wears girly dresses and enjoys playing the violin.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • She convinces Pearl to teach her to swordfight so that she can fight by Steven's side on adventures, and proves to be a worthy pupil. She proves herself in "Nightmare Hospital", where she and Steven successfully fight off two Gem Mutants over her mother's objections. ^note What's more, she does this with Rose's Sword, which is longer than she is tall.
  • Since her first appearance, Connie has had a fearful respect to her parents. But after reaching a Rage Breaking Point in "Nightmare Hospital", Connie gives her mom a telling off on her controlling nature and how it affected their relationship.
  • When dealing with a corrupted Gem in "Gem Hunt", she freezes up in fear. But, when she faces off against a Gem Fusion from Homeworld, she keeps her cool and manages to win the fight.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Discussed. When she and Steven are fuming over meeting Kevin again in "Beach City Drift", she stated that she was "thinking mad" in contrast to Steven's openly emotional display of anger at the teen.
  • She shows an icy, stoic version in "Dewey Wins"; when Steven mentions that no one else was hurt apart from Lars being resurrected from the dead, she coldly mentions the emotional pain she felt when they could have teamed up together as Stevonnie instead of Steven taking a lone wolf approach partly because he felt like he was the only one capable of cleaning up after Rose Quartz's mistakes. She then rides off on an equally angry Lion, giving Steven time to think long about the effect his hasty decision and broken promise had on her.
• True Blue Femininity: Downplayed. She's mostly seen in blue or blue-green outfits and while she does enjoy stereotypical feminine interests, she has a slightly more masculine demeanor, especially when compared against Steven.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Gender Inverted. Steven worries that his best friend Connie might get hurt or killed if she gets too involved in the Gem half of his life, and waffles several times over the series on how much he should involve her. Each time, however, he realizes that he needs to be fully honest with Connie and she is always very clear that she wants to be a part of Steven's human and Gem lives. This continues through the Sequel Series Steven Universe: Future, where Steven and Connie eventually become an Official Couple.
• Undying Loyalty: Connie shows this to Steven, in "Full Disclosure"; after Steven has escaped from Jasper's ship, he is reluctant to tell Connie about his most recent adventure. When he tries to avoid her, attempting to break up with her via text message, she prefers for Steven to respond in person about remaining friends. Steven ultimately decides to remain friends with her, and she urges Steven to talk about his feelings, offering herself as a sympathetic listener who wants to be a part of his universe.
  • In "Sworn to the Sword", she starts learning to wield Rose Quartz's sword, under Pearl's guidance. Her motive is to protect Steven, who wants to face dangers with her as a team, instead of having her risk her life and safety to protect him from potential dangers.
  • In "Steven's Birthday", when Steven magically reverts to a baby, Connie tells Steven that no matter what age he seems to be, she still wants to hang out with him, no matter what.
  • Later, in "Together Forever", Steven has a picnic lunch with her and proposes marriage to her. She is impressed by Steven's romantic gesture, and when Steven pops the question, she politely declines Steven's proposal for the time being, telling him "not now". Later, in "Growing Pains", when Steven starts swelling, Connie detects that something isn't right with Steven, so she arranges for him to have a medical visit with Dr. Maheswaran. Later, she calls Greg, who postpones his tour to see that Steven will be all right again.
• Unfazed Everyman: Unlike most of the other normal humans in Steven's life, Connie not only participates in a few adventures, but is enthusiastic about doing so.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: She is one of the few characters to have a different set of clothes in each appearance.
• Uptight Loves Wild: A puppy love version. Connie's parents are very strict, overprotective and concerned over their daughter's education being the best, with little space left for imagination, even disallowing a medical TV show for being too unrealistic. Steven is a energetic, jovial boy that loves to daydream, lives with his ex-rock musician dad who came into money from residual royalties, and sentient rocks with superpowers who defend the planet from monsters and are very hands-off and open minded towards him.
• Vague Age: Along with Steven Connie's age was debated for a long time among fans, and was generally thought to be somewhere between 8 and 12. They're both very short but Connie is shown to be much more rational and logical compared to Steven who can be quite immature. More than a year passed in-universe, without either visibly aging, before the late season two episode "Steven's Birthday" had Steven turn fourteen, though he stopped growing around age eight because of his Half-Human Hybrid genes. Connie, who's a few months away from turning thirteen, is rather stunned by this news, having assumed Steven was younger than her.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Implied and downplayed. For the former, she shows a more aggressive side in "Sworn to the Sword" so she can better protect Steven; for the latter, her and Steven's relationship is mostly Ship Tease. Nevertheless, when they fuse as Stevonnie, they show a different, unique level of emotional closeness without getting physically intimate.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Downplayed. Unlike Steven, Connie goes to school like most children her age. And while she does help Steven and the Crystal Gems on their missions, it's not on a regular basis.
