“At least it's not ferociously attacking God quite as directly as Steven Universe did…”

Not that I’m surprised by this statement, but can you elaborate on this? Kinda intrigued by your thoughts on Steven Universe.

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Okie dokie, you’re not the only one who has asked me about this, so I suppose I’ll poke the hornet’s nest. 😅 I haven’t talked about this before because I assumed that everyone who wanted to hear my kinds of opinions on stories wasn’t watching or interested in Steven Universe.

It’s like asking vegetarian if they enjoyed a turkey dinner. The turkey dinner was so obviously not made for vegetarians to enjoy, so why would the vegetarian even bother analyzing the turkey?

But I think if some people are asking me why I think Steven Universe is anti-God (of the Bible) its because maybe they don’t know what the turkey is. Not completely. (Maybe not you, because like you said, you’re not surprised by my comment.) So I’ll explain my thoughts on Steven Universe.

If you’re just following me because you liked some stuff I posted, but didn’t realize that I’m a Bible-believing Christian and don’t want to hear about it, unfollow me now. Because I’m going to talk about some hot button issues here and the trolls will come out.

Steven Universe is really well-done. The jokes are funny, the writing is believable, the characters have great chemistry, great design, the concept is fascinating, the slow build-up and reveal of the plot elements is great. But when you watch the throne room scene in the last episode of Season 5 “Change Your Mind,” it’s alarmingly clear how much the whole show is not just settling for defending and championing the LGBTQ+ worldview—it goes all the way to attacking what Christians believe, on the other side.

Anything that’s pro-LGBTQ+ is doing that by default, but this show goes out of its way to do that.

You have to understand: God created and designed us. Deeper than that; He created and designed romantic relationships, and invented marriage. He didn’t just create love—He is love. So when humans come along and do what we’ve always done since the fall, and say, “I’d rather define what Your thing is and how it works for myself, God,” it’s not only an incredible slap in the face, it’s an attack on God’s actual identity—and it’s destructive for us and the people around us. Like a fish insisting it can breathe oxygen.

But Steven Universe goes beyond that. It knows that the Christian worldview is it’s biggest opposition. It digs right down to the heart of the worldview-battle. LGBTQ+ worldview says, “I should get to love what I want and be who I am, because I’m me. Love is love. (By which I mean, any action or relationship I choose to call love is love, because I’m the one calling it that.)”

Biblical worldview says “No, wait, you shouldn’t base your decisions on you alone; what you want changes day to day, and you’re broken, so you can’t ever be satisfied based on what you want—the Bible says God made you for something, and you rejected that, and it broke you. You’re not how you’re meant to be: even what you want and what you think love is is twisted up and can hurt you and others. But if you submit to God He’ll help you, He’ll fix what’s broken and give you new life by making you how you were supposed to be: He’ll live in you and through you.”

Are we beginning to get the picture?

See, the whole thing with the opposing views between LGBTQ+ and Christian people is as old as time. It’s not a new debate. It’s Satan and Eve in the garden. She says, “This is not how God said things should be,” and Satan says, “Are you sure that’s what He said? He knows if you do this thing, you’ll be like Him. You’ll be god: you’ll get to decide ‘how things should be’ for yourself.”

He lied and said that disobedience would satisfy her. That she knew what her own heart needed better than the God that made it did. That the very act of being imperfect would make her godlike.

And then Steven Universe comes along and says “if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”

And has a cast of created being characters who’s imperfections (Garnet’s forbidden “love,” Pearl’s obsession, Amethyst’s insecurity) are supposedly “the best thing about them; what makes them who they are.”

And has a main character who used to be a part of the god-like creator relationship, but used her power to come down to earth and completely change who she is into a fully different person.

And has a godlike Creator character who claims she “doesn’t need” her created beings (just like the God of the Bible) but they all have a little part of their creator in them so she has to repress their imperfections; she holds them all to a standard that’s impossible to reach called “perfection” and punishes them when they don’t meet it even though it hurts them to try; she expects them all to do what they were created by her for; she fixes them when they can’t meet her standard by shining her light through them and making them extensions of their Creator.

And has a main character who argues, fights back, tries to stop her, and is answered with lines that sound surprisingly like what LGBTQ+ people hear when Christians argue with them: “you’re only making things worse; you’re just deceiving yourself; even while you resist it your actual light can’t help shining through,” etc.

White Diamond just wants everything to be perfect. Like her. She just wants her created beings to “be themselves.” But what she means is, be how she created them to be.

