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Once it was revealed that Garnet is the fusion between two very committed lovers, most shippers stopped pairing Garnet up with other characters. In her own words, three's a crowd.
A lot of Diamond shippers jumped after it was shown that Yellow, Blue, and Pink's relationship was more sisterly and White is regarded as their mother.
While Pearl definitely seems to love Steven, episodes such as Rose's Scabbard have cast her in a darker light. Does she genuinely care about Steven, or does she only care about him since he's essentially Rose reincarnated? And to branch off the latter, does she secretly hate him and blame him for Rose not being around?
Did Rose Quartz truly return Pearl's affection in a romantic way, or did she simply love her as a friend?
Rose's personality is also subject to a ton of this. Her reasons for giving birth to Steven have also been cast into a negative light as well. Is Steven's birth meant to be a way for Rose to truly go through a human's experience? Or could he simply be a particularly useful pawn of Rose's against the Homeworld thanks to his human heritage making him somewhat resistant to their destabilizer technology? Or maybe even escape her mess? Even Steven himself begins asking these questions. Following Season 5, it's generally accepted that the former option holds true and she had no outside intentions for Steven.
The Reveal of who Rose really is only adds more questions and interpretations. One might even view her as being suicidal.
Peridot's age has also been called into question, with some painting her as being the Gem equivalent of a child thanks to her immature behavior, small size, and lack of awareness as to how her powers work. Others simply think she's as much of an "adult" as the rest of the cast and merely has childish, dorky mannerisms.
One that's been largely Played for Laughs in the fandom, but Steven's obsession with giant women. Was it just Getting Crap Past the Radar by suggesting that he might be a macrophiliac or was it because he subconsciously knows that, as a Diamond, that's what he's supposed to look like?
Anticlimax Boss: Per Word of God, this is partly done intentionally. The whole point of the show is that you don't need to fight to win battles. Just talk and listen.
After getting a ton of hype and buildup due to how big of a threat it was, the Cluster's defeat was quite underwhelming for some: it was bubbled up by Steven, who convinced the millions of Gems the Cluster consisted of to get to know one another and in return, got them to help with the bubbling so they wouldn't take on a form and destroy Earth. The Cluster does return later on however and helps set up the final arc of Season 5.
The ending of Change Your Mind. White Diamond is defeated by Steven essentially pulling a "No U."
Arc Fatigue: An interesting case. Fans can go for months at a time without any new Steven Universe episodes only to get five to seven new ones and go back to waiting. Granted this is Cartoon Network's fault instead of Rebecca Sugar's but it does get on one's nerves to have every StevenBomb hyped as offering answers and then having to wait for the answers to the new questions raised.
For the longest time, it was thought that Pearl was White Diamond's Pearl meaning that White was now being serviced by Pink Diamond's Pearl. While the exact circumstances were different (and terrifying), the fandom called the latter part of the theory.
Pearl has the fans split into two camps: there are those who love her for being a highly flawed, tragic individual who nevertheless is still a very funny and competent character, while others loathe her since she tends to go too far in her lowest moments and comes off as completely unsympathetic. Very rarely will you find anyone who's merely neutral about her.
Speaking of Pearl, there's the matter of her attraction to Rose. Is she a sympathetic Woobie with an adorable crush on her hero, or is she an entitled creep who needs to get over Rose and move on?
There's also Lapis Lazuli. According to who you talk to, she's either a very sympathetic Anti-Villain who didn't mean to cause as much trouble as she did, or an incredibly selfish Jerkass for potentially endangering the world and attempting to drown two innocent children in her attempt to go home.
People either love Onion for his creepy behavior and evil actions, while others loathe him for the same reasons. Depending on your point of view, his genuine desire to make friends with Steven may or may not offset his more selfish actions.
Fans either loathe Lars for being a highly-unlikable Jerkass, or love him for his rare moments of kindness and hints of Hidden Depths relating to his psyche.
