Fanfic / Eyes on Me

Eyes on Me is a Steven Universe Human AU Series Fic by Voltalia that revolves mainly around Ruby and Sapphire. Later entries, however, have seen the series gradually turn into a Massive Multiplayer Crossover with Fullmetal Alchemist, Arthur, Spongebob Squarepants, Kingdom Hearts, South Park, Central Park, Psychonauts, Bob's Burgers, Final Fantasy XII, Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls, Interstella 5555, Scooby-Doo, Welcome Home (Clown Illustrations), The Way of the Househusband, F is for Family, and SuperMarioLogan.

The first fanfic sees Sapphire and Ruby fall in love after the former performs at a concert.

The original story itself is spread out over fourteen chapters and deals with topics like homophobia, domestic abuse, and transphobia. It has three direct sequels in Love Like You, Do It For Him, and Happily Ever After; a P.O.V. Sequel in Do You Believe In Destiny?; a Distant Sequel in Be Wherever You Are; two direct prequels in Eternal Flame and Haven't You Noticed I'm A Star?; as well as twelve spinoffs: The Gravity of It All, Here in the Garden, Maya and Sorcha, Being Human, Thunderbird, Isn't That Cruel?, I Think I Need A Little Change, If You Ever Cared To Ask, I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Lavender Haze, Cry For Help, and It's My Birthday and I'll Die If I Want To.

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The series uses the tropes:

• 20 Minutes into the Future:
  • Being Human takes place in 2027. There are even mentions of a pandemic having occurred a few years back.
  • Happily Ever After takes place in 2028, over two months after the end of Being Human. Its last chapter takes place eighteen years later in 2046.
  • I'll Follow You Into the Dark takes place in 2028 around the same time as Happily Ever After. Its direct sequel Cry For Help takes place three months after the end of the former.
• 20 Minutes into the Past:
  • The first fanfic in the series, which was first published in 2016 and completed in 2019, takes place in 2004-2005. The P.O.V. Sequel Do You Believe In Destiny?, written in 2022, takes place during that same time period.
  • The Gravity of It All, written in 2020, takes place in 2006.
  • Love Like You, also written in 2020, takes place in 2006-2007.
  • Do It For Him occurs in 2010.
  • Here in the Garden takes place in 1997-1998 while the final chapter takes place in 2000.
  • Maya and Sorcha takes place first in 1969 and then 1970 before settling in 1986.
  • Thunderbird takes place in 1985-1988.
  • Isn't That Cruel?'s first chapter takes place in 2006, with most of the story after that taking place in 2012 and 2014 respectively.
  • If You Ever Cared To Ask, written in 2022, takes place in 2002.
  • Eternal Flame takes place in 1991 for the first five chapters before skipping ahead to 1998 and then 2002.
  • Haven't You Noticed I'm A Star? takes place in 1990 before jumping ahead to 1991 in Chapter 7, 1999 in Chapter 9, and then ending in 2000.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Sapphire's parents, John and Yoko, to different extents. John is especially relentless in how he physically and verbally treats his daughter in the original fanfic.
  • In If You Ever Cared To Ask, Nyoko's mother Sadako is shown to be unsympathetic towards her daughter in the aftermath of her rape and even blames her for being raped in the first place. Eventually, she just kicks her daughter out of the house while her husband and their other children watch.
• Abortion Fallout Drama: In Being Human, Connie has an abortion after being raped at a Halloween party. While Steven is uneasy about his girlfriend's decision at first, he eventually comes around to it, and the fanfic portrays Connie's decision as the right one to make.
• Accidental Murder: In Isn't That Cruel?, Spinel accidentally runs over her father Jeremy while driving drunk, killing him.
• Adaptation Name Change: Some characters end up with more human-sounding names. As such, it has its own page.
