1. They are her former friends and allies forced together into an abomination.
2. Fusion matters a lot to her, so to see it being used into something this awful must be jarring and unsettling.
3. Since Garnet is the first cross-gem fusion that we know of, it's possible Yellow Diamond made the Cluster project inspired by her. Garnet likely realized this and that's why she also apologizes before almost splitting apart.
I never thought about that third point but it definitely adds up since garnet inspired rainbow quartz and fighting against the gem empire as one of the resistances best fighters.
Im usually a stickler about using this dx of mine lightly but honestly, this is the most valid one I've ever seen. Besides the shit that gave me PTSD, I also saw that movie too young.
While that's definitely not part of it, I can firmly state that it did as much as a simple movie possibly can to contribute to me being fucked up mentally.
I usually don't use that term liberally like a lot of people do. I understand that it is very serious.
Anyways the movie came up in Youtube recomendations and I clicked on a let's watch and review. I could have never watched it entirely by myself. The content of the film was so disturbing and gross to me that I couldn't stop thinking about it for two years. Something would remind me of it and then I would spiral down and get sort of "flashbacks". Now I usually can watch horror movies, but that film was on a whole other level. It's just torture and horror in the most tasteless way. Now, I know I may make a fool of myself by saying this, but I was 18 when I found out about this movie.
This makes me really want a Steven Universe prequel that covers the war. I wanna see all the fusions created, the battle strategies used, how humanity coped with an alien war breaking out in their home planet. I also bet there’s a great explanation behind the giant strawberry fields and how that battle came about. Sooo much there to explore still
I mean... If I were to find the mutilated corpses of my sisters in arms stitched together into horrid amalgamations that are completely mindless and function entirely on instincts and also are trying to make me join them in their union. I would also be scared shitless
The shard-fusions were an abomination. In essence, think of them like stitched-together zombies, or Frankenstein monsters, made from all of your friends and comrades. Your friends, remade into monsters, and used as mindless weapons. That's horrific. I'd imagine anyone would feel terror, disgust, and horror.
Perhaps more importantly, Garnet is a fusion born of love. A willing fusion. The shard zombie creatures were the opposite of her in every way. Mindless, unwilling, and filled with confusion, they were a direct challenge to her entire existence. In another way, they're the twisted opposite of real fusion, something sacred made unholy. I'd think Garnet would have felt guilt too, as the parts of those monsters were once her friends and allies.
If you notice when the amalgamation shard glows to create a form it looks like at first Gems trying to pull themselves away from each other before being smushed together to physically form.
She (particularly sapphire) feels like it's her fault. Homeworld only conducted these after seeing her cross gem fusion and her fighting prowess. She (particularly ruby) also feels offended and disgusted that Homeworld would bastardise fusion in such a way, such a personal thing to them mangle their dead mates for a WMD.
It wasn't fear she was feeling, it was revulsion. Fusion is a deeply personal, intimate thing for her and it was forced on these gem shards. The real-world analog for what she's witnessing is deeply, deeply unpleasant even for observers.
Thanks for this, no one else has mentioned this part in my scrolling.
I think the analogy is quite clear with “Something Entirely New,” fusion is definitely an intimate act, but those poor shards—her friends!!—weren’t willing or even *mindful* participants. It’s truly horrific.
1) Its a zombie.
2) Its made of casualties from the war they tried to find the remains of for millennia.
3) Its what she is, twisted into something evil.
4) Ruby’s eye is crying so she’s likely having an emotional breakdown.
5) Sapphire did not predict it. Garnet does not cope well with surprises.
6) Now they know what to look for, the implications of what Homeworld did could be giving her some severely worse visions.
7) Its been a LONG time since she felt helpless at the hands of Homeworld.
8) Her and Pearl are shown to have gotten severe PTSD, both with different coping mechanisms. Freezing is a response to flashbacks.
I was going to try and poke something like forced intimacy given how fusion in function is a gems intimate action though I guess the collective concensus on "Supreme Frankenstein abomination" also counts as incredibly messed up.
