Lapis Lazuli vs Flame Princess (Steven Universe vs Adventure Time)
Lapis Lazuli, the hydrokinetic heavy hitter of the Crystal Gems.
Flame Princess, the powerful pyrokinetic ruler of the Flame Kingdom.
The elements of our world can only be contained for so long, and our two combatants are symbols of this fact. In the battle of water and fire, who will showcase their element superior!
Before We Start…
Both series have pretty extensive media, so let’s just set the ground rules for what’s being used here.
Main Media
These media are the main forms of canon for both combatants and are the primary source to pull from research wise.
On Lapis’s side of things, what's “main media” for her is fairly simple.
Steven Universe (The Series)
Steven Universe: The Movie
Steven Universe Future
For Flame Princess, her primary media is also simple but longer by comparison. Regardless, there are three main series for AT.
Adventure Time (Main Series)
Adventure Time: Distant Lands
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake
Secondary Media
Both series contain content that is developed outside of the main products. While the main canon will always take priority, these side projects will be factored in as supporting evidence as long as they don’t contradict the core series.
For Lapis Lazuli, her side media that’s relevant to her primarily consists of the following:
Steven Universe Comics (2014-2015)
Steven Universe Comics (2017-2020)
Steven Universe and The Crystal Gems
Steven Universe Camp Pining Play
Steven Universe Harmony
Steven Universe: Unleash the Light
The canonicity of these projects vary. Ian Quartz Jonsey who serves as the supervising director stated that he considered Attack of the Light and Save the Light canon to the series, as Rebecca Sugar helped write the story of both games, making it likely Unleash the Light follows suit. The comics, however, were openly called non canon despite taking inspiration from the show. With this in mind, they will mostly be used to back up any existing content in the show itself.
For Flame Princess the side media most relevant to her looks a little something like this:
Adventure Time Boom Studios Comics
Adventure Time Oni Press Comics
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (Comics)
Adventure Time Marceline Adrift
Adventure Time: Playing with Fire
When it comes to the comics in question, they are intended to be as “canonical as possible”, but if something contradicts them later in the show then the main series naturally takes priority over them. Similar to SU content, it will largely be used to support ideas in the main series.
Guidebooks/Other content
There isn’t a lot in this category, but they should be quickly addressed as contents from them are relevant to this blog.
For Lapis this would mostly just be the Steven Universe: End of an Era book, which is largely just a giant dump of concepts and ideas for the main series. The book was obviously written by Rebecca Sugar, and can be used in case something from the main show is elaborated upon.
For Flame Princess this would mostly center around the Enchiridion. This is basically a purchasable version of the book that exists in the universe. It has loads of information and world building that would be expanded upon in future episodes after the book’s release. It’s basically the equivalent of “Journal 3” from Gravity Falls or the “Magic Book of Spells” from Star VS.
Lastly the Garnet vs Aile and Charlie vs Marceline blogs were both helpful in certain documentation and feats. Give them a read in case you haven’t!
Background
Lapis Lazuli
“I’m Lapis Lazuli, and you can’t keep me trapped here anymore!”
To Lapis Lazuli, the planet Earth shouldn’t have been anything more than a simple visit to a simple planet. Unfortunately that visit would turn into the greatest nightmare of her entire life.
The Gem War had started and our poor Lapis couldn't escape the crossfire. As she desperately tried to find a way to escape, she was caught and poofed by an unknown attacker (Bismuth) and trapped on the planet. While stuck in her suspended state, a group of Homeworld gems would take her gem and place it into a mirror, believing her to be a member of the rebellion. They would demand and ask questions of her, treating her like a tool for questions that she could not answer. As the war came to an end, many of the soldiers began to rapidly flee and leave the planet out of fear of what was coming next. Unfortunately in this rush to return home, Lapis was forgotten and trapped on the planet, her gemstone cracking in the ensuing chaos. Even when picked up by the Crystal Gem Pearl, all she could do was sit and remain eternally imprisoned.
One day however, a boy by the name of Steven Universe would be offered the mirror as a gift to teach him facts about Gem Culture. Turns out Steven’s kind hearted and innocent nature would begin to resonate with Lapis, causing the two to slowly bond overtime. A bond so strong that Steven would even defy the gems themselves to protect the mirror and keep it safe from anyone it didn’t want to interact with. With an opportunity calling, Lapis would direct Steven to free her gem from the mirror, finally for the first time granting her a chance to live life properly.
Sadly this newfound freedom would come with…many problems. A strong desire to go home would cause Lapis to steal the Earth’s oceans to try and make a tower into space, causing conflict between herself and her new friend. Thankfully, Steven’s kindness would win over and allow Lapis to return to the home she finally wanted…
…at first. Turns out Homeworld had changed, and wanting to protect Steven from the oncoming onslaught, Lapis warned them of their assault. A gem known as Jasper would drag her along back to Earth in order to make sure they could identify and capture the remaining Crystal Gems left in her army. While the gems could overcome Jasper, they couldn't stop her desire to win and gain more power to crush the opposition. In that moment, Jasper offered to fuse with Lapis, granting her the power needed to take revenge on the people who trapped her. Fueled by anger and frustration, Lapis agreed to fuse and the duo became the night-unbeatable Malachite. All seemed lost for the gems…until Lapis took control back and trapped the two of them underneath the Earth’s oceans, protecting Steven and the rest of the gems.
Suffice to say, this was a traumatic experience through and through for Lapis. Even after she unfused with Jasper, the misery of fighting back and forth underneath the ocean took a toll on her psyche. Thankfully, she slowly began to heal thanks to the help of Steven and her former enemy turned friend Peridot. She began to finally appreciate what Earth had to offer and the relationships that were gained due her time on the planet. This would be put to the test when the Diamonds planned on returning and attacking the Earth once again. While she initially ran from her troubles, her love for the planet and her friends overtook any fear she may have once had, causing her to return to assist in the oncoming invasion. From there on, Lapis would formally become a Crystal Gem, and continue to assist her allies against any possible danger that may come towards the planet Earth.
Flame Princess
"Don't ever mess with me again!"
In the beginning, there were four elements. Fire, ice, candy, and slime. Throughout time, the four incarnated throughout history. A decade and some change ago, a child was born in the Fire Kingdom. A powerful child, a girl named Phoebe, the Flame Princess, one that the likes of the kingdom has never seen before, as this was the current Fire Elemental. The previous Flame King is known for his evil, and this new child had a sizable chance of becoming a much bigger threat than he was. So he lets his daughter out into the woods to die, Ancient Greece style. Given she was ungodly strong even as a newborn, her wandering around was enough to burn down a large portion of a nearby forest. So the ancient ruler of the Candy Kingdom, Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, made a decision to make a deal with the child’s father to have the child imprisoned in a giant lamp. And she would stay there until she learned to control herself.