• Adaptation Species Change: All inhuman characters from their respective source works, such as the Gems, Elwood City denizens, and Bikini Bottomites, have been made human.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: There is absolutely no shortage of this happening to the characters throughout the series. To give a couple examples:
  • In the source material, Sapphire ran off with Ruby after they accidentally fused so the latter wouldn't be shattered by Blue Diamond. Here, Sapphire finds herself pregnant with Garnet at the age of seventeen and is beaten mercilessly by her father when he finds out Ruby was the one to get her pregnant. This ends up landing her in the hospital, where her mother then informs her that they've been thrown out of the house.
  • In canon, Spinel was created 6,000 years prior to the events of Steven Universe: The Movie to replace Pink Diamond's first Pearl, only for Pink to outgrow her and abandon her under the guise of playing a game. Here, Spinel is revealed to be a product of incestuous rape between Jeremy Reynolds and his adoptive daughter/niece-by-marriage Kimber, who subsequently gave birth to her when she was only twelve years old. After Kimber's disappearance and Petunia's apparent suicide, Spinel loses her siblings and mother in a murder-suicide. Spinel later finds out the Awful Truth about how exactly she's related to Kimber, and she goes into a downward spiral that culminates in her accidentally killing her father during a drunk-driving incident and going to prison for twelve years.
• Adaptational Diversity: The fanfic series features more queer and disabled characters than in canon. The main cast alone is more diverse: Ruby is a trans Afro–Puerto Rican Butch Lesbian, her wife Sapphire is a cis Afro-Asian Lipstick Lesbian, their daughter Garnet is a partially deaf aroace Black woman with Waardenburg Syndrome Type 2, Amy is sapphic and has Cheyenne ancestry, Rose (aka Petunia) is a bisexual Black woman, and Pearl is a Token White lesbian.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Jasper, Lapis Lazuli, and Peridot all show up and interact with the Crystal Gems much earlier than they do in canon.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Kevin is an even bigger tool in Being Human than he was in canon. The worst thing he did in canon was make unwanted advances on Stevonnie, but here, he actually rapes Connie at a Halloween party.
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • In their respective canon, Bitsy and Helen only ever show attraction to men. Here, Bitsy is depicted as a lesbian while Helen is shown to date women herself (though her exact sexuality isn't made clear).
  • Both Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello are presumably straight in their respective canon. Here, Milla is sapphic while Sascha is aroace.
• Baby Be Mine: It's revealed in Chapter 10 of Eternal Flame that this is how Ruby came to be. Her mother Aurora became a surrogate for a Puerto Rican couple (Reuben's brother Diego and sister-in-law Beatriz, to be exact) who couldn't conceive, only to witness firsthand how dysfunctional the intended parents' relationship was and deciding she wouldn't let a child be raised in that environment. Making things more complicated was Aurora and Reuben developing feelings for each other while she was still pregnant. They settled down in New York and then sent Diego and Beatriz a letter telling them that Aurora had had a stillbirth, essentially faking Ruby's death.
• Bungled Suicide: In Cry For Help, Bitsy attempts suicide by jumping off the penthouse balcony and falls ten stories down. Miraculously, she manages to survive this; albeit with two broken arms, some broken ribs, and a skull fracture. While hospitalized for the failed attempt, she's also discovered to have early-stage lung cancer, which is treated with surgery.
• Canon Character All Along:
  • Malachite is actually a human Envy.
  • Jasper's love interest Frankie is revealed to be none other than Carnelian in Chapter 8 of Thunderbird.
• Cast Full of Gay: Most of the characters presented are part of the LGBT community, Ruby and Sapphire especially.
• Character Narrator:
  • Sapphire narrates Eyes on Me, its first two direct sequels, and the prequel Haven't You Noticed I'm A Star?; while Ruby narrates the P.O.V. Sequel Do You Believe In Destiny? and the prequel Eternal Flame. Their granddaughter Hope narrates the final chapter of Happily Ever After, as well as the Distant Sequel Be Wherever You Are.
  • Jasper narrates Thunderbird.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: In Cry For Help, Bitsy manages to survive being dropped ten stories off her balcony by Nathan with minor injuries, only to then get run over by an ambulance while trying to get away from Mimsy and die at the hospital.
