I would like to not see more mass death in SU, if only because we’ve felt individual deaths, and they’re so powerful. The very concept of all the potential relationships someone could have, being lost, all the things they’ll never get to see, do, or experience, as well as all the relationships they did have, and the things they did do. It’s such a heavy thing. I think it’s sufficient to take those feelings and try to fathom what that might be like for hundreds if not thousands lost. Because mass death already happened in the war. To say that the weight of the gem lives lost isn’t worth as much as a human life lost seems to defeat the message that the lives of human beings and gems are equal and that one shouldn’t try to minimise the worth of the other.

As dramatic as a scene like that would look, Steven already knows he shouldn’t go around bringing people back to life. He realises it the moment Lars is reanimated. We have been building up from arc after arc in which we are told over and over that violence is not the answer, and that death is a very weighty thing. To have Steven react in a manner that makes him want to bring people back not only removes the weight of their deciding to stand up for their own planet (because they can just be revived), but also backtracks any internalisation Steven had on the gravity of what he’d done (and Rose’s realisation of the same sort), when he has always tried to learn from his experiences.

At present, we’re already grappling with questions about humanity, such as whether Lars is still human, or he’s in limbo like Lion. I think it would do a lot more to try exploring those questions rather than reiterating the same point made in Lars’ Head.

I’m of the belief that the resolution of our current conflict (Homeworld angrily advancing on Earth) will not be resolved through the exercise of more violence. Homeworld tried that millennia ago and no one feels better for it.

Instead, and what I feel SU has always led up to, we’re not solving violence with more violence. Corrupted gems? Actually casualties of war. Homeworld gems? Just doing their job. The Cluster? A bunch of hurting individuals just trying to be whole.

All of these huge arcs were resolved through listening, sometimes crying. We’re already beginning to see the humanised Diamonds, that Homeworld gems are just huge dorks like our own CGs. 

But I think really instrumental in the defence of Earth, will be the prominent role human beings play in its defence. Maybe 6,000 years ago, human beings were in no position to go up against all the advanced weaponry gem kind was hurling around.

Given the angle Steven is advocating though, that it’s not going to be about who has the bigger guns, the key is empathy. We don’t have to know everything about the strangers in front of us, but we have to want to understand.

As the show has progressed, human beings have played bigger and bigger roles in episodes. Their arcs and their strengths have been developed a whole lot from the “background characters” they were in the early days. 

It makes a lot of sense that in the end, those who will speak for Earth are the very individuals with the largest stake in it. Steven is the bridge. He’s making huge strides in that field, not only because he’s both human and gem, but also because of the empathy he possesses. 

Greg and BD have an affinity for one another because of their great loss. And I think it’s so interesting that they’re mourning two separate individuals who each played a part in the others’ demise, either physically or emotionally.

Greg has come a long way from being the “useless guy” the gems made him out to be in the first season. Having resolved a lot of his own issues, we can be certain that he will not only be standing by Steven when the confrontation happens, but he will also be playing a bigger role.

And it’s not just going to be one person. Because having human beings make the case for Earth lends so much more credence than someone the Diamonds still consider a gem. It shows that they’re not the primitive animals they’re currently seen as. It shows that they’re just as capable of feelings and cognitive reasoning as the Gems.

I think it’d be a huge waste for the Greg and BD interactions to be opened up in Steven’s Dream, and then have it closed just like that.

Hello! I picked up on that line as well and I immediately thought of her first encounter with Greg after Ocean Gem:

Source: SU Wiki

Source: SU Wiki

In that episode, we learn that Lapis was trying to be nice. She was trying to have fun. She was trying to overcompensate for the things she did because I think to some extent she couldn’t believe the things she’d done. They were truly awful, hurtful, and destructive. And she feels guilty because she knows those things were wrong.

As she told Steven later, she did feel guilty about taking the Earth’s ocean and breaking Greg’s leg. But you get the sense she felt guilty because these things were categorically wrong. As in, it seemed like, on their own, they were “bad things” to do.