• Weak, but Skilled: Connie is a human child, far weaker and more fragile than even the least combat-worthy Gem. She's made up for this for being extremely fast and agile, and with Rose's Sword (which is a One-Hit Kill weapon on Gems) her lack of strength doesn't matter.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: A teacher-student example. After beginning to train with Pearl, Connie is always eager to impress her teacher as seen in "Gem Hunt".
• Well-Trained, but Inexperienced: In the episode "Gem Hunt", Connie is brought along on her first mission to help Pearl and Steven catch two gem monsters. When Steven and Connie find one of them without Pearl, she ends up freezing under pressure. While Connie is ashamed by this, Pearl assures her that she still made her proud, having instructed her not to fight on this mission and instead notify her when they found the monster. She soon overcomes this in the next episode when she and Steven fuse and fight off Jasper and the gem monsters as Stevonnie.
• What Does She See in Him?: In "Lion 2: The Movie", Steven considers himself a screw-up and can't see what a nice girl like her would see in him. Likewise, Connie initially considers her life less interesting than Steven's magical destiny, compared to Dogcopter. She gets a chance to put her tennis skills to new uses, fighting off a killer robot with Steven.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Connie calls out Steven in "Dewey Wins" for handing himself over to Aquamarine and the Topazes back in "I Am My Mom", stating that it made her think that he didn't believe in them as a team. She also calls him out on him for brushing his loved ones' anguish for his actions.
  • She briefly scolds Steven when he bluntly refuses to apologize to Blue Diamond for fusing during the ball, since that would risk them getting locked up even longer. Subverted in that it becomes their ticket to escape instead.
• Wingding Eyes: Connie's turn into diamonds when she's happy and excited.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: Connie is barely a teenager, but knows things like how to survive in the wilderness or the problems with humans overusing fuel sources.
  • She is even able to gently postpone Steven's marriage proposal in a calm, mature manner that few full grown adults can manage.
• Workaholic: Connie spends almost all of her time practicing something in order to perfect it like violin playing. Initially it wasn’t clear whether or not this was a natural part of her personality or something that her parents forced onto her. Future indicates that it was natural all along as she is spending large amounts of time studying hard for cram school in order to attend college early.
• Wrecked Weapon: In "Reunited", Rose Quartz's sword is casually shattered by Blue Diamond using only her thumb, index, and middle fingers.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In "Lion 2: The Movie" and "Sworn to the Sword", Connie begins to display the view that as an ordinary human, she's nothing compared to Steven's legacy and power (a byproduct of learning from Pearl, who unwittingly projects her own self-esteem issues onto Connie). Steven shuts that down right away, reminding her how they work best as a team, and how much he admires her.
• Your Size May Vary: Her size tends to vary in certain shots. For example, she is usually taller than Steven, but at times she appears to be around the same height as him.

Greg Universe

Greg Universe

Voiced by: Tom Scharpling

"If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."

"My darling son, I remember when
I would sing to you, and I would do it again.
Beloved child, remember this too.
In this world of Gems, there's no one like you!"

^{Click here to see him after cutting his hair}

^{Click here to see him in his younger years}

Greg Universe (formerly Gregory DeMayo) was a one man band. He didn't have much success, but seems happy enough in his simple life. Rose Quartz fell in love with him, and they had Steven together (though she had to give up her physical form for her son to be born, as only one living being can be attached to the gem at a time). While Steven lives at the temple with the Gems, Greg lives out of his van as a reminder of his prime and owns Beach City's car wash: It's A Wash. He loves his son dearly, and the two of them hang out quite often, sharing their musical talents.

---

• '80s Hair: Even after he's gotten a bit of male pattern baldness, his hair is huge.
• Abusive Parents: Mr. Universe shows that Greg's parents were both extremely restrictive on their son, and also disowned him once he ran away due to how controlling they were of every aspect of his life. Most tellingly, they never opened a single letter of Greg's, despite him sending a good amount to them.
• Adaptational Badass: In the series proper, he's a Non-Action Guy that usually just stays home. In Save the Light, he fights alongside the party as a Support Party Member.
• Affluent Ascetic: Even after becoming a millionaire, he still works at the car wash. Either he really enjoys washing cars (he is fond of cars), or he is self-aware enough to know that he needs to stay busy.
• All-Loving Hero: Greg has consistently shown to be an extremely kind-hearted, forgiving, and patient person. He even treats the word "hate" as a swear word.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Downplayed. While the Crystal Gems don't hate Greg, they all don't treat him with equal respect and don't believe in his ability to help when the situation calls for it (especially Pearl), something he calls them out for in "The Message". They have (thankfully) gotten better about this.
• All There in the Manual: His eyes are always drawn as black dots, but according to the short eBook "Your Magic, Mind, and Body", they're actually dark brown.