• Cheerful Funeral: After Rose dies from preeclampsia complications while having Steven in Do It For Him, her friends and her significant other Greg hold a celebration of life for her. The service ends with Greg dumping her ashes into the ocean.
• Child by Rape:
  • Defied with Connie, who gets an abortion at a Planned Parenthood after discovering she's pregnant following a rape at a Halloween party in Being Human.
  • Whitney was conceived when her twelve-year-old birth mother was raped by her uncle in an attempt to make her straight.
  • William is revealed to be one during a "The Reason You Suck" Speech Van gives him in Happily Ever After.
  • Spinel is revealed to have been conceived when Jeremy raped his adoptive daughter Kimber in Isn't That Cruel?
  • Nyoko ends up pregnant after Xemnas drugs and rapes her. However, it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy, which is non-viable and nearly kills her.
• Convenient Miscarriage: Nyoko is only thirteen when she finds herself pregnant. However, it turns out she's experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, which almost kills her on her fourteenth birthday when one of her fallopian tubes ruptures and has to be terminated for her sake. The non-viable pregnancy itself is only convenient in a narrative sense. Otherwise, it's considered anything but.
• Crossover: Happily Ever After is one with Fullmetal Alchemist.
• Crossover Relatives:
  • Ruby Harvey and Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob Squarepants are cousins.
  • A stepfamily variant occurs with Steven, Patrick, Sam, and Dinah all being stepsiblings following the Star siblings' mother Margie's marriage to Steven's father Greg.
• Dark Fic: The series has more mature elements to it than the show. The first fanfic even depicts a scene where Sapphire's father mercilessly beats her up.
• Dead Guy Junior: Garnet's middle name, Cynthia, comes from her stillborn aunt.
• Death by Childbirth: Rose dies from preeclampsia complications at the age of 24 while having Steven.
• Death by Origin Story:
  • In Thunderbird, Jasper's grandfather is killed by his wife Arizona, who then hangs herself in the closet, leaving Jasper and Amy to have to live with the McBrides until they too are murdered by intruders near the end of the story.
  • Following Petunia's apparent suicide in Isn't That Cruel?, Spinel loses her siblings and mother in a murder-suicide. Years later, Spinel accidentally runs over her father while drunk driving and kills him, which gets her sent to prison for twelve years. Upon getting out and moving to a halfway house, Spinel finds out that Petunia had faked her suicide and settled down in Beach City in the meantime. This leads Spinel to blame Petunia for her whole family's death and to take the bus to Beach City to get revenge on Steven and his friends.
  • Ruby's father Reuben dies from metastatic prostate cancer near the end of Eternal Flame.
• Decomposite Character: Fusions co-exist with their components in this Alternate Universe. For example:
  • Garnet is Ruby and Sapphire's daughter.
  • Opal and Rainbow are Pearl's older twin sisters.
  • Sarah Donovan-Nixon is Ruby's roommate when Sapphire first moves in with her.
  • Alexandra is one of Sapphire's friends.
  • Stefani was Steven and Connie's babysitter.
• Description in the Mirror: Jasper describes herself like this in Chapter 7 of Thunderbird while getting ready for her first day of seventh grade.
• Disabled in the Adaptation:
  • Garnet is partially deaf due to having Waardenburg Syndrome Type 2. However, this is remedied with a cochlear implant.
  • Whitney has Tietz syndrome, which leaves her with profound hearing loss. As a result, she has to wear hearing aids.
  • Petunia is implied to have ADHD and dyslexia in Here in the Garden.
• Distant Finale:
  • Chapter 13 of Here in the Garden takes place two years after Chapter 12.
  • Chapter 10 of Happily Ever After takes place eighteen years after Chapter 9.
  • Chapter 5 of Isn't That Cruel? takes place two years after Chapter 4, and it ends thirteen years after Spinel accidentally runs over her father and kills him with her taking the bus to Beach City to get revenge on Steven and friends.
  • Chapter 11 of Haven't You Noticed I'm A Star? takes place several months after Chapter 10.