After he opened up about his Inferiority Superiority Complex and became captain of the Off-Colors, the divide went even further. Has he completely redeemed himself or does he still deserve scorn?
With The Reveal, Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz. A victim of abuse who carved out the best life she could for herself given the circumstances and the amount of information she had or a Bratty Teenage Daughter who only cared about herself?
Should male Gems be introduced to the show, or not? This is a question that has caused all sorts of fights among the fandom.
Word of God is that is it possible for a Gem to reform themselves into a male appearance and utilize male pronouns. Then again one has to consider that Individuality Is Illegal in Gem society so it's unlikely at best.
Should Jasper be redeemed, or is she better as an evil psycho?
The question of Greg being a better parent to Steven than the Gems is a highly contested topic in the fandom.
Ironically the Grey and Grey Morality is pretty polarizing some people feel that given Homeworld's Nazi inspirations any attempt at G/G Morality would fall flat while others say that this makes it better since it displays even characters like that still have redeemable qualities despite their several atrocities and their opposers are not always saints especially given that the concept has actually been done before with films like Downfall or V for Vendetta. Then of course there are arguments on how well the show handles it. Some people say they do it well while others find the show to hesitant to fully explore this and that it only springs up to deliver pacifist messages or shed light on the Diamonds' motivations.
Revealing Rose and Pink Diamond to be one in the same. Most are fine with it but a minority are vocally against it to the point that there's an AO3 tag dedicated to it.
Critical Research Failure: Rebecca Sugar claims that there are no "filler episodes" because change happens all the time and worldbuilding takes time. And while that is true, the very definition of filler is "an episode that has no effect on the main plot."
Creator's Pet: An interesting main character example. One of the biggest criticisms of the show, even by most fans, is that everything is told from Steve's POV. And while Steven is a delightful character, it stands out as slightly odd is a show that has such a richly developed and critically lauded side-cast.
A prime example would be StevenBomb 3. The main crux of the plot is Pearl abusing Garnet's trust due to her inferiority issues and two patching up and supporting one another but we only have the two properly interacting in the final episode for a single minute while they're away from Steven (but even then he's watching them via security camera). The rest of the time, he's caught in the crossfire.
This has led to issues being created in episodes such as Bismuth where some felt Steven wasn't emotionally invested enough compared to other characters (Pearl and/or Garnet in this case) to be at the crux of it all. Though in fairness, Bismuth had every reason to believe Steven was Rose so she was definitely emotionally invested enough.
While Lapis Lazuli is a very sympathetic character, there are far too many fans who are willing to paint her as a pure-hearted angel who can do no wrong and ignore her more selfish and inexcusable actions such as stealing the world's oceans in order to get back home, almost drowning Steven and Connie when they posed absolutely no threat whatsoever to her, and almost killing Greg when he came to help.
Despite her incredibly unpleasant and violent attitude, there are plenty of fans who are willing to downplay Jasper's less than savory characteristics (Such as being willing to kill Steven before knowing that he had Rose Quartz's powers, her assaulting him while she could have easily hauled him onto the ship unharmed, and forcing Lapis to fuse with her in a manner that's portrayed eerily similar to a domestic violence/rape scenario) in favor of painting Lapis into being far worse than she really is.
Just in general, Lapis and Jasper fans are really, really bad about demonizing the other. Neither are purely bad people, but they still have their faults that both camps are overly fond of exaggerating just how bad the other one is.
Despite Yellow Diamond being established as a cold, ruthless, petty tyrant who doesn't give two shits about the Gems who serve her and was nothing but dismissive and rude towards Peridot, she had legions of fans unironically defending her as a Benevolent Boss even before Steven convinced the Diamonds to pull a Heel Face Turn. Blue Diamond, as A Lighter Shade of Black, was also subject to this despite it being established that she frequently executed people for the barest of reasons.
Greg Universe, the self-proclaimed "Coolest dad this side of the Cosmos". Thanks to his easy-going and friendly nature as well as his willingness to go out of his way to be a great dad to Steven, is it any wonder that he's one of the best-loved characters in the series?
