What An Idiot / Steven Universe

These entries chronicle the characters' lapses in judgement, decisions that were not thought out, or just plain stupidity within the context of Steven Universe.

BEWARE OF UNMARKED SPOILERS!

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Season One

• "Ocean Gem": Lion gets decked and tossed aside by the Steven water clone, causing Steven and Connie to retaliate in revenge. Steven throws some small rocks at it to try to hurt it.
  You'd Expect: Connie to also throw rocks at it.
  Instead: Despite being the more sensible one, Connie shoots a water gun at the thing made of water. The water just gets absorbed and proves more ineffective than the pebbles, which did nothing.
• "Marble Madness": Steven and the Crystal Gems discover an underground base of operations. The technology in the base flickers online and Peridot makes system checks. Garnet tells Steven that Peridot is an enemy they don't know with technology that they don't understand.
  You'd Expect: For Steven to keep quiet and not alert the enemy to his presence, and look at the area afterwards for information.
  Instead: Steven walks right up to Peridot's field of vision and introduces himself.
  As a Result: Peridot almost crushes Steven, and the Crystal Gems have to reveal themselves to save him. This alerts the Homeworld Gems to their presence and kicks off the events of later episodes. To cap it all off, Steven doesn't even get much information from the encounter.

Season Two

• "Message Received": Peridot has a communicator she plans to use contact The Dreaded Yellow Diamond, but the Crystal Gems manage to get it away from her and lock her up.
  You'd Expect: The Crystal Gems to destroy the thing.
  Instead: They don't even try.
  The Result: Peridot escapes, steals it back, and uses it to contact Yellow Diamond.

Season Three

• "Bubbled"
  • Steven is out in the middle of space with a Homeworld Ruby he calls Eyeball, a veteran of the original Gem War fought for Earth. Eyeball tells him that she was hoping that Jasper knew where Rose Quartz was, but is disillusioned that it was another cheap trick. When Steven tells her what happened to his mother, Eyeball expresses disbelief that Steven is Rose Quartz, the leader of the Gem War that fought for Earth's freedom.
    You'd Expect: Steven to not convince a member of an opposing faction that he's the opposing general in the middle of space with nobody else around, especially since she doesn't believe that Rose changed since the war.
    Instead: Steven keeps insisting that he's Rose Quartz.
    The Result: After getting the hint when Steven heals her gem, Eyeball attempts to murder who she believes is Rose Quartz.
    Even Worse: Due to Eyeball wanting to murder Steven, he had to throw her out of the bubble he was protecting himself in, expelling a lot of oxygen in the process. By the time the Gems find him, he's already blacked out (presumably from lack of oxygen). He very easily could've asphyxiated due to his insistence of being Rose Quartz. Much later in season five, Eyeball is summoned as a witness to identify Rose Quartz during a trial on Homeworld.

Season Four

• "Steven's Dream": Garnet sees Blue Diamond with her Future Vision at Pink Diamond's Palanquin.
  You'd Expect: Garnet to tell Steven that Blue Diamond is on Earth, she's there, and she will probably kidnap him or kill him if she finds out who he is.
  Instead: She is evasive about the entire topic, tries to shut down Steven when he asks for answers and doesn't tell him anything about why he should not go, nor does she try to contact him after he leaves.
  The Result: The "Out of this World" arc begins after Greg is kidnapped and taken to the Human Zoo by Blue Diamond.
• "Doug Out": Connie and Steven accompany her father on a stakeout to the local amusement park. They find Onion there, terrified but unable to say what he saw, and logically conclude he was the one sabotaging Funland as that's his favored hangout.
  You'd Expect: Doug would take him home and report Onion's misbehavior to his parents. While Vidalia may be too worn out to handle the antics, Yellowtail certainly isn't and is a Reasonable Authority Figure. Also, it's not safe to let a child wander around at night for a good number of reasons.
  Instead: Doug ignores Onion's frantic and unintelligible pleas and lets him go with a warning.
  The Result: A few days later, Onion's big brother Sour Cream is putting up MISSING flyers for Onion. He says that Onion never came home that night. Cue Steven going Oh, Crap! as he realizes that letting a young child go would be a bad idea. He later learns that Onion wasn't causing the trouble at Funland, a group of Homeworld Gems were in their bid to kidnap random humans.