• Distant Sequel: Be Wherever You Are takes place almost twenty years after Happily Ever After with Ruby and Sapphire's granddaughter Hope as the protagonist.
• Dying Declaration of Love: In Cry For Help, Bitsy confesses her feelings to Helen through sign language before dying at the hospital from injuries sustained by being run over by an ambulance. Helen ends up realizing too late that she felt the same way.
• Extra Parent Conception: Subverted in the case of Garnet's adopted twins. It's implied that Malachite got pregnant by both Ed and Al while they were in a Sibling Triangle.
• Eye Scream: Poor Coral loses an eye after Petunia accidentally throws a rock into it in Chapter 6 of Here in the Garden.
• Faking the Dead: In The Gravity of It All, Petunia fakes committing suicide with the help of Pearl and Kimber (who has been suffering from Stage IV cervical cancer). Petunia fakes the deed by switching places with Kimber, who then goes on to actually commit suicide, so the former can start a new life as Rose Curtis. Combined with Death Faked for You.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo:
  • Spinel is raised as Kimber's younger sister after the latter gives birth to her at the age of twelve.
  • Roisin is revealed to actually be Sorcha's daughter and not her cousin in Chapter 4 of Maya and Sorcha.
  • Amy grows up thinking Jasper is her niece, when in reality, the latter sired her.
  • Ruby's namesake father turns out to actually be her uncle. Given that he and her biological father are identical twins, though, it might as well be nothing.
• Finale Title Drop: One of the final lines in Do It For Him is "We are a family now, and we need to pull ourselves together and do it for him."
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion:
  • In Here in the Garden, Kimber initially contemplates getting an abortion after falling pregnant at a very young age, but she eventually decides against it.
  • Averted with Connie, who gets an abortion at a Planned Parenthood following a rape at a Halloween party in Being Human.
• Graduate from the Story: Happily Ever After ends with Ruby and Sapphire's grandchildren graduating from high school.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Thunderbird uses Gratuitous Cheyenne throughout the story.
• Grief-Induced Split: In I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Helen breaks up with her girlfriend Maya on the same day as Whitney's funeral. However, it's stated that they'd already been drifting apart for a while.
• Glass Eye: Sapphire's right eye is a glass one she got after she lost the real one to cancer.
• Hereditary Homosexuality:
  • Hope is a lesbian just like her grandmothers Ruby and Sapphire, though she was adopted by their daughter Garnet, so there's no biological factor in this case. That being said, however, Hope's gestational parent Malachite is a transmasculine non-binary person who's dating a woman by the time Hope and her twin brother Jonah are attending college in Be Wherever You Are.
  • Jasper is a trans lesbian, and her daughter Amy is sapphic.
  • Goldie is a lesbian while her twin sister Maya is bisexual. Their younger sister Petunia is also bisexual.
• Historical AU: The series has fanfics that take place throughout a wide range of decades, with the most recent historical decade being the 2010s.
• Homosexual Reproduction: This tends to crop up within the series due to one of the same-gender parents being trans.
  • Sapphire finds herself pregnant in Chapter 6 of the first fanfic and later gives birth to her and Ruby's daughter Garnet. Ruby herself is incredulous that she was able to get someone pregnant in the first place, and while she was medically transitioning no less.
  • Frankie ends up pregnant by Jasper near the end of Thunderbird.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: In I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Bitsy has Helen fetch her some sangria after being informed of Whitney's death.
• Intersex Tribulations: In Be Wherever You Are, Quilene is a cis woman who was born with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. Due to her condition, she'd had anxieties about getting into a relationship until her roommate Hope introduced her to Jonah. She also reveals that Aerolynn outed her in high school because she was jealous of Quilene's crush on a boy she was also interested in. This led to her being subjected to lots of bullying to the point where she had to be homeschooled until senior year.
• Junkie Parent: Ruby's mother Aurora gets addicted to painkillers in Eternal Flame following the death of her husband and Ruby's namesake father from metastatic prostate cancer.