Ruby and Sapphire as well, since they're not just an adorable couple, but also because their existence proved the widely-accepted theory about Garnet being a fusion, and they're an awesome symbol of hope for same sex couples everywhere.
While they don't show up all that often, the Crystal Gems various fusions tend to be pretty popular with fans. You have the stoic yet sweet Opal, rowdy and rambunctious Nicki Minaj-voiced Sugilite, and the elegant yet prideful Sardonyx, who are all very well-received with fans wishing that they'd make more appearances.
Thanks to averting the ever-so-common "All popular teens are assholes" stereotype, Beach City's resident cool kids Jenny, Buck, and Sour Cream are pretty popular among the fanbase.
Lapis Lazuli, whose portrayal as a tragic, homesick Anti-Villain did a lot to endear her to the masses. And Once she joined the team post-Super Watermelon Island, she won over even more fans due to her adorable friendship with Steven and hilarious Deadpan Snarker personality.
Then, there's Peridot. While she had fans from the start, it wasn't until she started showing just how dorky and silly she was that her fanbase really grew. Needless to say, her pulling a Heel Face Turn made everyone very happy.
Jasper has had far less screentime than Lapis and Peridot, and thus hasn't shown much more of her personality beyond "nasty hypocritical brute". And yet, she's just as popular as the other two, mainly because she's so good at being loathsome, and her design (big beefy body, wild mane of hair that reaches the floor, orange skin with camouflage-style stripes) is considered to be among the best shown in the series so far.
Both Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond's Pearls are already gaining traction in regards to popularity despite their rather minor roles: Blue Pearl for her absolutely woobielicious appearance, and Yellow Pearl for being a hilariously bitchy, smug pain in the ass towards Peridot.
Aquamarine is popular not because of any sympathetic backstory or anything but because of how evil she is.
Pink Pearl. Almost certainly due to what a Woobie she is. You really just want to give her the biggest hug you can.
Jasper, whose status as a no-nonsense, vicious Badass and her seriously awesome appearance endeared her to the fanbase overnight.
Same with the violent and out-of-control Sugilite, but that tends to happen when you're a 50-foot tall purple Oni-esque berserker voiced by Nicki Minaj.
Ditto for Jasper, who a lot of fans find attractive because of her shapely hips, beefy body, long wild hair, and hot temper.
White Diamond.
Fan Dumb: Steven Universe is, really ironically given the show's message, infamous for having what is considered to be one of the most hostile and intolerant fan dumbs of all time, thanks to numerous incidents such as when fans chased writer Matt Burnett off of Tumblr over a simple continuity error, threw a stink over the Uncle Grandpa crossover episode and harassed members of the show's staff, posting inflammatory reviews for a real life Keystone Hotel that could have seriously hurt business, and harassing fanartists who draw characters in different ways (Such as Rose Quartz with a more petite frame, Garnet as non-black) so badly that one such artist actually attempted suicide. Also many of these fans hate Undertale simply because an internet rendition of "Stronger Than You" got more views and will often say that Undertale fans "think it's the original" such is SOMEWHAT true but they tend to exaggerate how much. Unfortunately this has led to a large group of people who think the ENTIRE fanbase is made of these people or downright bully fans of the show for it ironic given that the aforementioned and infamous suicide attempt by a member of the fanbase. Thankfully this didn't seem to last very long (two years at the most) and by the time Season 5 aired, it was pretty much ancient history.
It seems a popular belief that Blue Diamond's weapon is a scythe.
While it's clear White is the eldest and Pink is the youngest, it's never stated whether Yellow or Blue came second. The general consensus is that Yellow is the older of the two.
The fandom is split on how the Diamonds came to be. One half thinks that they budded off of White all at once and before any other Gems, the other says that White created each of them individually in a Kindergarten.
