Fanfic / A Pink Planet

"In another world, the other Diamonds decided to allow Pink Diamond to keep the organics on Earth alive in a moment that changed history, expecting that she would lose interest in them within a few hundred years and complete her colony the way it was supposed to be done.

Six thousand years later, Pink Diamond's son is born, with his mother and father watching him emerge and smiling the entire time."

— From the Archive of Our Own summary.

A Pink Planet is a Steven Universe fanfic series written by Kaoupa, set in an alternate continuity where Pink Diamond found a way to rule over the Earth as its Diamond, yet still create a world for humans and gems to live free.

This fanfic series can be read on Archive of Our Own and can be found here.

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This fanfic series provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: In canon, we are never given an explanation of what the Crystal Shrimp at the Lunar Sea Spire are, whether or not they were natural fauna to Earth or where brought there or created by the gems that used to live there. Here, they are revealed to be experiments from the Coral Research Facility made in an attempt to create geminals.
• Adaptation Species Change: In canon, Beach City was a regular human settlement that happened to have the location of the Temple where the gems lived. Here, it was specifically created as a settlement used to protect and watch over gem-human hybrids, so each of the town's families have at least one gem in it and their half-human offspring.
  • Kiki and Jenny Pizza's mother is a Serpentine.
  • Jane is the daughter of a Tan Pearl who immigrated from the Yellow Court.
  • It is not stated what gem-type he is a part of, but it is explicitly stated that Peedee is half-gem and only slightly younger than Steven.
  • Sadie is half-Ruby on her father's side.
  • Kevin is half-Hessonite, being the son of the Hessonite from the Light games.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Since the rebellion never happened, the characters who ended up heavily shaped by the trauma caused by it (Pink/Rose, Pearl, Jasper, Lapis, etc.) have had a much easier time here. Same goes for all the other Gems that took part in it since they were never corrupted here.
• Adaptational Heroism: Because the rebellion never happened, Jasper lacks her sadistic and sociopathic attributes and is a caring, albeit gruff, Quartz.
• Alien Kudzu: In Chapter 2 of "A World to Change", a moss-like geminal experiment (similar to Rose's moss) swallows a sky-scraper in Bangkok. Pearl calls in a few platoons of Rubies and humans armed with flamethrowers to contain the situation.
• Alliterative Title: A Pink Planet
• All Myths Are True: Discussed. In the Chapter 2 of Budding, Morganite makes note that various human legends surrounding certain animals might have a grain of truth to them, like the highly-intelligent owls being seen as "wise" by humans, and could make for an interesting means of planning future geminal experiments.
• Ascended Extra: George the Prism and Hessonite both show up in "Badger the Light", and are both revealed to be part of the Pink Court.
• Ascended Fanon: An Averted In-Universe example. In "A World to Change", Connie draws parallels between Pearl and "Pearl Pearl", The Dragon to a villain of the in-universe series Kin Achievable. The villain Rose Diamond was clearly based off of Pink Diamond herself (with Pearl Pearl working as her assistant). Pink Diamond seemed to think it was Actually Pretty Funny, so much that she spent hours practicing an Evil Laugh and was considering having a new Palace commissioned to look like a Supervillain Lair. While Pink decided to terminate that project before it began, Pearl says that Bismuth seemed disappointed by the lost opportunity.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: In Chapter 2 of "Budding", Morganite makes a point that not only could the geminal experiments potentially create catastrophic monsters like the pearl/cat hybrid, but various other unforeseen factors and potential monsters could come from whatever spawn they have and it could potentially mutate any regular animals that happen to come along and eat said remains. Her fears come true in "A World to Change."
• Badass and Baby: In "Words on Parenting", Jasper ends up taking care of baby Steven. While awkward around the little prince, even she can't deny him anything.
  Steven looked like he was about to start crying again. Jasper tried not to let the youngest Diamond's tears get to her. She didn't succeed.
• Baby's First Words: "Words on Parenting" is completely dedicated to Greg and Steven's various gem caretakers trying to get him to say his first words (preferably either "dada" or their own names). Steven ends up saying "gem" as his first word while Jasper is looking after him.