And she’s the bad guy. She’s playing God in this show, and Rebecca Sugar is saying, “If God is telling us that can only be happy by being perfect, as He is perfect, and doing what He created us to do, then He’s wrong. Our imperfections are what make us special—unique—individuals—free—and there is nobody who has the right to take that freedom away from us, not even out creator!”

And you know what?

If God were like White Diamond, like Rebecca Sugar believes Him to be, Steven Universe would be right.

But He is NOT.

God is not a dictator who forces us to conform to a standard of perfection and then smashes us when we don’t meet it. He is a King who made us perfect to begin with, and we rejected him, because He allowed us to do that. He knew that true love was love that had to be chosen, and He wanted us to love Him by choice, so he gave us the option. But Rebecca Sugar doesn’t understand—there was never “Choose God or Choose Yourself.” There was only, “Choose God or Choose Nothing.” There was nothing except God. Then He created everything. There is no version of reality where you have something better than God, or even slightly less good but different, to pick. You’re not jumping from one ship into a smaller one, but at least it’s yours—you’re jumping from one ship into a void, and then complaining that there’s no other ship. That’s humans. That’s not God. / White Diamond didn’t make her creations perfect (Amethyst) and she didn’t make them for love. She made them for power. That’s not the God of the Bible.

Even when we did choose to try and love ourselves instead of God, and therefore warped our ability to perfectly love at all, He didn’t smash us. True, everything fell and was cursed, which is exactly what He warned us would happen if we chose it, but it was a natural consequence of breaking ourselves. And then He didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t give up on us. And He certainly didn’t just zap us, snap His fingers, quick-fix it and turn us all into robots who are extensions of Him, who say they love Him but only because it’s His voice puppeting us to say it.

No. He came to us, chose to give up His life at the exact point on the timeline when Romans, masters in the art of slow, humiliating, torturous death, would be the ones to carry out His crucifixion, and saved us Himself. Through the sacrifice of His own life. And even then, we still have a choice. We get to choose to accept that incredible self-sacrifice when we don’t deserve it, and be given new life and a relationship with the Creator who knows us and loves us better than we can love ourselves or receive love from others—OR we can just keep stubbornly insisting that our slavery to the opposite of what God wants is somehow freedom, and our twisted versions of love are genuine, and we’re not broken, and die like that. Die broken creatures who lived their whole lives stomping their feet and screaming “I’m not a creature, I’m a god!”

White Diamond sacrifices nothing, because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t know the God of the Bible. She just knows her idea of Him. She’s never actually gotten to know Him. If she had, she’d learn how silly and twisted her idea is.

Because you know what, yeah, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs. But people aren’t pork chops. And hot dogs have flavor (not better than pork chops) but they are awful for you.

Christians aren’t perfect cuts of meat with no individuality or flavor. Just because we all know and love the same God doesn’t mean we have no personalities. It just means we don’t think so freaking much about what we are, or who we get to be, or what we like and want. Jeez, what a self-centered, narcissistic, self-obsessed way to live. She plays Steven like he’s this wonder-child, innocent and full of heart, who encourages his friends to love and keep trying. But honestly?

This is very pretty animation but it’s not real. Steven looks happy hugging Steven but self-love doesn’t ultimately get you that.

That’s all based on the premise that what he’s encouraging them to do is actually good, and will make them happy, and will help them love better. And it just won’t. Not in real life. That’s not how any of this works. Self-love is just self-obsession. And that is a sure-fire way to hurt you, and everyone around you.

You’ll never be free by choosing to run to a worse master. You’ll never be satisfied with your crappy attempts at loving yourself, because you were made to be loved flawlessly and forever by someone who is Love Himself.

And choosing to identify with your imperfections doesn’t make you uniquely you. It just makes you exactly like every other human being marching in the same line since the Fall.

White Diamond’s not relational. She’s up high and distant. That’s not God. He made you to be in relationship with Him. He loves you, totally and perfectly, and He proved it by sacrificing for You.

So yeah. That’s the problem with Steven Universe. Come get me, SU fans.

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I was raised Cristian and went to church for 20 years and this post I think is the perfect example of why I have never regretted the decision to stop and cut off all contact.

The idea that what Christians do and say to other human beings is irrelevant to their experiences and shouldn’t be included in art because “god isnt really like that” that makes me want to vomit, frankly. Honestly, just being openly homophobic is less upsetting because its more honest. At the end of the day what god is really like is completely irrelevant when the your parents are actively trying to do you harm every single day because of what they think god is like. “What god is really like” is so so irrelevant to the relationship of any member of the LGBTQ community to christian authority figures it’s almost absurd to even bring it up. Its really nice you think god is cool and loves you, it really is, but it helps nobody but you.

