Spinel

Spinel is the main antagonist of Qftim: a new era and a supporting character in Qftim: a new era continues.
She was created 6,000 years prior to the events of the the new era fic to comfort the lonely Pink Diamond, who had lost her first Pearl to White Diamond. The two would play in Pink's garden until Pink was finally given a colony. At this point, Pink outgrew Spinel and abandoned her under the guise of playing a game by having Spinel stand alone for thousands of years while Pink never returned.
After discovering this through Alice and Peridot’s message to the universe, she went to Earth and attempted to destroy all organic life forms on the planet as an act of revenge.
After making amends with Alice and the other Questers, she agrees to stay in earth and live semi normally. Now reformed and free, she is still living on earth and overcoming her trauma with Zaza, and Alice’s help, she’s living a less destructive and aggressive life.
It’s implied many times that Spinel has some what of a crush on Zaza, shown as she follows him around more than Alice, and gets flushed whenever Zaza shows any type of affection towards her. It is unknown if Zaza likes her back as he seems oblivious to her ongoing affection.
== Personality ==
Spinel originally had a goofy, fun-loving personality. Acting somewhat naive and oblivious to others, she was to be Pink Diamond and at times even Green Diamond’s best friend to the point of being clingy and ingenuine to her feelings.
In stark contrast, upon being abandoned and later learning that both Diamonds are gone with Alice and Peridot taking their place and making new friends, Spinel is bitter and full of resentment towards everything connected with Pink Diamond specifically.
Due to her abandonment, Spinel is unhinged, prone to spontaneous laughter, and often has extreme outbursts when reminded even indirectly that Pink Diamond forgot her. This can be seen when her face contorts with fury after Alice asked Pearl who she was.
Despite her anger and irrationality, Spinel is somewhat trusting, as she is willing to go along with Alice and Zaza to stop her injector. That is until she sees the rejuvenator and believes they wanted to reset her. Fearful of being betrayed for a second time, Spinel immediately relapses into insanity and decides that she hates them both, before launching a preemptive attack on them.
Spinel was fueled by her vendetta and willing to eliminate anyone who gets in her way. This can be seen when she resets Pearl, Garnet, Amber, and Peridot immediately after they just met, as she feels that they got between her and Pink. She may have had every intention of erasing Pink's "brand new friends" in a misplaced rage. She displays deeper emotions, like when she shows remorse after Alice and Zaza save her. She breaks down and tearfully asks herself why she wants to hurt them and others. Spinel is also mature enough to understand she will have difficulty creating friendships after what Pink Diamond put her through, but she agrees to Alice and Zaza that she is willing to start over with other gems and earthlings.
Though silly and goofy in her original form, she is shown to be extremely intelligent and cunning in her altered state, originally defeating the Questers easily, as well as understanding how her injector works by using it to slowly kill Alice’s organic form after using her rejuvenator to reset her gem, showing a great tactical knowledge.
After a solid month of being redeemed, Spinel returns to her goofy, fun-loving personality. She is still visibly embarrassed by her past mistakes, and still clearly has abandonment issues, as she follows Zaza and Alice wherever they go, she is slowly healing, however. After two months, she is noticeably a little less clingy, as she allows White Diamond and Alice to speak privately.
== Physical appearance ==
Spinel has a pink complexion, she has magenta and cyan eyes, a big round clown nose, and cerise hair that is styled into a pair of poofy pigtails. She also has three black lines underneath both of her eyes reminiscent of running mascara, two upside down hearts lie on her cheeks as well. Clown makeup can be seen on spinels face, blue makeup is underneath her magenta eye, and magenta makeup is underneath her blue eye. Her clothing consists of a plum-colored top; that has a hole in the middle exposing her gem, a clown like ruffle lies around her neck, bells accompany the ruffle and so do yellow stripes, puffy pointed stripped pink sleeves, puffy stripped rose shorts, white wrist-length gloves that seemed to be ripped, mitched matched socks stockings, white spikey ruffles on her pants, and sleeves, and a pair of rose flat pointy shoes with puffy balls at the end. Her top and pants split, creating a gap exposing her stomach.
Her gemstone is located on the center of her chest, cut in the shape of an upside-down heart with lots of facets and detail.
When reset to her original self with her own rejuvenator, Spinel's overall design is shorter and rounded in contrast to her current taller and pointier design. 