• Benevolent Boss: Pink is actively looking for a means of using gem production without harming the ecosystems of her colonies, but she is also very fair and kind to her subjects (both are practically revolutionary concepts in The Empire). She allows her subjects off-time, she allows informal conversations with her subjects and she has insisted on scientific projects that provide benefits to both gems and humans. She also doesn't mind it when her gems refer to her as "Pink" instead of "My Diamond."
• Big "WHAT?!": Bismuth's reaction when Pink and Pearl explain what the Coral Research Facility is for.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Experimentation with fire salt has eventually led to humans adding it to some of their dishes, though gems and humans that have developed a tolerance for it are the only ones able to stomach it.
• Boldly Coming: Implied to happen inside of the Lunar Palace between Greg (or possibly Pearl) and Pink Diamond whenever they are both around: with the main control room door locked from the inside, all the internal cameras deactivated and all communications being made voice only... and the guards (including Amethyst) could hear the two of them moaning for the entire week they spent inside.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Yellow Diamond's methods, while explicitly leaving planets unusable in the long-term like canon, do have a short-term advantage over Pink Diamond's methods of sustainable colonization.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Mars is just called "the Red Planet."
• Canine Companion: In "Budding", Morganite grows especially fond of Ruddy, a Ruby-tibetan mastiff hybrid created in the Coral Research Facility and is considered one of the more successful geminal experiments. It's mentioned there are more dog geminals as well that we haven't seen.
• Cats Are Mean: A Danburite at the Coral Research Facility created a Pearl-cat hybrid in hopes of incorporating a pearl's Pocket Dimension capabilities. It resulted in an Animalistic Abomination with a bottomless stomach that would eventually go on to hunt and devour the Coral staff until it was killed.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Mentioned and ridiculed by Morganite in Chapter 2 of Budding:
  “The owls are receptive to the shards as well, which is perhaps fitting. A few humans have told me that owls are seen as “wise” animals in their legends, which is fitting with the positions that Jades have as scholars.” Morganite sat back again. “One of the humans under me has made a suggestion that perhaps the perception of humanity towards certain animals, and gemkind’s castes, are affecting the success of a certain gem type’s integration.”
  She looked amused. “Belief affecting the real world? This is science, not fiction.”
• Commander Contrarian: Throughout the entirety of Pink's reign over Earth, Yellow Diamond has continually voiced her displeasure with the slow progress of Pink's gem-production and the way she's running things.
• Creepy Doll: Steven received a teddy bear called Bear-O on his fifth birthday. While Steven liked it, Pink seemed to have thought of it as "way creepier than it should be."
• Cuddle Bug: In "A World to Change", Pink Diamond (in disguise as Rose Quartz) gives Connie a hug when she finds out that Connie's quick thinking got Steven out of danger from the monkey geminal.
• Didn't See That Coming: Sapphire's future-vision was near infallible when serving under Blue Diamond, due to how structured the Blue Court was. Under Pink Diamond however, the young diamond's spontaneity and the many unknowns on Earth have made it much harder for her to predict everything, to the point she was spacing out and getting lost in her own head for hours at a time trying to manage it until she was talked to by Ruby.
• Disneyland Dad: It is implied that this iteration of Steven is a relatively Lonely Rich Kid with a limited pool of friends relegated to the Moon Palace's staff and Beach City. This is since Pink Diamond's work as the Pink Court's matriarch is giving her limited free time to spend with her son and instead tries compensating by making sure his needs are met.
• Drill Mole: One geminal experiment done at the Coral Facility was a Mica-mole hybrid with "off the charts" burrowing capacity. This causes a fair amount of grief for the repair crews and the people working there.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Downplayed. In "Everything A Growing Gem Needs", Pink Diamond manages to find a way to prolong experimentation on Earth after the other Diamonds pressure her to up production when she discovers that there are gemstones unique to it, including amber and coral (which are both organic gemstones that come from animals or organic life forms). This also serves as a call back to Peridot's own words in canon, that the organic ecosystems of Earth could produce unique resources that could benefit the empire. Here, it's shown how- entirely new types of gems are discovered and implemented on Earth before spreading across the Empire, such as Amber and Coral.