• Ambiguously Jewish: The surname DeMayo is Sephardic Jewish, and his son sports a Jewfro. Plus, the "sch" at the start of his pet name for Steven, "Schtu-ball", should remind one of Yiddish words that have integrated their way well into modern English such as "schlep", "schlock", and "schmooze" (though it might be atypical for a Sephardic Jewish man to speak like the Ashkenazis) At the same time, he likes hot dogs and other dishes made with pork, so he may just be culturally Jewish if not religiously.
• Awesome Mc Cool Name: The surname Universe is pretty impressive, though it turns out it's simply a Stage Name that he decided to legally change as his surname. His birth surname was "DeMayo". Amusingly, Steven seems to think DeMayo was the cool name.
• Badass Normal: He contributed in the fight against Lapis through Car Fu, and he fixed a giant, powerful, world destroying geode using nothing but a bit of duct tape.
• The Bard: He's a musician, not a warrior, though Save the Light weaponizes this ability.
• Betty and Veronica: The "Veronica" (aspiring human musician) to Pearl's "Betty" (Rose's bodyguard and very first ally in the war against Homeworld) for Rose's "Archie".
• Big Beautiful Man: He's quite fat and is a sweet man who is still also a Chick Magnet.
• Big Fun: Not quite as chubby as his son, but Greg is still quite large and loves to have a good time.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: His eyebrows are tied with Steven's for the largest, and their most obvious point of resemblance.
• Birds of a Feather: Greg and Blue Diamond connect very easily as she's lost a loved one just as he lost Rose. Coincidentally, they're both mourning the same person.
• Boldly Coming: How did this story come to be? Well, that involves a little story the titular character likes to call "The Ballad of Greg and Rose." It started with a young man playing through his concert like a comet and a mysterious 8-foot tall woman in the audience. He was a talented rocker who wanted to make it big. She was the leader of a group of sentient gem aliens with physical forms made out of light who protected the Earth. Their chance encounter gave birth to a beautiful love and, later, a beautiful son...
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Deconstructed. His rather loose manner of raising Steven in which he basically left Steven to his own devices and encouraged his freedom is revealed in "Mr. Universe" to be a result of him fighting back against the controlling environment he grew up in under his own. Unfortunately, this causes a whole new set of problems for Steven come Future, as it led to Steven having a very atypical childhood. Due to the trauma that came from that time and his desire to have some kind of direction in his life, Steven ends up losing all respect for Greg after he finds out about how Greg ran away from his comparatively mundane home. Overall, while Greg meant well and desired to be a better parent than his own, he lacked the knowledge of how to properly raise his son and swung too far in the other direction as his parents.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: In a sense. Greg is a skilled musician and a very good carpenter and yet chooses to seek a living with his carwash instead.
• Broken Pedestal: In "Mr. Universe", Steven loses all respect for him when he learns that his dad played a part in his recent traumatic upbringing by running away from a controlling household and raising Steven with very little structure in his life, leading Steven to believe that he's no better than Rose as a parent. It's more of a fleeting moment than complete estrangement however, as Steven clearly feels guilty about how he lashed out at him in "Everything's Fine", and they reconcile in "I Am My Monster" and "The Future".
• Bumbling Dad: The Gems don't think that highly of him. Ultimately, though, it seems to be more of a Downplayed or Subverted Trope than anything, as he's only bumbling in that he's ill equipped to aid Steven in Gem related matters. As an actual father, he's loving, supportive, protective, and an all-around competent parent. This is further supported by the fact that Greg raised Steven from a baby to a toddler before the Gems took him under their care, and evidently did a good job at that, while it's obvious the Gems know jack-all about raising a human child.
  Pearl: Greg is... nice, Steven... but I doubt Rose would trust someone like him with such a powerful weapon.
  Amethyst: Your dad's kind of a mess, Steven.
  • The irony being that each of the Gems are, in their own way, far, far worse of a mess than Greg is.
  • However, in "Mr. Universe", it turns out to be a zig-zagged since Steven realizes how Greg raised his son without structure, pretty much allowing him to do whatever he wanted without precautions, and neglected to give him what he perceived to be a normal childhood. It should be noted that Greg's approach to parenting seems to have been a deliberate attempt at Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting, as he was miserable living under his controlling parents. There's also the fact that a lot of Steven's actual trauma were tied to events completely outside of Greg's knowledge or control.
• Butt-Monkey: Mild example, but the Gems tend to create property damage he has to pay for like when Ruby destroyed the table at the Keystone diner, or when Lapis sunk the boat he rented, meaning he had to buy it.
• Character Development: Initially he's awkward and insecure around the Gems, until he gets fed up with being second fiddle and calls them out on how they don't respect him.
  • Similarly Greg starts off as a Bumbling Dad who's uncertain about his son going off on adventures and lies to make Steven spend more time with him. As time goes on, he becomes more comfortable with his son doing gem things and gets used to the idea he's not around his son constantly and gives him some space.
• Character Name Alias: He took his stage name “Mr. Universe” from a character in a song.
