Fanfic / For a Diamond Is a Marveled Thing

"Earth's protectors meet Earth's avengers."

—Series Summary

Written by aenor_llelo, For a Diamond Is a Marveled Thing is a crossover series of post-canon Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Lilo & Stitch and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (specifically after Thor).

• Like a Word, a Sound, a Song is a Slice of Life fic mostly centered around Steven and Connie, focused on the alien part of Steven's Half-Human Hybrid nature. (Completed)
• Country Warps, Take Me Home is a bridge One-Shot Fic between SU:F and the fic series canon. (Completed)
• Shepherd's Crook is a One-Shot Fic about Cactus Steven's life after his debut episode in SU: Future. (Completed)
• Beware, Therefore, The Gemini is about Greg and the Crystal Gems finding out Steven is a fusion. (Completed)
• Clustersong is another One-Shot Fic, this time about the Cluster and what it's life is like in Era 3. (Completed)
• A Love Affair, But Exit Left covers Steven and Jasper's... unusual relationship. (Completed)
• Diamond Drop is where the crossover begins in earnest, beginning post-SU: Future, and a few days after Thor. (Completed)
• For The Tax Benefits. Also I Love You is the events of Connie and Steven's marriage and eventual wedding. (Completed)
• The Professor In AD-1-21 involves Bruce Banner running into Gems after the events of The Incredible Hulk. (Completed)
• Three Can Keep A Secret, If Two Of Them Are Dead. is a Bismuth-centric One-Shot Fic about her experiments with the Breaking Point during the war.(Completed)
• Godspeed You Stargirl, You Paladin Amongst Peons is a direct sequel to both LAWASAS and FTTBAILY, taking place while Connie goes to college. (Completed)
• I Am is a One-Shot Fic talking about Gem language and names. (Completed)
• The Salmon Loki And The Bigger Fish covers the events of the Battle of New York as they occur in the new continuity. (Completed)
• By Steven is composed of various tapes that Steven records to his adopted child after the Battle of New York. (Completed)
• Rauðskinna is a One-Shot Fic looking at what would happen if the Journals ended up becoming familiars throughout Gravity Falls canon. (Completed)
• We Coded The Oregon Trail With A Hole Puncher And There’s Nothing You Can Do About It takes place a while after the Battle of New York with Steven staying with the Pines throughout Gravity Falls canon. (Completed)
• Fishing Pictures is a direct sequel to TSLATBF and deals with the aftermath of the Battle Of New York. (Completed)
• His Name Is Benny You Uncultured Swineis a sequel to We Coded The Oregon Trail With A Hole Puncher And There’s Nothing You Can Do About It. (Completed)
• Northwest Noir is a sequel to His Name Is Benny You Uncultured Swine. (Ongoing)
• Kill Me, And Let Me Lie Here In Facets: The Trial Of Loki v The Planet Terra is a direct continuation of TSLATBF and Fishing Pictures, and deals with Loki's trial, the aftermath of the Battle of New York, and Lars' return to Earth. Also, there is a city on the moon now. (Completed)
• Godspeed You Stargirl, You Dragon Of Black Iron is a direct continuation of Godspeed You Stargirl, You Paladin Amongst Peons and deals with Connie going back to school after the Battle of New York. (Completed)
• Away at Sea: A continuation of Kill Me, And Let Me Lie Here In Facets: The Trial Of Loki v The Planet Terra. Follows Steven's surviving time clone Connor meeting Thor and Loki, Loki following his sentence, and Lars returning to earth. (Completed)
• Deadeye: A Spiritual Successor to like a word, a sound, a song, following Lars after returning to earth, and his alien hybrid (sort of) nature. (Completed)
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Tony: A semi-follow-up to The Professor in AD 1-21, which follows this universe's version of Iron Man 3, with Tony landing in Little Homeworld after The Mandarin's attack. (Completed)
• The Cowards' Quartet: A follow-up to Deadeye which also doubles as a Valentine's Day special. Follows Lars entering an unorthodox relationship with Steven and Connie. (Completed)
• Prodigal Suns: A follow-up to Away at Sea, which follows this universe's version of Thor: The Dark World. (Completed)
• Aliens Steal Cable is a Scrapbook Story consisting of various internet forums and articles about Gems and other characters in the post-Steven Universe: Future canon. (Completed)
• Like Halley's Comet is a bittersweet One-Shot Fic about Greg and Steven, through the lens of their fusion. (Completed)
• And When I Sleep, is a one-shot poem about how Steven feels about his mom and the trauma he has as a result of her actions. (Completed)
• For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing, The Extraneous Companion Guide is a companion piece to the fic series For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing. Meta and fanart abound. It is not necessary to view this companion in order to read the fic series, though it is necessary to read the series in order to understand anything in this guide.
• For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing, The Extraneous Calendar Guide. is a semi-comprehensive timeline of specific dates as considered canon and relevant to the For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing series. This timeline will update in accordance to any additions made to the series.