  "My Diamond, I doubt that every society on Earth or organism is capable of producing an entire gemstone type - it seems more likely that we may simply find several potential new ones here." Pearl replied carefully.
  "Even so, Pearl, finding out all about that could take years!" Pink Diamond seemed perhaps a little too thrilled at the prospect of slowing down her own colony.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: In Chapter 1 of "A World to Change", an Amethyst from Blue Diamond's court essentially takes Steven's curry by force. It is implied that she tends to do this with a lot of other people, both because she enjoys that particular brand of curry as well as a show of dominance to the people around her.
• Extreme Omnivore: Apparently it is a habit among some quartzes to eat the utensils along with their meal.
• Fantastic Racism: In "A World to Change", there are implications that there is some level of disparity between humans and gems, humans getting involved in "gem affairs" often having a bad track record when it comes to judicial representation. While humans are allowed to work as guards for gem palaces, they are not actually allowed entry into them, Connie and Doug being an exception because Doug sent Connie into the palace for safety from a geminal.
  • This is later elaborated in the Codex: A Pink Planet Chapter "Classes", whereas humans have been officially adopted as a part of the Gem Empire, and are officially ranked lower than both hybrids and actual gems.
  • Eyeball, despite having Adaptational Heroism, is shown to believe Gems are naturally superior to humans, and that Steven will be far more intelligent than the average person due to being half-Diamond.
• Flying Car: Kevin has one that actually belongs to his family, and takes every opportunity to show it off.
• For Want Of A Nail: Various events that happened in the show were either downplayed, subverted or averted completely.
  • The Gem-War never occurred, meaning Pink Diamond never faked her death, Bismuth was never bubbled, the Fantastic Nuke that corrupted the gems on Earth didn't happen, the many deaths on both sides were averted, and the creation of the Cluster never took place.
  • Gem-human hybrids are fairly commonplace due to extensive research into organic/gem hybrid research. Not only that, but the fruits of their labor led to the creation of Uterine Replicators that allow gems to have children without sacrificing themselves, allowing Rose/Pink to raise Steven with Greg.
  • In canon, Mr. Smiley ran Funland all on his own. Here, it is co-run with Mr. Frowney.
• Give Him a Normal Life: Downplayed. While Pink Diamond has never hidden it from Steven that he is her son, she has been deliberately hiding his existence from the other Diamonds, told him to keep it a secret from everyone, and is doing her best to ensure that he and Greg have a semi-normal life down in Beach City (a hybrid settlement), where as far as most of the locals know Steven's mother is a Rose Quartz that works up on the Moon Palace under Pink Diamond.
• Gossipy Hens: News travels fast among the Moon Palace's staff, to the point everyone there knows about Pink's karaoke time with Greg only two days after Pearl mentioned it to Amethyst in "The Ballad of the Bards". Lots of the quartzes started placing bets on whether they were dating or not.
• Half-Breed Discrimination:
  • In the Codex: A Pink Planet Chapter "Classes", it is explained that human-gem hybrids are considered higher in the Gem Empire's hierarchy than regular humans and off-colors, but they are considered lesser than their "true gem" counterparts (with the exception of pearl-hybrids, who are considered the same level as humans) and hold less authority than their pure-gem peers.
  • "Badger the Light" goes onto imply that there are fanatics - both gems and humans - who would seek to do harm against hybrids for ideological reasons, thus Pink had Beach City made as a safe haven specifically for their protection.
• Healing Potion: Downplayed. Much like in the same way that the gem destabilizers were based off of Yellow Diamond's Agony Beam, Pink Diamond and the Rose Quartzes' healing tears were reverse-engineered as well. While the concoction is not nearly as potent as the original, it's still effective enough to have noticeable short-term and long-term health benefits in humans, and is sold in markets and used in public baths and hospitals.
• Hide the Evidence: Whenever Pink Diamond goes out as Rose Quartz, audio and video footage of her as her alter ego is altered by Pearl so that no one could potentially prove it's her afterwards.
