Giant Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Ooonna)
Sep. 26th, 2015 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snarpFirst draft of my SU fanfic that I'm not going to finish because it's been rendered hella noncanonical! This is all the dialog I wrote intercut with the outline, so it does have an ending - just, y'know, in the form of scribbly synopsis bits.
Ostensibly Pearl/Peridot spadeshipping, hence the "Shovelflies" - they're butterflies that look like little spades! And they're fluttering in the background every time Pearl and Peridot interact! I didn't describe this in the story, sorry. That's what they are. They're Animes Spades.
...Buuuuuut I was kind of waiting for more Peridot-vs-Pearl characterization in-show to write those bits! So what's here is mostly Peridot and Steven being cute.
In script format because I draft all dialog-heavy things that way (and in this case was trying to write as much in the show's style as possible).
Slight tw for some really bad parenting on Pearl's part in the scribbly-synopsis bits towards the end.
Giant Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Ooonna)
STEVEN: Oh! Pearl Pearl Pearl Pearl, I see the Shovelflies, there go a bunch of them!
PEARL: We only want the biggest one, Steven. The one with the gem. Do you see it?
STEVEN: The cloud's too big, I can't tell!
PEARL: Okay. Hold on!
*action sequence goes here*
PEARL: Arrgh, these things are so annoying! I hate them!
STEVEN: How come? They're not really dangerous, are they? They're not spitting acid or anything, like Centipeetle. And they're pretty!
PEARL: There are never the same number of dots on each wing! I have killed three-hundred-seventy-six of them today, and not one has had a properly-mirrored dot pattern! Ohhhh, it just isn't right!
SHOVELFLIES: *click clack click click*
PEARL: And they make that awful noise!
STEVEN: I think it's kind of cute! Like they're playing music -
SHOVELFLIES: *discordant click-clacking*
STEVEN: Or if they could get into a rhythm, it would be, anyway. Come on, guys, work together!
PEARL: None of these had a gem, either... *sigh* Well, let's go on home and try to think of a plan, for now. I can't have you staying out here all day and getting a sunburn.
STEVEN: My shield has superior UV protection, Pearl!... But yeah, it's way too hot, let's go home.
PEARL: I really don't feel that you should be using it for that... oh, what are these awful things even doing out here? There hasn't been any activity in this desert in ages!
*Steven sees a piece of green desert glass and picks it up.*
STEVEN: ...Hey, Pearl? The gem monsters are attracted to our gems, right? Do you think they also go after Peridot?
PEARL: I suppose they must, yes.
STEVEN: Do you think she's okay?
PEARL: Peridot certainly seemed lively enough the other day, Steven. I'm sure she'll be perfectly fine - until we get our hands on her.
PEARL: Or she'll regret it.
STEVEN: Uh. Right! Watch out, Peridot!
*Steven pockets the glass.*
*Back at the warp pad:*
STEVEN: Wow! Pearl, look! There are so many of them!
PEARL: What are they doing to the warp?! Steven, hurry!
*The shovelflies appear to be digging a very deep pit around the warp - there is only a single visible pathway to it left, made of yellow stone.*
STEVEN: Pearl, come on!
PEARL: What is that?
*It becomes visible that the warp was built on top of a building of some kind, whose roof seems to be fallen through; a pedestal with a shovel with a gleaming yellow gem on it and some old control panels are visible on the ground.*
STEVEN: Could that be their gem? The Shovelfly Mother is just a shovel?!
PEARL: Rrrgh... We'll have to find out later, the hole's too deep! Come on!
*The pathway cracks under Pearl just before she reaches the warp. Steven tries to pull her up, but she's too heavy for him, and they both fall down.*
STEVEN: Owww... How are we going to get back up?
PEARL: Oh, my! It's so clean and tidy... the stonework in perfect condition, almost no sand on the inside! This must be an ancient old gem structure the was entirely buried. The roof probably only recently fell through.
PEARL: But I don't remember anyplace like this being out here... And why on earth would the Shovelflies decide to unearth it now?
PEARL: Right! The shovel gem! We've got to bubble it before we do anything else -
*The shovel gem is no longer on the pedestal.*
PEARL: Oh, no! They must have carried it away! We have to find it!
*Steven is drooping.*
PEARL: Um. But let's find you some shade, first.
