#I'm not gonna tag peepers and hater cuz they don't play a big role here

[spinel-swell]

OKAY DOMINATOR TIME, COMIC AND EPISODE DESCRIPTION UNDER THE CUT. THERE ARE SO MANY WORDS I’M SO SORRY I JUST KEPT GOING. ALSO DON’T READ THE TAGS FIRST

THIS IS THE THIRD TIME I’M WRITING THIS POST IT KEEPS GETTING DELETED OH GOD. Sorry if this is disappointing to some people, I just went with my heart. There are a LOT of words here.

Okay. Please watch/rewatch the episode before reading this and the comic.

The episode starts out normally! Wander’s playing capture the flag, Hater’s tryna kill him, Peepers is exhausted, Sylvia is beating up Watchdogs, and Spinel is teaching about a third of the Watchdogs how to do handstands. 

Then, Dominator shows up. 

You would think that this episode would focus more on Spinel, but no! Sylvia, through desperation of making sure at least one of her friends is safe, asks Spinel to stay on the planet and make sure everyone and everything gets off safe. Obviously, Spinel isn’t gonna take this extremely well, but she still stays. Just... with building anxiety.

After that, most of the episode just goes on normally, with a few token mentions of Spinel and wanting to get back to her as fast as possible. Sylvia is trapped in a lava ball, Wander is trapped against the wall, and Hater and Peepers get brought into the room eventually by a Dombot, and Dominator is still maintaining her cold (well, not really cold), indifferent facade.

By this point, the view switches to Spinel, who’s pacing back and forth on the surface of the planet, punching herself in the head (with added squeaky sound effects) and trying to ignore her growing concern, but it’s getting harder and harder with each passing second. Eventually, it gets too much, and she stretches into the ship.

Inside the ship, Hater gets angry and traps Dominator, frees Wander, and la-dee-da everything goes like normal. Then when Dominator is attacking Hater with a fountain of lava, Spinel is brought in looking mildly perturbed by a swarm of miniature Dombots, who have her in restraints. Sylvia calls out to her, Spinel smiles, stretches out of her restraints, and begins walking over. Then, she stops. She notices what’s going on, and looks confused, then concerned. Spinel realizes that it wasn’t that her friends were making her wait, it was this... weird, hulking person. Who were they??  So, obviously, she stretches her arm out and just... snatches Dom’s face-plate right off of her helmet. 

Everyone in the room freezes, including Dominator. The lava shooting at Hater stops and he falls to the floor. She was not expecting that. She hadn’t even noticed Spinel escape her restraints, or even enter the ship with everything else going on. Not fair. So Dominator reacts in classic fashion, with obvious frustration and disappointment. “UGH! Are you kidding me?! Do you know how long it took to set all that up? You RUINED IT!” Spinel blinks. Everyone blinks. Sylvia and Peepers start herding their respective weirdo friends out of Dominator’s attack range (Sylvia still rolling around in a lava ball), while Spinel takes a step closer, confusion written all over her face. “Uhh... whazzat?” “Um, HELLO? The bots, the awesome outfit, the way I was totally destroying you dorks before you went and cheated me out of my entrance?” Dominator groans. “What a disappointment... oh well. I can still destroy you nerds and then obliterate your little galaxy even harder than I was already planning to!” Spinel just looks confused. And slightly disturbed. This person was... familiar, in a weird, uncomfortable way. Like... potential. But bad potential, the kind that made her gem feel tight in the chest of her form. She just didn’t make sense. “Wh... why d’you want to do all that?”

Dominator rolls her eyes, looking extremely irritated at this entire exchange. Her response completely encapsulates her uncaring frustration. “Uh, why not? I’ve got nothing better to do. Crushing your galaxy, looking out over screaming and crying faces, blah blah, you know. Fun stuff.” She grins down at them all, expecting terror. She gets a lot of different reactions, fear, hatred, confusion, disappointment. 

A lot of little tiny, repressed realizations come back in full force, after all the adventures Spinel has yet had with her little group. Mixed with the anxiousness of that day, the reminder of how it feels to be alone, the confusion and shock- Spinel is silent for a little bit. Then...