• Long-Lost Relative: Being Human reveals that Steven's therapist is actually his long-lost grandfather.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Be Wherever You Are, in addition to being a sequel to Happily Ever After, is also a mega-crossover with Fullmetal Alchemist, Arthur, Spongebob Squarepants, and Kingdom Hearts.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Ruby and Sapphire's granddaughter Hope is an aspiring writer who takes a creative writing course while attending Rutgers in Be Wherever You Are. One of her assignments (which counts as a final exam of sorts) is to write about her life story but with a twist.
• Murder-Suicide:
  • This is the ultimate fate for Arizona and Warren in Thunderbird when the former proceeds to slit the latter's throat in his sleep and then hang herself in the closet.
  • In Isn't That Cruel?, following her divorce from Jeremy, Nora kills herself and their children by driving her SUV off a cliff with everyone inside. Her ex-husband doesn't take the news very well.
• Mythology Gag: As part of a big assignment in her creative writing course, Hope writes an autobiographical story of sorts about a group of feminine-presenting aliens raising their leader's son who work to take down an oppressive government.
• Named After First Installment: The first fanfic in the series is called Eyes on Me after the song of the same name from Final Fantasy VIII. The series itself shines on a spotlight on the relationship between Ruby and Sapphire, as well as other characters.
• No New Fashions in the Future: Be Wherever You Are takes place from 2046 to 2047, but the characters sport fashions and hairstyles more akin to the 2020s.
• Next Sunday A.D.:
  • Being Human and Happily Ever After were written during the early 2020s (2020 and 2021, respectively), but take place later during that decade (specifically 2027 and 2028). Besides the COVID-19 Pandemic mentioned as having occurred in the past, there's no mention of 2027/2028 being any different from 2020/2021. The only exception is with Zoom seeing regular use.
  • I Think I Need A Little Change was written in 2022, but takes place in 2030. Just like with Being Human and Happily Ever After, there's no mention of 2030 being any different from the early 2020s.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Malachite's actual name is not revealed at any point during Being Human.
  • Jasper only goes by her nickname in her first three appearances. It isn't until Thunderbird that her real name is revealed to be Jessica.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Whitney loses her only son John to brain cancer. She thinks she's outlived her daughter Petunia as well when the latter fakes her own suicide. However, Whitney doesn't find out about what actually happened to Petunia until many years later, long after Petunia's actual death from preeclampsia complications.
  • Warren outlived his only child Fern (Jasper's mother) years before the events of Thunderbird.
  • Whitney's sister Vanessa outlives her daughter Ambrosia and son-in-law Simon when they are killed in a car bombing that was meant for her granddaughter.
• Parental Incest: Spinel turns out to be a product of this between Kimber and her adoptive father Jeremy in Isn't That Cruel?
• Passed in Their Sleep: Whitney is said to have died this way in Happily Ever After. It's later revealed in I'll Follow You Into the Dark that Whitney died in her sleep after she'd slipped in the shower and hit her head.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Following their move back to Beach City in Love Like You, Ruby and Sapphire raise their daughter Garnet with their friends. Garnet herself goes on to do the same with her children while also helping to raise Pearl and Belinda's daughter Hermione.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Happily Ever After begins with Sapphire being informed of her grandmother Whitney's death. The death serves as a catalyst for Sapphire inheriting Diamond Bright Records and having to decide on whether or not to take it over.
• P.O.V. Sequel: Do You Believe In Destiny? retells the first fanfic from Ruby's perspective.
• Practically Different Generations:
  • Goldie and Maya are nineteen years old (and their younger brother John sixteen) when their sister Petunia is born. Petunia herself is at least a decade or so older than her biological father Ulysses's children with his wife Penelope.
  • Much like in his respective canon, William is a much older half-brother to Edward and Alphonse Elric. This results in Ed and Al being much closer in age to many of their niblings.
  • Amy is twelve years younger than her maternal half-sister Tiffany.
  • Steven and Connie's youngest child Sirius is a decade younger than their triplets Bree, Nova, and Comet.