“Being happy about yourself is toxic because only Gods love matters” is just streight up cult brainwashing. I would really really recommend you seek therapy. This is not a joke. You can not sustain that belief for long without doing yourself serious and perminant harm. It did me serious and perminant harm. Just get out. I’m not kidding.

One final point, seeing a really blatant toxic parent metaphor and thinking it’s a stab at god tells me a lot more about your opinion of god than rebecca singer’s, but go off I guess.

Its been a while since I looked at this because OP stopped replying to me, but I have to say arguing that the Jewish god is the same as the Christian god but the Islamic god isn’t the same as the Christian god in the notes of THE SAME POST is some real masks off American christofaschist shit.

Ummmkay 🙄 I “stopped replying” to you because…you stopped replying to me, first. You stopped replying to what I was literally saying, and started arguing with someone in your head, instead. You’re kind of still doing the same thing now. You’re picking out pieces of things that I say, then rearranging them in an order that you can try and criticize 🤷‍♀️

But whatever, other people have tried picking at this issue and it’s so ridiculous at this point that I might as well set the record straight.

The Islamic god is different than the Jewish God and the Christian God. Please do some reading. Any reading. The tiniest bit of reading would prove this.

The Islamic god is Allah, who would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present, as well as the creator of the universe. And the similarities end there.

Christians are actively being murdered right now by Muslims for believing in a different God, Yahweh, who is revealed in three Persons: God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the image of the one and only Creator God, and He claimed to be very explicitly. The Islamic believers only think He was a Prophet—they certainly don’t believe He is God, or that Allah sent an expression of himself to earth.

The kind of God who would do something like that is fundamentally different than the kind of god who wouldn’t. Two fundamentally different divinities: one who is gracious and merciful and wants to be in a relationship with humanity, and the other who is none of those things. You might as well have a reader say, “geooricle and artist-issues are the same tumblr blogger.” That’s how silly it sounds. Anywhere outside the West, Muslims will torture or kill you for believing in Yahweh, the Divine Trinity, instead of their god, Allah.

Don’t be ridiculous.

Where Orthodox Jews and Christians differ is simply in how much there is to know about God. The Jews believe that everything you can know about God has been revealed in the Torah. The “religion” started ignoring what their God was doing and saying around 6-4 B.C. We both still claim to worship the same historical Deity: same character, same name, same works–up to a point. It’s like watching a TV show together, but one group stops watching during season 2. And each group still claims to be a “fan.”

They just don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s fulfillment to His own prophecies, and we do.

And to the point, because everyone keeps throwing “Rebecca Sugar is Jewish” out there like that means anything at all in this context, and I’m so tired of it—

—ya’ll realize that Orthodox Jewish religion accepts the words of the Torah as the Holy Word of God (just like Christians do) right? And y'all realize that it is in the Torah that their God condemns homosexuality, and claims to have created mankind for His own purposes, and tells His creations they must live up to His standards of perfection, right? Which is what White Diamond is doing in the show? I mean, y'all realize that if Rebecca Sugar actually believes her Orthodox Jewish religion, she’s completely saying the opposite with her show, right?

Her religion-of-choice doesn’t change what she’s saying with her show: if I say I’m a vegetarian and then go around eating bacon, I’m just a liar, or you could say, a really terrible vegetarian. She’s bashing the God of the Torah with her show identically to the way she’s bashing the Christian God, because they’re the same God, and ya’ll bringing it up shows how little you’re actually aware of what Christianity and Judaism are—and how little you’re thinking about consistency and intellectual honesty.

Yeah I was taught all that too. I went to a Christian school. I was a Christian for the first 20 years of my life, I was taught all the stuff you are saying more or less verbatim and I believed it.

It’s all lies though. Neither Judeism or Islam are anything remotely like what you describe above.

Give evidence for that. Give evidence for “neither Judaism or Islam are anything remotely like” what I just described. Simply saying “it’s all lies though” doesn’t make it so. I didn’t just listen to somebody give a lecture about these things. I’ve seen it and spoken with actual people in real life who confirm it. …and some of those people were atheists, too. What have you got?

I’d love to see you cone up with any evidence that supports the super-ignorant statement, complete with universal qualifiers: “neither Judaism or Islam are anything remotely like what you describe above.”