But at that point, I don’t think she’s felt any personal accountability for what had happened. In Alone at Sea, Lapis was coming to terms with her having done bad things. She hasn’t yet reached the point at which she comes to terms with her having done bad things to other people.

When Greg introduces himself that way, it would have been a cringe-worthy situation, but Lapis sort of awkwardly smiles it through. She’s uncomfortable, but she’s determined to “make up for it.” And when she does try, she goes over-the-top and it upsets Greg, and then she breaks down, and well, we know how the episode went.

What’s changed since then is that she knows Greg now. Enough that if she were to try personally making it up to him, it wouldn’t be an empty gesture to assuage her guilt. Because she recognises his individuality better, there’s a face to the idea of the person she hurt.

And I think that’s been happening around the time of Gem Harvest. See, Lapis wants to be alone, but being alone also prevents that “putting a face on a name” process. After spending time with Greg and Andy, seeing how they’re individuals with feelings and dreams and plans for the future, it’s becoming harder to just lump human beings together with the concept of Earth. 

Each person and each life being harmed is another future extinguished, more potential that will never be tapped. And then the thoughts come. Imagine all the connections they’ll never have. All the people they’ll never meet. All the things they’ll never do. 

It’s scary to think that she could have ended that times three because of that run-in in Ocean Gem. How about that times seven billion because the whole planet relies on our water sources?

I’m not saying Lapis has reached this sort of reasoning, but it’s a path that comes when you begin to spend time with people and realise they’re not just faceless organic projections that come out of the Earth. That she didn’t just hurt human beings, she hurt people. 

Alone at Sea has such a clear parallel to this episode. Connie introduces herself in the same way. And there’s a difference. Connie is ambivalent. She’s not like Greg or Steven. She’s not so willing to just shrug it off and forget it ever happened.

And even though Lapis might have put it “behind” her, Connie certainly hasn’t. I’ve no doubts that Steven would talk about Lapis a lot, the allegedly new Lapis. But Connie has none of it. “Um, Lapis, you don’t remember me?”

Here’s the thing. Lapis is in the position of wanting to keep her moral high ground. She doesn’t want to appear weak and she definitely doesn’t want to appear like a hypocrite. After all her talk of the worst kind of gem being those who don’t care about others, and being confronted with doing exactly that, she was deeply uncomfortable. 

Being pushed into a corner where brushing off the encounter was no longer a possibility, means that she went on the defensive.

And Lapis’ defence was to be intimidating. But it’s rather half-hearted if you notice. In Mirror Gem, she loudly proclaims her name and why she’s so determined to fight the Crystal Gems. She glares at the gems even without pupils and it’s so unnerving. Here, she goes quiet and looks away. She won’t face Connie and her stance is so much more relaxed. 

I’d say it’s partly to remind Connie not to push it, because she still could hurt her (I almost drowned a lot of people) but at the same time she herself doesn’t push it and assert that she was in the right. 

So I think there’s a difference between knowing you’re categorically wrong, as in the action was wrong in itself and feeling personally liable. And I feel Lapis is struggling with the latter.

Because Lapis is incredibly powerful. She knows exactly how to incapacitate specifically human beings, which means she’s dealt with them before albeit in a different context.

My thinking is that at one point, she did view human beings as just collateral damage or even guilty by association by virtue of living on Earth, which was to her an irredeemable planet. But now she knows she can’t do that anymore (part of the categorical wrong). It’s just she’s struggling with not wanting to disregard them in that manner sometimes, as in the car wash prank.

I feel like it’s not the last time we’re going to see them. Holly Blue and the Famethyst were such memorable characters and people are already dying to know their stories. 

Just like how we’re going to see the Rubies again soon (because the gems said they were going to pick them up on the way home), we’re likely going to see the Fam again. And I wouldn’t say it was weird to them that Ame had human friends at all. I’ll talk about it a little more in the near future, but I will say they were socialised with each other and that socialisation never let them forget they were from Earth. That’s partly why they were so interested in Amethyst. 