14 years later, Jake the Dog wanders into the Flame Kingdom, looking to find his brother Finn a new mate, as the teenage hero is still strung up over the aforementioned Princess Bubblegum. He attempts to win the favor of the Flame King to win the hand of the Flame Princess, using a shapeshifted body of the human brother, and somehow manages to succeed, freeing her from her prison, as he was meant to be her tamer as well as her mate. Jake, terrified, ditches her, causing the Flame Princess to go on a rampage, leading to the house of Finn and Jake, which causes Finn to snap and go after her. Finn manages to stop her, but incurs the wrath of the Flame Princess in the process, and the hero Finn, with a new crush on the fiery Phoebe, must deal with a powerful new force, free to the world.
Finn eventually manages to win her heart in spite of the trials that came with physical intimacy. Together, the pair would do their best to divert FP from her evil nature, and blossom her into a young lady anyone could be proud of. Unfortunately that passion and drive caused some…unique feelings in Finn. Wanting to see his girlfriend in more action to drive those feelings, Finn would trick her and the Ice King into fighting each other, causing wanton destruction across the Ice Kingdom. Attempting to own up to his mistakes, Finn would confess his actions, but sorry wasn’t enough to make the princess happy, causing the two to break up from there.
Thankfully, her experiences and lessons learned didn’t disappear, causing FP to realize what she needed to do. With the help of a literal Cinnamon Bun, she eventually leads a coup to overthrow her father, making her the ruler of the Fire Kingdom, and starting a new era of honesty. Together with her friends and family, the newly crowned Flame Queen would turn her kingdom into one of Ooo’s most powerful and dependable allies for the coming future.
Experience & Skill
Lapis Lazuli
Prior to coming to Earth, Lapis mostly spent her time terraforming planets and didn’t experience much in the way of proper combat. In spite of this inexperience, she has displayed immense creativity and flexibility when it comes to the application of her water powers, creating detailed and precise constructs without any effort at all. These skills were enough to create perfect duplicates of the Crystal Gems, and even mimic their fighting styles and powers properly. This is impressive when you consider Crystal Gems like Pearl, who has arguably fought the longest out of the main gems and has displayed expert skills in swordsmanship multiple times.
Once she became a proper Crystal Gem she managed to expand on her abilities to a significant degree, allowing her to battle and manage herself against the Diamonds, the strongest and oldest beings in the Gem Hierarchy. Once said Diamonds were defeated, she would continue to assist and protect the world by developing her powers further. Most notably, she was able to defeat two Lapises at the same time, despite the duo being capable of easily copying her techniques after seeing them once.
Flame Princess
Phoebe has been using her powers since birth, as they are literally part of her, and is the only one of the three Elementals of her time (Patience froze herself for millennia, halting the reincarnation of the Ice Elemental until she passes) to have already unlocked her powers. They’re as natural to her as breathing. However, she lacked the chances to use her powers in the open, being locked up in an oil lamp cage for most of her life. Regardless, she’s still an amazing fighter, literally blazing through a dungeon, overthrowing her father, fighting against Finn while not in her right mind, and helping with Ooo’s various apocalyptic events such as the Dark Cloud and GOLB.
Despite her claims, she’s insanely precise, capable of hitting a rope 50 feet away (5:45-6:05) with a single fire shot, can ignite Finn’s gas bags in the air as they float away for fun (0:33-0:53) and accurately target and hit the Apocalyptic Cloud, despite being an entire kingdom away. And despite never using a weapon before, she was capable of cleanly cutting Finn out of a goo cocoon with a single swipe of Finn’s Demon Blood Sword.
Arguably her most impressive feat was being able to battle and defeat the Ice King in battle. In spite of being able to exploit her weakness to water, Flame Princess was able to take the hits, counter his abilities, and eventually overpower him. No matter the situation, FP has shown to step up and meet the challenge every time.
Equipment
Lapis Lazuli
Gemstone
The source of all of her abilities and powers. Besides providing her a physical form, a Gemstone can also store objects inside of it of varying sizes. Pearl’s storage room was stated to be infinite in size, and Steven could enter multiple different Pearl’s inside of that said room to view her memories. (0:00-2:53).
Badges
In the video game, Unleash the Light, Lapis can equip several different badges that can assist her in the midst of battle. Not all badges can be used due to being team-based, but there are plenty that Lapis can utilize on her own.
Special thanks to the Garnet vs Aile blog for listing all of the solo badges.
Harmony Badge: Increases total health by 10%.
Attack the Light Badge: Increases ATTACK by 5%.
Recharge Badge: Slowly regenerates health every turn. Stacks with other regeneration effects.
Immunity Badge: 25% chance to resist all negative effects.
Hardhat Badge: Immune to STUN effects.
Bismuth's Armor Badge: Wearer starts battles with an armor pack.
Star Starter Badge: The Star Meter begins with 1 SP higher than normal at the start of battle.
Lucky Flame Badge: Luck hits have a chance to apply BURN effects to enemies.
Lucky Restore Badge: Luck hits have a chance to restore health.
Lucky Zap Badge: Lucky hits have a chance to electrocute enemies.
Lucky Berserker Badge: While at 15% health or lower, all attacks are guaranteed to be Lucky.
Lucky Star Badge: Lucky hits have a chance to restore 1 star point.
Berserker Badge: While at 15% health or lower, automatically receive an ATTACK buff.
Freebie Badge: Small chance on every attack to randomly make one of your abilities 0 SP for one use.
Turtle Badge: Increases defense by 25% but reduces attack by 30%.
Shamrock Badge: Increases luck by 95%, but reduces defense by 50%.
Star Cap Badge: Increases max star points for the team from 10 to 12.
Grumpy Badge: Increases attack by 30%, but reduces defense by 50%.
Sparkly Badge: The wearer is now sparkly for some reason. Really, that's all it does.
Insult Badge: Wearer's actions generate more threat than normal, causing enemies to attack them more often.
Sneaky Sneaky Badge: Enemies have a harder time noticing wearer, causing then to attack less often.
Onion's Badge: The wearer's Perfect Blocks now always BURN enemies.
Rose's Tear Badge: After being defeated, there's a 33% chance on every turn to automatically revive.
Ambidextrous Badge: The wearer can now activate two costume perks at once.