• Humanity Is Infectious: In "Budding", Morganite remarks to herself that humanity's place in the Pink Court might be the reason why she herself felt particularly sick at the thought of a Black Sapphire that was shattered shortly after entering the White Court.
• Immortals Fear Death: Flat-out admitted in "Budding" in reference to gems in general. Since gems do not die of natural causes and can theoretically live forever, death is a difficult thing for gems to come to terms with compared to humans who die of natural causes, one example being an Aquamarine who gave up her physical form to give birth to her hybrid daughter Kemala.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Buddhism and several other real life religions exist to some degree. Whenever Pearl sees statues done in the likeness of Gautama Buddha, she cannot help but claim that they looked nothing like the man they were based off of, having apparently met him in-person.
  • Pink Diamond still creates the "Rose Quartz" persona to walk among commoners undetected.
  • Steven still calls the Temple in Beach City "home", but here it is portrayed more like a summer home rather than a permanent living space.
  • Despite the circumstances, Rose still falls in love and has a son with Greg. The main difference being is that the Earth is still under her sovereignty, Greg knows that she is Pink Diamond, and Steven's birth did not lead to her canon death.
  • While the incident that led to Garnet forming for the first time never happened, it is implied that Ruby and Sapphire are secretly in a romantic relationship. In "Words on Parenting", it is confirmed that Garnet eventually became a permafusion, a close friend to Pink/Rose and a member of Steven's honorary family regardless of the differences in the timeline.
  • Steven and Connie meet relatively at the same age, with Steven's infatuation with her starting from a distance and the two officially meeting due to the activities of a "gem monster" (in this case a gem/organic experiment and not a corrupted gem) just like canon.
  • David Bowie, Queen and Elton John (or at least their songs) exist in this world.
  • India still practices its caste-system on an unofficial level, having held onto their traditions in-spite of gem kind's presence (or perhaps because of gem kind's presence).
• Interspecies Romance: With gem presence on Earth being much more prominent than in canon, relationships between gems and humans are fairly common.
  • Rose and Greg are still in a relationship like in-canon. The big difference here is that she eventually reveals who she is to him and centuries of research at Coral have allowed conception of hybrids to occur without ending the gem-parent's life, allowing Rose to be there and raise Steven.
  • In canon, Jenny and Kiki's mother is never seen or mentioned. Here, Kofi's wife is a Serpentine, making his daughters both human geminals just like Steven.
• Irony:
  • In Chapter 1 of "A World to Change", a defining landmark in this Earth's equivalent of Thailand are effigies of the Gautama Buddha - a man who stressed the impermanence of the Earth and the lives of the humans that live there - made from a gem-based alloy all but immune to the detrimental effects of time.
  • In "Distinctions", Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond accidentally find Steven's teddy bear Bear-O (by stepping on it). Pink Diamond explains it away as a "therapy bear". The fact that it only causes her more grief lies the irony.
    Well, she had been given one a few hundred years ago by one of her Opals, so she knew they were a thing. Even if that bear did the opposite.
• Island of Misfit Everything: The Pink Court has long been seen by The Empire at-large as the court of "imperfections", and on-paper where the bottom-of-the-barrel gems - gems not good enough to be a part of the Yellow and Blue Courts - reside. Considering Pink Diamond is the White Sheep of the Diamonds, and allows off-colors to sneak back to Earth Seeking Sanctuary, she is definitely not trying very hard to better this image.
• King Incognito: Two examples.
  • Since the For Want Of A Nail took place after her first time out as Rose Quartz, Pink Diamond still created her alter ego to travel among commoner gems undetected (and later among humans). Presently, her cover identity as Rose Quartz is that she's a high-ranking Rose Quartz working as one of Pink Diamond's guards in the Moon Palace.
  • With the exception of his parents, the gems employed in the Moon Palace, and seemingly a handful of others, Steven is publicly known as the son of said "Rose Quartz" and not Pink Diamond, allowing Steven's true heritage to remain a secret and allowing him to live a normal life (or the closest they could manage, given the circumstances) until he comes of age.
