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"So much can change when an actor must be replaced. A play can lose something that others had come to love, something many thought to be part of its soul. It can be a confusing experience, hearing a voice you've come to know like family be replaced with someone new. But this change can lead to its own experiences, its own journey, that you may end up becoming familiar with as well."
Connie Swap is a collaborative Steven Universe fanfic by br42, Mj Studio Arts, burdenking, and Corey WW on AO3, set in an alternate universe where Connie is the daughter of Citrine, the great hero of the Crystal Gem Rebellion, and is raised by Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, and Jasper. Unlike similar "Momswap" fics, the Homeworld Gems aren't jammed into Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, and Rose's roles and are instead their own people that more resemble heroic versions of their canon counterparts.
Connie wrestles with her mother's complicated relationships with everyone in her makeshift family and the legacy she left behind, her unstable powers, and how to step up to take the role of the team's leader in Citrine's absence. Although most of the Rebellion's history is known to Connie, there are still many mysteries to unfold as the ghosts of the past begin to endanger the future, shaking the fragile bonds between her family while Doug tries to make his way back into Connie's life, dredging up painful memories as he does so.
While the fic is primarily written, Mj Studio Arts provides beautiful illustrations of key scenes in the fic, and there has even been two original songs in the style of the show with the promise of more coming. The creators encourage fans to create omakes and house them in a collection within the main fic's page, and some are considered canon to some degree. (Fun fact: Corey WW actually got onto the Connie Swap team through his prolific writing of omakes.)
The story began on July 9th, 2016, and ended on February 26th, 2020.
Tropes in Connie Swap include:
- A Birthday, Not a Break: In "Episode Four: Daddy's Little Girl," Doug comes to town on one of his rare days off to celebrate Connie's birthday. Of course, shenanigans ensue, and due to Doug not realizing that his little girl has grown up a lot Connie's age ends up slowly reverting until all the Gems remind her of all of her recent accomplishments and how proud they are of her.
- Abomination Accusation Attack: Jasper attempts this on Hiddenite by mocking her existence as a fusion when Lapis' hidden Alpha Bitch tendencies start to get out of control. It doesn't work.
- Ace Custom: Peridot's robonoids fit the bill, for a certain value of "ace." Each of them has been heavily modified for a variety of tasks, and while they're quirky, they're quite competent at the jobs that Peridot assigns to them as long as it's within their specialty. Mostly. Some of the time.
- Action Girl: Most of the main cast falls into this. It's been stated by the creators that it would take nothing less than an island dropping on Jasper to poof her, Lapis retains her complete command over the world's oceans, Peridot's Gadgeteer Genius abilities have often saved the Gems' from shattering, Citrine was a vastly skilled swordfighter with terrifying electric powers, and Connie too is coming into her own, although she's more of an Action Survivor at this point.
- Action Mom: Peridot's strong maternal instincts definitely qualify her for this, and that's not even counting that she raised Connie on her own for two years after Citrine's death while the others were grieving.
- Action Survivor: Connie isn't nearly as badass as the Gems, but she hold her own, and her quick thinking and analytical skills have saved herself and the Gems repeatedly with or without exploitation of her forcefields. Steven isn't any slouch when it comes to this either, taking down the kunzite in "Force Field Friends" with a harpoon while Connie kept it distracted.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Jasper has a massive case of this. Although she still has some anger issues and difficulty relating to humans, she cares for Connie deeply, and would protect her at any cost.
- Adaptation Personality Change: All of the Crystal Gems have this big time. While Peridot only has some minor changes, such as her overprotectiveness of Connie, Lapis is a silly dork instead of a depressed snarker (Except when she's not), and Jasper isn't an Ax-Crazy veteran driven by revenge and is instead a calm, meditative Gem with some (terribly) managed anger issues.
- Adaptation Species Change: Connie is now the Gem hybrid while Steven is the human friend.
- A Darker Me: In the alternate timeline that Connie created (and destroyed before she even had the chance to make due to time-travel shenanigans), Ret!Connie got all of her powers early, but not the maturity to handle them, leading to her becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist overlord of Beach City with all of the residents - including Steven - under her thrall as she believes that she knows what's best for them and manipulates them with her emotion powers.
- A Day in Her Apron: Poor Jasper gets a whole week of this when Peridot poofs herself to save Connie from an overload during ranged weapons training. She just gives up for the most part, until a moment she witnesses while Connie is hanging out with Steven that reminded her of Citrine and Doug, leading to a panic attack and the resolution to become more active in helping Connie take care of herself... which she fails at. Disastrously.
