golvio:

avas-poltergeist: This is a funny scenario till you realize that Garnet previously had grabbed her from behind and violently squished her to death. Also, notice how her flinch response involves putting her hand protectively over her Gem. This isn’t the first time Peridot has shown that she has issues with being touched without warning. I think something really, really bad happened to her back on Homeworld to make her wary of physical contact. And yet, the Crystal Gems, who are so comfortable with each other that they’ve developed a more touchy-feely style of interaction, don’t really notice this or respect those boundaries. They’re assuming that Peridot feels the same way about being touched despite the increasingly obvious signals that she really, really doesn’t.



To just kinda jump in here and throw out my own two cents: Jasper, who seems to have a chronic problem respecting other people’s boundaries? Does not touch Peridot. Not once. Two times she gets close (first in The Return leaning towards her to give an order; the second time in Jailbreak which is pretty meaningful to me where she deliberately points at Peridot but stops before touching her)

With literally everyone else Jasper is all over them, whether she’s trying to push Lapis around, or fighting Garnet or Steven. So this suggests that whatever issue Peridot’s got, whatever her history- this is a big deal. And Jasper does not want to touch her without her okay.



On top of the context OP brought to the table with Garnet having poofed Peridot by grabbing her from behind, we’ve seen before that when Peridot flinches like this, she’s generally pretty upset. And when the Crystal Gems laugh it off in this case, we’re given a reaction shot of Peridot who shrinks in on herself and looks miserable.

I’m all for talking about how Peridot’s comments are insensitive and quite hurtful but being totally honest I’m really not comfortable with how the Crystal Gems have been treating her. All of the onus to connect with the Crystal Gems is put on Peridot, she’s expected to somehow know what they’re standing for through vague platitudes and her repeated requests for more clarification (“I want to understand” “What did I say?”) are pointedly ignored. But they all jump in on chewing her out when she steps out of line, as if she’s not metaphorically fumbling in a dark room where she can’t see any of the lines unless she steps on one and is physically threatened for her trouble.



And now it seems to her that no matter how well she gets along with them and how much she helped them, as soon as she says something they don’t like she’s right back to square one. Even though she’s completely stopped attacking them and has been cooperating with only a few hitches (Back To The Barn among them) and was willing to spend a whole day doing nothing but putting her nose to the grind for their project, they’re still threatening her, grabbing her, breaking things she’s using… the Crystal Gems’ treatment of her really hasn’t improved much from when they were openly enemies. Even when things are “good” in the scene above they laugh at her distress and make no effort to understand, and Steven, who seems to try and reassure her by hugging her afterwards, still doesn’t call out the Crystal Gems.