SURE! Jew here, and Jumblr is about to be ALL OVER your ignorant antisemitic ass.

Very simple: y’all worship an idol. G-d is One, not three, and not funky math “it’s three but actually one.”

You venerate human sacrifice. We teach that it is forbidden.

You celebrate death. We celebrate life.

You believe there’s no arguing with G-d. We do it all the time.

Oh—and Jews and Muslims believe in the same G-d. YOU are the one who doesn’t, because, again, YOU WORSHIP AN IDOL.

You’re wrong, ignorant, bigoted, small-minded, and insufferably smug—pretty par for the course with a certain kind of Christian.

@athingofvikings, want a go? I’ve got to get ready for work, I can’t finish the job as thoroughly as I’d like to.

I’d rather stick my head in a running nuclear reactor. It would be quicker and I think it would be a more enjoyable experience than arguing with a Christian zealot like OP.

Fair enough, it’s just been awhile since I’ve seen one of these this blatant and figured it’d make a nice change of pace. 😂

I’ve since been told apparently they’re a giant mask-off racist, which, like. This is my surprised face.

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You got that down perfectly. Always wanted to explain how SU was anti-God but I never got the vocabulary for it lol. Saving this post

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Mate, you're trying to argue that a consensual relationship is somehow immoral and broken.....

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And to claim that Rebecca Sugar couldn't possibly understand Biblical doctrine is a massively convenient copout.

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@artist-issues Yeah, kinda is. If what is happening is consensual, it's not immoral most of the time. And specifically talking about being gay, two men being in love isn't immoral

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@artist-issues It doesn't hurt anyone. It's just two people dating and/or having sex that happen to both be men or women. If a man and a woman dating and/or having sex isn't immoral, than changing the gender of one party doesn't really change much. They're just living their lives, doing no harm to anyone by being in love. (I said "most" to leave room for the near infinite number of possibilities that can occur within a consensual relationship. Cont-)

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(I'm not a fan of making exclusive statements. They're easy to disprove and lack the nuance that human behavior possesses)

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@artist-issues I would argue human ideas of morality don't apply to animals. And in what ways do these things cause harm?

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Also, I feel I should clarify to avoid looking like a hypocrite later- I generally define my ideas of immorality based off of the question "does this cause harm at all, cause more harm than an alternative route, or cause less harm than an alternative route?" Exceptions can be made on the basis of consent or duress

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@artist-issues Many animals don't have the same social faculties or the ability to determine intent behind their actions. The lion that rips apart a gazelle isn't being cruel or wicked. It just has to eat. In any case, it's not like we can hold an animal accountable for its actions. There's little point in morally condemning an animal for a behavior we can’t do anything about

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@artist-issues I don't think so. I see no reason to condemn an instinctual action which an animal must do to survive.

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These questions remind me of the ones I am asked at the Apologetics group I attend(in a good way, it makes you Think)

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@artist-issues Technically, their actions often fall under the "does this action cause more or less harm than an alternative action?" caveat. An animal kills another animal to prevent the harm of death by starvation. It is necessary for their survival. It's kind of just how nature works. Animals eat each other

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@artist-issues They're *animals*. These are just instinctual behaviors they do to survive. An animal isn't evil for doing what it is biologically compelled or required to do, it's just what it does. It doesn't reflect on their character because it's an animal. What are you going to do? Take a squirrel to court for public indecency? Put a magpie in jail for theft?

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@artist-issues The higher social faculties and cognitive function distinguishes humans from animals. We hold ourselves to concepts of morality and develop abstract concepts, most animals don't. They simply act on instinct.

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@artist-issues What's your point? This started with "hey, two men dating isn't wrong" and we're discussing if animals can do immoral actions?

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Like, I repeat- you gonna put a magpie in jail for stealing? Does a magpie have a tarnished moral character for following its biological impulse or is it just being a bird doing bird things?

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@artist-issues Humans. Morality is a social phenomenon.

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You know that Rebecca Sugar is Jewish, right? So she’s not going to have the same ideas about God since she’s not part of your religion. That doesn’t mean she’s attacking you lmao. Other people being happy in a way that you don’t agree with isn’t hurting you.

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@artist-issues Nope. Like I said, I'm not fond of exclusive statements. Things are rarely black and white.

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@artist-issues And somehow we still haven't gotten to why two men dating is supposedly "wrong" yet....