The series in its entirety can be found here.

Spoilers left unmarked for the events of the SU and MCU canon.

After months of inactivity, it was officially announced that the series was Dead.

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For a Diamond Is a Marveled Thing provides examples of:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: According to Word of God, Thor and Jane are completely platonic here.
  i don't consider thor and jane to be in a true relationship in FADIAMT. they'd only known eachother for a few days in thor 1! enough time to establish a friendship but not enough time to establish a relationship. in diamond drop, they don't move towards being a couple, they start over again to see how they stand. they're friends, but not much more than that.
• Alien Catnip: Gems display drunk/concussed behavior when their gemstones are exposed to low frequency sounds. Played for Drama when the concept is introduced in Like A Word, A Sound, A Song.
• Alien Fair Folk: In-universe, Gems are conflated with figures of various human myth, even occasionally being referred to as such, due to their presence influencing human culture. When Steven visits the Maheswaran family in India, he's called a rakshesha, a Hindu folkloric creature used as a slang word for Gems due to the similarity.
• All There in the Manual: There's a dedicated exact date timeline for the series as well as an authors' commentary fic that shares personal thoughts about installments from the head author and official art.
• Badass Normal: The Maheswarans in Like A Word, A Sound, A Song during chapter 5, The Drinking Song. Priyanka and Doug, running into a Gem related problem they don't understand, quickly assess the situation, find the root cause, and Doug even rides Lion in order to get Bismuth and Peridot for help.
• Bedmate Reveal: Lars wakes up in Thor's bed in Diamond Drop, much to his panic.
• Benevolent A.I.: SHELL, the AI from the Reef in SU:F, re-appears in the fic series upgraded into this, re-purposed into the AI of the Hyperuranion Empyrean(Rose's room).
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Connie forgets to celebrate her eighteenth birthday in Tax Benefits due to finals prep and college applications.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Gems don't eat, sleep, or even have heartbeats. Their language is more similar to that of whales than humans, and their bodies/minds can be affected by certain frequencies of sound.
• Boldly Coming: If Aliens Steal Cable is any indication, there's a sizable subculture attracted to Asteria Diamond (Steven), semi-derisively referred to as diamondfuckers (possibly equating them to the monsterfucker subculture).
• A Boy and His X: Steven and Lion's relationship continues to be this, though it's also implied in Like A Word, A Sound, A Song that Lion may view Steven as his father.
• Brown Note: The gem language can contain odd sound frequencies that become more prominent when a Gem is emotionally disturbed, which can cause humans to become sick if exposed for too long. Certain frequencies can do the same to gems.
• Can't Live Without You: Sten and Vendan, the halves of Steven's fusion, cannot unfuse without life-threatening consequences. It's implied this is starting to be averted as of Tax Benefits.