Holly Blue never lets them forget where they came from. It’s likely other gems don’t either, that’s why they’re stuck working at the Zoo even though a group of strong Prime Kindergarten Amethysts could be so much more helpful elsewhere.

It’s again, partly because the Diamonds are hiding away things that reminded them of PD out of personal trauma. That cultivates a strong we-feeling among them, and as a group, they have nothing else to call themselves, only “Earth Gems.”

(Coming from this post)

I agree with this part about bleeding. I mean, we do the scratches reveal something beneath the surface, but I don’t call it blood because it doesn’t function like the blood of living organisms on Earth. It’s more of an indicator for injury rather than for serving any metabolic purpose. So your proposed mechanism for how it works is appreciated :)

I don’t doubt how “amazingly accurate to human bodies” gems have. I talk about it in my post discussing parallel evolutionary traits. But I do think that any species evolving for its own survival would have to have selected traits as well. In that sense, I don’t think “accurate” translates to “identical.”

What I do think is that things like having more or less eyes, mouths, limbs, standing upright, and “clothes” have a functional purpose on Homeworld and for gems. In Log Date 7 15 2, though, we’re certain gems don’t come with the same organ systems as do human beings. While it’s been theorised for a time, the cut-for-time storyboards of Amethyst’s having to teach Peridot how to make a digestive system shows that they don’t have one. And they wouldn’t, knowing they didn’t have to metabolise food to survive.

As I mentioned in the linked post, saliva, wounding, and clothes (and blushing) can serve as other indicators for gems. I do like the idea that they have familiar- feeling texture and softness. Rather than developing the systems they have never needed in their evolutionary history, I think their nervous system and  muscular system would be more advanced.

The picture in question: 

Yes! I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth discussing in light of the new episode we’ve seen.

First of all, gems identify themselves by their gemstone. It’s their name, where their attributes originate, and the store of their data. Their bodies are just a manifestation; the gem is the good stuff. This is how gems can at a glance tell what kind of gem the other is. 

Steven and Rose have very different forms, are clearly made up of different matter. But one look at a pink gem, with a particular cut (I’m certain there are other pink gems out there), and Jasper immediately knows it’s Rose’s gem. In fact, gems can even tell if another is a fusion just by looking at them.

So to me, it wouldn’t be surprising that gems would wear their stones out proudly. Because it’s the equivalent of showing the world your face.

Second, it’s pretty interesting to ask how humans identify each other. We look at faces. We recognise faces. We say, “I can’t seem to put a name to that face,” or “Your face looks familiar.” That’s our go-to. 

When we look at Amethyst, we have to ask, where does she identify with? Earth, or Gemworld? She doesn’t choose, really. She’s the gem we most often see just roaming around Beach City, interacting with humans as she did in the underground wrestling arena. As early as Story for Steven, we see that she’s been curious about the world outside. And she’s friends with Vidalia. 

And what do we notice about her? Interestingly enough, her gem and her face are both half-covered. She can’t choose between the two, but she’s not comfortable enough choosing both. And it reflects a lot of the tension she feels between these two spheres of her life. In On the Run, she says, “Earth’s not my home!” and “[Homeworld]’s not my home either!” 

Young Amethyst was showing her full gem, but young Amethyst had Rose, was more willing to listen to the older gems, because she didn’t know as much, and as a result had a closer relationship with them. As her own interests started to surface, of course there’d be arguments and disagreement. 

She never felt she had a place for herself. In the Gemworld, there’s so much history and context that she’s just not privy to. In the human world, there’s so much she’s curious about but can’t ever experience on the same level. 

One other other gem who has a covered stone: Steven. Steven looks at his gem when he’s thinking of his mother. He still associates his gem with Rose, the part of him that’s Rose. Rose is such a loaded topic and Rose in death has become such a larger-than-life person. As such, he feels he can’t fully claim that gemstone as his and his identity. 

