I know I ended the story but I wanted to discuss a few things that may be in your interest. This entire part has nothing to do with the series (at least most of it), so you can skip it if you like. I'm dividing the topics up so if theres a certain topic you have concerns about, scroll to it and find the highlight for it. Or just read the entire part, your choice.
Topics are:
Origin of this AU (explained).
The "True" Villain of the story.
Scrapped ideas.
What next?
Enjoy.
ORIGIN OF THIS AU (EXPLAINED)
So, I said HowardTheAwesome1 was the one who actually created the story (or at least, plant the idea in my head). What happened was we watched the final episodes of Steven Universe Future and then we video chat about it (Because quarantine). We voiced our opinions, what could've happened, how we felt towards Steven's corruption, etc. In the middle of it, Howard said, and I will forever remember this every time I look at this story, "What would happen if Steven wasn't born half a gem?".
Of course, we both thought the Earth was doomed since Steven was the only one who actually saved the planet from the Cluster he was curious with Peridot's last words before Garnet poofed her. And the fact he couldn't be able to fuse, use Warp Pads, bubble, use his powers, healing, bringing dead people to life, etc. But we thought what if they made the series about a human boy who lives with three rock aliens to protect the Earth (Basically this series but Steven's full human).
Sounds like something that would be in Cartoon Network. And when making this story, I rewatched the entire series (only episodes that mattered to the plot, no fillers. Including filler episodes in Future) and the Movie.
Yes, 75% of the dialogue was straight from the series in Chapters 1-33 and Chapter 44. And occasionally, I changed/tuned the dialogue to adapt to Steven being full human (and some original dialogue, of course). This also applies to any points in the plot where only a gem could perform such acts, so I changed it to where a simple mortal could do stuff, too.
One thing that Howard pointed out was that the gems only cared about Steven because he has Rose/Pink's gem (In the old episodes). Now, yes, they did care for him but in a flashback, Pearl attempted to murder Steven when he was a baby because she wanted Rose back, and Garnet and Amethyst took part in Steven's "kidnapping". In time, they eventually accepted the fact that she was gone and only Steven remained and then actually loved him.
So, that explains why Pearl was so resentful to Steven on this story (at the start).
THE "TRUE" VILLAIN OF THE STORY
As a lot of people (including myself) has pointed Pink to be the true villain of the story and all the gems Steven faced were byproducts of her mistakes. Though, the points they made were valid. One of them made not sense to me.
"She matured into a better person, thus as Rose Quartz."
That's great! She's knows better now but that doesn't make the mistakes like leaving Spinel, damaging Volleyball, bubbling Bismuth, and much more all magically go away. One of the points they made makes a lot of sense.
"Yellow, Blue, and White Diamond made Pink this way."
Yes, they did (unintentionally). They never took Pink when she's being serious, and locked her in the tower (with Blue making her sad/cry). Personally, I think all four Diamonds are responsible for Steven's enemies but there are actually enemies he made instead of Pink: Jasper (debatable), Aquamarine, Eyeball, Bluebird, and Emerald (even though she had one episode).
So in this story, I took Pink's abuse to another level. We were never told what else the Diamonds did to Pink other than locking her in the tower. So, I had them punish Pink with what they are: Yellow with physical violence and poofing, Blue putting Pink in temporarily crippling depression, and White removing Pink's happiest memories (It was implied in Chapter 44).
SCRAPPED IDEAS
Let's get the obvious out of the way, Spinel's injector was supposed to make a return be a big issue in Chapter 43. But Wattpad crashed in the middle of writing so I lost all the progress I made. So, instead of redoing 5 hours worth of writing, I decided to go with what else I could do.
Next thing is that the ending for this story was supposed to be a bit dark. Steven was going to fight Pink (in a fit of rage) and shatter her. His first thoughts was to revive her but then he thought about it and decided being shattered was her punishment.
Basically, Steven breaks and shattered Pink and the story ended with Steven giving White Diamond Pink's shards. But, I like netural/wholesome endings so I went with "The Future".
Next thing is Spinel's collar. Her reign of terror was short but was supposed to be longer. The reason why it was short because the ending of Chapter 41 restricted me because she was captured by the main group.
So basically, I scrapped this without realizing it until it was too late.
Last scrapped idea was Chapter 30. The first fight between Steven and Spinel was suppose to end a bit worse than it original went. Spinel cuts Steven's left arm off and Steven cracks Spinel's gem.
They both flee when they were injured. Then, after that, Steven gets back to the house with the gems (who are poofed) and is slowly bleeding out. He patches his arm up in a very painful manner and later on removed the bandages to put on a prosthetic arm made by Bismuth to fight Spinel and stop her injector.
Nothing else in the story would've changed if I did this except for the others to remind him the time Spinel almost killed him and Spinel deeply regretting what she done and attempted suicide but was stopped by Garnet. I changed it because I am not much of a fan of gore and I tend to go way into detail. So, I didn't want to gross anyone out and I changed it to poisoning him.
WHAT NEXT?
I'm going to restate what I said in the last Chapter but with more to say. I don't know if I should make a sequel/prequel for this series and it all depends if there's more to the Canon Steven Universe Series. A sequel would probably be based on whatever is next for that or original work.
A prequel will most definitely take place during the time when Steven was growing up, Pink Diamond life, and other gems who lived their own lives before they met Steven. Though, whatever I decide to do, the publishing schedule would be different than what it was here. Chapters will take longer and probably not so frequent.
That wraps up everything I wanted to say. If you have questions/concerns, please feel free to ask in the comments. Suggestions and feedback are also welcomed in the comments. Thank you for taking your time to read this.