• Cute Monster Boy: Now that Steven's gotten older, his less human traits have grown more prominent, but he's still the good ol' Steven everyone knows and loves.
• Dead Fic: as of September 9th, 2021
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Agents Coulson and Hill throughout their meeting with Steven about the events of Thor. His total lack of guards, and his polite serenity as he casually admits to what, from their point of view, is overriding human government authority and stealing weapons of mass destruction, frightens them. For all his seeming benevolence, the fact that the hand that shakes theirs and offers to pour tea could cave an armored truck like a pinata is never lost on them.
  • One human in Aliens Steal Cable has a moment of this after realizing it was Steven that magically cured their hangover.
• Did They or Didn't They?: Zig-Zagged Trope. In Diamond Drop, Thor and Lars get blackout drunk, and the next day Lars wakes up in Thor's bed with no memory of the previous night. Thor cryptically says they "drank and fought" and acts very familiar with him afterwards, inviting him to share breakfast and being far more honest and co-operative than he was apparently instructed to be. It's hinted that the time he spent with Lars spurred his decision to defy Odin, but it's deliberately left ambiguous if it was the conversation that they had before the narrative Jump Cut or... something else.
• The Dividual: Steven is a fusion, and his components are treated as individual entities. The components are even named in the story- Sten(human) and Vendan(Gem).
  • This also applies to Connor with the components being named named Con(human) and Thorn(gem).
• Double-Meaning Title: Chapter 16 of For The Tax Benefits, titled Fair And Lovely. Connie certainly looks, well, fair and lovely in her dress. But said dress is connected to experiencing her family's ingrained prejudice and colorism as an adult, acknowledging that while they love her, they aren't fair, with it's not fair being a repeated phrase throughout the chapter. Fair And Lovely is also a brand name for an Indian skin lightening product, a more direct reference to the colorism of her family's culture.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Steven accidentally triggering a forgotten capture weapon on an old Gem battlefield. The effects and intended purpose of the weapon are similar to a landmine. There are many stories of people, especially children, being hurt or killed by forgotten landmines in countries that are/were theatres of war.
  • Steven's external behavior, due to being a fusion, occasionally comes across as that of a person with DID, with the narration during split moments even using DID subculture vocabulary.
  • Invoked Trope in regards to Jasper and her relationship with Steven, which was deliberately written to resemble a love affair in a platonic, tongue-in-cheek sort of way.
  • Steven's interactions with Casimir(Cactus Steven) are reminiscent of a parent with a special needs child. Given that the narrative specifically addresses Steven and Casimir as a father and son, this may be deliberate.
• Doting Parent: Steven, by all accounts, appears to be one to Casimir, paying frequent visits, leaving gifts, tending to him by hand, and letting Casimir direct the flow of their conversations.
• Faint in Shock: Exacerbated by all the alcohol Mr. Barriga has slipped him over the course of the party, Steven faints when Connie proposes to him in Tax Benefits.
• Fantastic Drug: Played straight and Played for Laughs. The essences of the Diamonds can be combined and diluted in varying proportions to achieve different effects. Some are practical- Jasper has a blend for temporarily sharpening the senses and increasing awareness, and Steven creates a blend that can keep Sten alive in the event he needs to unfuse. And then there's Peridot, who made a "productivity blend" that induces a manic state in Gems before eventually causing their forms to dissipate from stress.
• Farm Boy: After Casimir leaves the greenhouse in SU:F, he lives around the Sky Spire, tending to the temple and the mountain goats.
• Fertile Feet: Steven possesses a variant of this trope. His aura bleeds out as disembodied flowers and petals manifest around him, or causing pre-existing plants to overgrow.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Inverted Trope in Steven and Connie's case. Because they're Childhood Friends (with mutual crushes on each other from the beginning, no less), by the time they get married they've known each other for almost seven years.
• Glamour Failure: Gemsong can ingrain itself into the listener's mind to sound like language, but the true sound can still be heard underneath, making it appear as though Gems have sing-song voices.
• Good Costume Switch: Spinel and the Diamonds went through one at some point between Diamond Drop and Tax Benefits.
  • Spinel's reflects her growing emotional security with the new family she found in the Diamonds.
  • The Diamond's have a drastic change in size, with White Diamond shrinking to about Pink Diamond's height, and Blue/Yellow only coming up to her shoulders. It's a conscious choice to literally bring themselves down to the level of their Gems, and to bridge the distance between themselves and Steven.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Steven obviously, though it's implied that even the "human" half is less human than it appears.