*Pearl finds a passageway leading to a lower level of the structure and carries Steven downward.*
PEARL: Why is it so clean even down here?
STEVEN: Maybe the shovelflies are tidying up?
PEARL: I suppose they must be. But it just doesn't make sense...
STEVEN: Oh! Pearl! Water, I hear water!
*They enter a large, round room with a sort of moat running around the inside and chunks of rock scattered around. Steven jumps into it and gulps the water down. Pearl looks warily around, then up at a large viewscreen.*
PEARL: Well, it's a mess in here, at least. That thing looks somehow out of place, though.
*Pearl approaches a control panel.*
PEARL: Let's figure out what this place was -
*The screen switches on. Peridot is on it, doing villain faces. Behind her, the door clunks partly downward, then jams.*
PERIDOT: Hahaha! You fell right into my trap, yet again, crystal clods - wait, how many of you are there, are there more than one.
PEARL: Peridot! What do you think you're doing in this place!?
PERIDOT: Oh, you know - just stealing some ancient technology, trapping you in a hole, ruining your plans to stop me, the usual sort of thing! This can't be new to you, can it?
PEARL: Oh, you are just the worst! For one thing, you cannot call this "the usual sort of thing" - this is only the second time, and I was going through some distracting personal problems the first one, meaning that you should get very little credit for tricking me on that specific occasion!
PEARL: For another, if you think I'm going to stand for you fluttering around destroying priceless ancient objects -
PERIDOT: Hey! I don't flutter. And you'd might as well sit down, given that I've sealed the four of you in this impenetrable underground chamber, hahaha!
*Pearl looks at the open door; Peridot clearly can't see into the room. Steven's damp footsteps lead back up the stairs. She looks back at the screen. Steven walks across the screen behind Peridot, looks around, spots her, and walks up behind her as Pearl and Peridot talk.*
PEARL: Oh, no. Whatever shall I - I mean, we - do! How terrible!
PERIDOT: HAHAHA, annnnnnd further menacing dialog. Now, I have stuff to do, so I'll just leave you to your -
STEVEN: You really like appearing in front of people on big viewscreens, don't you.
PERIDOT: Augh, not again!
STEVEN: But now - it's my turn! To do that! *takes the microphone* Hi, Pearl!
PEARL: Steven! Stop having fun this instant! Knock her down or something!
*Pearl runs out of the room and follows Steven's footsteps up the stairs and into an alcove they'd missed on the way down. Steven is trying to pin Peridot against the wall with a large version of his shield.*
PERIDOT: Owowow! You get away from meeeeee -
*She shoves him away and starts forming a finger-gun.*
PEARL: Oh, no you don't!
*Pearl grabs her fingers and bubbles them.*
PERIDOT: Hey! Hands off the hands!
STEVEN: Go, Pearl!
*Steven grabs her remaining fingers and does the same thing.*
*Woops they're now stuck in the sandpit with 90-degree walls due to Shovelfly magic. They can't find the Shovel gem. Peridot is So Mad, she can't fly now. (She can still do the beam-thing but it's unhelpful.)
Peridot keeps trying to run up the walls but keeps falling because you can't run on loose sand, because Woman in the Dunes. Eventually her limbs overheat and she freezes up on the ground. So Mad.
Pearl complains that this isn't possible and teaches a geology lesson, explaining the term "angle of repose" to Steven using Peridot's head as a measure of some kind. Peridot is So Mad.
Steven reads increasingly fake butterfly facts from children's science book "Butterflies Are Never Wrong" in an attempt to figure out Shovelfly behavior using science. Peridot believes everything the book says uncritically. Pearl Will Allow It.
Pearl keeps food for Steven in her gem, but she forgot about utensils or needs them for Bug Science, so he invents chopsticks because he's Civilized:*
STEVEN: It's easy. You just kind of brace the chopstick against your palm like - ohhhhhh, you don't have palms!
PERIDOT: ...No? Do your eyes even work, you inferior organism?!
STEVEN: Well, your hands are dumb, so we're even!
PERIDOT: What?! No! I can use them to do serious research, and make reports -
STEVEN: Ohhhhhh, repoooooorts!
PERIDOT: Did you just mock my reports by drawing out the "or" sound in a mocking way?!
STEVEN: Mayyyyyyybe!