Flame Princess
Flame Armor
Armor the regent of the Fire Kingdom has to wear. It’s just armor. Her father has been shown to control it separate from his body, so it’s likely his stronger daughter can do the same.
Sleeping Fire Giants
Giant fire golems created by Moe that are the alleged creators of the Fire Kingdom, their existence only known to the royal line. They operate on a geothermal module and shut down when removed. They served as backup energy in the current era but were also revered as the Fire Kingdom’s greatest weapon. They have only been seen dormant, and Princess Bubblegum tricked Flame Princess into destroying all but one of them, as she saw them as threats to the Candy Kingdom. In theory, if activated, it would be as strong, if not stronger, than Phoebe herself.
Abilities
Lapis Lazuli
Gem Physiology
Being rock aliens from another world, Gems have a notably different biology compared to humans. The body of a gem is effectively a hologram with mass, formed out of light and adjusting itself to the surroundings around them to create a shape. Because of this, a gem can shift and alter their bodies in multiple ways, be it altering their clothing, morphing their limbs, or even turning into completely different objects.
The Gems are functionally immortal, being able to live for thousands of years and not being affected by illness such as food poisoning. Despite being capable of doing so, Gems do not need to eat, sleep, or drink to survive, and can effectively fight for as long as they need to. Their bodies can also adjust to the gravity of any planetoid and can survive in the vacuum of space with seemingly no issues.
On the off chance a gem’s physical form is significantly harmed, they can retreat back into their gemstone to recreate their bodies. This process can vary from user to user, with Pearl taking two weeks while Amethyst can come back in seconds, albeit in a rushed form. As long as the physical gem itself remains unharmed, they will be able to continue to come back from any damage.
Hydrokinesis
“You almost drowned me when you tried to steal the world’s ocean?”-Connie
“I almost drowned a lot of people”-Lapis
The most prominent ability associated with any Lapis Lazuli is their ability to manipulate and control water as they please. Lapis’s control throughout the series has been extremely proficient, able to shape the world around her to her whim. This control is only limited by the amount of water within Lapis’s surroundings, be it a simple puddle of water, to the entirety of the Earth’s oceans. This water can even be solidified enough to create a giant water tower in space!
Her control doesn’t just extend purely to water, but any possible liquid substance as shown when she manipulated the mud on a planet into different objects such as a chair or…meep morp. This precision is potent enough that she doesn’t even need to use any specific movements to utilize or summon water to her side. As long as there is a liquid available, it can be used by Lapis as a potent weapon of destruction.
Water Wings
A series of wings projected from her gem that allow Lapis to fly at high speeds. She can accelerate nigh instantly, allowing her to make extremely fast trips to just about anywhere she wants, including entire galaxies (4:37). After her reformation into a Crystal Gem, she developed the skill to turn these wings into water fists to attack opponents.
Water Hands
The most common application of Lapis’s powers involves creating hands to attack her opponents. These hands can trap opponents underneath their pressure, punch holes through ships, and pick up and carry objects or people (7:07). She can even use her water abilities in tandem with these hands and combine them to increase her versatility.
Water Chains
A series of chains that Lapis can use to restrict her opponent's movements. These chains are powerful enough to even restrict a kaiju sized Steven, and can seemingly use the weight of the entire planet’s ocean to hold someone down.
Buzzsaw
A buzzsaw that is sharp enough to slice through solid rock. Lapis herself doesn’t make this, but she should be able to as a more potent water user than the other Lapises who learned this through being taught by Crystal Gem Lapis.
Bubbles
Like a true water user, Lapis can encase objects or people in bubbles to restrict their movements. She can carry and lift objects with these bubbles, from people (2:44), a giant portion of fish in the ocean, to an entire barn which she moved into outer space (9:48). She can also split any existing bubble into multiple, allowing her to attack multiple people at once.
Water Clones
During the battle for the ocean, Lapis was able to create replicas of the Crystal Gems with her hydrokinesis. These water clones can not only replicate the abilities of the gems, but have the added bonus of being able to morph their bodies due to their aquatic properties. This allows them to avoid attacks by shifting their bodies, and reform from seemingly fatal blows.
Water Susanoo
Note: Name not official
When sufficiently angered, Lapis can construct the water around her into a Susanoo like form that wields a spear to strike down her opponents. Sadly, she never gets to actually use this construct in battle and quickly dissipates it, but it’s obvious that Lapis can use this at any point if needed.
Thermal Control
While brief, Lapis has displayed to alter the temperature of the water she wields in battle. Her water clones were shown to emit steam, which would imply it’s at around 100 degrees Celsius. She can also reverse the process and turn water into ice, as displayed when Malachite could create multiple ice constructs. While she hasn’t shown the ability to do this in the main series without a fusion, Lapis has displayed in “Unleash the Light” to create a crystal of ice, although it’s possible her proficiency isn’t as potent as it is when fused.
Memory Projection
Lapis has developed the unique power to project her thoughts and memories onto different surfaces. Even while trapped in a mirror she could showcase Steven her thoughts and feelings, and even create an image on how to free her. Lapis can also utilize the water around her to showcase memories to the people around her.
Pathokinesis Resistance
Due to all of the trauma felt across her life, Lapis was able to resist the effects of Blue Diamond’s emotion based powers. This power was potent enough to even unfuse Alexandrite through making her feel nothing but extreme sadness, yet Lapis’s will was enough to be nigh-immune to its effects.
Flame Princess
Elemental Matrix
An unstable Flame Princess
As a Flame Elemental, and a powerful one at that, she has an internal matrix that helps regulate her power, for lack of a better word. Originally it was thought to only respond to romance, but Princess Bubblegum correctly theorized that her emotions in general controls it (3:01). Intense emotions make her hotter, brighter, and stronger, the most dangerous being what would happen if she were to be kissed. She would burn all the way to the core of the planet, the gravity pushing her back and forth until she burns the planet from the inside out. While initially out of control, she would learn to moderate this power to the point where she could kiss Finn without burning him at all.
Pyrokinesis
As the ruler of the Fire Kingdom, Flame Princess naturally has the ability to control flames. And as the current incarnation of the Fire Elemental, she can control flames very well. Anything from projecting, maintaining, or even becoming fire is child’s play to her (8:30-9:50). Any fire she controls she can manipulate however she pleases, be it in the form of balls, disks, waves, (8:53-9:40) etc., She can spawn fire without shooting it first and can shoot fire from the gem on her head.
Fire Elemental Physiology
“Uh, do we need a torch? I'm sorta made of fire.”