• King Kong Copy: An experimental gem-organic hybrid (or "geminal") attacks the Treetop Palace in India right around the time when Steven is visiting there. After it's taken care of, Steven amusingly names it "Queen Kang", the geminal itself being monkey-like and reaching massive proportions unheard of in geminal experiments.
• LEGO Genetics: As said in the first chapter of Budding, Crystal Shrimp were created by the scientist gems and humans at Coral as an early means of created gem-organic hybrids. They later move on to human test subjects, creating the first human-hybrids and eventually perfecting a means of creating them from scratch via Uterine Replicators. Gem-organic hybrid experiments are collectively referred to as "geminals."
• Like a Son to Me: In "A World to Change", Pearl admits to Pink that she sees Steven as her son as much as he is Pink and Greg's. Pink seems to agree with her, the fic implying a sort of open relationship between them that was also implied in-Canon, just more explicitly here.
• Like Father, Like Son:
  • In "Distinctions", Pink notes how similar Steven is to her (like when the five-year old wants to help her do her job much like how she tried to spend time with Yellow Diamond) and takes steps to try and be better (carefully explaining to her son how being a Diamond isn't as glamorous as people think, and that she wants him to experience life before having that responsibility).
    Pink Diamond was, even if she didn't know it at the time, projecting. When she'd been in the same position as Steven - as a "failed" Diamond without anyone to lead or any colonies to direct, she'd never been allowed to see anyone outside of the other Diamonds and their Pearls, most of the time. The gems "beneath" her had all quivered at her presence the first times they'd seen her.
  • Pink starts to notice and actively tries to prevent it whenever she starts acting like Blue Diamond or Yellow Diamond, deciding to take a break to be with Steven instead of leaving Pearl to do it.
    Pink Diamond sighed. She had been needing to do this meeting for a while, since she was getting a fifth permanent colony that would be Earthformed, and both her and Bixbite had fairly busy schedules. But she'd swear if asked that half of the things she needed to do would be better off decided by somebody else who had knowledge in that field, or could easily be delegated.
    There was no need for a Diamond to be looking over the decisions of every single major political officer on Earth and in her Court, she trusted most of them (this Bixbite being one of the ones she did) and had appointed almost all of them-
    Then, something came to her mind.
    She sounded like Yellow Diamond did.
  • Like her Serpentine mother, Kiki has expressed interest in joining the Pink Court's judicial system.
• Love at First Sight: An almost Lemony Snicket-esq definition of the trope is given to describe Steven's thoughts on seeing Connie Maheswaren for the first time.
  To say something is cliche refers to, in a sense, something that has been overused. It usually refers to phrases, or words, or stereotypes. It's not always present even with older thoughts and stories, but when someone says that something is "cliche", they've usually got at least something of a point.
  And with all that in mind, cliches are not always a bad thing. And not every overused story trope is called "cliche".
  Mutual love at first sight (as noted elsewhere by Garnet), is not something that really happens, at least unless supernatural events are involved.
  It is very possible for there to be mutual attraction at first sight, though, and for true love to grow from there. And often, that's what really happens. People saying "they felt different" when they remember first seeing the person they were going to spend their life with often are just speaking through rose-tinted memories.
  In the future, Steven would have a lot of ways that he remembered that precise moment. A lot of them would be cliche.
  Right at that moment, though, Steven Diamond Universe's main thought as he saw Connie Maheswaran for the first time was along the lines of "Wow she's pretty."
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Steven's bubble is so tough that it's able to withstand a stab from Doug's gem destabilizer (though not two).
• The Medic: Rose Quartzes were designed and created by Pink Diamond as a type of military medic for the other quartzes - something acknowledged as a "a stroke of genius on [Pink Diamond's] part". Outside of this, their healing abilities are used for revitalizing parts of the planet that have been drained through gem creation, with the Amber class of gems later joining them in this purpose. While not necessarily fool-proof, a slow and steady pace done in gem-production ensures that life can be reintroduced into a kindergarten with enough time.