PERIDOT: You just did it again! How can you have so little respect for reporting things! And anyway, I - I can also fly! And make a cool gun! And I do not even need hands to form a powerful kinetic-stasis beam that I can throw stuff around real fast with!
PERIDOT: So who cares about your human poking technology, given that my poking technology is plainly superior!
STEVEN: Hahaha! Whoa, cool! - what did you just say? I can't hear you when I'm in your green beam, by the way.
PERIDOT: - You can't?
STEVEN: Yeah, you probably shouldn't taunt us while we're in your green beam. Unfortunate waste of taunting.
PERIDOT: Maybe I'm not taunting for you! Did you think of that, with your self-centered Steven worldview? Maybe I'm doing it for myself.
STEVEN: Hey, it was just some friendly advice!
STEVEN: - Enemy-to-enemy! And enemy-ly advice.
PERIDOT: Right.
*beat*
STEVEN: ...Peridot. How high can you throw me?
PERIDOT: Not that high. I did the math already.
STEVEN: You never know until you tryyyyyy...
PERIDOT: I know, because I know everything.
STEVEN: Sounds to me like you're scaaaaaared. Of me being right, and you being wrong.
PERIDOT: ...Fine, then! If you really want me to throw you so high your inexplicable soft body splats against the stones, you'll get what you want, you foolish little -
STEVEN: Noooooo -
PEARL: Both of you stop having fun right now!
PERIDOT: What?!
STEVEN: Awwwwww, fun police!
PERIDOT: Yeah, who smashed and made you fun police?!
PEARL: Do you even know what the police are?
PERIDOT: The meaning of the phrase "fun police" is coherent in the current context without knowing the meaning of the modified noun.
*Steven inevitably suggests that Pearl and Peridot fuse so they're big enough to climb out. They make several really good faces, have several really bad arguments.*
PERIDOT: I can think of over seventeen hundred better options than - ugh - fusion. All of them involve my stolen limbs, so why don't you stop wasting time and give them back.
STEVEN: Sorry, but the bubbles are one-way - we can't get them back right now.
PEARL: Even if we wanted to do that. Which we do not, Steven. We don't want to do that.
PERIDOT: Who would design such an inefficient storage system!? And, and anyway fusion is no way to solve problems! It's no way to - do anything! It's gross!
STEVEN: What? No! It's really cool and fun and -
PEARL: ...Oh, dear. You poor thing. You've never done it before, have you.
PERIDOT: I - shut up!
PEARL: Now, Steven, stop pestering poor Peridot.
PERIDOT: Shut up shut up shut up
PEARL: She's never fused before, and that's a very sad thing for a gem -
PERIDOT: No! I - you clod, no! No no no no no shut up shut up shup shut up! Fusion is a disgusting and degrading thing that is not at all appealing to me and even if I could do it I wouldn't want to!
*Further bickering. Pearl is really annoyed with how out-of-sync the the Shovelflies' clackety-beat is.*
PEARL: Steven I am not going to fuse with Peridot.
STEVEN: Aw, I was just asking an innocent question -
PEARL: No.
PERIDOT: The answer is always going to be no!
STEVEN: *sigh*
STEVEN: Allllll I want to do / Is see you turn into -
PEARL: Steven, don't you dare sing the song!
STEVEN: - a giant woman - why not? Is today not a singing day?
PEARL: You may not use that song - that was the song you used for me and Amethyst, you can't use it for her, it's - inappropriate!
PERIDOT: - is there a singing day calendar I can see?
PEARL: You be quiet! - It's just wrong, Steven.
PERIDOT, SPEAKING OVER HER: I was just asking an innocent question!
STEVEN: ...okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
PEARL: My feelings are not hurt, Steven. It's only that... well. With me and Amethyst - sometimes it just feels likes you...
PEARL: *sigh*
STEVEN: ...?
PERIDOT: ...?
PEARL: Well - anyway! Steven, for all we know, Peridot might have a feeling, and you might hurt it by re-using a song for her.
PERIDOT: Hey, you clod, I do so have feelings!
PEARL: Aside from "temper tantrum?"
PERIDOT: Yes aside from temper tantrum which isn't even really a feeling that's ANGER argh!
PEARL: Name one.
PERIDOT: Oh, I'll do better than that! There's - there's bored, smug, blind panic, controlled panic, and confused! That's basically five, if you count both kinds of panic as separate! So there!