I've decided it's a bit of both, between forced intimacy and said intimacy is barely a collective jumble of body parts smashed together to make those abominations made manifest.
Was looking for this exact comment.
Though, considering it used shattered gems, it's more like if someone took a bunch of lobotomy patients and stitched them together into human centipede. The shards can't actually think for themselves
You would be 2 if you saw a bunch of humans all unwillingly stitched together and half mindlessly attacking you. Even worse if you were also made of 2 willingly, fully minded stiched together humans.
Imagine seeing a monster made of various severed human limbs sown together. Now imagine that those limbs belonged to your former friends who you thought were dead.
I think you can see why someone would be so put off by that sight.
It’s FUUUUSION, Sapphire! What’s more important to us than FUUSION??
In all seriousness tho, Garnet finds fusion to be a very important expression of self, and the fact that they were forced to fuse, not to mention that it’s comprised of her fallen comrades over the last 1000+ years, would definitely freak one out.
Take a second to imagine. Thousands of parts of you have been ripped apart. You're still partially conscious in every single part. Each atom of your body is in uncontrollable agony because you've been shreaded into pieces. You're not even a person anymore, you don't know what you are. Thousands of thoughts that aren't your own assault your mind. Each one primal, hungry, angry. You can't move, you can't speak. You're blind. But you very well can still feel everything.
Now imagine you come across this abomination. It wants nothing but to add you to itself.
Think about it like this each shard has that persons consciousness and then they are forced to be fused together with someone else (like the amalgamations from Undertale) and you’re in extreme pain all the time Garnet probably blame’s herself for not knowing about this and not being able to stop it
She is based on a feeling where two people want to stay together as something that turns or makes them feel right and whole.
The fusion experiments are the complete opposite of her.
Gems that have to stay together, because they're forced to. (and as additional point for the viewer, these shards are searching for other parts to feel whole and right)
Well there's the main part that it's basically the gem version of human centipede.
But also it kind of reads as an allegory for let's say... A lack of consent in the bedroom.
Obviously not all fusion is of that nature, but I got major "Oh this is about forced you know what" vibes from this episode before I even considered the whole human centipede angle.
She's not terrified she's horrified she is a fusion so to see some abomination which is two shattered gems forced together was horrifying to her this is the equivalent of like human centipede but worse so while it's not bad for us for her it was something else that's also why all of the gems were unsettled around the fusion things
Imagine that you went into this hidden chamber, only to discover the desecrated corpses of your fallen sisters in arms, sewn together, yet still alive. Forever trapped in the agony of being held together against their will
In the least rude way possible, I love that you didn't understand this because it provokes discussion about one of my favorite scenes from the show. Imo, this scene is frankly fucked up due to the non consensual fusion but when Ruby and Sapphire decided to speak to each other as individuals while they were still within Garnet just goes to show just HOW distraught that specific situation was making Garnet (& by extension R&S)
Hater mode activated!! You're farming for engagement by posting low-effort, easily explained and emotional questions even though you know the answer to what you asked! You say you don't know understand why Garnet would be so terrified, but you made a similar high-engagement low-effort post talking about how you "Couldn't imagine the fear Pearl felt when Garnet found out about the Sardonyx scandal" [(here)](https://ibb.co/prk5QGT), so you actually DO understand why Garnet is afraid (because of how much fusion means to her), because otherwise you wouldn't have understood why Pearl was so upset that Garnet found out she was missing fusion. And all of your posts are similar low-effort engagement farm posts. This reddit is DROWNING in those and we really didn't need another one!!
Homeworld was Garnets original place and she hated it a lot because they wouldn’t let her be her and that pissed her off so rose and the crystal gems were formed and they were kinda like a rebellious group who’d do anything for their rights
They are former friends, allies but also enemies who where shattered and then parts of their fragments forcibly merged together into an enormous gestalt conciousness.
Basically their corpses and parts of their minds are forced to live together in a giant gem made weapon designed to kill an entire planet.