• Hangover Sensitivity: Averted Trope in Also I Love You. Steven's after-Christmas mood was more related to Connie's surprise marriage proposal than the alcohol.
  • Lars starts having a psychosomatic hangover in Diamond Drop until he realizes that his resurrected body can't get hangovers anymore.
• Have You Told Anyone Else?: Discussed Trope in Three Can Keep A Secret, If Two Of Them Are Dead. Steven admits that the other Diamonds would likely advise shattering Bismuth in order to censor her research on destroying Gem code for euthanization purposes.
• High-School Sweethearts: Connie proposes to Steven shortly after turning eighteen.
• Hard Light Holodeck: Rose's Room, renamed the Hyperuranion Empyrean, appears in Also I Love You, updated into a proper Genius Loci using SHELL, the AI from the Reef. Steven uses it at one point for Sten and Vendan, the components of his fusion, to speak to one another without unfusing. Considering he uses a pre-set program to do so, he may have done so multiple times before.
• Humanoid Abomination: Gems as a whole appeared to be viewed (not unrightly so) as this by other alien civilizations, as a race of nomadic, immortal, incomprehensible world eaters.
  • Lars, of all people, turns out like this as time progresses, He starts growing claws and fangs, he has Deadeye, and he can hear things much more than a regular human could.
• I Do Not Drink Wine: Since Gems don't need to eat or drink, with most not even knowing how to, Thor's attempts at a social dinner mostly fall flat, except with Lars.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Tony landing in Little Homeworld instead of Tennesee, he still ends up meeting Harley Keener.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Gems can see ultraviolet light, with Steven being no exception. He thought that all humans could as well, until it comes up in a conversation with Connie.
• Magical Eye: Lars has one, called Deadeye, that he gained after he died and came back. It let's him see things off the visible color spectrum.
• Magic Kiss: Gems can transfer information by kissing each other. Which Peridot uses to create gaming apps for Gem brains.
• Marriage of Convenience: Connie genuinely loves Steven, but wants to marry him specifically before going to college for tax calculation purposes. ^note FAFSA, an American government institution that deals with college scholarships and loans, calculates financial aid eligibility using a person's taxable income. In the case of an unmarried person, it is the parents joint taxable income that is calculated, regardless of whether the parents can/will be paying tuition. A married person, however, it is instead the student and spouse's joint income that is calculated. Her parents, a doctor and a security guard, would calculate as a high joint income that may not qualify for financial aid. But Connie(a college student), and Steven(an alien with no taxable income) would calculate as a low joint income eligible for financial aid.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Discussed between Sten and Vendan as a very real concern if Steven marries Connie. She would inevitably be lost to old age or untimely death, and they (especially Vendan) worry that when the time comes, Steven won't be able to move on if/when she dies.
  • Mostly averted afterwards, when Connie all but asks to be alongside him for as long as he lives.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • Cactus Steven is renamed as Casimir in order to encourage his own identity as someone seperate from Steven. The name has the Double Meaning of both "proclamation of peace" and "destroyer of glory".
  • Rose's room is renamed the Hyperuranion Empyrean. ^note  Hyperuranion refers to Plato's Realm of Forms, the hypothetical sole true plane of existence where the perfect idea of all concepts and things existed, of which the mortal reality was an imperfect, illusory replica. Emyprean is the name of the Highest Heaven in medieval Christian cosmology, the dwelling place of God and source realm of light and creation.
• Mistaken Age: Seemingly invoked by Lars, making no effort to correct the assumption that he is a Gem and pretending to forget old dates due to advanced age.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Steven (who can see UV light, as a Gem) has a fixation with Connie's Blaschko's lines, which is basically equivalent to a human being fascinated by fingerprints.
• Mundane Solution: Little Homeworld's solution to containing the Hulk? Counselling, anxiety medication, and meditation. And it works.
• Mysterious Past: Just how exactly did the original Connor die, and why was the alternate Asteria Diamond so invested in saving any version of Connor that he was willing to break time for it? The "prime" Asteria of the series appears to know more than Connor, but the Temporal Sickness that the patched memories give him prevent him from safely thinking about it too much.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Gemsong translates name meanings, and it turns out the name Steven Universe in gemsong is really ominous, rendering along the lines of honored-crowned-martyr-victorious-that-shall-encircle-the-universe.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Said near verbatim in Exit Left by the Crystal Gems when they realize that while Steven loves them, he doesn't view or trust them as his parents anymore.
