#lapis discourse

[jaspybaby]

Bruh

I'm not usually one to talk about this type of thing but I just find it very interesting that now that lapis is getting her behavior looked at, people are still trying to rebuttal with, "oh remember kids! Jasper is still a terrible person!" Or "yeah but jasper.." and "I mean but jasper is..."

First off, why are you even bringing up jasper? This conversation isn't even about her. The funny part is nobody is even saying that jasper is a better person or any of that. But somehow us calling out lapis' toxic behavior is somehow excusing or absolving jasper of anything. Heck people are STILL trying to throw jasper under the bus for shit she didn't even do in the first place! But that's normal.

Listen, how you feel about jasper is how you feel. But, I ask that you not dance around the issue just because it's your fav we are talking about. This is what we have been saying from the get go! Stop excusing lapis' behavior! No one is saying that lapis is a bad person but she has serious issues that need to be addressed! Stop going on every post bringing up an argument that has nothing to do with the current conversation. You look pressed, salty, and bothered. Jasper will get her turn. But this isn't about her right now. Geez.

[salora-rainriver]

Meh fuck it, whatever. Malachite Discourse go.

Note: I’m horrible at actually watching shows and I never got around to seeing Mirror Gem, Ocean Gem, Chille Tid, the episode where Jasper’s all freaky and desperate about being Malachite again, etc., and the only reason I really know what happens there is Tumblr. So uh. Most of this following analysis is basically purely an analysis of the events of The Return and Jailbreak, because IDK much about the other relevant episodes.

So as many people have pointed out better than I ever could, Jasper couldn’t have been the abuser in that whole malachite situation as she had no real power over Lapis, and if anything, she was the one being held against her will. Some have also pointed out that there wasn’t even a real relationship between them. I kind of want to just throw up something I’ve noticed as well about the dynamic of their relationship:

They were both pushed into malachite by some direct and personal threat.

Jasper, obviously, only wanted to be strong enough to beat the Crystal Gems, the enemy of an ancient war. She’s operating on survival instinct, and thats probably the only reason she’s desperate enough to even consider fusion. Does she care about controlling lapis, not letting lapis get away? Not really. She just sees a way to get out of the sticky situation she’s in.

Now, Lapis. Let me be frank, even as early as Jailbreak, I’m really starting to feel like Steven Universe doesn’t fucking know what sort of character they want Lapis to be. In the ending scene of Jailbreak alone, you can count THREE different driving motivations behind her actions.

First, and most obvious and surface level, she craves freedom. The show fucking loves to emphasize this, what with all her bird symbolism (why do people call Pearl the birdmom? Lapis is over here flying around on fucking wings idgi) and the imprisonment in the mirror and all that, okay! That’s like her character arc, becoming free. Sure.

But also, there’s the crux of her redemption arc: Steven. She’s really really REALLY attached to Steven, its pretty clear she likes the kid. It can be guessed fairly easily that she formed Malachite because of the threat Jasper presented to Steven, his friends, his hometown.

And that’s really what I meant when I said previously that both of them are thrown into Malachite by some personal threat: Jasper is threatened by the crystal gems, Lapis wants to neutralize the threat against her friend.

But then there’s the third part… namely, Lapis’ thirst for revenge, a thirst that, at times, just gets downright sadistic. This is shown in Jailbreak as her iconic line, you know, “I am done with being everyone’s prisoner! Now you’re MY prisoner, and I’m never letting you go!” And honestly this line is pretty much the start of the problems. If the show didn’t have such a fucking PROBLEM with being overly forgiving of designated-good characters, this line should have PROBABLY been a red flag for any of the Crystal Gems. If the crewniverse wasn’t so completely insistent on making Malachite a metaphor for capital-a Abuse, this would have foreshadowed a plot twist where Lapis is a villain again, and kicked off a SECOND arc where the gems have to stop the terrifying Water Witch, and Steven has to convince her that hurting people because she herself was hurt is Maybe Wrong, and now they have two homeworld gems detained in the temple, because Jasper will run to homeworld if given the chance to escape, and Lapis Fucked Up, and maybe now we can have Lapis feeling some serious fuckin soul searching as she tries to unravel her bloodthirstiness, and Jasper gets AN ACTUAL REDEMPTION ARC, and this tension just gets amplified because Fuckin Peridot is Still Runnin About,

