Spink

SPOILER WARNING! This article contains spoilers from Season 5 & the Movie

Spink
GENERAL
Steven Universe
Character	Spinel
Character	Pink Diamond
Canonical?	Canon
Status of Relationship	Former Best Friends/Former Owner and Playmate; Pink Diamond is dead
IN FANDOM
Type (?)	Friend
Also Known As	Spink Diamond, Pinkinel

1

Spink is the friendship between Spinel and Pink Diamond from the Steven Universe fandom.

Canon

In the movie, after two years of peace, a giant Injector filled with a mysterious pink substance suddenly fell from the sky. On top of it was a mysterious pink Gem, who was looking for Steven Universe. After he confirms his identity, she blew into a horn made from her fingers, causing the Injector to pump the liquid straight into the planet's surface. She takes a look at the Crystal Gems and recognizes Amethyst and Garnet from description, but addresses Pearl as "Pink Diamond's Pearl" and angrily gritting her teeth when saying that Pink took Pearl with her. Pearl recognizes her, being in disbelief over someone from her past tracking them down, Steven tries to settle the situation, but the Gem can't be reasoned with, sarcastically saying she "loves" the part of Steven's story about Pink Diamond living on a "nowhere planet" with a bunch of nobodies when starting to attack them. While she's attacking them, she addresses them as Pink's "Other Friends" in song, while asking if Pink ever mentioned her, not expecting them to answer as she's throwing them around. But when Steven asks Pearl who she is, the Gem only gets more offended that Steven wouldn't acknowledge her as the loser of the game he didn't even know about, pulling out a weapon that Steven had never seen before and poofing all three of the Crystal Gems with it. When Steven doesn't poof, the Gem mocks him that her injector will deal with his human half, but Steven steals the weapon from her and poofs her as well.

Realizing that he can't bubble her for some reason, he resorts to taking all five of the gemstones lying around home. To his horror, however, the Gems regenerate their bodies, but their identities were erased and they can't remember anything that defined them for millenia. The pink heart Gem however regenerates believing herself to be Steven's best friend, looking far less threatening as well. Through the resetted Pearl, Steven finds out that the pink Gem's name is Spinel and that she was specifically designed to serve as a source of entertainment for the Gem she was made for. Steven acts dismissive of Spinel when he finds out that she can't remember the Injector, how to turn it off or how to bring his friends back to normal, but he does get the idea of reliving the experiences they had possibly being the things that could bring them back. Successfully managing to do so for Amethyst and Pearl, Steven neglects to take Spinel with him while jogging Pearl's memory, causing her to run away crying. When Steven notices that Spinel ran away, Pearl asks him if he's okay. Steven worries more about Spinel than he does about himself, asking Pearl what she knows about Spinel. Pearl tells him that Spinel was Pink Diamond's little playmate and that they spend ages playing in Pink Diamond's garden. Steven didn't even know that his mother had a garden, but Pearl can't tell him why she held such a grudge against them, not having seen her for 6000 years.

Steven finds Spinel in his observatory, sitting on the warp pad and sobbing about suddenly having a rush of sadness "flooding back". When Steven tells her that her being sad is good as they need her to remember how to turn the Injector off, he mentions the garden and if she remembers. Spinel does have happy memories of it, but her smile quickly disappears when she thinks about it. In a fit of sorrow, Spinel activates the warp pad with both of them on it, Steven panics and asks her where they are going, she tells him "to the place that she never left". In the garden, Spinel continues to remember that it was built just for her and Pink to play in, it hadn't been looked after in millenia. She remembers times when she cheered Pink up after she always looked sad on Homeworld, they would play for hours and Spinel had fun every day, but then assumes that Pink did not. Steven asks her what happened between them, to which Spinel remembers that Pink wanted a colony as a sign of her authority, the other Diamonds eventually gave her the Earth to hollow out and create new Gems on, Spinel wanted to go to the Earth with her, excited to play with her on it. Spinel didn't notice how irritated Pink was when she continued to play around when she was discussing the matter with the other Diamonds. When Steven asked her why she didn't just go with Pink, Spinel tells him through song that she was following Pink, but she decided to play a "game" with her: Standing very still in the garden until she comes back. There Spinel waited for thousands of years, never hearing anything from Pink Diamond during that time, to the point where Spinel's started to think that she was playing the game wrong. It is only that day that Spinel found out that Pink Diamond had ceased to exist sixteen years ago, survived by her son Steven and the new friends she had made on Earth. The grief Spinel felt when she realized that she was waiting ages for someone who stopped caring about her caused her to reform with her threatening appearance seen at the start of the movie. Steven already had a low opinion on his mother, only giving him more reasons to sympathize with Spinel. Spinel initially assumes that he is mocking her, but Steven clarifies that he thinks she deserves a better friend. After Spinel blows off steam, she starts to listen to Steven telling her that someday, she will find someone who genuinely wants to spend time with her. Spinel mistakenly assumes that Steven must be that someone.

However, when it comes to a misunderstanding between them as Steven merely wanted her to deactivate the Injector, Spinel thought that he was going to reset her again or worse, bubble her to spend an eternity alone again. After another fight, Steven fails to get through to her as she punches him on top of the Injector. But just as Spinel wants to let Steven have it for thinking he can change how she feels and how much better he had it than her, she realizes that Steven actually cared about her and regrets wanting to hurt him. Just as Steven tried talking to her again, the Injector beneath them started to explode from pressure, but Steven puts a bubble shield around both of them, saving Spinel's life.

But just as Steven realizes that all damage Spinel did was reversable, Spinel had given up on wanting to be his friend, thinking she had hurt him too much. On cue, the remaining Diamonds come back to Earth, with Spinel hiding from them at first. The Diamonds have decided that life on Homeworld got boring without Steven and want to live on Earth with him. Steven is not thrilled, but asks them if they remember Spinel. Steven asks her if she had ever met the Diamonds, Spinel said she did but she looked like her cute self back then, doubting if the Diamonds would like her the way she is now. When Steven pulls her into their view, they recognize her as Pink Diamond's playmate, with Blue calling her one of her "lost treasures". Steven tells them that Pink had forgotten about her and left her in her garden for thousands of years, causing the Diamonds to sympathize with her. Yellow actually laughs at her antics, with Blue directly comparing her to how Pink used to be. The three Diamonds agree to take Spinel with them as a replacement for both Pink and Steven, with Spinel accepting almost immediately, saying the Diamonds remind her of Pink as well.

Fanon

Spink is rarely shipped romantically, largely because many fans consider Pink's treatment of Spinel to be unacceptable. However, quite a few fix-fics have been written surrounding the loose thread of why Pink never bothered to return to save Spinel, since it clashes with her later philosophy that every Gem has value. Angst fics about Pink considering it, but realizing how saving Spinel could alert the Diamonds to the Earth portray Pink in a sympathetic light. AUs about Rose saving Spinel often have another Crystal Gem be abandoned in her place, to serve as the antagonist of the movie storyline instead. Some stories even have Rose come back to tell Spinel that she shattered Pink Diamond, though how Spinel reacts to the news tends to vary.

Fandom

FAN FICTION

Pink & Spinel tag on AO3