the only thing that could have made everything’s fine even worse
i can’t stop thinking about steven shapeshifting into classic steven during everything’s fine. god, how painful would that have been?
picture diamond steven shapeshifting into his younger form at some point in little homeworld, as he ruins thing after thing, in a frantic attempt to make himself feel like a person who can help people again. picture the opposite of his birthday, him distorting his body into something small and soft, squeezing it into a mold that it doesn’t fit because he’s scared of the alternative.
or after, he destroys the baseball field, he’s doing construction work, but he can feel everybody watching him, wondering what he’s going to break next. he doesn’t want to be big and scary. he doesn’t want to have done this. so he shapeshifts to classic. that’s what they want, right? that’s certainly what he wants.
or after that, even during the intervention. it’s way too on the nose, but just imagine big steven trying to insist he’s okay, he has this under control. he’s never been a burden and he’s not going to start being one now–he’s still the same steven they’ve always known! so of course he shifts into his younger self to underline that.
he’d still be in diamond mode for all of this, obvs. can’t escape that.
alternatively, forget little homeworld entirely. what if the episode had just been steven as his younger self, trying to recreate moments from early su, akin to that stepford smiler promo? i would love a story about steven interacting with the crystal gems in this state–them puzzling out what’s going on, while steven tries to avoid a mental breakdown by pretending really hard that the last four years never happened.
“you gotta go teach? c’mon, how long has it been since we had a together breakfast? amethyst, i thought your whole class was about doing whatever you want?”
“you guys were just talking about how you wanted me home! what happened with jasper? oh, it’s nothing. c’mon, let’s go on a good ol’ fashioned mission! track down some corrupted gems!”
look what i’m getting at is that the final breakdown coming from a steven who looks like (or god forbid sounds like) his younger self is something i can’t stop thinking about. steven’s transformation over the time skip is always going to make it a little difficult to mentally connect the smol boy and his older self, and getting that monologue about thinking about smashing white, or shattering jasper, and everything else he said, from the original steven’s body would be a visceral and horrifying way to hammer in that all of this is steven, and always has been.
i’m gonna try to fic this, but it obviously would work better visually–so if any artist out there wants to take a shot at this concept? you would have my undying gratitude.