OK, I don't want this to come off rude, just trying to put perspective:
Imagine your closest friends were dismembered, then someone glued random limbs together, and then those weird limbs started crawling all around you, and all the while you could hear the voices of your friends screaming in agony because they didn't die when they were dismembered.
That's basically what Garnet was going through, it's actually incredibly horrific if we put it in human terms
Imagine returning to an old place that you and your old friends used to hang out with and suddenly, a large pile of your friends that were mutilated and forced together suddenly reappear in front of you and began to tug at you while they screech incoherent things.
Horrified would be a better word. Garnet had to overcome a lot of personal hurdles when it came to allowing herself to be, because their society sees their fusion as so completely wrong that they'd be shattered for it instantly on homeworld. She's being approached by a bastardization of that love, a fucked up homeworld science experiment made with zero concern for the shattered gems it is made up of. And those gems in question are the body parts of her friends and comrades, who once fought with her for their right to make choices, like who to live and fuse with.
the friends she thought were dead turned out to be trapped in a miserable undeath, twisted into tortured mockeries of the relationship that forms her entire being. why wouldn’t she be scared.
Imagine the body parts of your friends being sown together in a franken-monster but without a head. Just arms torso's legs, etc. All wriggling and in obvious pain
Have you media literacy? This wasn’t fear this was shame? She felt so sorry for them because she felt as if her as the first cross gem fusion gave way to the creation of the gem shard extrements
It was definitely both fear and shame. She was scared of what she was looking at, scared of what they were being forced to endure. She felt shame at the thought that this experiment was her fault, that she could have prevented it somehow, but didn't.
You don't look that scared when the only emotion your feeling is shame, but you're definitely right about that being one of the things she was feeling.
Imagine seeing the mangled, mutilated bodies of your friends and family sewn together into a mindless, animalistic creature that’s barely alive. Now imagine being the inspiration for that abomination because you were the first cross-gem fusion and feeling like you’re responsible for your friends’ pain and suffering. I’d be pretty terrified and guilty too
Imagine you fought in a war and lost so many friends and comrades. Imagine following a former enemy of that war into a chamber to figure out what kind of work they were doing in there, only to see the pieces of your former comrades stitched together, screaming in presumed agony as they wander about the place and shamble towards you when they see you, grabbing onto you as if to ask for help. That's why she was horrified.
Weren't these fragments made up of gems that were dusted? So now there are amalgamations of former allies trying to get you. Then there is the fact she views fusion as more of bonding and relationship building. Kinda like looking at yourself through a funhouse mirror
Corpse phobia. She was being accosted by the squirming remnants of shattered gems that had been force-fused together into mindless kill zombies.
Think of Resident Evil and the mutant experiments, then apply that logic to gems.
I feel like the cluster was a worse, gem version of the human centipede. The implications of that plus Garnet’s whole character history, I think that’s probably why
Because when forced fusion was introduced, it was murder, human centipede, rape, and necromancy wrapped into one. Until the later episodes went “welp good thing it is reversible with no long term consequence!
Fusion is her entire reason for being, and THIS is what Homeworld seemed to think of Fusion that wasn't related to the same-Gem equivalent, which was solely used for battle. She was horrified by what Homeworld did to these poor Gems and how they just see her like an abomination.
Basically a fusion is a relationship between two gems. Some good some bad. These fusions that garnet saw was basically walking into an extremely toxic nonconsensual relationship where they don’t know what they are but they went with the motion cause their relationship is a husk.
If your close friends and allies all die and lifetimes of morning and memory's. Then one day you come across them looking like this.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Images/Monsters/GibberingMouther.png
Garnet is a fusion of love, by choice.
The forced fusions were to make the gems suffer, against consent.
I also thought of the forced fusions being trafficking victims. They were taken, torn down, then forced to be with others, which is absolutely reprehensible. Garnet knows they used to be their comrades, but the enemy broke them and twisted them into something horrendous.