She had the same colored eyes and her hair is neatly tucked into a jester cap, the same cap can be found on her current form, just ripped to pieces and exposing her pigtails. Her top was white with more rounded pink stripped sleeves and her shoes become more roundy with the same white balls at the end. She has bright mitched matched socks. She also has a magenta waist band, that covers her stomach, this band isn’t present in her current design. Spinel's previous color palette is also brighter than her current one which uses darker tones. Overall, her appearance was similar to that of a 1930s rubber hose cartoon character.
== History ==
6,000 Years Ago
Spinel was created for Pink Diamond thousands of years ago to act like her new best friend (after losing her first Pearl), often playing games with her and entertaining her. However, over time, Pink began to see Spinel as inconsiderately naive and slowly outgrew her, becoming visibly less and less enthusiastic about constantly playing with her. When Pink was finally given her colony, Earth, she abandoned Spinel at the garden built for them, saying that they were going to play a new game where Spinel had to stand perfectly still. Spinel was eager to play the game and stood motionless for 6,000 years while waiting for Pink's return.
Qftim: a new era
After 16,000 years of waiting Spinel finally had gotten news on what became of her Diamond. She learns that Pink Diamond technically no longer exists and had given up her physical form to give birth to her half-Demon, half-Angel daughter, Alice. After learning this and realizing the fact that her Diamond abandoned her, she changed her appearance and swore vengeance on Alice and Pink's "other friends" (the other Questers)
Later, on the day of Alice and Peridot’s final homeworld broadcast before returning to Earth, Spinel arrives in Inkwell isle on a massive customized injector which begins filling the planet with poison. Spinel begins to fight against Garnet, Amber, Pearl, and Peridot with her stretching ability and chaotic methods of movement. Allowing her to easily defeat them with her Gem Rejuvenator. Furious, Alice manages to grab hold of her weapon and poof Spinel with it as well.
After the battle, Alice brings the poofed gems (including Spinel) to the Mansion where she learns after the Gems reform, they have lost their memories and she lost access to the majority of her abilities. Not too long after this revelation Spinel reforms as well and acts oddly friendly and playful towards Alice, calling her their best friend.
Throughout the fic, Spinel follows either Alice or Zaza everywhere they go and "helps" them get their friends' memories back. While doing so, she also tries to play with Alice but never gets the chance to, due to her being too focused on helping her friends. After helping Amber, Alice and the other remaining Questers learn that the only one who can stop Spinel's injector is Spinel herself, but in order to do that they need her to remember who she is and since Pearl and Peridot are the only one who seems to know her, the group decides to help them next.
Spinel helps Zaza get Peridots memory back in Willows garden. She gets Zaza to make Peridot laugh to an extent. They both stared at one another for a moment, almost leaning into what was assumed to be a kiss, but Peridot reformed into her current self and forgot.
That evening, Spinel joins Alice and the other Questers at the Abandoned Warehouse where they try to get Pearl to regain her memories by listening to a song written by Winter and Rose called "Disobedient". When that didn't work, Alice figures out that the only way Pearl would be able to think for herself, as well as regain her memories is if her owner "disappeared", just like Rose Quartz did. To do that Alice fuses with her guardian, Joshua (who Pearl thought was her owner) and forms a new fusion named Jalice. Jalice then sings a song named "Independent Together" that helps Pearl remember who she is and later duets with them as Opal.
Although the song had succeeded in helping Pearl, it causes Spinel to see that Alice cares more for the others than her. Upset, she flees to Pink Diamond's Garden, both Zaza and Alice follow her. There, she tells Alice and Zaza the story of her past as well as her abandonment through "Drift Away", causing her to return to her former self. Zaza, feeling bad for Spinel, befriends her and brings her back to the Gems and Bendy, who, after initially being wary, agree to let Spinel help them in deactivating the injector.
Upon deactivating it Spinel is again hurt by Alice’s reaction. She then claims that she only needed her for the injector, and did not want to be her friend and that she would just get rid of her, the source of her problems. Thinking she will betray her just as her mother did, she pushes Alice, making her drop the rejuvenator. Freaking out in anger and betrayal, paranoid that Alice would set her back to default mode, she resorts to her old behavior and attacks Alice, taking Garnet as a hostage to goad her into fighting back. This, however, causes Garnet to regain her memories as well. After being beaten by the Questers, Spinel then retreats to the top of the injector and is soon followed by Alice, who is accompanied by Zaza, they both once more try to reason with her. This further infuriates her, causing them to fight, until it becomes apparent she has lost her motivation to destroy them and regrets her actions up until that point. Alice, now fully reunited with her powers, comforts her and claims she can start fresh with new people to be her friends. The injector then explodes due to the battle, and Alice saves both Spinel and Zaza by entrapping them in her bubble alongside her. Alice then attempts to comfort her again, as Spinel decides she has created too much damage and must leave. The Diamonds then arrive, ready to confront Alice about where they will live and Zaza introduces Spinel to them. 