• Mildly Military: The gems in the Moon Palace don't really seem to be on all that high alert, for the guards of a Diamond's personal living space. Just ask all the off-duty gems listening to Spinel sing and waving hello to said Diamond when she returns.
• Mistaken for Murderer: In "Everything A Growing Gem Needs", Pearl has a minor panic attack when she sees a Jasper carrying around jewelry, convinced that she had shattered someone. It was actually given to her by human natives as a gift for their help. Thankfully, it's cleared up quickly and nobody is sent to a courtroom.
• The Mole: Blue Diamond planted at least one Aquamarine on Earth to spy on Pink Diamond's activities. Pink Diamond knew that Blue and Yellow would do this sort of thing to keep an eye on her, so she encourages the staff at the Moon Palace not to say any of their secrets out-loud over communicators, including Steven's relationship to her.
• Mundane Utility:
  • The Warp Network here is also used as another form of public transportation.
  • If they're programmed correctly, Holo-Pearls make for a very useful crew of cleaners and maintenance staff.
• Necessary Drawback: In "Everything A Growing Gem Needs", it's mentioned that Jaspers and Carnelians don't have any powers besides shapeshifting and weapon summoning, but that they are also stronger and more durable for it. Inversely, the Citrines and Amethysts have a much wider range of abilities, but are weaker and less durable.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Pink, Yellow and Blue have developed this dynamic over the years. Pink is the "Nice", trying new and innovative ways to run her court that focuses on making her citizens happy and her colonies capable of supporting life. Yellow is the "Mean", being the Commander Contrarian who consistently starts arguing with Pink, thinking that the old ways are best. Blue is the "In-Between", pointing out the strengths and flaws of both of their arguments and trying to keep Pink and Yellow from bickering.
• The Nicknamer: A lot of the ridiculous nicknames Steven gives the monsters he encounters tend to stick.
  Hessonite: ...who in the world named it the Bladeinator? What a horrible name.
  Jasper: Steven did.
• Noodle Incident: In Chapter 6 of "Badger the Light", Jasper is seen mowing down prism constructs with unwavering ferocity. When one of the Amethysts asks what brought on this violent rampage, she responds "Just... memories." and a brief flashback to Pearl's face.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Bismuth realizes that Pink Diamond is not as bad as she thought when they start casually complaining about their superiors, Bismuth complaining about aristocratic gems while Pink complains about Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond.
• One-Word Title: Budding.
• Open Secret: The Coral Project Site is a research station commissioned by Pink Diamond as a means of finding ways to incorporate organic life and gems together, and find long-term methods of reducing the damage colonization does. While the activities in Coral are meant to be kept a secret, two thousand years of activity, as well as the increasing population of humans living near the site have led to the secret leaking. By the time Steven is born, gem-human hybrids are known to exist and are a public phenomenon (some apparently predated Coral itself), and the other Diamonds know the experiments are/were taking place.
  • While the other Diamonds are aware of Pink Diamond's experiments, they do not appear to know about Steven or Greg and their relationship to her, and she's taken steps to make sure that it stays that way.
  • She is also aware that Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond have likely planted spies on Earth to feed them information on her activities, and has instructed her loyal gems who know Steven exists not to say anything out loud about how he's related to her.
• Parents as People: One of Pink Diamond's fears is that she'll become an Abusive Parent to Steven like the other Diamonds were with her, to the point she has questioned why he would want her around when Greg, Pearl and her various other servants would be able to see to his needs much better than she ever could. Greg assures her that being there would be enough and that she would be better at it then Yellow, Blue and White were to her. In "Words on Parenting", these fears resurface when Steven eventually learns to address Greg as "dada", but has yet to call her "mama", since Pink doesn't have as much time to be around him as Greg does.
  • In "A World to Change", when Pink discovers that not only was Steven near two geminal attacks, but that they seemed to target him specifically, she cancels his vacation prematurely and sends him back to Beach City for his own safety.