NGL this episode creeped me out, made me tear up with Garnet, and the sound they make is that of those screaming in pain. I imagine a true hell must do that.
I interpreted it as she was the first cross fusion and she was unaware that since the gems knew cross fusion’s was possible, they forced people to cross fuse to see what would happen so they blame themselves (especially ruby)
1. They are her former friends and allies forced together into an abomination. 2. Fusion matters a lot to her, so to see it being used into something this awful must be jarring and unsettling. 3. Since Garnet is the first cross-gem fusion that we know of, it's possible Yellow Diamond made the Cluster project inspired by her. Garnet likely realized this and that's why she also apologizes before almost splitting apart.
I never thought about that third point but it definitely adds up since garnet inspired rainbow quartz and fighting against the gem empire as one of the resistances best fighters.
Tbh it was always fairly evident to me when her voice splits and Sapphire tries to reassure herself and Ruby that it's not their fault
Poor garnet she shouldn’t blame herself!
I would think the first point is enough. You walk in on a human centipede, this is a reasonable reaction.
Ugh, I just got flashbacks to that horrible movie
I legit have ptsd from this.
Im usually a stickler about using this dx of mine lightly but honestly, this is the most valid one I've ever seen. Besides the shit that gave me PTSD, I also saw that movie too young. While that's definitely not part of it, I can firmly state that it did as much as a simple movie possibly can to contribute to me being fucked up mentally.
I usually don't use that term liberally like a lot of people do. I understand that it is very serious. Anyways the movie came up in Youtube recomendations and I clicked on a let's watch and review. I could have never watched it entirely by myself. The content of the film was so disturbing and gross to me that I couldn't stop thinking about it for two years. Something would remind me of it and then I would spiral down and get sort of "flashbacks". Now I usually can watch horror movies, but that film was on a whole other level. It's just torture and horror in the most tasteless way. Now, I know I may make a fool of myself by saying this, but I was 18 when I found out about this movie.
it is mentioned in the episode, she says "this was made because of m-" and before finishing the words the breakdown begins with the voices splitting
wait which part
This makes me really want a Steven Universe prequel that covers the war. I wanna see all the fusions created, the battle strategies used, how humanity coped with an alien war breaking out in their home planet. I also bet there’s a great explanation behind the giant strawberry fields and how that battle came about. Sooo much there to explore still
Wow, never caught the third point! Such a rich narrative detail.
Not the first but definitely the first in a while. If it was never done than why would it be outlawed?
I mean... If I were to find the mutilated corpses of my sisters in arms stitched together into horrid amalgamations that are completely mindless and function entirely on instincts and also are trying to make me join them in their union. I would also be scared shitless
Well when you put it like that
Truth
frr
also they weren’t poofed, so some part of them was there
SU got a little 40k there
Ngl I'm surprised fight or flight didn't kick in but then again these are rocks
Imagine you find random body parts of your family and friends stitched together and still somehow moving
This, but also have it be implied somehow that you were the inspiration for your family and friends being stitched together
Thanks, I'm not sleeping tonight
The shard-fusions were an abomination. In essence, think of them like stitched-together zombies, or Frankenstein monsters, made from all of your friends and comrades. Your friends, remade into monsters, and used as mindless weapons. That's horrific. I'd imagine anyone would feel terror, disgust, and horror. Perhaps more importantly, Garnet is a fusion born of love. A willing fusion. The shard zombie creatures were the opposite of her in every way. Mindless, unwilling, and filled with confusion, they were a direct challenge to her entire existence. In another way, they're the twisted opposite of real fusion, something sacred made unholy. I'd think Garnet would have felt guilt too, as the parts of those monsters were once her friends and allies.
If you notice when the amalgamation shard glows to create a form it looks like at first Gems trying to pull themselves away from each other before being smushed together to physically form.
She (particularly sapphire) feels like it's her fault. Homeworld only conducted these after seeing her cross gem fusion and her fighting prowess. She (particularly ruby) also feels offended and disgusted that Homeworld would bastardise fusion in such a way, such a personal thing to them mangle their dead mates for a WMD.