Season Five

• "Dewey Wins": Dewey is running for re-election. It's his hardest campaign yet; the entire town is on edge after the kidnappings, and his opponent is rallying them against him. Steven sets up a town meeting to quell their anger and clear Dewey's involvement in the incident, as they are blaming him despite it being beyond his control. Sadie angrily brings up Lars still being stranded in space.
  You'd Expect: Dewey would say Beach City and the Crystal Gems will work together to bring Lars home, or at the least say that he'd do everything in his power to bring Lars back.
  Instead: Dewey claims that he'll do everything he can to get another employee for the Big Donut, completely missing the point.
  As a Result: The crowd, which includes Lars's grieving parents, becomes furious. Lars's mother tosses a tomato at Dewey's face, which leads to a humiliating TubeTube video and doesn't help Dewey's campaign (or the town's opinion of him) at all.
• "Legs From Here to Homeworld": After both Blue and Yellow Diamond cease their attack on Earth and learn of Pink Diamond's survival through Steven, the group head to the Nephrite ship where Centipeedle is currently held. After the situation, Yellow expresses frustration at the reveal of "perfectly good Gems" becoming corrupted. While this is an issue throughout the series and the only reason the series has happened, the implication here is that after their initial attack on Earth, they didn't even check to make sure the Gems were defeated, they just expected their opponents to be obliterated.
  You'd Expect: Following the attack on Earth, Yellow (or Blue) would have sent more soldiers down to the planet to assure that the rebellion had been destroyed. They'd likely come across at least one or two corrupted Gems, realize what happened, and assume the rebellion was the same, or at the very least look for them and assure they didn't hide somewhere. Perhaps they'd destroy the corrupted Gems, or just quickly get to work on other jobs like The Cluster so that the Earth (and, by proxy, any remaining rebels) would be destroyed.
  Instead: Apparently, neither one of them sent anyone down to check what had happened, and express surprise when the corrupted Gems appear. They grieved for thousands of years and spent all their time hating a planet without ever doing anything about it. Not only did they not know that the Crystal Gems survived, but they had no idea the power they used didn't actually destroy any gems.
  As a Result: The entire series happens. Everything the Crystal Gems did to Homeworld, and the Diamonds' constant failure to stop them as they amassed a small but stubborn fighting force is thanks to the Diamonds ineptitude at double-checking their work. Not knowing Pink Diamond survived is one thing, but not knowing that there were Gems on the planet is inexcusably lazy or incompetent.

The Movie

• Steven unintentionally kicks off Spinel's anxiety again an offhand remark makes her believe he only used her to get rid of the injector and doesn't need her anymore, only added to the Rejuvenator getting knocked out of his pocket and accidentally being activated, making Spinel panic even further for thinking Steven plans to use it on her.
  You'd Expect: That Steven immediately shuts the Rejuvenator off or breaks it, telling Spinel he does not plan to use it on her and really does want to be her friend. Better yet, that he wouldn't have been carrying it around in the first place and left it with Bismuth who knows what it is and how dangerous it is.
  Instead: Once revealed that Steven has the Rejuvenator on his person; Steven practically agrees with what Spinel says about only temporarily needing her, not realizing how it sounds like, and keeps holding onto the activated Rejuvenator in front of her.
  As A Result: Spinel's anxiety and trauma completely take over, making her re-activate the injector and violently turn on Steven, very nearly killing him in the process in the ensuing fight.

Future (Season Six)

• The season starts with Steven going to talk to Jasper about potentially attending Little Homeschool. Amethyst has been trying that with little success. We know that Jasper found out the truth about Pink Diamond several years ago. Obviously, Jasper isn't happy with this and is hurt that her Diamond lied to her about everything. In a moment of Character Development, she tells Steven that she knows he isn't Pink Diamond or Rose, so he can't boss her around. Steven then wins her respect by beating her in a fair sparring match, making her smile for real.
  You'd Expect: After their friendly sparring match, someone would keep tabs on Jasper to monitor her state of mind. The Crystal Gems don't like her (for obvious reasons), but she still has her former fellow soldiers who were corrupted as well as Pink Pearl, who knows what it's like to have Pink hurt you personally and can empathize. Jasper's much better than she was as a vengeful Gem soldier, but is still far from happy or satisfied, and she resents how empty she's feeling.
  Instead: No one checks on Jasper, even when peace has fallen upon them, meaning there are no more Gem conflicts. Steven only goes to her when he needs to control his newfound powers.
  The Result: Jasper only becomes better when Steven accidentally shatters her during a training session, and he's frantically apologizing and crying while reviving her. By the end of the series, she's worried about him traveling the country alone, though it's implied she's finally finding her way forward from millennia of grief and anger and makes peace with "My Diamond".
• "Fragments": Steven runs off into the woods to get help controlling his powers from Jasper. He stays there for three days, and the gems worry about him and don't know where he is.
  You'd Expect: Garnet to use her future vision to see where Steven might be.
  Instead: She doesn't think to use it.
  The Result: Steven's powers get away from him, and he goes crazy and shatters Jasper. This leads to Steven losing all faith in himself and the end of "Homeworld Bound", where Steven takes control of White Diamond and nearly shatters her, causing him to have a breakdown that corrupts him. All because Garnet forgot about her own powers.

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