Flame Princess
Unlike most fire citizens, who are rocky in nature for the most part, Phoebe is quite literally fire, (9:27-10:15) just with a humanoid form. The form isn’t even physical per se, as her human bits are just more “solid” fire. The only time she’s fully “fleshy” is when weakened via being doused. This means her body acts like fire, so she can grow, extend, and distort her body at will. Any fire that she manipulates becomes like an extension of her, even when it wasn’t already. She can exist as multiple flames at once and can absorb flames around her. She’s shown the ability to quickly travel between fire sources and her body allows her to grow into a more ethereal kaiju form if she pleases, growing to the size of mountains.
To the opposite end, Flame King was able to turn himself into the flame of three candle wicks and Finn and Jake’s gas stove (0:55). FP was even able to become the burning house that Finn and Jake helped her make after she ran away. She doesn’t eat the normal way, as she instead burns things for nourishment, and this also heals her in a way, making her go from incapacitated to battle-ready.
Matter Manipulation
According to the Enchiridion, Elementals are equal to Wizards in their magic potency. This allows them to manipulate matter and energy by tapping into the Cosmic Imagination, a force that allows anyone to create and destroy as they wish by tapping into their minds. Given reality is a part of the mind, it can even give birth to reality warping effects.
While FP hasn’t shown anything on the level of full on reality warping, her molecular control should be on the table given her flexibility of her fire form. It was also noted by PB that her and the other elemental Slime Princess had their powers awoken by messing with their molecules.
Flame Bits Creation
An ability that allows her to blast multiple subjects into miniature flame beings known as “Flame Bits.” It’s unknown whether or not this can work on normal people.
Future Sight
As the current Fire Elemental, she should have access to the previous generation's ability to see and gain visions of the future, manifesting sometimes in other substances like coffee. While these visions were initially brief and not descriptive, this was due to the powers being limited by being in a non magic world. In the current world, wizards can visions of the far future or past, sometimes experiencing both at the same time.
Flight
Flame Princess can use her flames to propel herself through the air, or just fly outright.
Weather Manipulation
Flame Princess is shown alongside Ice King making storm clouds when they fight.
Heat Sense
Flame Princess spins and releases a non-damaging heat wave (2:47) to determine her surroundings and see if anything is out of place, like if a tree is fake, or if anything or anyone is hiding. This seems to be done by some form of thermal imaging, like infrared.
Fire Sword
Inferno Shot
Flame Princess does a flame Kamehameha. Like literally, same pose and everything. See above. A collision with an equally powerful attack will create a giant explosion.
Flame Shield
A spell that the caster uses to make someone resistant to the fatal flames of the Fire Kingdom. Flame Princess has never shown to use this on-screen, but given that Cinnamon Bun is constantly shown in the Fire Kingdom with it, and she’s the only one there who hangs out with him, she’s almost certainly the person who casts it on him.
Scatter Fire
Flame Princess creates four bolts of fire going in separate directions only to home onto their target.
Snake Fire
A technique where she extends her flames across whatever is touching her. (9:22) She then uses the newly extended flames as whips, cleaving through anything unlucky enough to get in her way.
Fire Slices
Flame Princess swings her arms in a horizontal motion, creating slashing projectiles composed of fire. These are potent enough to sever the Sleeping Fire Giants.
Fire Aura
Flame Princess’s energy. At low levels when she’s calm she essentially just functions as a torch. When agitated and in combat, it functions as a sort of forcefield that can melt approaching projectiles. Her aura can even passively affect objects around her without even needing to touch them. At its highest, her heat can be felt even when she begins to sink down into the crust of the Earth, possibly reaching planetary ranges.
Forms
Lapis Lazuli
Bob
A powerful destructive form Lapis takes to play the bloodsport known as baseball.
Oh and it also buffs her concentration so that she can’t be interrupted by small or medium projectiles. Thanks Unleash the Light.
Flame Princess
Pure Elemental
The form Phoebe takes when her Elemental powers are boosted to an extreme. Unlike the other three Elemental princesses, who turn into bigger--if altered--versions of their normal selves, Flame Princess turns into a dragon. Like all dragons she can fly and breathe fire, but she could already do that, although obviously her fire is much stronger now. The most notable thing is what happens to someone when inside her domain.
For starters, most beings vaporize upon contact with the ground, and they’d probably be the lucky ones (2:51). Anyone who remains in her domain eventually becomes transmuted as well as corrupted, turning into Fire Kingdom Citizens (9:06), which are living flames, and their inner fury is brought out, turning them into battle hungry warriors craving a never-ending fight. (7:37) The more fury you have inside, the quicker you transform. Phoebe herself isn’t immune to the fury. The juiced up Elemental forms all represent the four temperaments. Bubblegum is sanguine, Patience is melancholic, Slime Princess is phlegmatic, and FP is choleric. To put it in layman’s terms, it means she will act savagely. Given the form was attained unwillingly and via magical backfiring, it’s likely a non-factor.
Feats
Lapis Lazuli
Overall
Battled and nearly overpowered the Crystal Gems
Kept Malachite underneath the ocean for months
Beat Jasper with little effort
Overpowered and defeated two Lapises
Joined the Crystal Gems and helped defeat the Diamond Authority
Helped restore Monster Steven back to normal
An expert in meep-morp creation (?)
Power
Lifted the entire Earth’s oceans into space while weakened (35 petatons-11 zettatons of TNT)
Carries a barn into space (9:48)
Speed
Traveled across a world in moments (0:59-2:40)
Flew to Homeworld’s Galaxy in a relatively short time frame (30,000-463 million times FTL)
Durability
Flame Princess
Overall
Overthrew her father and became the ruler of the Fire Kingdom
Mastered her powers and controlled her matrix
Bested the Ice King in combat
Overcame her evil nature
Participated and helped save the world from GOLB
Became a successful rapper (?)
Power
Triggered a volcanic eruption that traveled across Ooo with one fireball (49 megatons of TNT
Her residual heat is capable of melting the Ice Kingdom (785 gigatons of TNT)
Crushes an ice mountain (9:30)
When her elemental matrix is destabilized, unleashes a burst of power that melted to the Earth’s core until the planet was burned out from the inside (14-141 exatons of TNT)
As the pure Fire Elemental
Speed
Durability
Withstands the explosion from the clash of her an Ice King’s attacks
Is slammed by the GOLB enhanced guardian and makes a crater on the side of a cliff
Recharges quickly after being put out by water (0:15-0:48)
Scaling
Credit to Pas for the scaling images below!