• Chick Magnet: He was the first human that Rose really fell in love with. All of the Zoomans chose to be with him (even the men). And even though Vidalia never had romantic feelings for him, she commented that she thought he was “super hot” back when they were younger. This does come back to bite him a bit (as it did with the Zoomans) and his empathy for Blue Diamond's grief is the very thing that led her to abduct him after taking a shine to him. "Rose Buds" reveals that he's also had multiple exes arrive at his doorstep.
• Chubby Chaser: Marty seemingly implies this when asking how big Rose was in "Story for Steven".
  Marty: See, Greg, this is your problem. You want one huge woman, when you could have multiple smaller ones.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Greg almost always wears a pair of dark grey pants and teal flip-flops as part of his casual outfits.
• Cool Old Guy: He's in his forties, and he's nice, knows a lot about music, and isn't afraid to enter into battle if his son needs him.
• Deuteragonist: Has his own arc in flashback episodes, regarding his relationship with Rose and how Steven came to be.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Turns out the mother of his child was actually a Diamond, meaning he managed to get a being the Gems see as a god to fall in love with him.
• Disappeared Dad: Zigzagged. Averted in the direct sense, since he is physically present and emotionally supportive, but the Gems have asked him to stay out of matters involving Steven's Gem powers since in their opinion he's "kind of a mess", not to mention that he is himself overwhelmed and poorly equipped to deal with them, and is perfectly aware of that. He runs a car wash and lives in his van, while Steven lives at the house in front of the Gem monument. There's nothing stopping Steven from going to see him, as he lives just a short walk away. Greg was also the one who took care of Steven after he was born, as the Gems wouldn't know how to deal with a human infant. Greg and Steven having separate living arrangements is only really a matter of Steven needing to transition from being a normal human to also being a Crystal Gem.
• Distressed Dude: Is kidnapped by Blue Diamond to be preserved in the Zoo in “Steven’s Dream”, setting off a multi-episode Rescue Arc.
• Divine Date: As it turns out, Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond under a psuedonym. Diamonds, in general, are revered as Physical Gods.
• Does Not Like Magic: A downplayed example; Rose Quartz advised him to stay out of any magical business the Crystal Gems had, and he's obviously uncomfortable whenever it comes up. He has nothing against it, but is understandably cautious about it. He's also shown to have nothing but admiration for the Gems and their work. In particular, after learning there's non-magical "Gem stuff" he can help with, he spends a large portion of "The Message" trying to assist them with his audio expertise.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Has this sort of relationship with the Gems, considering that they have basically taken custody of Steven from him due to his fledgling powers, and they all hold the opinion that he's "a bit of a mess." In "The Message", he finally gets sick of them giving up on him after they throw in the towel on his ability to translate the Wailing Stone's signal with his audio equipment, only to show that if they had just been patient with him and given him the time to think (and fix his van's blown out battery) he would've been able to help them out. By the end of that episode after listening to Lapis' message that he got to work on his TV, they seem to be coming around to him.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Greg is not stupid, but it's clear he doesn't really think a lot of things through, and can be somewhat impulsive in his decision making which can end up backfiring on him. "Mr. Universe" shows that Greg ran away from home and didn't have a solid plan in how he was going to accomplish his dreams, but he decided to never introduce Steven to his parents. While Steven gets upset at him for depriving him some members of his family, all evidence shows that Greg's parents cared very little about Greg himself, never opening a single letter that he sent them after he defied them due to their very strict and expressive parenting style.
• Even the Guys Want Him: All of the male Zoomans choose to be with Greg.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He's extremely hands off as a parent and usually is accepting of whatever Steven gets into. However, he draws the line when he and Connie attempt to run away at the end of "Fusion Cuisine", where the Gems ground him for and he does not object to it.
  • He begins to voice his doubts on allowing Steven to go on Crystal Gem missions when it turns out his son can get in actual danger, though he changes his mind an episode later.
• Expressive Hair: In "Space Race", Greg's hair, what's left of it anyway, becomes extremely spiky as he realizes Pearl is serious about going to outer space. Same thing happens in "Greg the Babysitter" when he realizes that baby Sour Cream is missing and later finds out that he in danger. It's more prominent in the later than in "Space Race" since "Greg the Babysitter" is a flashback episode and he has his full mane of hair instead of his now reduced, balding one.
• Extreme Doormat: When it comes to his car wash business, he lets himself be demeaned by rich customers and he'll let them walk away with out paying. Played with in "Beach City Drift" where it happens yet again, but he lets it slide because (post-"Mr. Greg") he has enough money not to care.
• Foil: To Marty. Their personalities are completely opposed.
  • To his wife. For all of her legendary power and skills as a warrior, it's usually the empathy and compassion that Greg taught him that allows Steven to succeed where Rose failed.