  • Jonah's tutor Theo turns out to be the much younger half-brother of one of Jonah's grandmothers Sapphire. In fact, there is a whopping age difference of twenty-one years between Theo and Sapphire.
  • At the end of Be Wherever You Are, Hope and Jonah get a younger sister named Zoey. Zoey is nineteen years younger than them.
  • Eric Cartman is sixteen years older than his younger sister Savannah.
• Premature Birth Drama:
  • In Do It For Him, Rose goes into labor with Steven three months earlier than expected. Unfortunately, she dies as a result, but Steven manages to hold on and is finally able to come home after three months of staying at the NICU.
  • Whitney had Rose three months early back in 1986. Unlike Rose, however, Whitney survived the birth.
  • Jasper's step-grandmother Arizona gives birth to her daughter Amy four months early in Thunderbird.
• Present Tense Narrative:
  • Eyes on Me, its first two direct sequels, and its P.O.V. Sequel (as well as the last chapter of Happily Ever After) are all told in the present tense.
  • Be Wherever You Are continues this tradition of being told in the present tense.
• Race Lift: Steven is biracial in the fanfic series (with his mother being Black and his father being white and Jewish) as opposed to just being white and Jewish in canon.
• Raised by Grandparents: In Thunderbird, Jasper is being raised by her grandfather after losing her mother at a very young age.
• Rape as Drama: Connie is raped at a Halloween party in Being Human. The rape leaves her feeling broken, not helped when she ends up pregnant as a result and subsequently gets an abortion.
• Rape and Switch: Whitney's birth mother got pregnant after her uncle proceeded to rape her in an attempt to make her straight and commit a Homophobic Hate Crime in the process.
• Rape Discretion Shot: Xemnas' rape of Nyoko in If You Ever Cared To Ask isn't actually depicted onscreen. Instead, it cuts to Nyoko waking up in his hotel room after taking a sip of a spiked Sprite and realizing what's happened to her.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Van delivers one to his son William in Chapter 8 of Happily Ever After when the latter is trying to find Malachite's hospital room.
  William: "Just tell me where Ivy is."
  Van: "No."
  William: "Careful, Father. Don't do or say anything I might make you regret."
  Van: "Like what, William? Like how you've had a normal childhood?"
  William: "How dare you."
  Van: "I dare. You're not special just because you were conceived through rape. You're not special because your stepfather resented you over how you were conceived. You're not special because your mother took out all of her frustrations on you. You're not special because your parents disowned you because you fell in love with someone they didn't like. And you sure as hell aren't special just because your siblings on your mom's side ignore you. Plenty of people have dealt with these things, but you know what? Not all of those people are like you. I can count on one hand the other people I personally know who have dealt with at least one of these hardships. One of Garnet's mothers was kicked out of her house because she dared to fall in love with another woman, for God’s sake, but she's nowhere near as bitter and angry as you are."
  William: "What's your point?"
  Van: "My point is that the way you've coped with everything that's happened to you... you've been going about it all wrong. You've passed that on to your own children. How you've acted is affecting them. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason Malachite was sneaking off and fooling around in a love triangle with their own uncles was because you were too caught up in your own little bubble to notice something was up?"
  William: “That’s ridiculous. Ivy’s too much of a loner to do that kind of crap, right, Solaris?”
  Solaris: “C’mon, Grandpa. You don’t know Ivy like we do.”
  Van: "No, you don't know Malachite like I do. The way you keep deadnaming them and misgendering them makes that very clear."
  William: "I'm clearly not getting anywhere with you, Father. C'mon, kids. We can just go find Ivy ourselves."
• Related in the Adaptation: In addition to the Crossover Relatives examples:
  • Sapphire is the granddaughter of Whitney Diamond (on account of Sapphire's father John being Whitney's son) and the niece of the other three Diamonds. By extension, this makes Garnet Whitney's great-granddaughter.
  • Pearl, Coral, Skye, and Marigold are quadruplet sisters, and Opal and Rainbow are their older twin sisters.