PEARL: - well, there you go, she has four or maybe even five feelings -
PERIDOT: You're leaving out temper tant - I mean, anger!
PEARL: - Peridot has five or six feelings, any one of which could potentially be hurt if you re-used my and Amethyst's song.
PERIDOT: The songs are "confusion." I don't understand about the singing.
PEARL: I'm sure you don't. - What, Steven.
STEVEN: Nothing.
PERIDOT: So can I see the singing days calendar, or is that as nonsensical and cloddish as this whole conversation?
STEVEN: - I guess I've never heard any of you guys sing, do you not do that?
PERIDOT: Burst into song at random? No! I have no idea why you people keep doing that! Is it some sort of primitive Steven-species threat display?!
*Peridot and Pearl eventually give in and try to fuse, but Peridot's convinced she can't and has no rhythm and etc, and they're both getting thrown off by the Shovelflies being bad drummers. Pearl keeps losing it at these stupid bugs.
Pearl doesn't like that Steven wants to be friends with Peridot, it makes her feel like he loves everyone and she's not special and they're all interchangeable. Peridot doesn't see what the big deal is, they are interchangeable right. Right. Steven does love everyone, but it's not like that! UNRESOLVED ISSUES FOR EVERYONE Pearl save it for people who aren't Steven, he doesn't need this.
Steven's lying bug book says that butterflies form the Final Boss if you get them to dance together "and it's totally rad, like you don't even know." (Flashback to Amethyst and Vidalia lying on the floor of Vidalia's house giggling as they write this book. "We are such good parents." "We are the best parents.")
Eventually Steven manages to teach the Shovelflies to play in tune. Peridot and Pearl almost successfully fuse - but then all the Shovelflies start popping out of existence, to his horror. They're not supposed to be in tune, due to Something Something Gem Corruption Mechanics.
The Shovelflies responsible for holding up a narrow sand column that the Shovel Gem was on poof, the column falls down, and Pearl bubbles the gem. The walls collapse.
Steven is vastly disappointed that he doesn't get to see Peridot and Pearl fuse, Peridot and Pearl are simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Peridot scampers off through the warp.
Epilogue scene where Peridot is lurking outside Steven's window and he drops her fingers out. He's Keeping The Foot.*
Ostensibly Pearl/Peridot spadeshipping, hence the "Shovelflies" - they're butterflies that look like little spades! And they're fluttering in the background every time Pearl and Peridot interact! I didn't describe this in the story, sorry. That's what they are. They're Animes Spades.
...Buuuuuut I was kind of waiting for more Peridot-vs-Pearl characterization in-show to write those bits! So what's here is mostly Peridot and Steven being cute.
In script format because I draft all dialog-heavy things that way (and in this case was trying to write as much in the show's style as possible).
Slight tw for some really bad parenting on Pearl's part in the scribbly-synopsis bits towards the end.
Giant Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Ooonna)
STEVEN: Oh! Pearl Pearl Pearl Pearl, I see the Shovelflies, there go a bunch of them!
PEARL: We only want the biggest one, Steven. The one with the gem. Do you see it?
STEVEN: The cloud's too big, I can't tell!
PEARL: Okay. Hold on!
*action sequence goes here*
PEARL: Arrgh, these things are so annoying! I hate them!
STEVEN: How come? They're not really dangerous, are they? They're not spitting acid or anything, like Centipeetle. And they're pretty!
PEARL: There are never the same number of dots on each wing! I have killed three-hundred-seventy-six of them today, and not one has had a properly-mirrored dot pattern! Ohhhh, it just isn't right!
SHOVELFLIES: *click clack click click*
PEARL: And they make that awful noise!
STEVEN: I think it's kind of cute! Like they're playing music -
SHOVELFLIES: *discordant click-clacking*
STEVEN: Or if they could get into a rhythm, it would be, anyway. Come on, guys, work together!
PEARL: None of these had a gem, either... *sigh* Well, let's go on home and try to think of a plan, for now. I can't have you staying out here all day and getting a sunburn.
STEVEN: My shield has superior UV protection, Pearl!... But yeah, it's way too hot, let's go home.
PEARL: I really don't feel that you should be using it for that... oh, what are these awful things even doing out here? There hasn't been any activity in this desert in ages!