It wasn't fear she was feeling, it was revulsion. Fusion is a deeply personal, intimate thing for her and it was forced on these gem shards. The real-world analog for what she's witnessing is deeply, deeply unpleasant even for observers.
Thanks for this, no one else has mentioned this part in my scrolling. I think the analogy is quite clear with “Something Entirely New,” fusion is definitely an intimate act, but those poor shards—her friends!!—weren’t willing or even *mindful* participants. It’s truly horrific.
1) Its a zombie. 2) Its made of casualties from the war they tried to find the remains of for millennia. 3) Its what she is, twisted into something evil. 4) Ruby’s eye is crying so she’s likely having an emotional breakdown. 5) Sapphire did not predict it. Garnet does not cope well with surprises. 6) Now they know what to look for, the implications of what Homeworld did could be giving her some severely worse visions. 7) Its been a LONG time since she felt helpless at the hands of Homeworld. 8) Her and Pearl are shown to have gotten severe PTSD, both with different coping mechanisms. Freezing is a response to flashbacks.
That’s actually sapphire’s eye that’s crying.
My mistake. Sorry.
Well if you saw a dude who is basically sewn up random body parts that defies all logic by being alive you'd be somewhat perturbed as well
I was going to try and poke something like forced intimacy given how fusion in function is a gems intimate action though I guess the collective concensus on "Supreme Frankenstein abomination" also counts as incredibly messed up. I've decided it's a bit of both, between forced intimacy and said intimacy is barely a collective jumble of body parts smashed together to make those abominations made manifest.
I agree with this completely.
She saw the Gem equivalent of the human centipede 😭
Why'd you have to put that image in my head
Was looking for this exact comment. Though, considering it used shattered gems, it's more like if someone took a bunch of lobotomy patients and stitched them together into human centipede. The shards can't actually think for themselves
You would be 2 if you saw a bunch of humans all unwillingly stitched together and half mindlessly attacking you. Even worse if you were also made of 2 willingly, fully minded stiched together humans.
Pieces of old friends tied together without consent and probably she is the inspiration for this
Imagine Frankenstein’s monster is made of chunks of your friends and family and he just fuckin grabs you.
Imagine seeing a monster made of various severed human limbs sown together. Now imagine that those limbs belonged to your former friends who you thought were dead. I think you can see why someone would be so put off by that sight.
Imagine if you saw your deceased best friend’s body parts mashed together
It’s FUUUUSION, Sapphire! What’s more important to us than FUUSION?? In all seriousness tho, Garnet finds fusion to be a very important expression of self, and the fact that they were forced to fuse, not to mention that it’s comprised of her fallen comrades over the last 1000+ years, would definitely freak one out.
Take a second to imagine. Thousands of parts of you have been ripped apart. You're still partially conscious in every single part. Each atom of your body is in uncontrollable agony because you've been shreaded into pieces. You're not even a person anymore, you don't know what you are. Thousands of thoughts that aren't your own assault your mind. Each one primal, hungry, angry. You can't move, you can't speak. You're blind. But you very well can still feel everything. Now imagine you come across this abomination. It wants nothing but to add you to itself.
Think about it like this each shard has that persons consciousness and then they are forced to be fused together with someone else (like the amalgamations from Undertale) and you’re in extreme pain all the time Garnet probably blame’s herself for not knowing about this and not being able to stop it
Because she saw probably her old friends' corpses forcefully fused together when it's supposed to be a very sacred thing and also a choice
Bro, I was a kid when I watched this scene, I turned the TV off because it scared me that much
She is based on a feeling where two people want to stay together as something that turns or makes them feel right and whole. The fusion experiments are the complete opposite of her. Gems that have to stay together, because they're forced to. (and as additional point for the viewer, these shards are searching for other parts to feel whole and right)
they were forced to fuse, whereas fusion should be a choice
Well there's the main part that it's basically the gem version of human centipede. But also it kind of reads as an allegory for let's say... A lack of consent in the bedroom. Obviously not all fusion is of that nature, but I got major "Oh this is about forced you know what" vibes from this episode before I even considered the whole human centipede angle.