On the first part of your point, while I get the core of what you’re saying, it’s just, most gemstones are used as status symbols and displays of wealth. You have a few, like Diamonds, that have functional uses such as fine blades. But for the majority of people, gems are seen as pretty and expensive trinkets.

The idea that there may be a similarity between the two is perhaps the idea that some gems like Pearls and Rubies can be farmed or grown in the laboratory, respectively. That cheapens their value a little bit. 

And then again, you could even talk about the artificial demand created for Diamonds and realise that they aren’t actually as valuable as the company who holds a monopoly on them makes them seem. In that regard, the deconstruction of Yellow Diamond as perfect and infallible seems to take its context from our world.

In the SU world, I don’t know how much of our social constructions of gems crosses over, but if they did, it wouldn’t be very surprising. As much as our writers are creating something new, they’re still part of our world, prone to its subconscious notions of what objects are and the meanings they hold.

I find that the last point is an interesting question. What do gems think of the gems we have here? I do think, contrary to the belief that they immediately plan to liberate these gems, that they’d be rather intrigued, because they can’t for the life of them fathom why we’d choose to wear gem corpses on our ears, around our necks, in our noses and bellybuttons. 

Because there’s a fundamental difference between them and our gemstones. They’re alive. They are more than the outer stone that we see. What matters in the stone is the data. The data dictates their basic forms, their abilities. They don’t see a Diamond and salute to her because hers is a rare precious stone (which is not true because of the monopoly and artificial demand explained above). They see the being who established their civilisation as they know it, the years of experience and wisdom, the abilities (gem or not) that allowed her to do that. In fact, it’s even more distancing that we don’t get our semi-precious and precious stones from gems. To them, we just have inferior copies and hollow shells of what a gem should be.

As a crude analogy, it would be as if another species were wear synthetic human skins (think Leatherface but fake) or dangle fake limbs at the ears or even just make use of bags of meat. It wouldn’t make sense to us. It would be a little disturbing, but knowing that they’re fake doesn’t really give us any impetus to stop them.

We sort of just think it odd that they’d want to hang out with the dead versions of us rather than real human beings. And I think that’s what the gems feel about it as well. Because without the life inside, these things are virtually worthless.

Hey there! I know this was a long time coming. I think that as of now, we haven’t seen human beings really “claim” Earth as their own. It seems very passive (and for me that’s pretty good social commentary of our own behaviour as we took Earth for granted for most of human history, and still seem to be doing that now). I’m not referring to their not being worked up about exploding things and “magic stuff” because it was precisely the CGs who guided the first settlers to Beach City; they’ve been surrounded by gem happenings throughout their history. It’s really a question of whether they identify with Earth, and whether Earth resonates with them the way it does the CGs, who are for all intents and purposes, aliens.

And I agree with your examples! They’re all complex characters and I wouldn’t mind writing things about them in the future. (Currently overloaded with work and can’t wait for the weekend). I do think they’ll start to integrate with the gems more, and I think something to note is that the larger arcs in SU usually take time. The reason we don’t see human-gem interaction as much right now is that for the longest time, gems fenced themselves off from humans. There was a clear divide. But Steven is bridging that gap, as a biological and social mediator. It’s a process that we’re just starting to see.

As for whether there’s going to be a second war, I do feel like a confrontation is coming. But nothing good comes out of war. The CGs certainly don’t want it. YD was content to just let the Earth blow up. She’s trying to rebuild a HW shattered by the war. She doesn’t want to engage, and according to Peridot, YD is in charge of all HW’s military. If that’s the case, they actually don’t want to fight one another. There’s going to be a confrontation but no one wants it to end with conflict. And that may very well be where human beings come in.

Peridot switched sides when she realised that the organic life on Earth was “useful.” It was something about the plants, the animals, including humans, that caused her to believe they were worth more alive than they were dead. In the same way, I think human beings, through their resilience, ingenuity, and strength, may be able to save the planet. But that’s if and only if they themselves realise that Earth is their responsibility too, and that they do have the power to do something about it.

Edit: I sort of just integrated another ask into this question about why humans were so disinterested in gem activity.