Steven Universe Gemcuts + Personalities
Sep. 14th, 2015 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snarpGems with facets so far:
* Ruby, Sapphire, and Garnet - Crystalline. Normally facet-cut, not smoothed.
* Amethyst, Steven, and Rose Quartz - Crystalline. Can be either facet-cut or smoothed.
* Jasper - Not crystalline; a rock. Normally smoothed, not facet-cut.
Gems without facets so far:
* Pearl - A pearl.
* Lapis - Not crystalline; a rock. Normally smoothed.
* Peridot - Crystalline. Normally facet-cut, not smoothed.
There are some common themes within these groups:
Steven and Amethyst: Don’t mind letting others take the lead, also don't mind doing it themselves. Steven’s occasionally comfortable taking charge himself if he feels he’s got a handle on the situation, but he prefers to let the “adults” make the plans, at least for now. Amethyst really doesn’t like being in a position of authority, and likes making big theatrical gestures to prove that she’s not responsible enough for that, so other people will handle it for her.
Mostly, they’re just both pretty comfortable doing their own thing unsupervised.
Of the faceted gems we've seen so far, amethyst and quartz are the only ones valued most highly in their "natural" crystalline form. All the others are most valuable cut.
Ruby, Sapphire, and Garnet: We haven’t seen how Ruby and Sapphire interacted with Rose, or even much of how Garnet did. But: they all come off as very mistrustful of rules. Now that we know what a passive-aggressive little smartass Sapphire is, Garnet’s apparent incomprehension of human socialization looks a lot like a gleeful snub.
GARNET, OUT LOUD: oh no. they are dead. don’t call again. - sorry, i panicked.
GARNET, INTERNALLY: hahaha take THAT you boring social obligation you
Garnet will do stuff to make people she cares about happy, but she’s the sort of person who faces the wrong way in the elevator while smirking internally. Personal relationships come before everything else for her - anything that threatens to interfere is going to get punched.
So it makes a lot of sense that she was so supportive of stuff like Steven’s affection for Centipeetle, his fusion with Connie, and Rose’s relationship with Greg.
Rule-breaking + loooooove = Garnet.
Jasper: We haven’t seen enough of Jasper to get a great handle on what’s going on with her, I don’t think! She may have come to Earth only because she was following orders; she may have cut her own orders because she wanted to look for Rose; the two things may have aligned.
What we know is that she doesn’t respect anything small and expects to be in charge of the small people; we know that she has a hate-on for Rose and for fusion; and we know that she is mean.
We can also infer that she may not be very good at being in charge! She doesn't handle Lapis or Peridot very well - they're both afraid of her, Peridot doesn't seem to respect her much, and Lapis hates her.
Pearl, Peridot, and Lapis: They're all in the habit of deferring to others. This seems to be deeply ingrained in Pearl - she believes it to be an innate trait she can't or shouldn't shake - and probably also in Lapis. They both consistently seek out authority to make decisions for them, get scared when they can't find it, and lash out when they feel they can't rely on it.
Their "punishments" seem to be as much for themselves as for the authority they think wronged them, though! When Pearl finds out that Rose had secrets from her, she loses it at the other gems, then chooses to negligently endanger Steven to drive him away. When Lapis decides that Jasper isn't worth her loyalty, she goes through the motions of obeying her anyway, and punishes both of them.
Peridot, however...
Peridot seems a lot happier now that she’s an incompetent mini-boss scampering around with no one telling her what to do. The first time she's shown smiling or laughing is the first time she successfully stands up for herself. Pearl and Lapis don't like being forced to do that. Peridot loves it. She is so excited when she learns how to use her tools as weapons, manages to trick the Crystal Gems, figures out how to taunt people by making faces and namecalling. She's embracing her true nature as a B-villain! She's never felt so alive!
I feel like the implication here is that Peridot was "meant" to be faceted, and therefore independent, but was smoothed down to give her a more Pearl-like personality. If she actually is missing some limbs, this may be why - they cut away too much of her gem, and she now can't form her whole body.
Whereas Jasper may not have been "meant" for the leadership role she seems to be so darn bad at. In Sworn to the Sword, we see a gem who looks like Jasper but, apparently, much bigger. If Peridot did get filed down smaller to smooth her out, I bet Jasper also got carved down to make her pointier.