Lapis Lazuli
It’s safe to say Lapis is one of the strongest members of the Crystal Gems by a fair margin. Even in the beginning of the series, she was capable of taking on all three gems while weakened, and she didn’t stop growing in power since then. She has consistently shown performing the best against some of the strongest threats in the series by herself, namely Jasper, Blue Diamond, and Monster Steven. There should be no question that the biggest feats in the series would apply to Lapis given her accomplishments.
The Crystal Gems
The main heroines of the story. Lapis in the beginning of the series managed to take on all three of the initial Crystal Gems, and since then has managed to keep up and assist in battling some of their strongest foes. Needless to say, Lapis easily should scale to the feats the group has performed.
Survive being at the epicenter of a cloud splitting explosion
Pearl can maneuver a ship while it’s flying through an asteroid field (3:48) (44% the speed of light)
Can pierce and damage Periodot’s escape pods, which withstood crashing down from space undamaged (9:14) (24 megatons of TNT)
Shook Mask Island with a single attack and created an explosion (3:17)
Amethyst and Pearl created a dust cloud explosion through hitting a robonoid (1:24)
Defeated the Snowbeast, which created a snow storm in July. (603 kilotons- 25 megatons of TNT)
Kept up with a Harmony Core Robot, which could travel between Homeworld and the Earth (7 billion-86 billion times FTL)
Garnet
The leader of the gems and the heaviest hitter for most of the series. Between fighting the fusion early in the series, and beating her rival Jasper, Lapis should naturally scale to the accomplishments Garnet has displayed.
Sapphire could hit a flaming baseball and part the cloud above
Destroyed a part of a mountain with a punch (596 tons-59 kilotons of TNT)
Intercepted Steven mid warp travel (7:48) (5.8 trillion times FTL)
The Diamond Authority feat. Steven
The almighty antagonists of the series. Despite their immense power, Lapis has shown being strong enough to restrain Blue Diamond and assist in damaging her enough to receive help from Yellow Diamond.
Oh and Steven is here! Yeah he’s a Diamond don’t forget. While she was eventually overpowered, Lapis was able to restrict his monster state for a long period of time, further supporting the idea that Lapis can keep up with the Diamond Authority.
The birth of the Diamonds causes Homeworld to crack open (303 exatons of TNT) (Debatable, see Before the Verdict)
Three of the four Diamonds could create a corrupting light that eclipses the Earth (628 gigatons of TNT-103 kiloFOE) (see, Before the Verdict)
Flame Princess
Flame Princess if nothing else is powerful, and the series itself showcases this fact multiple times. From the beginning she was shown to be a match for Finn and Jake to the point where they needed specialized suits to deal with her. Once she began to master her power and overtook the throne, FP continued to display herself capable of keeping up with most of the heavy hitters of the cast. Her ability to keep up and withstand hits from the GOLB enhanced guardians showcases that even when dealing with cosmic threats in the endgame, she was able to still contribute as a heavy hitter. Because of this, FP should be able to scale to many of the feats across the series.
Finn and Jake
Our main heroes. Finn and Jake both struggled to deal with her and were consistently harmed by her flames, even back when she didn’t fully understand her powers. Suffice to say, Phoebe should be able to scale to the feats performed by both, even into their endgame.
Finn creates a black hole with and survives it’s destruction with a fourth-dimensional sword (3.84 yottatons of TNT)
Finn has enough physical power to the Upturnoverdrive, which can flip the entire planet over
Finn and Jermaine react to objects approaching them while flying from Earth to Mars (62 times FTL)
The spark can be used to move islands across a galaxy, and was later used to power a ship to fly back to Earth from across the cosmos (146 million-134 trillion times FTL)
Jake while growing his hand to the size of a planet threw Warren Ambersand into a black hole (1.39 zettatons of TNT)
Jake’s daughter Charlie, who inherited his powers, can grow to the size of the planet (6:41) (3-97 yottatons of TNT)
Finn and Jake beat up New Death (36:49)
Ice King
If their big battle didn’t make it clear, Flame Princess should easily scale to the Ice King. She matched his power and eventually overpowered him in spite of his ability to weaponize her weakness.
Ice King creates massive storms alongside Flame Princess in their battle (3-88 gigatons of TNT)
Creates a snowstorm around Finn and Jake’s house (1.5 gigatons of TNT)
Processes and sustains an entire universe uploaded into his head (89 quattturoseptuagillion-3.45 sexseptuagintillion times FTL) (Debatable, see Before the Verdict)
Simon claims he'd be powerful enough as Ice King to fend off the Scarab
Crown Users
As we’ve seen across time and space, the Crown has granted many users immense power to deal with some of the strongest threats in the series. Simon believed that he could replicate many of the feats others performed by using alternate crowns, so it stands to reason FP besting the Ice King allows her to scale to the feats performed by other Catalyst Crown users.
In an alternate future Ice King froze the Earth for 400 years (7.9 yottatons of TNT)
The Winter King’s kingdom melts after his death (20:23-20:47)
Vampire King with the crown keeps the world perpetually dark
Cosmic Beings
While Phoebe hasn’t interacted with many of the cosmic beings directly, her ability to keep up with the main cast even into the endgame should allow her to scale to many of the feats performed by these powerful beings.
The guardians defeated aliens that can slice a planet (5:02) (4 ronnatons of TNT) (12%-28% the speed of light)
Orgalorg fires a beam into space that reaches another planet in another solar system (19 million-713 billion times FTL)
Another Catalyst Comet would have destroyed the Time Room, and possibly the Time Guardians
The Time Room is the core of the entire multiverse and contains infinite surface area
The Time Guardians mere clashes create the waves of time that flow throughout the multiverse (Debatable, see Before the Verdict)
Scarab progressively annihilated Fionna and Cake’s universe with continuous shots
Prismo struggled to hold back the Scarab (21:13) and was later imprisoned by him (4:45)
Prismo has the ability to create entire realities, comprising multiple different universes. (see Before the Verdict)
Tiffany can move Finn and Jake’s family from the Undertaker’s blast that encompasses the dead world
The Dead Worlds are stated to be infinite in size (489 quadrillion times FTL-Infinite) (see Before the Verdict)
Weaknesses
Lapis Lazuli
While Lapis’s control of water is excellent, she still needs some layer of focus in order to use her powers properly. Direct impairment can cause even basic constructs to lose control and even turn into something else.
