ankle-beez:

everyone who said rebecca and the crew would redeem the diamonds owes me ten dollars each

Something worth noticing is that, by the end of Change Your Mind, even after everything that’s happened, Steven and the Diamonds aren’t buddy buddy with each other. But they’re not the enemies they were before either.

I think this is more of a reconciliation than an actual redemption. It’s them making peace after thousands of years of silence and hurt feelings and resentment.

The Diamonds aren’t exactly good guys by the end of the episode. They’ve still got a long way to go before that happens, if it even happens at all. But the key difference here is that Steven helped them realize that there needs to be a change in their relationship. They need to talk, and they realized that bottling all their anger up because of the unfair standards set by White was not healthy.

White realized that all the “imperfections” she used to shame and corrupt Gems over was wrong.

Now you might be thinking “hey that sounds like a redemption”, but to me it isn’t. Realizing the error of their ways doesnt automatically equal a redemption to me.

Why? Because Steven himself is okay with the idea of not being fully connected with the diamonds like he is with the CG’s. Like he sang at the end of the episode:

I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me

I don’t need you to love me, I love me

But I want you to know you could know me

If you change your miiiiiiiind

He doesnt care if they respect and love him or not, he’s made peace with that. But he does want them to get to know him. He wants them to come to a further understanding.

And that, to me, is better than a full redemption.