• A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Averted. Despite having a hefty hotel bill after the events of "Mr. Greg" he still has enough to buy a used car and be "rich", since he's sensible with it, knowing it's a finite amount. ^note  Of course logic dictates that there would be no way he'd be able to spend 10 million in one night at one hotel. Even after some disastrous purchases (like the yacht he'd only meant to rent but he wound up having to buy), a later episode confirms that he still has "like, 9 million dollars" left of the original 10 million.
• Formerly Fit: In his youth, he was in quite good shape.
• Girls Like Musicians: Greg Universe was a fledgling rock star who had one of his modest concerts attended by Rose Quartz. Drawn by Greg's personality and love of music, the two began a romantic courtship that consummated in the birth of their son and eponymous protagonist, Steven...at the cost of Rose's own life.
• Good Parents: Greg is a caring, devoted, and supportive father to Steven. He also knows when to discipline Steven when his son starts behaving in a negative manner (i.e., "Beach City Drift"). "Mr. Universe" plays with this more however. While Greg definitely is a loving and devoted father, his open-minded and generally hands-off approach to Steven's development, such as never enrolling Steven in a school or taking him to see a doctor, ends up causing Steven to view him as irresponsible and resent him after he finds out about Greg's comparatively more mundane life with his own parents that he ran away from, though later episodes make it clear that Steven regrets the outburst that he made when he discovered this, and when Steven's corrupted in "I Am My Monster", Greg refuses to run away, choosing instead to stay because his son needs him.
• Handshake Substitute: He and Connie have one were they both high-five each other and say "human beings".
• Handy Man: He's able to build gyms, beds, spaceship-carts, and helped build an actual spaceship in very short notice. The house that Steven lives in? Built by him too.
• Has a Type: "Story for Steven" indicates Greg had a thing for much bigger women (possibly in height and weight) even before meeting Rose. This is further suggested when his cousin, having mistaken one of the living Gems to be Steven's mother, thinks Garnet is the most likely one because she's so tall.
• Heroic Bystander: He has no magical powers like the Crystal Gems and usually stays out of their magical adventures. When he does get involved though, he proves he can provide great assistance. He delivered the Gems their Laser Light Cannon to destroy the Red Eye, drove Steven, Connie, and the Gems to Lapis after she stole the ocean, and during The Movie he helped evacuate citizens in his van after Spinel's poison starts destroying the town, even managing to drive after one of his arms gets splashed by poison.
• Hero of Another Story: Specifically, a love story with Rose, which was explored in a few flashback episodes. The show's former supervising director Ian Jones-Quartey joked that Steven Universe is the sequel to a non-existent harem anime called "No Need For Greg".
• Hidden Depths:
  • He knew the origin of the Crystal Gems all along and was helping to keep Steven out of the loop. He also knew that Garnet was a fusion.
  • "The Message" shows that he's also a pretty talented illustrator and is an expert with sound technology. He was a one-man band, after all.
  • It's implied that he was the one who bought the house for Steven and the Gems and later confirmed that he helped build it, showing that he has carpentry skills. He's also likely the primary breadwinner of the family, despite not living there. This demonstrates he's more reliable than what the Crystal Gems give him credit for.
• Honorary Uncle: Although they never share any scenes together in the present day, Greg refers to himself as Sour Cream's uncle as he watches over him in "Greg the Babysitter".
• I Choose to Stay: Originally, he arrived at Beach City alongside with his manager Marty to make a stop before going to Greg's opportunity for fame at Empire City. But he decided to throw that away when he met Rose.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: He could have made it as a famous rock star in Empire City, but decided to give it up so he could stay with Rose Quartz.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Future reveals Greg grew up in a strict house and wasn't allowed to do anything he liked because his parents always said it was wrong. As such, he craved freedom from their control.
• Incompatible Orientation: Some of the Zoomans that "choosened" Greg were male.
• Innocently Insensitive: Greg's a Nice Guy but accidentally made Steven feel like an outsider when he and Connie high-fived each other while saying "human beings". In front of Steven.
• Insecure Love Interest: Greg doesn't even know why someone as great as Rose would fall for someone like him. Back when they were dating, Greg was very unsure of their relationship and felt that the relationship wasn't a real one; Rose felt the same way.
  Greg: I don't know what a magic lady like her saw in a plain old dope like me.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Greg makes pretty good friends with Connie, telling her she can come to him to talk whenever the Gem stuff gets too much for her.
• Interspecies Romance: Deconstructed with Rose Quartz (Pink Diamond), as the great differences between humans and Gems are shown in flashbacks to have presented great obstacles to the relationship that were not very easy to overcome. However, it's also a Reconstruction as it shows how both of them overcame it. Greg's open heart and compassion along with Rose's own allowed to break the barriers and furthermore, influenced them to be better people.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Like father, like son. Greg is openly emotional, pacifistic, and sensitive.