* Ruby, Sapphire, and Garnet - Crystalline. Normally facet-cut, not smoothed.
* Amethyst, Steven, and Rose Quartz - Crystalline. Can be either facet-cut or smoothed.
* Jasper - Not crystalline; a rock. Normally smoothed, not facet-cut.
Gems without facets so far:
* Pearl - A pearl.
* Lapis - Not crystalline; a rock. Normally smoothed.
* Peridot - Crystalline. Normally facet-cut, not smoothed.
There are some common themes within these groups:
Steven and Amethyst: Don’t mind letting others take the lead, also don't mind doing it themselves. Steven’s occasionally comfortable taking charge himself if he feels he’s got a handle on the situation, but he prefers to let the “adults” make the plans, at least for now. Amethyst really doesn’t like being in a position of authority, and likes making big theatrical gestures to prove that she’s not responsible enough for that, so other people will handle it for her.
Mostly, they’re just both pretty comfortable doing their own thing unsupervised.
Of the faceted gems we've seen so far, amethyst and quartz are the only ones valued most highly in their "natural" crystalline form. All the others are most valuable cut.
Ruby, Sapphire, and Garnet: We haven’t seen how Ruby and Sapphire interacted with Rose, or even much of how Garnet did. But: they all come off as very mistrustful of rules. Now that we know what a passive-aggressive little smartass Sapphire is, Garnet’s apparent incomprehension of human socialization looks a lot like a gleeful snub.
GARNET, OUT LOUD: oh no. they are dead. don’t call again. - sorry, i panicked.
GARNET, INTERNALLY: hahaha take THAT you boring social obligation you
Garnet will do stuff to make people she cares about happy, but she’s the sort of person who faces the wrong way in the elevator while smirking internally. Personal relationships come before everything else for her - anything that threatens to interfere is going to get punched.
So it makes a lot of sense that she was so supportive of stuff like Steven’s affection for Centipeetle, his fusion with Connie, and Rose’s relationship with Greg.
Rule-breaking + loooooove = Garnet.
Jasper: We haven’t seen enough of Jasper to get a great handle on what’s going on with her, I don’t think! She may have come to Earth only because she was following orders; she may have cut her own orders because she wanted to look for Rose; the two things may have aligned.
What we know is that she doesn’t respect anything small and expects to be in charge of the small people; we know that she has a hate-on for Rose and for fusion; and we know that she is mean.
We can also infer that she may not be very good at being in charge! She doesn't handle Lapis or Peridot very well - they're both afraid of her, Peridot doesn't seem to respect her much, and Lapis hates her.
Pearl, Peridot, and Lapis: They're all in the habit of deferring to others. This seems to be deeply ingrained in Pearl - she believes it to be an innate trait she can't or shouldn't shake - and probably also in Lapis. They both consistently seek out authority to make decisions for them, get scared when they can't find it, and lash out when they feel they can't rely on it.
Their "punishments" seem to be as much for themselves as for the authority they think wronged them, though! When Pearl finds out that Rose had secrets from her, she loses it at the other gems, then chooses to negligently endanger Steven to drive him away. When Lapis decides that Jasper isn't worth her loyalty, she goes through the motions of obeying her anyway, and punishes both of them.
Peridot, however...
Peridot seems a lot happier now that she’s an incompetent mini-boss scampering around with no one telling her what to do. The first time she's shown smiling or laughing is the first time she successfully stands up for herself. Pearl and Lapis don't like being forced to do that. Peridot loves it. She is so excited when she learns how to use her tools as weapons, manages to trick the Crystal Gems, figures out how to taunt people by making faces and namecalling. She's embracing her true nature as a B-villain! She's never felt so alive!
I feel like the implication here is that Peridot was "meant" to be faceted, and therefore independent, but was smoothed down to give her a more Pearl-like personality. If she actually is missing some limbs, this may be why - they cut away too much of her gem, and she now can't form her whole body.
Whereas Jasper may not have been "meant" for the leadership role she seems to be so darn bad at. In Sworn to the Sword, we see a gem who looks like Jasper but, apparently, much bigger. If Peridot did get filed down smaller to smooth her out, I bet Jasper also got carved down to make her pointier.
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Date: 2015-09-14 08:30 pm (UTC)