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Laconic:
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Nightmare Fuel / Learning to Breathe Underwater
- During the Gem war for Earth, Blue Diamond believed her Gems had to be willing to die for her and Homeworld. She forced every one of her Gems onto the battlefield, regardless of whether they were made to fight or not. She did terrible things to her officers who managed to come back alive from battles with the Crystal Gems.
- Putting a living Gem into a device to power it is called "embedding" and is a punishment for Gem criminals (i.e. literally anyone who breaks the rules on Homeworld). Most Gems embedded for more than a thousand years go completely insane and lose their sense of self. According to Pearl, Gems are threatened with embedding while they're still in the crèche, i.e. the equivalent of a nursery.
- To try and kill the Crystal Gems, Peridot activates the Drill-Class Gem Buster, a robot equipped with three drills made to hunt down Gems and grind them into dust. It becomes an example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot almost instantly, mistaking Peridot for an enemy and refusing to respond to her deactivation code. The Crystal Gems destroy the first one, but there's another and it has access to memory archives, allowing it to learn from the first one's experiences and become a more effective killer. Then it starts collecting material to build more Gem Busters, and those ones start building more Gem Busters...oh, and they're not just building more Gem Busters, they're building technologically improved, more intelligent, more efficient Gem Busters that learn from their experiences fighting their enemies. They're like the Omnidroid if it could clone itself!
- The description of the newer, improved Gem Busters: "...sleek and elegant with solid six-leg construction, thorax-mounted scanners, and extendable front-mounted claws to pierce the bodies of their victims to hold them steady for the drills."
- During the Crystal Gems' first fight with an army of Gem Busters, one Gem Buster pierces Lapis through the back and drags her toward the drills. She comes very close to being ground into a fine pile of powder.
- Chapter 10 ends with Steven getting a phone call from Ronaldo as he's being chased by Jasper, who is not in a good mood after spending the last few months trapped as half of a forced fusion under the ocean.Ronaldo: It’s hunting me! I can hear its horrible breathing…tell my dad and my brother I love them, tell them that I died as I lived, seeking the really truthy kind of truth, and that I want to be buried in my Loch Ness Blogster costume, and I want the funeral march to be the second “Go Go Koala Princess OAV” ending title, ‘Wagamama no Hi’. Got it? Ahhhhh! The orange…THE ORANGE!! (phone disconnects)
- After Jasper is defeated and bubbled, Lapis wants to smash her gem into shards. Not out of personal vengeance, but because she believes it's the only way to keep Steven safe from the warrior Gem.Lapis: You have to destroy her. Don’t you understand? It’s the only way to make sure Steven will be safe from her. Otherwise she’ll never—ever—stop.
- The Body Horror description of Jasper with a severely cracked gem:One of Jasper’s eyes was sagging out on its stalk. Her teeth were dissolving in her mouth, which was hanging open much too wide. Her too-long fingers were trying to creep across the floor like spider legs, and the rest of her body appeared to be melting. She tried to say something, and then let out a muffled groan of agony as the crack in her gem widened and deepened with every move she made.
- Inside Rose's room, Steven has a vision of the already-terrifying Malachite with her flesh melting off of her body like Jasper's.Malachite: Come down into the dark with us. It’s nice. It’s quiet. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s wonderful...
- Steven getting glimpses into Lapis's past with other Gems she knew saying various cruel things to her, then the voice of another Gem who was in some kind of abusive relationship with her, and then the voice of an even higher-ranking Gem who forced her to fight in the war for Earth.
- Everything about Jasper's backstory. She was the sole survivor of an experimental batch of 600 Kindergarten Jaspers who were sent on a dangerous mission. She saw her friend Lydite get attacked by a creature called a Spitter, who poofed her and then dissolved her gem with acid. Rose Quartz rescued Jasper and took her in, but Yellow Diamond intervened, took her away, and lied to her that Rose was never going to transfer Jasper to her command. She then told Jasper that the missions were a test, and the other Jaspers failed it because they were too weak. But this was a lie too: the Jaspers were sent out on a suicide mission that would destroy them in order to uncover the flaws in their programming.Yellow Diamond: Your strength is your worth, and in your worth, find strength. Find glory. You know what you were made for. Fight. Win. Destroy the enemies of the Empire, erase them, and never, ever allow yourself to be defeated. Or else what makes you different from all those who were…unworthy?