*Steven sees a piece of green desert glass and picks it up.*
STEVEN: ...Hey, Pearl? The gem monsters are attracted to our gems, right? Do you think they also go after Peridot?
PEARL: I suppose they must, yes.
STEVEN: Do you think she's okay?
PEARL: Peridot certainly seemed lively enough the other day, Steven. I'm sure she'll be perfectly fine - until we get our hands on her.
PEARL: Or she'll regret it.
STEVEN: Uh. Right! Watch out, Peridot!
*Steven pockets the glass.*
*Back at the warp pad:*
STEVEN: Wow! Pearl, look! There are so many of them!
PEARL: What are they doing to the warp?! Steven, hurry!
*The shovelflies appear to be digging a very deep pit around the warp - there is only a single visible pathway to it left, made of yellow stone.*
STEVEN: Pearl, come on!
PEARL: What is that?
*It becomes visible that the warp was built on top of a building of some kind, whose roof seems to be fallen through; a pedestal with a shovel with a gleaming yellow gem on it and some old control panels are visible on the ground.*
STEVEN: Could that be their gem? The Shovelfly Mother is just a shovel?!
PEARL: Rrrgh... We'll have to find out later, the hole's too deep! Come on!
*The pathway cracks under Pearl just before she reaches the warp. Steven tries to pull her up, but she's too heavy for him, and they both fall down.*
STEVEN: Owww... How are we going to get back up?
PEARL: Oh, my! It's so clean and tidy... the stonework in perfect condition, almost no sand on the inside! This must be an ancient old gem structure the was entirely buried. The roof probably only recently fell through.
PEARL: But I don't remember anyplace like this being out here... And why on earth would the Shovelflies decide to unearth it now?
PEARL: Right! The shovel gem! We've got to bubble it before we do anything else -
*The shovel gem is no longer on the pedestal.*
PEARL: Oh, no! They must have carried it away! We have to find it!
*Steven is drooping.*
PEARL: Um. But let's find you some shade, first.
*Pearl finds a passageway leading to a lower level of the structure and carries Steven downward.*
PEARL: Why is it so clean even down here?
STEVEN: Maybe the shovelflies are tidying up?
PEARL: I suppose they must be. But it just doesn't make sense...
STEVEN: Oh! Pearl! Water, I hear water!
*They enter a large, round room with a sort of moat running around the inside and chunks of rock scattered around. Steven jumps into it and gulps the water down. Pearl looks warily around, then up at a large viewscreen.*
PEARL: Well, it's a mess in here, at least. That thing looks somehow out of place, though.
*Pearl approaches a control panel.*
PEARL: Let's figure out what this place was -
*The screen switches on. Peridot is on it, doing villain faces. Behind her, the door clunks partly downward, then jams.*
PERIDOT: Hahaha! You fell right into my trap, yet again, crystal clods - wait, how many of you are there, are there more than one.
PEARL: Peridot! What do you think you're doing in this place!?
PERIDOT: Oh, you know - just stealing some ancient technology, trapping you in a hole, ruining your plans to stop me, the usual sort of thing! This can't be new to you, can it?
PEARL: Oh, you are just the worst! For one thing, you cannot call this "the usual sort of thing" - this is only the second time, and I was going through some distracting personal problems the first one, meaning that you should get very little credit for tricking me on that specific occasion!
PEARL: For another, if you think I'm going to stand for you fluttering around destroying priceless ancient objects -
PERIDOT: Hey! I don't flutter. And you'd might as well sit down, given that I've sealed the four of you in this impenetrable underground chamber, hahaha!
*Pearl looks at the open door; Peridot clearly can't see into the room. Steven's damp footsteps lead back up the stairs. She looks back at the screen. Steven walks across the screen behind Peridot, looks around, spots her, and walks up behind her as Pearl and Peridot talk.*
PEARL: Oh, no. Whatever shall I - I mean, we - do! How terrible!
PERIDOT: HAHAHA, annnnnnd further menacing dialog. Now, I have stuff to do, so I'll just leave you to your -
STEVEN: You really like appearing in front of people on big viewscreens, don't you.
PERIDOT: Augh, not again!
STEVEN: But now - it's my turn! To do that! *takes the microphone* Hi, Pearl!
PEARL: Steven! Stop having fun this instant! Knock her down or something!