The slam of Spinel’s massive gloved hands cracks the glass separating them from the massive Dombot control room. Alarm lights start blinking.

Sylvia and Wander stand in shock. Spinel had shown her temper before, on a couple occasions, but... this was... different. She looked... worryingly scary. Like she might do something she’d regret. They look at each other.

Dominator throws up a hand and shoots lava at Spinel, which drips down her light form and hardens, before breaking apart as Spinel grows in size just slightly and makes a crushing swipe towards the villain. Dominator dodges, and starts throwing more and more at Spinel, who is either unaffected by the lava completely, by virtue of being made out of solid light and a rock, and by Dominator’s organic weapons (like the darts that make your tongue swell up) by... well, also being made out of solid light and a rock. Sorry Dom, your attacks are meant for people who have, y’know. Actual bodies. And aren’t physically about as tough as diamonds.

Dominator is backed into the control panel, looking both extremely angry and also understandably intimidated. She dodges to the side as Spinel screeches and hits the control panel with a massive fist. It breaks and sparks, and the Dombot control room begins to explode and fill up with lava. Spinel shrinks a bit and starts freaking spinning like a top and slicing into the lava walls while she chases Dominator around the room. Dominator is fast, and nimble, and strong, but she’s still not a gem. And she’s never seen a gem. Nobody has. There was no way she could’ve anticipated... this. As we all know, this is unexpected even to other gems, let alone an organic being. Spinel slings her arms around and stops the spinning attack long enough to fling a massive hand out to grab Dominator. She lifts another fist up in preparation for a punch- “SPINEL, DON’T!!” Wander has his hand out, looking panicked, and Spinel stops to get a better look at her friends. They look scared. So do Hater and Peepers. She looks back at Dominator and- whoops, Dom’s already left her suit. She’s on the ground and backing away. Spinel looks at her, and her body shrinks- but with one massive hand still holding the suit. She looks Dominator in the eyes and crushes the suit into lava. Speaking of lava- the glass breaks and the room begins flooding with it. Dominator sprints towards the wall, which opens a doorway that melts away as soon as she goes through. Spinel grabs all of her friends- Hater and Peepers included- breaks Sylvia’s restraints, and grabs on. They barely make it, but they do, thanks to Hater and his electric powers.  Understandably, Hater and Peepers get out of there as fast as possible. Spinel is... quiet. Looking at the ground. Wander and Sylvia walk over to her, and it takes them each placing a hand on her shoulders for her to finally break down. They’re gonna need to talk.

The name for this changed episode would be: The Greater Dominator. SOrry to huge Dominator fans, they BOTH have fantastic villain songs, but- at least in MY mind- Spinel would outmatch Dom in a fight. And... well, wouldn’t like her very much. She reminds her of her least favorite bits about herself.

Noo... I can see why you asked though on a level. Uhh. She wouldn’t have a crush on Dominator, but she could crush Dominator. ALSO THANk YOU FOR THE COMPLIMENT SORRY FOR THE COMPLETE AND UTTER DIFFERENCE IN HOW THIS TURNED OUT.

I think that would be a lot of what Season 2 would end up being about, after this. Spinel is going to have a much harder time, uh, controlling herself. It’s difficult. She just has so many years of stored up emotions that are looking to EXPLODE, and this confrontation with Dom was only the beginning.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, Dominator’s appearances will be DIFFERENT. Alike to Hater’s approach, but for different reasons, she’s gonna try to avoid Spinel. And because the trio move around to so many planets, conquering the galaxy just got a whole lot harder. Later on, she might have... different motivations.

Hater has no idea how he sees Dominator now. I mean, obviously she’s a hot lady. But also, uhhhhhh, that sure was something wasn’t it. The threat seems... lesser, now. He might actually end up seeing her as more rival than rival/love interest (which can still be fun).

Anyway, uh, woof. Hoo boy. Writing, am I right? I hope you guys are here mostly to see Spinel be cool and not because you really like Dominator being an unstoppable force and junk. We’ve already got a whole show full of that! WATCH WANDER OVER YONDER-