Even after Rebecca Sugar confirmed otherwise, the fans will not give up on the belief that Pearl originally belonged to White Diamond.
Friendly Fandoms: While the Steven Universe generally gets along well with everyone, some do stand out.
Transformers owing to the similarities between Gems and Cybertronians and the similarities between Sari Sumdac and Steven. This usually spawns a Fandom Specific Plot of the Homeworld Gems having invaded Cybertron due to wanting to breed Gems made from pure Energon.
Invader Zim due in no small part due to Rebecca Sugar being a fan of the show and even writing Zim fanfiction.
Gravity Falls. Both cartoons began as cheery, Slice of Life, magical mystery shows but steadily got darker and more mature, with a lot of the more outlandish fan theories being made canon.
Voltron: Legendary Defender since the Gems themselves would fit so perfectly in Voltron canon and the Diamonds' quest for resource rich planets to extract the Life Energy out of mirrors Zarkon's mad quest for Quintessence. In the age old argument of Gems vs. Galra, it's generally agreed that the Gems would win.
Weirdly enough, The Legend of Korra since both shows are big on LBGTQ themes.
Undertale, though it was briefly a Fandom Rivalry in 2016 (see Fan Dumb above) since many SU fans felt the Undertale fandom was stealing the best songs and remixing them to fit in the Undertale-verse.
Doctor Who since many find similarities between Pearl and the Doctor in moving on from wartime experiences and their habit of using a Replacement Goldfish to deal with a departed lover.
Growing the Beard: Mirror Gem/Ocean Gem, the mid-season finale of Season 1. Everything before was Slice of LifeWorld Building and the two-parter introduced very serious stakes. Per Word of God, this is where the story properly starts with everything before it just being getting the World Building out of the way.
Harsher in Hindsight: In Change Your Mind, White Diamond pulls out Steven's gem to try and get Pink Diamond back. Pearl came this close to doing the exact same thing in Three Gems and a Baby. Doubly so if you buy into the theory that Pearl originally belonged to White Diamond.
In the Momswap AUs, essentially Mirror Universe fics, it was common to find Rose Quartz standing in for Pink Diamond. And then A Single Pale Rose came along.
After Blue Diamond was introduced, many fan fics were written where she was Steven's mother. Then Season 5 showed that Steven is Pink Diamond's son.
Related to the above, Steven's Fusion Dance with himself in Change Your Mind seems to confirm that Garnet's theory in Three Gems and a Baby was right. Steven is a fusion.
Lapis Lazuli was trapped in a mirror for thousands of years and when freed she tries very hard to get back home via stealing the world ocean and tries to murder Connie and Steven for getting in her way and was the shows first arc villain. After that she became more of an Iron Woobie (though she can still be a bit of a jerk sometimes so she still has shades of this trope).
Japser is a racist sadistic abusive Jerkass and she's also a broken down soldier who lost the only thing in her life that brought comfort and tries desperately to conquer what she believes to be her inner demons.
Garnet felt that Pearl crossed it in Cry For Help by secretly repairing a communications hub Peridot was using to broadcast messages to the Homeworld so she could trick Garnet into fusing with her for a quick power trip. While she DID end up forgiving Pearl, it took a good long while for it to happen.
White Diamond arguably crosses it in Change Your Mind where, in her quest to have Pink Diamond return, she literally pulls out Steven's gem.
Jasper's introduction in The Return is meant to set her up as a brutal, sadistic, intimidating thug, though her intimidation factor takes a few blows thanks to the fact that in several awkwardly-drawn shots, her face ends up looking almost exactly like Buzz Lightyear's due to her enormous chin. Thankfully, this problem has been rectified in later episodes.
In Sworn to the Sword, Pearl's over the top outburst of "WHY WON'T YOU JUST LET ME DO THIS FOR YOU, ROSE?!" tends to come off as forced and wangsty for some, thanks to the line's rather unsubtle, ham-fisted delivery. What doesn't help is the fact that it's treated like some sort of Wham Line when past episodes have already explored Pearl's attachment issues with Rose in a far better manner.