As a gem, Lapis’s ability to survive depends largely on her gemstone. Should said gemstone be shattered, it could effectively kill Lapis for good without outside sources. This is made even easier if she ever retreats to her gem to heal, as said gemstone is often exposed for anyone to target. Even just simply cracking her gemstone can cause side effects, such as distorting her form and making her unable to utilize her wings.
Like other gems, her ability to regenerate can be impaired depending on outside sources. The very mirror she was trapped in prevented her from escaping, and abilities such as the bubbling technique can prevent gems from being able to reform their bodies.
Lastly, there are some specific weaknesses that come with being a gem. As vast the inside of a gemstone is, too many objects can end up causing them to become sick, as shown when Pearl shoved a yard sales worth of objects into her gem. Weapons like Gem Destablizers and Rejuvenators can directly target a gem as well, causing Lapis to instantly poof at best, and at worst outright reset her to her original state.
Flame Princess
Flame Princess is fire. And therefore she is incredibly weak to water, cool air, and ice. As shown above, a mere cup of water is capable of debilitating her if it hits her. Touching water burns her like touching fire would burn anyone else. Things as simple as tears are enough to sting her. In her debut appearance, she’s knocked unconscious by harmless liquid pyrotechnics raining down on her. Her cousins attempted to murder her father, who has the same physiology as her, with ice cubes, and unlike the other Elemental princesses, she was completely out of commission when frozen by the waist down by Ice King (Slime Princess and Princess Bubblegum were totally fine, if immobile), though she can get back to fighting form if given something to burn like wood. Needless to say, too much water would kill her.
Putting out her fires hurts her as well, as they’re a part of her (there’s a difference between her fires and fires she makes; the latter doesn’t hurt her if put out), unless she extinguishes them herself. Finn stomping out her fires out of reflex was enough to make her think he was trying to torment her. Depriving her of oxygen would also kill her. While this is true for most life forms, because she’s fire, she consumes oxygen much quicker, as it’s like smothering a flame. She’s capable of being trapped in oil lamps like they’re prisons. She is also prone to outbursts of anger. They become less explosive as she stops being evil, but even then Finn was able to manipulate her emotions into making her fight the Ice King, and Princess Bubblegum was able to direct her rage into destroying the Fire Giants.
Finally, like all elements, she and her flames are countered by Lumps, the anti-element, and the aforementioned Elemental Matrix means if she’s kissed she could destroy the planet including herself.
Before the Verdicts
Credit to Dek BTW for all of these funny images
FTL Steven Universe 2
…hey hasn’t this been covered before?
Yeah once again the Garnet vs Aile blog effectively says everything that needs to be said. As much as I want to be super hard on this like I have been for the past few years even I (Shulk) will grit my teeth and concede that the MFTL stuff overall should be FINE.
Diamond Authority breaking Homeworld
If you’ve ever watched the series, you might ask the question of how did the Homeworld planet ever end up in its broken weird shape that we see for most of the series. A good chunk of Steven Universe media doesn’t actually answer this question, but we might’ve received an answer through the “End of an Era” Steven Universe book….sorta.
In the image in question, we see a drawing of the four Diamonds and “20,000 years ago” labeled while being at the center of the planet, implying that this is when the Diamonds emerged. Considering the drawing positions them as being in the center of the planet, it could be trying to convey their birth is what caused the planet to split right?
Well…probably? Unfortunately the text itself doesn’t actually explain away any real information on this birth. In fact it’s intentionally greyed out. For all we know, that could’ve been the planet’s shape the entire time and the Diamonds happened to come out after that. There’s not any real concrete proof that suggests the two are correlated.
For the sake of being comprehensive however, the feat will be included as a possible end for Lapis. It’s also important to split the planet crack between the four Diamonds, which would net 303 exatons per Diamond, or Moon level.
The Corrupting Light
One of the most important plot beats of the show involves the three Diamonds (Yellow, Blue, and White) creating a blast of light that corrupts all of the gems on planet Earth. A simple enough feat, but the real debate comes from the location of the act in question.
A famous line from Blue Diamond states that “White Diamond hasn’t left Homeworld in eons”, indicating that the blast had to originate from Homeworld itself. On its own this logic isn’t unreasonable as we know White to be extremely secluded and completely immersed in Homeworld’s life to a scary degree. We also know that the Diamonds consider Spinel’s 6000 years of waiting to be nothing time wise, which would make Blue’s comment about White not leaving Homeworld more notable as by their standards it’d be much longer than the entirety of the Gem War.
That being said, “eons” is still not a specific time. It’s entirely possible that White Diamond left Homeworld and came back and it’d still be “eons” given it’d be thousands of years since the war. We also see the origin point of the blast come between the Earth and the Moon, which makes it unlikely that it would originate from an entire other galaxy. Given that there is an established moon base, it’s likely that blast could’ve originated from there, which would line up with the established visuals of the attack.
Ultimately the show doesn’t provide a solid answer either way, so for the sake of covering bases, we decided to include both possible ends of the Diamond Blast in spite of the massive gap in power between the respective distances.
Dead World Bodies “Amp”
Okay just to put this quick claim to rest, there is a thought that there is an amp gained in the afterlife due to the Dead World granting new abilities such as being able to shift between past lives. At no point in the story does it imply Finn, Jake or anyone else becomes stronger due to their new abilities. At most they can go back to their previous prime or access powers from previous lives, but those powers are not buffed or made stronger in any way.
Tiffany Speed feat
So you might have heard several bits of contention regarding a particular speed feat regarding our favorite gremlin Tiffany. In fact the last AT related blog seemed to push against this feat. So why is it being accepted here?
Well the big question you might be wondering is how is this a speed feat? It’s weirdly presented at first given we don’t visually see Tiffany actually move or anything. All we see is Tiffany and F&J’s family tied up in another Dead World with Tiffany confirming he saved them.
Well we know that the only way to travel to other Dead Worlds is to utilize the teleporter. We see Finn use it when looking for the 50th Dead World. The important aspect to highlight is the teleporter is a physical object that must be pulled out and used to teleport the subjects in question. Tiffany isn’t seen holding the teleporter in his hands and was initially considering letting them be engulfed by the Undertaker’s blast, meaning by the time the blast was actually coming Tiffany had to pull the teleporter and activate it to get F&J’s family out of harm's way.
Another point often made is that the destruction of the Dead Worlds didn’t affect anyone physically, as shown when Finn wasn’t hurt by the blast and the residents being dumped into DW1 afterward, ergo Tiffanny wouldn’t need to teleport them out of the way of the explosion. While this is true, it’s important to note that Tiffany was trying to keep the family a secret from the rest of the Undertakers. They would’ve seen him teleport them in the middle of the void trying to save the rest of the family, so it’s unlikely that Tiffany would’ve teleported them after the blast consumed them ,especially when considering Jermaine was saved despite being much further away from Tiffany when the blast was unleashed. Tiffany wouldn’t be able to simply teleport unnoticed after the explosion consumed the Dead Worlds.