*Pearl runs out of the room and follows Steven's footsteps up the stairs and into an alcove they'd missed on the way down. Steven is trying to pin Peridot against the wall with a large version of his shield.*
PERIDOT: Owowow! You get away from meeeeee -
*She shoves him away and starts forming a finger-gun.*
PEARL: Oh, no you don't!
*Pearl grabs her fingers and bubbles them.*
PERIDOT: Hey! Hands off the hands!
STEVEN: Go, Pearl!
*Steven grabs her remaining fingers and does the same thing.*
*Woops they're now stuck in the sandpit with 90-degree walls due to Shovelfly magic. They can't find the Shovel gem. Peridot is So Mad, she can't fly now. (She can still do the beam-thing but it's unhelpful.)
Peridot keeps trying to run up the walls but keeps falling because you can't run on loose sand, because Woman in the Dunes. Eventually her limbs overheat and she freezes up on the ground. So Mad.
Pearl complains that this isn't possible and teaches a geology lesson, explaining the term "angle of repose" to Steven using Peridot's head as a measure of some kind. Peridot is So Mad.
Steven reads increasingly fake butterfly facts from children's science book "Butterflies Are Never Wrong" in an attempt to figure out Shovelfly behavior using science. Peridot believes everything the book says uncritically. Pearl Will Allow It.
Pearl keeps food for Steven in her gem, but she forgot about utensils or needs them for Bug Science, so he invents chopsticks because he's Civilized:*
STEVEN: It's easy. You just kind of brace the chopstick against your palm like - ohhhhhh, you don't have palms!
PERIDOT: ...No? Do your eyes even work, you inferior organism?!
STEVEN: Well, your hands are dumb, so we're even!
PERIDOT: What?! No! I can use them to do serious research, and make reports -
STEVEN: Ohhhhhh, repoooooorts!
PERIDOT: Did you just mock my reports by drawing out the "or" sound in a mocking way?!
STEVEN: Mayyyyyyybe!
PERIDOT: You just did it again! How can you have so little respect for reporting things! And anyway, I - I can also fly! And make a cool gun! And I do not even need hands to form a powerful kinetic-stasis beam that I can throw stuff around real fast with!
PERIDOT: So who cares about your human poking technology, given that my poking technology is plainly superior!
STEVEN: Hahaha! Whoa, cool! - what did you just say? I can't hear you when I'm in your green beam, by the way.
PERIDOT: - You can't?
STEVEN: Yeah, you probably shouldn't taunt us while we're in your green beam. Unfortunate waste of taunting.
PERIDOT: Maybe I'm not taunting for you! Did you think of that, with your self-centered Steven worldview? Maybe I'm doing it for myself.
STEVEN: Hey, it was just some friendly advice!
STEVEN: - Enemy-to-enemy! And enemy-ly advice.
PERIDOT: Right.
*beat*
STEVEN: ...Peridot. How high can you throw me?
PERIDOT: Not that high. I did the math already.
STEVEN: You never know until you tryyyyyy...
PERIDOT: I know, because I know everything.
STEVEN: Sounds to me like you're scaaaaaared. Of me being right, and you being wrong.
PERIDOT: ...Fine, then! If you really want me to throw you so high your inexplicable soft body splats against the stones, you'll get what you want, you foolish little -
STEVEN: Noooooo -
PEARL: Both of you stop having fun right now!
PERIDOT: What?!
STEVEN: Awwwwww, fun police!
PERIDOT: Yeah, who smashed and made you fun police?!
PEARL: Do you even know what the police are?
PERIDOT: The meaning of the phrase "fun police" is coherent in the current context without knowing the meaning of the modified noun.
*Steven inevitably suggests that Pearl and Peridot fuse so they're big enough to climb out. They make several really good faces, have several really bad arguments.*
PERIDOT: I can think of over seventeen hundred better options than - ugh - fusion. All of them involve my stolen limbs, so why don't you stop wasting time and give them back.
STEVEN: Sorry, but the bubbles are one-way - we can't get them back right now.
PEARL: Even if we wanted to do that. Which we do not, Steven. We don't want to do that.
PERIDOT: Who would design such an inefficient storage system!? And, and anyway fusion is no way to solve problems! It's no way to - do anything! It's gross!