Rose's long white dress usually isn't an issue and in fact helps establish her loving nature... but her wearing it while fighting in flashbacks can come off as unintentionally funny. Not helped by how everything else is played seriously in the flashbacks.
Lapis has a lot of these, particularly her crushing Peridot's tape recorder (something that ironically was meant to show how forgiveness takes time and old grudges can't just be washed away like that) or her abandoning Peridot and Pumpkin.
Jasper. Just... everything about her, special mention to abusing Corrupted Gems or her willingness to crush Amythest's defenceless gemstone.
The infamous incident where fans of the show bullied a fanartist to the point of a suicide attempt over "racist" and "fatphobic" fanart. While the controversy died down, a lot of potential fans were scared away from the show due to what they saw as an incredibly toxic fanbase.
Jamie got a lukewarm reception in Love Letters due to his creepy infatuation with Garnet. Come Historical Fiction and his shift away from this and his Large Ham moments have endeared him to many.
As said below, Lars by the start of Season 5. Increased by Lars of the Stars.
Pearl owing to her Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies and how cold she was towards Steven in early episodes.
Lapis Lazuli has her flaws but a good part of the fanbase paints here as JerkassKarma Houdini while making Jasper the victim. To be fair, neither Jasper or Lapis were exactly moral victors in their relationship but this can often reach ridiculous levels.
Every Dark Secret garners more and more hate for Rose Quartz. When it was revealed that she was Pink Diamond, even more instances of this popped up. And that's not even getting into what happened when Spinel was introduced. Fans continue to label her as the worst of the Diamonds despite the fact that, for all her mistakes and misdeeds, she never shattered anyone or killed a planet.
Even the most controversial characters in this show tend to have defenders and fans, yet there are still a few who are potent hate-magnets. One such character is Ronaldo, who is widely detested for being a one-dimensional character with little depth aside from being a loony conspiracy theorist whose antics are far more cringeworthy and annoying rather than amusing. Made even worse when Season 3 showed that he could have been Rescued From the Scrappy Heap before Rocknaldo.
To a lesser extent, there's also Lars, mainly because he's an unlikable asshole who never really develops as a character despite going through events that should mellow him out or cause some kind of character development.
After the Wanted Arc, the debate is on about whether Lars has ditched this status or not.
Seasonal Rot: Even though it saw the defeat of the Cluster and name dropped Pink Diamond, Season 3 was generally considered a step down from Season 2. Not only was Peridot Demoted to Extra, but the Cluster was an Anticlimax Boss, Jasper's motivations were too drawn out for some, and there was a higher than normal amount of Slice of Life episodes. From Bismuth onward, the season is considered to pick up steam but it wasn't until Steven's Dream in Season 4 that many felt the show had gotten back on track.
Spiritually Reconstructed Character: Steven is this to Frisk from Undertale. Much like Frisk, Steven is a pacifist who believes in redeeming his enemies and reaching a peaceful resolution. Unlike Frisk, he is able to accept that sometimes Violence is the Only Option without falling into darkness.
A-List guest stars are fun but they're also expensive. For cost reasons we've yet to see a proper return from Sugilite (voiced by Nicki Minaj).
Malachite. Since she was Too Powerful to Live (Though in reality it was because the crewniverse having no idea what to do with Lapis due to having no idea what to do after Ocean Gem since they thought that was the show's finale), she only got one real appearance after her cameo in Chille Tid and it had to be when she was forcibly defused.
Pink Diamond. As Change Your Mind confirms, "She's GO-O-O-O-NE!!!!!" yet nearly everyone would have liked to see her come back and interact with the cast. Half so they can clap at how Adorkable she is and give her family closure, the other so they can watch everyone vilify her for her mistakes.
Revealing her to be Rose Quartz inspired similar feelings for some, feeling that the show had opted out of telling some rather interesting stories.