Admittedly the presentation (or lack thereof) makes this feat not completely safe and 100% easy to buy, so consider this a high end interpretation of Adventure Time speed feats.
Ice King’s Giga Brain speed feat???
“Every day is just an unending push for universal and tredecillion times light speed for what?”
Okay so yes this is a processing feat, yes those feats absolutely suck to talk about, and yes we wouldn’t in fact try to push this as an absolute 100% safe feat but we did feel it was at least worth ADDRESSING given it’s an interesting feat to talk about.
This isn’t just some case of “This guy sees a bunch of memories at once bro.” Rather it’s Ice King’s brain being essentially used as a computer to upload information into and process in order to keep the universe running. As Prismo himself says his mind was like a big nutty hard drive, and he literally uploads the universe into his mind. This could apply to Ice King’s reactions hypothetically as all spells in AT are mental in nature, and are ran through the mind and created before outputting. If a comparison had to be made to anything, it’s effectively a bigger version of that supercomputer feat Stich was given in his episode.
Of course YMMV by the fact this is a processing feat and those aren’t fully guaranteed to be accepted half the time. For the sake of being comprehensive, this feat was included and discussed.
AT Macrocosm
This might be a weird thing to think about since the series doesn’t draw major attention to it, but hear us out for a little bit.
As we know, there are countless upon countless universes in the AT multiverse, but with how the series is structured, it’s likely these series are not just composed of just one universe. The most notable case is when Prismo made a copy version of the main universe to form Fionna and Cake. On its own this is obviously universal, but this could be bumped up when considering what that universe would entail. We know that beyond just the main world, there are other dimensions that are connected to the main one that comprise its overall structure. These dimensions at the bare minimum include:
Nightosphere: The dimension where demons and other malevolent like entities exist. We know this dimension exist at the minimum given Marshal Lee mentions he comes from the Nightosphere in his song in “Bad Little Boy” (7:01)
Lumpy Space: As the name implies, this is where many of the Lumpy people exist. We see Lumpy Space Prince in this dimension.
However, there are possibly more dimensions involved when considering what the main universe is already composed of.
Crystal Dimension: The dimension where Lady Rainicorn comes from.
Bella Noche’s Dimension: The unknown area where Bella Noche originates from (1:34)
Dead Worlds: The afterlife for the main cast. At least 50 with 3 separate ones.
As a note, while the Fionna and Cake stories are Ice King fanfiction, they are based off of the characters that were created by Prismo and stored in his head, hence Simon’s comment on Fionna and Cake being real all along. Whatever universes and dimensions exist in those stories are based on a technically existing one in his mind.
If you were to take all of these dimensions together, you’d get about 58 universes that comprise just one of these dimensions. Feats such as Prismo creating separate worlds or the Catalyst Comet being sent to destroy a universe similar to the main one would be a good bit higher than just simply universal if taken into account.
Time Guardian scaling???
In Fionna and Cake we learn of the existence of these deities known as the Time Guardians, who’s clashes create shockwaves that spread throughout the entire multiverse, thus creating the flow of time. While on their own scaling to them isn’t set and stone, there is one method that could possibly work.
In the Enchiridion, there’s a story about the reader witnessing a comet coming towards the Time Room, with the book noting that it will destroy it and the rest of the world by proxy. This is important, as the Time Room contains the aforementioned Time Guardians, so if it was destroyed then by proxy it would take out the Time Guardians. The scaling chain would effectively be something like this:
Flame Princess>=Ice King=Crown>=Catalyst Comet>Time Room+Time Guardians.
Now this isn’t just an open and shut case, largely because we actually have no idea if the Time Guardians are still alive by the time the series happens. Prismo openly questions if they’re still alive, which if they are truly dead would indicate that the waves that travel throughout the multiverse are occurring outside of its normal boundaries. The comet destroying the room would remove a medium for those waves to travel through, but not necessarily stop the existence of those waves if the Time Guardians aren’t a part of the physical room itself.
Ultimately this depends on how you interpret the nature of the guardians existence and how it interacts with the rest of the universe at large. In the context of this blog it will serve as the biggest high end possible.
Verdict
Stats
Starting this off with direct feats, Lapis comes out swinging with her weakened state lifting all of the Earth’s oceans into space, netting about 35 petatons on a low end and 11 zettatons on the high end. Naturally this upscales by a good bit given Lapis was weakened while doing this and has improved her skills overtime.
Flame Princess isn't a slouch though. Her direct statement of burning through the Earth’s core nets around 14-141 exatons of TNT. While the feat was accomplished through burning her matrix, Phoebe would later learn to control this kind of power on her own, and similarly became stronger over the course of the series.
Comparing both, the lower ends favor Flame Princess but the higher ends tend to swing to Lapis. In any case, to get the best of both characters it’s important to look at their respective scaling.
Unfortunately for Lapis this is where things start to swing towards the fire queen, as the high end of her lifting the ocean…is also the highest feat for most of the verse and almost no other feat comes close power wise. Comparatively speaking, feats like Finn surviving a black hole, Charlie growing planet sized, and the Citadel Guardians stopping a planet slicing robot can net values 3 yottatons to 4 ronnatons of TNT. At best we’d be looking at a 272 times power difference, and at worst 363 thousand times difference.
Should we point to their highest ends power wise, we can scale Lapis to the Diamonds light show, which at its highest value would be about 103 kiloFOE, or Solar System level. Comparatively speaking, Phoebe besting the Ice King makes her more than a match for some of the higher end Crown feats, which have displayed the power to stop a Catalyst Comet. That said comet was noted to destroy a universe in one of Enchiridion's stories. This feat can be arguably even higher if you consider a single “universe” in AT to be made of multiple other dimensions, making the destruction of one “universe” to be the annihilation of 3 to possibly 50 others. Accomplishments such as Finn and Jake besting New Death who destroyed the 50th Dead World, and Orgalorg catching a comet before being sliced apart by Finn’s grass sword supports FP being on par with this level of power, given her ability to keep up with the cast into the endgame.
Speed wise, we witness a similar story. Lapis has two notable feats of traveling across galaxies, the low ends being around thousands of times the speed of light and the higher ends reaching million times FTL. Scaling her to other characters keeps this consistency up, as the Gems reacted to a robot that could travel between Homeworld and the Earth in moments, netting around 7-87 billion times FTL.