• In-Universe Nickname: When he was on tour, his manager Marty called him "Starchild". Greg didn't seem to take issue with it, but it was pretty clear a way to demean him.
• Irony: In "Laser Light Cannon", Amethyst refers to Greg as "a mess" with Garnet and Pearl agreeing. While Greg isn't immune to mistakes, he has a healthier emotional state than any of them and has handled Rose's "death" in a non-destructive and positive manner.
• It Runs in the Family: When looking at the barn filled with equipment from his aunt and uncle in "Space Race", Greg ponders whether the family might have a problem with hoarding.
• I Was Quite a Looker: "Story For Steven" shows that he used to be fairly attractive when he was a younger man. In "Onion Friend", Vidalia even describes him as "super hot" when he was young. He spends the majority of "Greg the Babysitter" shirtless.
• Karmic Jackpot: Chose the woman he loved over fame and fortune, and has been a great guy, a wonderful father to his son, and is a respected friend of his son's guardians. Years later it turns out that his old manager owes him 10 million dollars.
• Leitmotif: He has a little song which is played most times he's in a scene.
• Lives in a Van: Greg lives in a van that he parks in front of his car wash, around the corner from Steven's house. At first it comes off a sign of destitution, but it gradually becomes apparent it's more of a personal quirk and a holdover from his musical touring days.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Before witnessing it himself in "Ocean Gem", it was implied that he didn't have a very good idea of what being a Crystal Gem entailed and how much danger that meant Steven would be regularly subject to. "The Return" reveals he was very well aware of the origins of the Gems, their reason to be on Earth and the war with the Homeworld.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Flashbacks of Greg in his youth showed he was quite attractive and that his hair was as long as it is in the present, although he now has a bald spot.
• Love at First Sight: Deconstructed, as though Rose and Greg did fall for each other at first sight in "Story for Steven", Greg realizes that isn't much to build a relationship on.
  Greg: We really rushed into this.
• Love Hurts: Greg describes being in love as "torture".
• Madonna Archetype: A rare-male example. He happens upon a beautiful otherworldly being (Rose Quartz) whom he then conceives a child with, a miracle in that gems do not reproduce like humans. He would go on to raise Steven without her, helpless to stop Steven from putting himself in danger and ultimately becoming the planet's (and later the known galaxy's) savior. The episode "Three Gems and a Baby" goes on to cement this as it subtly reenacts Away in a Manger in the Nativity with Greg playing the part of both Mary and Joseph and the gems as the three magi.
• Manchild: Downplayed. He can be a bit immature at times, fooling around with watermelons in "Watermelon Steven", and is "kind of a mess" as described by Amethyst. He has been known to make poor choices, such as dropping out of college or faking an injury to spend time with Steven, but he always takes full responsibility for it afterwards and will do whatever he can to make it up. "Greg the Babysitter" reveals he was worse when he was younger, not having or looking for a job and freeloading off his friend Vidalia. He eventually realizes that he's pretty much a baby and gets his job at It's a Wash. "Mr. Universe" plays this for drama, as it's revealed that his fairly hands-off style of parenting towards Steven was a result of him resenting how his own controlling parents raised him, which recontextualizes some of his actions as basically a teenager rebelling against his parents. Steven ends up distancing himself from him as he feels that Greg failed to take responsibility as a parent and give him a structured childhood.
• Manly Tears: Greg sheds tears at the end of "Laser Light Cannon" after he sees that the beam from the cannon forms the shape of Rose.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: A subtle one with Rose. He's the chill and laid-back Feminine Boy who is a good dad to their son while Rose was the Masculine Girl with special powers linked to growth, protection and healing (he inherited the shield from her as well as healing, though spit instead of tears), but she was a Lady of War and she doesn't respond to threats to the people she cares about.
• Mayfly–December Romance: When Greg and Rose met, he was a 22-year-old traveling musician while she was a more than 6000 years old Lady of War from a race of sentient gems. Tragically subverted as Rose "died" about half a decade later, leaving Greg to care for their son.
• Meaningful Name: Pope Gregory I is the Patron Saint of musicians and singers.
• Meaningful Rename: His birth name is DeMayo. "Mr. Universe" shows Greg chose his current last name from an album song a classmate gave him. He liked the song so much that he used the "universe" part as his new name.
• Mellow Fellow: Greg is a pretty laid-back person in general.
• The Mourning After: Greg is still deeply mourning Rose, and shows no interest in moving on with someone else.
• Muggle–Mage Romance: He (a human) and Rose (a magical Gem) were a couple when she was alive.
• Nice Guy: Greg seems to be an overall kind person living a simpler lifestyle. He is known to be friendly and genuine, and, so far, has retained an honest attitude concerning his feelings as an individual. He appears to be easy-going and an optimist. He's so nice that he doesn't even hold a grudge against Peridot for pushing him off the roof of the barn.