And- wow, I didn’t expect to reach THAT conclusion when I started writing this post. But anyways, yeah. Malachite should have never been a metaphor for abuse, and there’s like 200 better ways you could have written that arc, and I’m salty because I like Lapis and Jasper and Malachite, but you really can’t deny there’s some real fuckin Bad Implications here thanks to the sloppy writing.

AND WHILE WE ARE ON THE TOPIC OF LAPIS LAZULI, THIS IS PROBABLY SILLY BUT, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW BOTHERED IVE BEEN ABOUT HER LACK OF GOLD FRECKLES?! I DON’T NORMALLY GO FOR BLUE COLOR SCHEMES BUT BLUE AND GOLD IS FUCKIN GORGEOUS! CREWNIVERSE WHY

(Also for the record this is FAR from the one thing I’m salty about. As soon as I have something to say about the other gems that hasn’t been said better by others, you bet ur ass I’m gonna rant about it)

[mudslidecru5h]

STEVEN UNIVERSE COLOR SCHEMES ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT BC OF LIGHTING SO STOP GETTING MAD AT NEON LAZULI SHE WAS IN LOTS OF DARK EPISODES SO WE NEVER BRIGHT ENOUGH STFU LOOK AT THESE I HATE NYALL

[yellow-diamond-screws-lightning]

damn, gotta fucking love Lapis antis

Lapis Anti: -makes a post about how Lapis is an irredeemable monster who is worse than Hitler and Trump combined.-

Me: -sarcastically disagrees with this bullshit.-

Lapis Anti: Don’t criticize my post!! I’m so sick and tired of people not agreeing with my posts, especially after I bash a character that they like!

[ificouldbegin-to-be]

I mean I held off on talking about my opinions on the two because I was scared. I was so fucking scared. And when I did Id see a "1" in my inbox and have a fucking panic attack.

It would take me ages to answer and then I just see...its like an rp request or something. But I'm so used to expecting hate and death threats that I almost vomitted seeing a godsmn notification. Hate became normalized. I just expected the cruelty.

[andyartistics]

Stop saying she got brighter. She’s been the same. Don’t compare her cracked scheme to her fully healed scheme?? makes no sense considering she was legit not gonna be the exact same color when she was half dead lol

[images go from oldest to newest in terms of her appearances in NEUTRAL lighting]

[all images taken from the SU wiki lol]

[yellow-diamond-screws-lightning]

One thing I never see mentioned when it comes to Lapis discourse are the ramifications her act of stealing the ocean would have had on Earth. Nearly every post I’ve seen acknowledging Lapis’s faults only mentions her taking the ocean. They never go into detail how destructive this act would have been.

It was a very destructive act, perhaps her most destructive act by far. Let’s take a look?

1. Any boats, ships, and sea-faring vessels out in the ocean would plummet to the ocean floor and be completely obliterated. Every single person on board would die from impact.

2. Those swimming in the ocean would suffer broken bones, or death. 3. The sudden taking of the ocean would have most likely caused an effect that would have damaged properties and structures.

4. The sudden return of the ocean would have done the same thing, but on a more destructive scale.

And that’s just the immediate outcome! Imagine what would have happened if Lapis kept the ocean longer.

1. It would stop raining. Crops would die, animals would die, people would die.

2. Forests would catch on fire and release CO2 in huge amounts. More animals and more people would die.

I should have added that all marine life would perish as well except Lapis actually saved them. Still she had them trapped in a confinement that would have been way too small and eventually they would have died anyway.

Despite this, I never see anyone mention it. I never even see those critical of Lapis mention it!