After the Diamonds reunite with Spinel and be on their way, Zaza promises to show her around and make her feel more comfortable. Spinel visibly smiles, happy to be loved again. 
In some chapters, it is mentioned that Spinel has changed her mind and began living with the diamonds and other gems on Homeworld, though, she does very often visit earth to see Zaza and Alice, because she’s still a bit clingy.
In a sidestory named "Healing", Spinel tries to hide the fact that she is participating in self harm by cracking her own gem with a large kitchen knife. Zaza hears cracking and scraping noises from his room and decides to go investigate. He discovers Spinel harming, or attempting to shatter herself, he is the one to stop her and heal her gem. It is unknown if she still participates in this act, as Zaza is helping her get better. As shows, in other chapters, Zaza sees that Spinel has brought her self into Blocki’s therapy sessions for gems. This is a sign of her moving on from the trauma Pink Diamond caused, and she took Zaza’s affection to heart.
In "Homeworld Bound" Spinel visits the diamonds, unaware that Alice and Zaza and Peridot will arrive soon to greet her. As soon as Spinel sees Zaza, she greets him with a large smooch (which he isn't exactly happy about) and they talk about how they have been. When Peri reveals Alice’s newfound problems to her, such as growing in size, she takes them to Yellow Diamond and Red Diamond to fix her physical form. Then to Red, then Orange, then Purple and Blue. When nothing works with the other Diamonds, they send them along with Spinel to White Diamond as it's seen as a "matter of self-worth". Spinel tells Alice that White Diamond's newfound powers work in reverse, allowing common-folk Gems to project themselves and control White rather than her controlling them. White shows Alice, Peridot and Zaza this by asking Spinel if she wants to demonstrate (to which she very happily agrees) and controls White. While controlling White, White Diamond turns the same shades of pink as Spinel and follows Spinel's movements like a puppet as well as says what she says. Spinel does some dancing before White regains control. White then tells Spinel, Peri and Zaza to leave them alone for a second, and she obliges and leaves with a tiny peek inside before the doors close.
After Alice has an unintentional outburst, she runs away, causing Spinel, Peri and Zaza to follow after her. Spinel asks her where she is going. Alice asks her how she dealt with her feelings (regarding Pink) Spinel seemed to have a clear answer as her reassurance helped Alice calm down, but before she could actually finish the diamonds caught up to them and Alice ran away. 
When Alice becomes corrupted, Spinel seems to carry most of that guilt as she blames herself for adding more trauma onto Alice with her arrival in chapter “Happier without”. After Alice uncorrupts , a week passes and Spinel seemed to help her with her problems, giving her genuine advice and setting her goofy mood to the side. This seems to help Alice, before she goes to see an actual licensed therapist. 
After a few more weeks pass, Alice decides she wants to move on with her life, find herself, she expresses how she already experienced her gem half, and it’s time to experience her organic half by living normally as an adult on her own, Peridot accompanies Alice, to which they both set off to find themselves. Zaza stays in inkwell, to be in Alice's place. Spinel and Zaza both end up getting together with Peridot before she leaves. confirming the three to be in a poly relationship. Spinel and Zaza (along with the other questers) wave Alice and Peridot away, and the two gems leave inkwell. 
== Relationships ==
== Abilities ==
WIP
== Gallery ==
File:Past Spinel design 2019.png|final reset spinel design by sona (2020)
File:Spinel design 2019.png|final Spinel design by sona (2020)
File:Spinel concept art.png|Spinel (and reset spinel) concept art by sona (2023)
File:Zaza and Spinel.png|Zaza and Spinel interaction concept art by sona (2023)
File:Spinel final concepts.png|Final Spinel concept art by sona (2023)
File:Spinel (fight aftermath) visual concept art.png|Aftermath of “change” fight scene visual concept art by sona (2023)
File:Spinel (fight aftermath) visual concept art2.jpeg|Aftermath of “change” fight scene visual concept art 2 by sona (2023)
File:DONT REDEEM THE CARD 7192.jpeg|By Sona (2023)
File:Father’s Day 2023 artwork by sona 20230618165719.png|Spinel and SU!Spinel in 2023 Father’s Day artwork by Sona (2023)
== Trivia ==
* Spinel uses They/She pronouns
*Spinel does not like Sarah, she’s jealous of them. 
Category:Characters
Category:Gems
Category:Antagonists
Category:Homeworld gems
Category:Spinels