  • After meeting Connie, she and Pearl do an extensive background check on her and her parents Doug and Priyanka, finding that while their hectic work lives leave Connie little room for friends or stability, they aren't outright abusive to the girl. Pink then immediately assumes the worst, drawing parallels with Doug and Priyanka to Blue and Yellow Diamond, before Pearl manages to calm her down and remind her that things aren't that simple.
  • In "Distinctions", it's explicitly shown that even though she's trying to keep up a good relationship with Steven (and that he still admires her), Pink Diamond can't always make time for Steven due to her duties as a Diamond and the need to keep the fact he's her son a secret.
• Plant Aliens: Downplayed. "Limb Cast" is a slang term used for gems created in the Pink Court that originate from plant matter (like Ambers and Opals) or gems produced from plant experimentation at the Coral Research Facility (implanting gems into trees instead of the ground). Functionally, they are treated no different from any other gem (and don't really look or act differently).
• Polyamory: It is implied in "A World to Change" that while Pink is perfectly happy with Greg and Steven, she and Pearl still get up to something on the side, and both of them agree to keep their flirting to a minimum while they're working.
• Puzzling Platypus: In "Budding", the Morganite working at the Coral Facility is given data on the platypus and finds it to be one of the most bizarre things to come from Earth.
  Morganite: I was aware Earth had many unusual creatures, but this is... baffling. While experiments that involve putting multiple types of gem shard into a single animal will be necessary, to study the potential long-term effects of hybrid crossbreeding between castes... Aren't mammals supposed to give live birth, not lay eggs? If multiple shard types are involved, then this "platypus" is fitting considering how unusual it is compared to most other earth animals, but regardless...
• Rags to Royalty: Having been told that his lover was in-fact the alien matriarch of the planet, Greg wound up going from a musician of unclear success to being waited on hand and foot in the Moon Palace.
• Related in the Adaptation: Kevin is the half-human son of Hessonite, enemy-turned ally from Save the Light and Unleash the Light.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator: Pink Diamond initially does everything she can to slow gem production on Earth to a crawl, though in this case it's done not out of laziness, but as a means of biding time for her to find a way to make gems without destroying the planet in the process. She was only able to get away with it with White Diamond's permission at first, framing her work on Earth as multiple elaborate experiments with promising results. Later on, she's been using the Kindergartens on Earth at "reduced capacity", so that gems can be produced practically forever without causing irreversible damage.
• Seeking Sanctuary: While Pink's Court is still technically a fully-functioning facet of The Empire, Pink Diamond allows her planet to act as a safe-haven for off-color gems and perma-fusions, deliberately letting off-colors sneak in while making it look like their border patrol is keeping them out and only enforcing anti-fusion laws in a "its only illegal if you get caught (by anyone but me)" fashion.
• The Shangri-La: The Mountain Palace is one of the Diamond Palaces on Earth and is the only one open to all comers. Granted, it is located on top of Mt. Everest as a deterrent, but mountain climbers still routinely stumble across it.
• Shared Family Quirks: Amethyst compares Steven's reaction in seeing Connie for the first time to how his mother looks at Greg.
  She knew that look, or at least a close approximation. Because it had appeared a lot more than once on Pink Diamond's face.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: It's implied that the Pink Court has had to fight against humans more than once in the past, and Jasper and Hessonite both seem to have particularly vivid recollections.
• Shout-Out: The pearl-squid-cat geminal in "Budding" was deliberately based off of flerken from Marvel Comics.
• The Shrink: Opals seem to have filled this role after Pink discovered them. Pink attends sessions with one regularly and she has tried inducting them into the Empire at large, with Yellow finding their position to be worthless.
• Slow and Steady Wins the Race: The methods Pink Diamond uses to grow gems will grow more gems than the methods used by the other Courts - if given enough time.
• Space Station:
  • While there are multiple "Diamond Palaces" constructed all across the Earth, Pink Diamond, Steven, Pearl and Greg all live on the Moon Palace, located in the center of Moon City.
  • Farming facilities are built on asteroids moved from asteroid belts into orbit around the Red Planet with imports and exports accomplished through warp-pads, mainly as a safety measure in-case one of these facilities malfunction, fall from orbit and causing massive devastation when it lands.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • With more scientific resources and thousands of years worth of previous experimentation in gem-organic hybridization, Pink Diamond was able to have Steven born via Uterine Replicator, allowing her to keep her physical form.