• Non-Action Guy: Greg is not a Crystal Gem. He does get involved when Steven specifically comes to him for help, though, notably in "The Message". So even if he's not the action type he's more than willing to stick his neck out for his son. And even though he doesn't have any particular training, he still rams his van into a water copy to protect Steven and Connie, and gets his leg broken for his trouble.
• Noodle Incident:
  • He mentions that the events of the 'Out of This World' Stevenbomb was the third craziest weekend of his life. In Save the Light, it's revealed that the other two weekends were the ocean getting stolen in "Ocean Gem" and something about accepting a "two-hundred taco challenge".
  • He mentions in "Rose Buds" that, after meeting up with the Zoomans, that this isn't the first time he's had multiple exes (not ex-girlfriends, exes) at his doorstep.
• Odd Friendship: He and Garnet are rather close friends, probably stemming from her support of his pursuit of Rose.
• Open-Minded Parent: He knows that Steven can handle Gem missions, and that the Crystal Gems will protect him. Though his limits are beginning to be pushed as of "Ocean Gem" when he get to see a "regular magical mission" for himself and started to question if Steven should be around dangerous situations anymore. Furthermore, when he realized how serious Pearl was to get her and Steven into space, he put his foot down because of the danger.
• Papa Wolf: Despite his discomfort with any magical related mission, Greg was the first one to team up with Steven in "Ocean Gem". Also, he ran over a water copy of Steven in order to save his son and Connie. Also,in "Three Gems and a Baby", when the gems kidnapped baby Steven Greg decided to run after them despite the fact that the gems were driving his van and that there was a blizzard. "I Am My Monster" has Greg refuse to leave from his corrupted son's current rampage because his son is hurting and he wants to be there for him.
• Parents as People:
  • Greg is a very good father to Steven, but he's not immune to mistakes. Case in point, he abused the warp whistle and interrupted Steven's mission in "House Guest". And this was before it was revealed he faked his leg not being healed by Steven's healing spit. He only wanted to be with his son again, but his actions caused Steven to temporarily lose his healing powers.
  • In "Mr Universe", it's revealed that much of Greg's open-minded parenting is him overcompensating for how strict his own parents were with raising him. Steven ends up resenting Greg for how much freedom Greg gave him as Steven never got to go to school with human peers or participate in regular human activities.
• Perma-Stubble: Greg has a "nine o' clock shadow."
• Perpetual Poverty: Before he got his 10 million dollar royalty check. It's implied that the car wash doesn't turn much of a profit and Word of God confirms that he dedicates most of his income to raising Steven.
• The Pollyanna: A male example. He still remains very optimistic despite everything he's been through and witnessed. There might be a hint of Stepford Smiler about it though; several episodes do show that when things get bad, Greg gets even more cheerful and more inclined to focus purely on the positive side of things.
• Prematurely Bald: He was about 26 during Rose's pregnancy, and already had a hairline back to his ears. And this was about three years after he had a full head of hair.
• Pretty Freeloader: After kicking Marty out of his van and going back to Rose, Greg was left jobless and moneyless, meaning he tended to eat out of the trash, play his guitar for change, and freeload off Vidalia. He eventually realized what he was doing, so he got a job at It's a Wash.
• Punny Name: The name of his car wash is "It's a Wash". The term is an American colloquialism which means "there were positives and negatives but it all worked out to breaking even" (or a failure). Greg was "a failure" as a rock god, but he's a good father, especially considering how out of his depth he is with a Half-Human Hybrid child and the fully alien friends of his departed lover.
• Rags to Riches: The end of "Drop Beat Dad" has him get a check for 10 million dollars. Worth noting is unlike most instances of this trope, he didn't just instantly waste all his money and it became the new status quo.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator: Greg has apparently put off cleaning out his storage unit for years because any time he starts he's sidetracked by memories both pleasant and painful, and only starts when there is literally no more room in it for anything else.
• Secret-Keeper: A more benign example than most — there's more than a few things he himself knows about the Crystal Gems and their history that his son doesn't.
• Seen It All: His sole reaction to seeing Sapphire freeze an entire hotel room?, "Oh boy... Where's the other one?"
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • The thoughtful, forgiving Sensitive Guy to Andy's ill-tempered, loud Manly Man.
  • As of Future, he becomes the Sensitive Guy to Steven's Manly Man. Steven becomes more aggressive with his newfound powers and temper issues, while Greg always remains his emotional, encouraging Good Parent.
• Serenade Your Lover: After falling in love with Rose, Greg composed "Let me drive my van into your heart" for her. He also wrote a song inspired by Rose immediately after meeting her, and sang it to her outside the door to the temple, leading to the two going out in the first place.
• Shed the Family Name: Greg discarded his family name, DeMayo, at some point and legally changed it to "Universe". For most of the series, it was ambiguous how much this comes from being estranged from his family or just a way to support his career. "Mr. Universe" makes it clear Greg outright hated his parents and changed his name as an act of rebellion.