- A Dog Named "Dog": In "Connie's Howling Castle," when she meets her mother's magical yellow wolf, Connie takes to just calling him "Wolf" whenever she encounters him.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Connie, full stop. She is ludicrously intelligent and cultured for age, from going on rants as to why exactly Lisa in the new Spirit Morph Saga book is wildly out of character to assisting Peridot with geology experiments in the Prime Kindergarten to find a way to make it habitable to organic life again.
- Adrenaline Makeover: Ret!Connie gets this in the alternate timeline due to her more intensive training, to the point where Connie calls her "Toned Connie" or "Tonnie" for short when she and "Similar Connie" appear in the Time Temple duking it out over the Time Thing.
- A Mother to Her Men: Citrine was this during and after the Rebellion to the Crystal Gems.
- Affectionate Nickname: Lapis and Doug are quite fond of these.
- Afraid of Their Own Strength: Alternate!Connie becomes downright terrified of what they can do after seeing what Ret!Connie did to Steven, to the point where her last bit of advice to Connie is to keep Steven safe from herself.
- Aliens Speaking English: Justified. The Gems have an innate telepathic ability that allows them to understand and speak any spoken language... although this doesn't extend to written and tactile languages such as American Sign Language.
- Alpha Bitch: While Hiddenite can be nice when she wants to, the fusion has an incredibly, viciously nasty streak when provoked.
- Alternate Character Reading: This is how Connie decides whether to trust Ret!Connie or Alternate!Connie. In The Cursed Scion, the latest in a series of books that Connie reads, Connie has repeatedly railed against the protagonist's idiotic decision to gain all the power she needs at the price of not having the expertise or maturity to use it, declaring it a stupid and shortsighted decision. While Alternate!Connie agree vehemently, Ret!Connie, whose experiences uncannily parallel the situation in the book, argues that it was necessary for the current situation and hey, as long as she had the power to save her friends, who cares where it came from? That was how Connie decided to side with Alternate!Connie, realizing Ret!Connie's dangerous mindset.
- Alternate Reality Episode: Alternate!Connie wanted to see what would happen if she succeeded on the ill-fated Lunar Sea Spire mission, leading her to an alternate reality with a scarily competent version of herself who subjugated the entire town for "their own good." After going back to the original point of divergence, Alternate!Connie managed to convince Connie to destroy the Time Thing that allowed her to do that in the first place, which destroyed both Alternate!Connie's and Ret!Connie's timelines.
- Alternate Self: In "Connie and the Connie," timeline shenanigans created and swiftly destroyed two alternate versions of Connie. While Alternate!Connie was mostly the same as Connie as she came from an identical timeline, Ret!Connie was the dangerous, egomaniacal result of Connie gaining too much power too quickly.
- Alternate Timeline: Connie picking up the Time Thing in the undersea Time Temple immediately created a split in timelines: one where she decided to try it out and one where she was stopped by herselves before she could. In the timeline that she decided to use it, she created yet another timeline by wondering what would have happened if she had succeeded at the Lunar Sea Spire mission, and upon realizing that it was a Bad Future, she fought with control of her other self of the Time Thing until they both landed right where they began, and Connie destroyed the Time Thing upon Alternate!Connie suggesting so, annihilating both timelines and thus the other Connies. Lots of headaches all around.
- Ambiguously Evil: Both Garnet (who is either a Double Agent for Rose Quartz or The Mole for the Crystal Gems, depending on which of her stories you believe), and to a lesser degree Rose herself.
- Garnet later solidly takes the side of the Crystal Gems (removing the "evil"), after Rose removes the "ambiguously" part of things by shattering P2 after being told the Cluster had had Pink Diamond incorporated into it to give it stability and keep it from forming.
- Anachronic Order: In regards to canon. For example, the equivalent to "Fusion Cuisine," "Universal Appeal," came seven episodes before the equivalent to "Giant Woman," "Giant Problem."
- Ancestral Weapon: Of a sorts. The sword that Connie summons from her gem is identical in form and function to the one her deceased mother, Citrine, used. Which makes sense because Connie's gem is Citrine's.
- Big "YES!": When Lapis sees Steven and Connie kissing she has this combined with a "yes" version of Rapid-Fire "No!".
- Body Surf: Rose still has this power, and she uses it at the end of Episode 37. When she possesses Steven, it ends up with Connie blasting her with a Supernatural Fear Inducer and Rose not having her bubble to take the hit.