Gem presence on Earth resulted in a radically different history and geography. For instance, Florida doesn't exist, there's a big part of Russia that's missing, and Australia is cut up. Here's a look see. Historically, there's no Christmas or Halloween, US currency is different, and Canada's flag is green instead of red. Despite all this, it's not hugely touched upon and the average fan might just chalk it up to the artstyle. Check out the wiki page on Earth for all the details.
The Gems are established to be an intergalactic empire who frequently invade and conquer worlds. Many would have enjoyed seeing other aliens races waging wars against the Gems. Not surprising then that a lot of Crossover fanfictions usually have this as a backstory or part of their plot. Even when the Crystal Gems had the Roaming Eye, some were eager to see Peridot taking Steven to other Gem colonies so they could try and convince those Gems to rebel.
It's very clear that Pearl has a lot of issues, some of which stem from grief, others from homesickness, and others still from what almost comes off as separation anxiety. But thanks to her behavior in episodes such as Sworn to the Sword, Rose's Scabbard, and Space Race where she does downright horrible things in regards to her angst over Rose, she can come off as less sympathetic and more like a clingy basket case who shouldn't be left around children. Mind you though, she later goes through some astonishing Character Development and kicks these attitudes like a bad head cold.
In Too Far, we're supposed to feel bad for Amethyst when Peridot makes unintentionally mean-spirited comments towards her defects that came from staying underground too long before being "born", which really, really hit a raw nerve with her. The problem is however, that Amethyst had been previously laughing hysterically while Peridot roasted her friends and mocked things that they took quite personally, and in fact encouraged her to do so, and it doesn't help that due to her lack of social skills, Peridot legitimately had no clue that she was being mean and only went as far as she did due to Amethyst's encouragement. So for many, Amethyst came off less as a victim of bad behaviour, and more of a thin-skinned bully who can dish it out, but can't take it. To be fair though, Peridot's jokes about the others were less personal.
BOTH Steven and Connie get this in the second arc of Season 5 though they also zig-zag a bit.
On Connie's side, she's angry at Steven for sacrificing himself without consulting her when they'd previously acted as partners. But then she blows him off for days and completely ignores any of his attempts to talk to her and patch things up making her seem like something of a hypocrite. And she took Lion.
Steven himself also counts. While one can make a case that he's desperate for a slice of normality after what he just went through on Homeworld, his focus is almost entirely on invoking Status Quo Is God and he doesn't seem that concerned for Lars who is still, as far as he knows, trapped on the capital planet of racist, brutal, galaxy spanning empire.
Mayor Dewey. When we meet him, he's a well meaning but flawed mayor who seems somewhat out of his depth running a town with magic space rocks and alien creatures. Then we got Dewey Wins which painted him as a Corrupt Politician whose only mayor because of his ego and is blatantly unqualified to be a leader. To be fair, the episode takes time to highlight that Dewey is being blamed for issues he couldn't have predicted or done anything about (namely Homeworld Gems abducting people) but he's so unsympathetic to the point that he's, at best, indifferent about Lars being lost in space to the faces of his parents and girlfriend. Safe to say not many shared Steven's disappointment in him losing the mayoral election.
Unfortunate Implications: The show clearly has progressive meanings and social justice is a huge element of it but it can unintentional can veer into issues with race.
Garnet and Amethyst's fusion, Sugilite, visually resembles a black woman and is portrayed as overtly barbaric and violent. Sardonyx, Pearl and Garnet's fusion, is portrayed as having a British (and clearly white) accent while being very calm and collected and even calls Sardonyx inferior. Ouch.
The biggest is probably Bismuth. Bismuth is shown to be perfectly willing to indulge in savage, bordering on sadistic, behaviour to overthrow her oppressors before a white male tells her she's going too far and stops her. Double ouch.
What an Idiot!: Steven in Back to the Moon where he opens the base airlock to defeat the Ruby fusion. Doubly so since Sardonyx could have easily won the fight without the Ruby being immobilized.
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