  • Jesse is the biological daughter of Jasper and Frankie. Likewise, Amy is also her half-sister on Jasper's side.
  • Nyoko, Momoko, and Miyako are triplet sisters.
  • Masa is Hibari and Kikujiro's nephew here, whereas he's just an underling in his respective canon.
• Rock Theme Naming:
  • The Harvey-Dahls consist of Ruby Harvey, her wife Sapphire Dahl, and their daughter Garnet. Their grandchildren Hope, Jonah, and Zoey are the odd names out.
  • Pearl Bradford and her older twin sister Opal.
• Romance Ensues: The main premise of the first fanfic and Do You Believe In Destiny? is Ruby and Sapphire falling for each other.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Steven's therapist Ulysses, his wife Penelope, and their daughters Circe and Athena are named after characters from Greco-Roman mythology. His son Keanu is the Odd Name Out.
• Sibling Triangle: Malachite was in a love triangle that involved them and a pair of brothers. This led to Malachite becoming pregnant by one of the brothers... or so it would seem.
• Significant Birth Date: Garnet is born on New Year's Day at the end of Eyes on Me.
• Slain in Their Sleep: Warren is killed this way by his wife Arizona when she slits his throat in his sleep.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch:
  • Ruby is originally named after her father Reuben. She goes by her current name upon transitioning.
  • Averted with Jasper, whose deadname is Nonoma.
• Spin-Off: Eyes on Me managed to get eleven spinoffs of its own. To summarize:
  • The first spinoff, The Gravity of It All, details how Petunia faked committing suicide with the help of Pearl and Kimber.
  • The second spinoff, Here in the Garden, is an origin story for Spinel.
  • The third spinoff, Maya and Sorcha, explores the eponymous duo's relationship over several years.
  • The fourth spinoff, Being Human, sees Steven establish a platonic/familial relationship with his therapist and his family while dealing with his mental health.
  • The fifth spinoff, Thunderbird, explores Jasper's life before she came to Beach City.
  • The sixth spinoff, Isn't That Cruel?, is a direct sequel to Here in the Garden.
  • The seventh spinoff, I Think I Need A Little Change, explores Jasper and Frankie's wedding in 2030.
  • The eighth spinoff, If You Ever Cared To Ask, explores Nyoko's life before she came to Beach City.
  • The ninth spinoff, I'll Follow You Into the Dark, sees Bitsy struggle to adjust to Whitney's death.
  • The tenth spinoff, Lavender Haze, sees Petunia and Maya come out to each other.
  • The eleventh spinoff, Cry For Help, is a direct sequel to I'll Follow You Into the Dark.
  • The twelfth spinoff, It's My Birthday and I'll Die If I Want To, is a murder mystery taking place at a birthday party in Hawaii.
• Surprise Multiple Birth: In Happily Ever After, Garnet is set to adopt a baby from a fourteen-year-old transmasculine person called Malachite. Up until Malachite gives birth in Chapter 6, pretty much everyone (including Malachite's grandfather Van) is convinced that they're only expecting one baby. When Malachite finally does goes in labor, however, Van is shocked to find that they've actually had twins. Everyone else is taken aback when Garnet informs them of the news.
• Tangled Family Tree: Garnet's adopted twins are simultaneously half-siblings and cousins due to their genetic fathers being brothers. On top of that, their genetic fathers are also their great-uncles.
• Teacher/Parent Romance: A grandparent variant occurs in Thunderbird when Jasper's grandfather Warren catches feelings for a teacher at Ewing-Halsell Middle School. While they start dating before the first day of school, their relationship progresses throughout the story to the point where they're married by the end.
• Technicolor Eyes: One of Garnet's eyes is a brilliant blue. This is mostly due to her having Waardenburg Syndrome Type 2.
• Teen Pregnancy:
  • Sapphire is only seventeen when she becomes pregnant by Ruby. Four months after she turns eighteen, she gives birth to Garnet.