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White Diamond is not modeled after a misinterpretation the Christian god at all though? She represents a divine being, sure, but not at all a Christian one. I guess I just find it confusing that you think Rebecca sugar is making a point about some deep resentment towards the Christian god with that characterization. I find it odd to compare the two. I am not religious, despite coming from a Christian background, so we’re bound to disagree, but I just find this a truly baffling take.

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@artist-issues I believe that for every action, there is at least one scenario where an action which is ordinarily wrong becomes the right choice or a morally gray choice and vice versa. Most of the time, killing another person is wrong. But a person is justified in killing in self-defense, among other examples.

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But I'd frankly prefer to get back to the topic of "is two men dating wrong?"

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@artist-issues I disagree because there's no reason for two men or women dating to be condemnable. It's just people in love

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Why do you reckon it's wrong then? Because a book said so?

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Appeal to Authority fallacy

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Just because someone says so doesn't make them right

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I pointed out Rebecca Sugar’s religion to remind you that the religion you claim doesn’t apply to everyone. And I guess by hurt I meant offended. But rereading your post, you come off much more as concerned. Towards the end you claim that if people follow a path to happiness that is different than yours, i.e. self-love rather than submission to God, they’re destined to be unhappy. I can tell you from experience that isn’t true.

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@aspirationatwork But she's talking about God. He is an authority who has no imperfections and can always be trusted.

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@reneethegreatandpowerful *Your* version of God is an authority *to you.* Not everyone interprets God/divinity the same way, even within Christianity

More like this

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Steven Universe fans be,“HOW IS THIS A KIDS SHOW?!?!” and I’m like, kids aren’t stupid. They can understand complex shit like this,goddamn. Kids are just tiny people with less experience but they can learn things just as well as a bunch of self-entitled adults. Enough with you assholes looking down on children because they’re children. It’s fucking annoying,stop it.

DO. NOT. TELL. PEOPLE. WHAT. THEY. CAN. OR. CANNOT. SHIP.

Specifically speaking, this message is for the peeps that just watched the new episode of Steven Universe and SOMEHOW got the idea that they can tell other peeps not to ship Pearl and Greg.

YOUR personal problem with a specific ship is YOUR PERSONAL PROBLEM! You do not have the right to impose your problems on someone else.

Hit me with all of the hate you want. Because at the end of the day, ships, canonically or not, are works of FICTION. NOTHING IN THIS SHOW IS REAL.

And if you can’t understand that, maybe watching cartoons might be a little too mature for you to handle.

I was at work today and realized the creators of Steven Universe missed a golden opportunity

They should have named him Peter.

Steven means “crown.”

But Peter means “stone.”

So I’ve decided his middle name is totally Peter, and you can’t stop me :D

It still kind of baffles me that there are 0 SU toys.

I’ve head the argument that “oh they dont have many outfits… how make doll?” That’s the thing. Don’t make dolls. Make action figures.

We need a Garnet who shoots her Gauntlets with a push of a button. A Pearl that can “summon” her weapon and swordfight. An Amethyst that can “shapshift” like a transformer. A Steven + Connie shield and sword duo.

Seriously CN, make some contracts and get it done.

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oh god

Steven, from Steven Universe, canonically turned 14 in a recent episode. It was a surprise to his friend Connie (and the audience) too. His dad started showing her photos, and they realized he hadn't changed much in appearance since he was about 8 or 10, so you're sorta right. The whole point of the episode was an existential crisis about his gem powers leaving him as a child while his dad and Connie grew up. (Gem ages are... weird. They're functionally immortal)

. . . . . awww, shit. Now I feel bad for the kid.

fairymascot replied to your post:

Me before watching episode 54: I’M SO EXCITED Me…

what didn’t make sense?

YOUNG GEMS.

We know that Gems don’t age, Pearl has said so herself, and we also know that the Crystal Gems have been on Earth for thousands of years, have actively taken part in at least some of human history (PIRATE GEMS), have a shit ton experience and knowledge about humans, and yet now we see them as tiny child gems who seem like they’ve never been close to a human before.

So like, if they shape shifted into kids for some reason, sure, but they also seem to have the minds of children, SO UH…?????

So I’ve been thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know): in the latest ep, when Garnet told Greg “Steven will be fine”, she implied that someone won’t be fine.

If that someone were Pearl, Amethyst or Connie, she wouldn’t knowingly endanger them, would she? Like, she’d tell them to stay on Earth or something, right?

We know Garnet doesn’t care for the Diamonds, so does that mean something bad will happen to Blue or Yellow?