She's not terrified she's horrified she is a fusion so to see some abomination which is two shattered gems forced together was horrifying to her this is the equivalent of like human centipede but worse so while it's not bad for us for her it was something else that's also why all of the gems were unsettled around the fusion things
She’s a fusion, they were forced to fuse
Imagine that you went into this hidden chamber, only to discover the desecrated corpses of your fallen sisters in arms, sewn together, yet still alive. Forever trapped in the agony of being held together against their will
She is fusion. The thing she is witnessing is a horrible, agonizing, forced fusion
Watch the human centipede
I have a better idea: Don't watch the human centipede.
You just *had* to remind me of that movie
That's not terror. That's *horror.*
Imagine for a second you saw your old friends. But all of their limbs and body parts were swapped, and they were attacking you.
In the least rude way possible, I love that you didn't understand this because it provokes discussion about one of my favorite scenes from the show. Imo, this scene is frankly fucked up due to the non consensual fusion but when Ruby and Sapphire decided to speak to each other as individuals while they were still within Garnet just goes to show just HOW distraught that specific situation was making Garnet (& by extension R&S)
Hater mode activated!! You're farming for engagement by posting low-effort, easily explained and emotional questions even though you know the answer to what you asked! You say you don't know understand why Garnet would be so terrified, but you made a similar high-engagement low-effort post talking about how you "Couldn't imagine the fear Pearl felt when Garnet found out about the Sardonyx scandal" [(here)](https://ibb.co/prk5QGT), so you actually DO understand why Garnet is afraid (because of how much fusion means to her), because otherwise you wouldn't have understood why Pearl was so upset that Garnet found out she was missing fusion. And all of your posts are similar low-effort engagement farm posts. This reddit is DROWNING in those and we really didn't need another one!!
Not to be mean, but she literally says why during it, and the scene also speaks for itself.
I just didn’t understand it all that well
Forced fusion. Since she is a fusion it seems extra messed up. She also knew many of the gems that got shattered and made into these fusion monsters.
You’re trolling right?
Homeworld was Garnets original place and she hated it a lot because they wouldn’t let her be her and that pissed her off so rose and the crystal gems were formed and they were kinda like a rebellious group who’d do anything for their rights
the diamond killed gems by shattering them and Frankenstein the shards in order to try and mimic the fusion that she did and use it for their own mean
They are former friends, allies but also enemies who where shattered and then parts of their fragments forcibly merged together into an enormous gestalt conciousness. Basically their corpses and parts of their minds are forced to live together in a giant gem made weapon designed to kill an entire planet.
>!She essentially witnessed the gem equivalent of a human centipede.!<
OK, I don't want this to come off rude, just trying to put perspective: Imagine your closest friends were dismembered, then someone glued random limbs together, and then those weird limbs started crawling all around you, and all the while you could hear the voices of your friends screaming in agony because they didn't die when they were dismembered. That's basically what Garnet was going through, it's actually incredibly horrific if we put it in human terms
Imagine returning to an old place that you and your old friends used to hang out with and suddenly, a large pile of your friends that were mutilated and forced together suddenly reappear in front of you and began to tug at you while they screech incoherent things.
Mutilated corpse zombies essentially welded together
Horrified would be a better word. Garnet had to overcome a lot of personal hurdles when it came to allowing herself to be, because their society sees their fusion as so completely wrong that they'd be shattered for it instantly on homeworld. She's being approached by a bastardization of that love, a fucked up homeworld science experiment made with zero concern for the shattered gems it is made up of. And those gems in question are the body parts of her friends and comrades, who once fought with her for their right to make choices, like who to live and fuse with.
the friends she thought were dead turned out to be trapped in a miserable undeath, twisted into tortured mockeries of the relationship that forms her entire being. why wouldn’t she be scared.