  • Kimber is only eleven years old when she finds herself pregnant with Spinel.
  • Yoko is revealed to have only been fifteen years old when she had Sapphire.
  • Sorcha was only fourteen when she had Roisin. Her aunt and uncle had lost a baby at the time, so they decided to raise Roisin as Sorcha's cousin.
  • Malachite, a transmasculine teenager, is only fourteen when they become pregnant.
  • Connie is fifteen when she ends up pregnant with Kevin's child and subsequently gets an abortion.
  • Whitney's birth mother was only twelve when her uncle raped her in an attempt to cure her lesbianism and she subsequently became pregnant.
  • Jasper's mother Fern was just sixteen years old when she had her.
  • Frankie is fourteen years old when she gives birth to Jesse at the end of Thunderbird.
  • Nyoko is thirteen when she gets pregnant by Xemnas and fourteen when the pregnancy has to be terminated due to being ectopic.
• Titled After the Song:
  • The first fanfic (and the fanfic series as a whole) is named after a song from Final Fantasy VIII. The closest connection that fanfic has with the song is when Sapphire sings it in the first chapter.
  • Its sequel, Love Like You, gets its name from the song that plays during the credits on Steven Universe.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Ruby is the tomboy and Sapphire is the girly girl.
• Took the Wife's Name:
  • Sapphire's father John took his wife Yoko's last name, Dahl, due to being estranged from his family, the Diamonds.
  • The Goshima triplets' father Emmanuel took his wife Sadako's last name, presumably due to their different social statuses.
• Tragic Stillbirth:
  • Sorcha's aunt and uncle decided to raise their niece's daughter as their own child after they experienced a stillbirth.
  • Sapphire's twin sister, Cynthia, was stillborn.
• Trans Tribulations:
  • In Love Like You, Ruby is forced to deal with transphobic neighbors while she, Sapphire, and their daughter Garnet are living in London for a while. It gets to a point where they eventually move back to Beach City because the discrimination is too much for Ruby to bear.
  • Jasper has to deal with bullying, misgendering, and gender dysphoria throughout Thunderbird.
• Transplanted Character Fic: The fanfic series diverges greatly from the actual show and takes loose inspiration reimagining the canon events in human terms. This is best exemplified by Peridot hanging out with the Crystal Gems much earlier than in canon or Sapphire being related to the Diamonds through her father (who happens to be a son of White Diamond).
• Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Garnet's adopted twins Hope and Jonah.
• Wham Episode: In Chapter 8 of the first fanfic, Sapphire finds herself on the receiving end of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from her father when the latter finds out she's pregnant with Ruby's child. This lands her in the hospital where her mother then reveals that they've been thrown out of their house.
• Wham Line:
  • This crops up during a conversation Sapphire has with her mother in Chapter 8 of the original fanfic.
    Sapphire: I know you're trying to help, Mom, but I'm not in the mood for a motivational speech right now. Why don't you just go home?
    Yoko: I can't. Well, we can't. Your father kicked us out.
    Sapphire: Wait, you mean we're homeless?!
  • In Chapter 4 of Maya and Sorcha, the latter drops a bombshell regarding her relationship with her cousin.
    Sorcha: Can you write a letter for me, Maya?
    Maya: What for?
    Sorcha: There's something Roisin needs to know before I die...
    Maya: What is it?
    Sorcha: Well... I haven't been entirely truthful with you or your family. See... Roisin isn't actually my cousin. She's my daughter.
  • In Chapter 14 of Cry For Help, as Bitsy is dying from being run over by an ambulance, she decides now is the time to confess to Helen how she really feels through sign language:
    Bitsy: Helen, you were the best thing to happen to me, and I regret not telling you this until I was on my deathbed. Thank you for being there for me when no one else would. I love you.
• You Can't Go Home Again: In Chapter 8 of the original fanfic, Sapphire and her mother Yoko are thrown out of the house after her father John finds out about his daughter dating another woman (Ruby). This leads them to go their separate ways in Chapter 9, with Sapphire deciding to move in with Ruby.

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