STEVEN: What? No! It's really cool and fun and -
PEARL: ...Oh, dear. You poor thing. You've never done it before, have you.
PERIDOT: I - shut up!
PEARL: Now, Steven, stop pestering poor Peridot.
PERIDOT: Shut up shut up shut up
PEARL: She's never fused before, and that's a very sad thing for a gem -
PERIDOT: No! I - you clod, no! No no no no no shut up shut up shup shut up! Fusion is a disgusting and degrading thing that is not at all appealing to me and even if I could do it I wouldn't want to!
*Further bickering. Pearl is really annoyed with how out-of-sync the the Shovelflies' clackety-beat is.*
PEARL: Steven I am not going to fuse with Peridot.
STEVEN: Aw, I was just asking an innocent question -
PEARL: No.
PERIDOT: The answer is always going to be no!
STEVEN: *sigh*
STEVEN: Allllll I want to do / Is see you turn into -
PEARL: Steven, don't you dare sing the song!
STEVEN: - a giant woman - why not? Is today not a singing day?
PEARL: You may not use that song - that was the song you used for me and Amethyst, you can't use it for her, it's - inappropriate!
PERIDOT: - is there a singing day calendar I can see?
PEARL: You be quiet! - It's just wrong, Steven.
PERIDOT, SPEAKING OVER HER: I was just asking an innocent question!
STEVEN: ...okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
PEARL: My feelings are not hurt, Steven. It's only that... well. With me and Amethyst - sometimes it just feels likes you...
PEARL: *sigh*
STEVEN: ...?
PERIDOT: ...?
PEARL: Well - anyway! Steven, for all we know, Peridot might have a feeling, and you might hurt it by re-using a song for her.
PERIDOT: Hey, you clod, I do so have feelings!
PEARL: Aside from "temper tantrum?"
PERIDOT: Yes aside from temper tantrum which isn't even really a feeling that's ANGER argh!
PEARL: Name one.
PERIDOT: Oh, I'll do better than that! There's - there's bored, smug, blind panic, controlled panic, and confused! That's basically five, if you count both kinds of panic as separate! So there!
PEARL: - well, there you go, she has four or maybe even five feelings -
PERIDOT: You're leaving out temper tant - I mean, anger!
PEARL: - Peridot has five or six feelings, any one of which could potentially be hurt if you re-used my and Amethyst's song.
PERIDOT: The songs are "confusion." I don't understand about the singing.
PEARL: I'm sure you don't. - What, Steven.
STEVEN: Nothing.
PERIDOT: So can I see the singing days calendar, or is that as nonsensical and cloddish as this whole conversation?
STEVEN: - I guess I've never heard any of you guys sing, do you not do that?
PERIDOT: Burst into song at random? No! I have no idea why you people keep doing that! Is it some sort of primitive Steven-species threat display?!
*Peridot and Pearl eventually give in and try to fuse, but Peridot's convinced she can't and has no rhythm and etc, and they're both getting thrown off by the Shovelflies being bad drummers. Pearl keeps losing it at these stupid bugs.
Pearl doesn't like that Steven wants to be friends with Peridot, it makes her feel like he loves everyone and she's not special and they're all interchangeable. Peridot doesn't see what the big deal is, they are interchangeable right. Right. Steven does love everyone, but it's not like that! UNRESOLVED ISSUES FOR EVERYONE Pearl save it for people who aren't Steven, he doesn't need this.
Steven's lying bug book says that butterflies form the Final Boss if you get them to dance together "and it's totally rad, like you don't even know." (Flashback to Amethyst and Vidalia lying on the floor of Vidalia's house giggling as they write this book. "We are such good parents." "We are the best parents.")
Eventually Steven manages to teach the Shovelflies to play in tune. Peridot and Pearl almost successfully fuse - but then all the Shovelflies start popping out of existence, to his horror. They're not supposed to be in tune, due to Something Something Gem Corruption Mechanics.
The Shovelflies responsible for holding up a narrow sand column that the Shovel Gem was on poof, the column falls down, and Pearl bubbles the gem. The walls collapse.
Steven is vastly disappointed that he doesn't get to see Peridot and Pearl fuse, Peridot and Pearl are simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Peridot scampers off through the warp.
Epilogue scene where Peridot is lurking outside Steven's window and he drops her fingers out. He's Keeping The Foot.*