- Consummate Liar: Rose is still this, as we can tell thanks to Connie's "Colored Perception" power, but she is nowhere near as benevolent as she was in canon. What exactly she's lying about, however, isn't clear as of the end of Episode 37.
- Decomposite Character:
Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond has been split up into three separate characters in Connie Swap (since the story was planned out before "A Single Pale Rose").- Rosemary Universe, Steven's human mother (who has a backstory similar to Pink Diamond's in canon).
- Pink Diamond herself, who started going down a path like that of the other Diamonds here instead of having a Heel–Face Turn and starting the Rebellion until the Crystal Gems put her shards back together, and she agrees to be integrated into the Cluster to help protect Earth.
- Rose Quartz, who was one of the co-leaders of the Rebellion until she started the Schism, split up the Crystal Gems, went back to Homeworld, and ended up as a Fallen Heroine.
- Dirty Coward: Lapis accuses Rose of being this, and it's fairly understandable why.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Inverted. Steven is hard of hearing as a parallel to Connie's poor vision in the show, which is especially hard for him because Greg became a wildly successful musician instead of fading into obscurity, and due to his disability it's difficult for him to hear the full range of notes. Then Connie develops a new power and accidentally transfers him being hard of hearing over to her. Then she develops another new power and heals that.
- Everyone Can See It: Everyone can see that Steven and Connie like each other - except them. Up till the end of Episode 29.
- Evil Counterpart: "P2" is clearly meant to be this compared to the Crystal Gem's Peridot - ironically, she's just acting like Peridot did in canon, something that Peridot notices at the end of Episode 37.
- Fallen Heroine: Rose was genuinely trying to do her best for a long time to improve things. By the time of "The Return", however, she's sunken into It's All About Me.
- Foreshadowing:
- In his debut episode, Steven asks, among other questions, if Connie has a magical pet or talking animal, an evil version of herself to fight, an "advice-giving doodad" or some other talking object in her possession, and if there is a "mighty ruler-slash-rulers" which wants revenge of her and her family. While his questions are not exactly accurate to what happens, Connie does encounter quite a few of them in one form or another.
- Steven also tries on Connie's glasses and asks if they are just for show, since he can see fine while wearing them.
- Fusion Dance: The Crystal Gems can do this, just like canon. However, Jasper, Lapis, and Peridot are noticeably less comfortable with fusion then the main Crystal Gems. Garnet, however, is still the same as ever. Later on, Asmi also becomes this.
- Homeworld has also started experiments dedicated to doing this with gem shards, to the point that the Crystal Gems run into a "forced fusion" that was also corrupted, at one point. It's theorized that they're doing this so that they can potentially resurrect Pink Diamond.
- Freudian Slip: Connie (who has just woken up) calls Peridot "Mom" in episode 19 instead of her ususal "ma'am." After the Invasion takes place, she decides to drop the pretense and starts calling Peridot "Mom" in general.
- Gilligan Cut: In "Sadie Miller's Day Off", the last line of Chapter 1 is Jenny Pizza asking "I mean... what's really the worst that could happen?" The title of Chapter 2 is "The Worst That Could Happen".
- Good Parents: While they're not perfect, and Parents as People is still in effect (partly due to Steven's deafness), Greg and Rosemary are shown to be very loving with Steven. Peridot also qualifies as well, even with her My Beloved Smother tendencies.
- Manipulative Bitch: Dear god, Rose Quartz is ever so much this.
- Original Character: Rosemary, Steven's mother, is original to Connie Swap itself. (However, she's based off canon's Rose Quartz to a degree, with a backstory like hers altered to be more "human").
- Parents as People: Lapis, Jasper, and Peridot, like the original Crystal Gems, aren't exactly capable of just getting rid of their old issues because Connie was born.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Invoked by Pink Diamond, when she was creating the Rose Quartz and Citrine lines of gems. Rose Quartzes are made to have powers over the body, for defense, and healing. Citrines are made to have power over the mind for offense and causing harm. And both Rose Quartz and Citrine themselves also count as this.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the timeline that Alternate!Connie created, due to that version of her managing to save the Lunar Sea Spire, Ret!Connie gained a confidence boost that allowed her to unlock her powers much more quickly. However, because she wasn't forced to mature and rely on her human side to come up with solutions to most situations, Ret!Connie never got the responsibility to use her powers in a non-damaging way, and ended up "solving" everyone else's problems in the town by keeping them under her constant emotional control at all times.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In Episode 4, the Crystal Gems tell Connie about her latest feats in order to reverse her age regression.