• Shipper on Deck: Like the other Crystal Gems, he ships Steven and Connie.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Greg's usual outfit changes from a white tanktop to a black T-shirt with sleeves around season three. It makes him look less slovenly, and signifies how he's gotten his life a lot more together.
• Stage Name: Greg wasn't always called "Greg Universe", it was "Greg DeMayo". He changed his name due to trying to become a rock star. He never told extended family of his name change; his cousin didn't know until the episode "Gem Harvest".
• Strong Family Resemblance: He definitely looks like Steven, most notably the eyebrows. Picture of Greg as a child show he was nearly identical, just with lighter, straight hair. "Mr. Universe" shows Greg gets his facial structure from his mother and his eyebrows, nose, and male pattern baldness from his father.
• Tan Lines: Has a farmer's tan, which is weird because he was always shown wearing a tank top rather than a t-shirt. A video in "Lion 3: Direct to Video" shows him dressed appropriately for that kind of tan, suggesting it may be a holdover from his traveling days. He starts wearing a gray t-shirt more often in Season 3.
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: Greg knows more about the Crystal Gems than one might think, but didn't pry into their histories, not even with Rose, or burden them with hearing about his. He takes the revelation that Rose was Pink Diamond in stride because Greg was not concerned with a past life she didn't want to talk about.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Greg is fairly large by regular standards, but only reaches up to Rose Quartz's stomach in comparison. Taken up to eleven by The Reveal of Rose's true form as Pink Diamond, revealing she's actually 12 feet tall.
• Token Human: Both he and Connie acknowledge that they're the only pure humans who work alongside the Crystal Gems.
• Took a Level in Badass: In The Movie, he gets hit with the substance from Spinel's drill which turns his arm gray and numb, but resumes in helping the citizens of Beach City evacuate.
• Trash of the Titans: He doesn't have junk spilling over into his living space, but opening up his storage locker reveals him to be somewhat of a hoarder. In "Space Race" it's revealed that he also inherited a barn full of old aircraft parts, and he muses that the unwillingness to throw anything away may run in the family.
• Traumatic Haircut: In "Bluebird", after Aquamarine and Eyeball Ruby take him hostage, holding him by his hair to force Steven to destroy everything and everyone he cares about in revenge against him, Greg is forced to cut his mullet down to neck-length to free himself and rid them of their leverage. Predictably, he grieves over the loss of his mane for a while before setting it adrift at sea.
• Tuckerization: His original name comes from show's animation director, Nick DeMayo, as both young Greg's appearance and his song "Comet" are based on that of DeMayo in his band Jade.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: A chubby, balding man that was in a loving relationship with a beautiful alien woman. Although to be fair, he was quite handsome when he and Rose first met. This is more a case of a handsome man who eventually grows old and stops caring about his appearance, in love with an ageless alien rock creature.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Not quite to the extent of Connie's wardrobe, but he has at least ten different casual outfits he wears throughout the show.
• Unwanted Harem: When Greg explains the concept of picking the person you want to be with by your own choice in the Zoomans' Choosening ritual, they all choose Greg. He tries to let them down gently, to no avail.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: As noted in Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting, Greg wanted to raise his son with near limitless freedom in response to how controlling his parents were, but it had the price of Steven never going to school or having all the basic necessities normal children should have had by the events of Future, resulting in Steven's issues during those events of feeling lost and without purpose.
• Vanity Licence Plate: "UNIVRS".
• Wealthy Philanthropist: Its implied that other than indulging in things like the yacht trip (and even then, it was rented and done to help Lapis), Greg's millions are going to supporting Steven, the Gems, and managing Sadie's band.
• We Used to Be Friends: As Pearl stated, he and Amethyst used to hang out all the time and usually watch Lil' Butler. Then, one day, they stopped doing so for unknown reasons. It's heavily implied they had a falling out due to Amethyst shape shifting to mess with Greg. For his part, Greg wants to be friends with her again. By the time of "Steven's Birthday", however, they seem to have gotten back on friendly terms.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: In "Mr. Universe", Steven and Greg go on a road trip and enter the home of his parents, the DeMayos. Greg looks back on his "miserable" childhood of curfews, chaperones, meatloaf on Thursday nights, and his restrictive parents, who made him participate in numerous afterschool activities. Inverted when Steven wished that he could have grown up in a household like Greg's parents had, believing the restrictive boundaries were put there for a purpose, lamenting that he's never been enrolled in school or had never been to a doctor before seeing Dr. Maheswaran. Greg admires Steven's outspokenness, in contrast to his own life when he never had the guts to tell off his own parents.
• Wingding Eyes: His eyes turn into diamonds when he's happy.
• Younger Than They Look: Greg is thirty-eight years old at the start of the show, and looks very much on the verge of middle age, but barely looked any different when he was in his mid-twenties. It makes an especially strong contrast when compared to how he looked even at the age of twenty-two.