⇨ THE EPILOGUE

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 61
Where: The Carnival
What: After all the rescues team return, it will be matter of tending to the wounded and getting the hell out of dodge. The Ringmaster can handle the fleeing part, but someone will need to look after those in the medical tent. Or, maybe, you just want to show up and ask what the hell happened.
Warnings: Some messed up consequences of faerie fuckery.

IN REPAIR↴ As the minutes tick past, all four rescue groups will eventually return. Everyone in the carnival is encouraged to help out, ensuring that the rescues and victims both are taken care of after the fact. You can tag in here as rescuers taking care of business around the carnival, victims recovering, or other workers checking in to see what's going on. This log is for general aftermath threads, made by anyone.

Comments

[periphrasing]

And now she's straight back to being full of ire. Jasper gets another stupefied glare.

"Oh, wow. Did I consider that?" She laughs humorlessly. "Did I-- Peridot-- a gem absolutely and COMPLETELY loyal to the Diamond Authority at the time, fail to consider for a second that maybe I could be the one who was wrong? That it was FOOLISH or INSANE of me to assume that the Diamonds had made some sort of mistake?" She's practically leering, as much as someone who is the height of a 2nd grader can effectively sneer.

And then all of a sudden: "OF COURSE I CONSIDERED THAT, YOU CLOD!" she howls, flailing her arms up and down in an aggressive, frantic gesture, practically hopping with rage. "I'm a kindergartner with standards, Jasper! Do you honestly think I would have gone on that mission without reading and memorizing absolutely every report that was possibly available about the findings of that colony?! I studied hundreds of years worth of content, and in all of those reports there was not a single mention of anything close to what I discovered!"

She takes a step back, forces herself to take a calming breath. "Besides, that's hardly the point of what I'm trying to tell you anyway."

[stompadour]

That reaction actually makes Jasper lean back in alarm.

"Well --" She scowls. "What was the point, then? That Yellow Diamond made one mistake--?"

[periphrasing]

"Yes!" Peridot says desperately, ears drooping. She's back to sounding tired, and quiet. "But more than that-- It made me realize that Diamonds can be flawed. What's more, they don't always know or do what's best for everybody! And if Yellow Diamond was wrong about that... What else could she be wrong about?"

[stompadour]

"... That's it?" says Jasper. "That's the entire reason you defected?"

[periphrasing]

"It's a pretty big deal, Jasper!" Peridot exclaims. "Literally from the moment we claw our way out of the Earth we're told that the Diamonds are perfect, the Diamonds are infallible and flawless, but they're NOT. And..."

Pausing, she huffs and hunches her shoulders, glancing away again. She knows she's definitely going to lose Jasper's attention on this next part. But she needs to say it.

"I was also happier and more enriched in those few weeks I spent with Steven and his friends than I was during any other of the thousands of years of my life before that. And if Yellow Diamond was wrong about Earth, then who the heck is she to say that it's wrong for me to live to be happy!?"

[stompadour]

Jasper stares at her.

After the war for, Jasper was the only one of the surviving Earth quartzes to be selected by Yellow Diamond for active service, rather than being holed up in Blue Diamond's nostalgia museum with her humans. For a while, Yellow Diamond kept her fairly close, Earth's only success, and while these days she spends more of her time on boring escort missions, in those early centuries after leaving Earth she witnessed a fair few instances of... decisions made by Yellow Diamond that were perhaps motivated more by anger than anything else. This isn't news to her. It's just that, for Jasper, those have never been reasons not to obey. The Diamonds aren't in charge because they're infallible; they're infallible because they're in charge.

That's just how it is.

"Because that's selfish!" she says incredulously. "You picked being happy over doing what you were made for, what Homeworld needs you for?!"

[periphrasing]

That cuts deep, because it's not entirely wrong. Peridot prefers not to use such a negative word to describe it, but on days where her guilt and that deeply ingrained sense of duty get the better of her, she has definitely thought it before.

Hearing it come from Jasper, she feels the need to reclaim in more than ever.

"Yeah? so what if I did!?" she snaps.

[stompadour]

"You..."

She squints in incomprehension.

"I think we're done here. I don't understand you and nothing's going to change that."

[periphrasing]

"What?"

Peridot is bristling again. She was about to call this conversation quits, but having Jasper send her away is just. Unacceptable? She NEEDS to get the last word in.

"Um, no? YOU don't dismiss me. I'm done talking to you! So. GOODBYE!"

And she marches away, and promptly goes to huddle with Lapis. Eat your heart out, Jasper.