  • In a non-lethal example, Spinel appears in Chapter 2 of "Ballad of the Bards" and "Drifting Away", and she wasn't stuck on the Garden for six thousand years here (albeit, she was still there for around two hundred).
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-Universe. While the gems and humans on Earth are thriving under the Pink Court's rule, gems everywhere else hear all sorts of strange things about Earth and find her methods rather perplexing. Even when evidence shows that her methods of gem production would create more gems than other colonies in the long-run, Yellow finds Pink's infatuation with the organic life there and the low pace of her quotas more of a hinderance and pressures her to act otherwise.
• This Is Reality: From Chapter 2 of Budding, in Morganite's logs:
  "Belief affecting the real world? This is science, not fiction."
• Tough Leader Façade: Pink Diamond puts on a brave and wise face towards the Earth and the people that live there, but Greg was quick to realize that her history of abuse from her fellow Diamonds have led her to have massive reserves of self-doubt and a pathological fear of disappointing others.
• Trauma Button: Even just the thought that Connie's parents could be abusing her causes Pink to grip at the arm of her metallic throne so hard she dents it, picturing Doug as Blue and Priyanka as Yellow.
• Troll: Implied in Budding, where Morganite thinks that Pink Diamond requested they try making Aquamarine/seagull and Amethyst/chimpanzee geminals because she thought it would be funny, as said in Chapter 2 and 3 respectively:
  "And I don't know how the frack this geminal got approved anyways... I can only assume our Diamond thought it might be funny." Morganite looked considerably annoyed as she sat down.
  "I am utterly convinced that the only reason we had to give chimpanzees Amethyst shards is because our Diamond thought it would be funny."
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: When venting to Bismuth about Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond's standards about the aesthetics of her architecture, Pink Diamond stresses that it is the inside of the buildings that truly matter, (in part reflecting Bismuth's statement about how a lot of the architecture on Earth had to be restored/maintained every few hundred years).
• Unishment: When Pink Diamond finds out that Kevin had sent out Prisms to terrorize Beach City to get Hessonite's attention, she disciplines him by basically making him spend more time with his mother Hessonite.
  Pink Diamond: Spend time with your son. Just - it seems he needs it.
  Hessonite: And how is rewarding him for mass property damage going to make him act better, my Diamond?” Hessonite asked bluntly.
  Pink Diamond: He'll be training under you - or working on the space farms. Present him the choice.
• Uplifted Animal: Some of the later geminal experiments in "Budding" focused on applying increased sapience onto animals, including garnet/elephant geminals and the (implied to be telepathic) lapis lazuli/whale-hybrid Laban.
• Ur-Example:
  • The first recorded gem-human hybrid is Kemala, the daughter of an Aquamarine who had immigrated to Earth at some point after its inclusion in the Empire.
  • In Budding, it is implied that Steven was one of the first gem-human hybrids created through the use of Uterine Replicators after centuries of geminal experimentation.
• Uterine Replicator: Having experimented on organic life in an effort to create gems in a way that would not destroy the planet, one such innovation was the creation of organic-gem hybrids through incubation chambers. Thanks to this, Pink was able to have Steven without giving up her physical form.
• Weaponized Animal: Averted. After the creation of the disastrous pearl/cat geminal, Pink Diamond has banned the creation of geminals as weapons, making note about how the gem-components make the already unpredictable animals all the more dangerous.
• Weird Currency: After gemkind came to Earth, the economy was traded from Practical Currency to a currency based on "privilege credits." As the name implies, since all basic needs like food and shelter is provided for free, privilege credits are used for the purchase of luxury items. Criminal behavior leads to revoking privilege credits, enforcing minimal (but otherwise basic for survival) lifestyles onto them as a result.
• Weirdness Magnet: In "A World to Change", there are implications that both freak geminal attacks Steven encountered that day were indirectly his doing, as both geminals seem to target him.

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