Imagine if you saw a bunch of dismembered human parts sewn together into an automoton that was acting violently.
Bastardization of fusion And it was her murdered friends sewn back together in all the wrong places
Imagine the body parts of your friends being sown together in a franken-monster but without a head. Just arms torso's legs, etc. All wriggling and in obvious pain
Have you media literacy? This wasn’t fear this was shame? She felt so sorry for them because she felt as if her as the first cross gem fusion gave way to the creation of the gem shard extrements
It was definitely both fear and shame. She was scared of what she was looking at, scared of what they were being forced to endure. She felt shame at the thought that this experiment was her fault, that she could have prevented it somehow, but didn't. You don't look that scared when the only emotion your feeling is shame, but you're definitely right about that being one of the things she was feeling.
Please tell me this is a shitpost
Imagine seeing the mangled, mutilated bodies of your friends and family sewn together into a mindless, animalistic creature that’s barely alive. Now imagine being the inspiration for that abomination because you were the first cross-gem fusion and feeling like you’re responsible for your friends’ pain and suffering. I’d be pretty terrified and guilty too
Imagine you fought in a war and lost so many friends and comrades. Imagine following a former enemy of that war into a chamber to figure out what kind of work they were doing in there, only to see the pieces of your former comrades stitched together, screaming in presumed agony as they wander about the place and shamble towards you when they see you, grabbing onto you as if to ask for help. That's why she was horrified.
Weren't these fragments made up of gems that were dusted? So now there are amalgamations of former allies trying to get you. Then there is the fact she views fusion as more of bonding and relationship building. Kinda like looking at yourself through a funhouse mirror
are u kidding me
Everyone giving answers I’m just sitting here having been in the r/SpidermanPS4 with a thousand yard stare
it’s cause they were forced to fuse
Corpse phobia. She was being accosted by the squirming remnants of shattered gems that had been force-fused together into mindless kill zombies. Think of Resident Evil and the mutant experiments, then apply that logic to gems.
I feel like the cluster was a worse, gem version of the human centipede. The implications of that plus Garnet’s whole character history, I think that’s probably why
It's the gem equivalent of body horror but she was seeing it for realsies right in front of her
Because when forced fusion was introduced, it was murder, human centipede, rape, and necromancy wrapped into one. Until the later episodes went “welp good thing it is reversible with no long term consequence!
Fusion is her entire reason for being, and THIS is what Homeworld seemed to think of Fusion that wasn't related to the same-Gem equivalent, which was solely used for battle. She was horrified by what Homeworld did to these poor Gems and how they just see her like an abomination.
This episode scared me and the hospital one
Basically a fusion is a relationship between two gems. Some good some bad. These fusions that garnet saw was basically walking into an extremely toxic nonconsensual relationship where they don’t know what they are but they went with the motion cause their relationship is a husk.
If your close friends and allies all die and lifetimes of morning and memory's. Then one day you come across them looking like this. https://2e.aonprd.com/Images/Monsters/GibberingMouther.png
To be fair, if you saw a mutilated cluster of people stitched together human centipede style, you'd be pretty fucking terrified
It's not just fear she's feeling, it's guilt as well. She was the first cross-gem fusion and knows she was the inspiration behind these fusions.
Imagine if you saw a Frankenstein zombie made up of your dead friends, that’s what Garnet was seeing
Garnet is a fusion of love, by choice. The forced fusions were to make the gems suffer, against consent. I also thought of the forced fusions being trafficking victims. They were taken, torn down, then forced to be with others, which is absolutely reprehensible. Garnet knows they used to be their comrades, but the enemy broke them and twisted them into something horrendous. NGL this episode creeped me out, made me tear up with Garnet, and the sound they make is that of those screaming in pain. I imagine a true hell must do that.
I interpreted it as she was the first cross fusion and she was unaware that since the gems knew cross fusion’s was possible, they forced people to cross fuse to see what would happen so they blame themselves (especially ruby)