• The Nth Doctor: When Steven comes back from space in Country Warps, he's grown into a different appearance, being taller, broader, and having a Gem-like skin tone (specifically noted to be like an inversion of Lion and Lars' color schemes). Somewhere along his travels, Sten and Vendan balanced out in his fusion, adding more Gem-like aspects to his previously human appearance.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The girls on Connie's dorm floor in Godspeed You Stargirl were named by the author's fan Discord.
  • Exaggerated with the Asteria Diamond AMA event, a live RP event on the server which was later transcripted into an entire arc's worth of chapters in Aliens Steal Cable. This even was repeated with a live RP event reacting to the introduction of Steven Universe: The Movie, which is explained in universe as archival footage.
• Outside-Context Problem: The existence of the Gempire, especially Asteria Diamond, is this to the MCU as a whole. The Gem empire is a secretive, ancient, and technologically superior civilization, and nobody knows how to deal with them when they finally come out of the woodwork into the public sphere.
• Painting the Medium: Some dialogue coming from Steven or other Gems lapses into this to signify an In-Universe auditory Glamour Failure, since gemsong doesn't use real words. Sten and Vendan use italics and bold font (both to differentiate the two and highlight their Humanoid Abomination nature), and moments of distress or unfiltered gemsong corrupts the words into Zalgo text, making it unintelligible to readers.
  • Moments when the narrator character undergoes significant mental stress/disorientation is prone to this as well, such as Steve's flashback episode in Chapter 2 of Bigger Fish.
• Past-Life Memories: Steven eventually grows to access Rose/Pink Diamond's memories as of Like A Word, A Sound, A Song, in a chapter aptly titled Ghost In The Machine. He begins to suffer Time Dissonance and from The Fog of Ages as a result, casually speaking of millenia-year-old events as though they were recent and having difficulty distinguishing if a memory is his or not.
• Ridiculously Successful Future Self: Greg, apparently already a cult hit singer/songwriter, eventually becomes a composer for the movie adaptation of Passions of Xanxor.
  • Jamie becomes the director of a Gem theatre troupe and features in at least one screen acting role.
• Scary Teeth: Gems, including Steven, are shown to have semi-retractable fangs.
• Secret Art: Bismuth is revealed to the originator and sole keeper of a process which can be used to kill Gems. Not shatter- kill.
• Self-Restraint: In The Professor, Bruce Banner, after weighing his options, turns himself in to the custody of the Gem Empire, hoping that even if they can't treat his "condition", they'll at least be able to humanely contain him.
• Shrouded in Myth: "Asteria Diamond" aka Steven, is this In-Universe, at least to non-Gems, who don't even know his real name. Aliens Steal Cable shows that this is at least partially an Enforced Trope on Steven's part.
• Split-Personality Merge: In The Professor In AD-1-21 Bruce and the Hulk successfully fuse mentally, becoming "Prof Olive" aka Professor Hulk.
• Starfish Language: Gemsong only sounds like human language when the speaker intends it. Its true form is an odd musical cacophony of various sounds with no visible consistency that appears to be entirely unique for each Gem. Which would explain why Gems are so musically talented.
• The Team Normal: The Maheswarans, obviously, but Greg even more so. Greg, who has lived adjacent to Gems for a good portion of his life, is more aware of how Gems may affect humans, and pays more attention to Connie's well being as a result.
• Title Drop: Connie ends her marriage proposal with the words for the tax benefits. Also I love you.
• Truly Single Parent: Steven to Casimir, having made his "son" with nothing more than a cactus and some of his wayward power.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Casimir was relatively innocent before he started to mimic Steven's poor mental health. After living by himself, then being tended to by a more stable/responsible Steven, Casimir loses his violent behavior and grows into a Cheerful Child.
• Walking the Earth: Steven became an intergalactic drifter of the Gem empire for a period of time between the end of SU:F and the present day of For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing.
• Was Once a Man: Lars' status as this is emphasized in Deadeye, which explores his life as a Humanoid Abomination.
• Wham Episode: All of the chapters beginning with “The Message in a Bottle” in 'Kill Me, And Let Me Lie Here In Facets: The Trial Of Loki v The Planet Terra''.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted Trope. Steven's meeting with the SHIELD agents during Diamond Drop discusses the fate of Puente Antiguo, the New Mexico town setting of Thor. Steven had taken notice of the alien presence right away, and Gems were sent to confiscate The Destroyer and repair the town.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Steven wears a dress to his own wedding in For The Tax Benefits, Also I Love You.
• Will They or Won't They?: Considering Thor's ambiguous homosexuality and close bond with Connor, an argument could be made that he's legitimately in love with him. It doesn't help that they've kissed on screen (for non-romantic reasons, but they have kissed) and that Connor seems to be mutually enamored with him, albeit in a more ambiguous way. Most damning of all, there's a line in Prodigal Suns where Thor seems to be about to say he loves Connor before stopping himself.

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