By contrast, FP doesn’t have any direct speed feats on this level, but she can compare to others in the series who have similar cosmic travel feats of their own. The two that come to mind would include Orgalorg firing a beam in his weakened state to another solar system, and PB and Marcy generating “The Spark” which moved their ship across the cosmos. The lower ends of these reach million times FTL, while the higher ends can grant us around billion to trillion times FTL, beating out most of the big feats Lapis herself has and the other feats Gems might have scaling wise.
Should this be taken to the absolute highest (reasonable) extreme, we get Lapis scaling to Garnet’s feat of catching Steven mid warp, granting her 5.8 trillion times FTL. By contrast the highest numerical value for Phoebe would be scaling to Ice King’s processing skills which would net uh
That.
Even without this feat, Tiffany's reaction to the Undertaker’s explosion would be 493 quadrillions of times FTL, which would be 85,000 times faster. Even if THIS feat isn’t to one's liking Marcy and PB’s high end of traveling from the edge of the universe to Earth would still be 23 times faster. No matter how you slice it, most of AT’s speed values will end up beating out most of SU’s values.
Overall when looking at this through different angles, FP comes out on top more often than not. Even with some of the highest values from Lapis’s side, the cast of AT (especially the cosmic ones) tend to outperform those ends more often than not, and that’s without exploring the absolute highest value possible for FP, namely the Time Guardians. In a contest of power, Flame Princess blazes through this category.
Arsenal & Abilities
Okay so no dancing around the elephant in the room:
It’s no secret that Flame Princess doesn’t handle water very well. Many many times throughout the series she gets harmed and put out of commission through water. Lapis’s main form of attack is water. You’re probably thinking that this is just Lapis just throws a water backhand and Phoebe just fucking dies.
Well possibly puzzled reader, we’re gonna have to ask ourselves the question of:
Point 1: Size Matters not but it actually does
Well okay let’s establish something real quick. Phoebe doesn’t just instantly die the moment water touches her. It stings for sure but it doesn’t just instantly kill her. Usually when Phoebe gets incapped by water, it’s usually proportionate to her actual size. There are multiple moments where she is touched by water but doesn’t just instantly die.
Touches the water of a lake and doesn’t lose her fire completely
Ice King’s surprise water attack stings but doesn’t drain her
In general, her fight with Ice King does prove that FP doesn’t just instantly die the moment water touches her, and more importantly displays that she can keep fighting against someone who can weaponize her weakness. At the very least, Lapis would need to have a mountain’s worth of water to fully incap her. While it is true Lapis can gather a planet’s worth of water, it’s also important to note she never actually used THAT much water in just combat alone. Even against the gems she used just portions of the entire ocean to handle them, which while impressive doesn’t prove she would just dump all of the Earth's oceans on to one opponent. The largest we’ve seen her use at a time against a target would be Monster Steven, who’s size eclipses that of buildings. Impressive, but the Ice Mountains are uh just a bit bigger than that.
But okay a planet’s worth of water is still a planet’s worth of water. If Lapis pulls that off she’ll be able to just one shot her right?
Point 2: Too much fire/10
It is true that if Lapis were to gain access to that much water, she could possibly overwhelm FP regardless of size, though the operative word is “if” here. There are two major hurdles for Lapis to actually achieve this
She needs to focus in some way for all of her water movements. Consistently we have seen that Lapis needs to apply some focus when utilizing her abilities, and disrupting said focus can cause them to mess up. We’ve seen this when Peridot messing with her movements caused her constructs to go out of control, and she implores to Steven that during the Malachite saga that she couldn’t get distracted, with said distraction causing Jasper to take over.
Even for her bigger abilities like the water chains or holding down Malachite, Lapis cannot simply generate any of this water out of nowhere. Vast as her control is, she is still dependent on the water in the environment, and would need ample time to call over that much water to a single location to attack FP. Even her water tower feat didn’t happen instantly, and took hours before the tower could properly be completed.
In most cases this wouldn’t be huge issues to overcome, but against Phobe these two problems become far more prominent thanks to the nature of her pyrokinesis.
The biggest advantage Phoebe has working with her is accessibility to her element at basically all times. FP can generate flames on her own, burn down other areas to create more flames, and absorb said flames to get stronger. She’ll never be in a scenario where she’ll run out of fire, letting her constantly pressure Lapis with attacks that would prevent her from fully concentrating on gathering any water to retaliate. On the off chance that FP does manage to get hurt, the ability to burn almost anything to heal will grant her a quick way to get back into battle as long as there’s fire around in the area.
This only gets worse when you realize many of FP’s own giant AOE attacks are far more accessible to her in a fight compared to Lapis. Sure, FP’s range is as a whole inferior to Lapis, but FP has consistently shown to actually apply her AOE attacks in combat, such as instantly growing mountain sized to fight Ice King or flooding the Goblin City in flames in an instant.
The only chance Lapis could have to possibly gather enough water to attack would be using her superior flight speed to play keep away, but not only has she never done this tactic, hypothetically Flame Princess can see it and other tactics coming thanks to the future sight she gains by virtue of being an Elemental. A Wizards ability to see the past, present, and future through Amok time could grant FP the information needed to know what danger Lapis poses, and immediately strike before she has a chance to gather her resources.
Simply put, Lapis is never going to get the chance to gather her big giant AOE attacks when Flame Princess at every angle will be pressuring her with attacks, and only building up her own resources to grow stronger.
…Okay so I get it. Water is water and that’s just dangerous to Phoebe so who cares how much she has if she just has it that’ll work right?
Point 3: It’s FLAME AURA Bro
Arguably the most understated aspect of Flame Princess powers is well… her aura. That might sound like some shonen ass ability but we’ve seen plenty of times throughout the series that Flame Princess has an actual heat aura that is always active and can affect things around her. Just by getting mad enough she was able to passively melt the Ice Kingdom, and even a casual conversation was enough to heat up the environment around her and endanger animals (2:25) Hell when she was fighting the Ice King for the first time she literally expanded said heat to melt his projectiles, and even as a baby she was able to she was able to burn entire forests without directly coming into contact with them. Naturally at the absolute hottest, this aura could melt the Earth’s very core and affect the environment on a planetary scale.
Why is this important? Well that “aura” just so happens to be a perfect shield against Lapis’s water attacks. Even with the largest amount of water possible, none of it has a way of getting past the sheer heat that Flame Princess can emit. To paint a picture of this heat, the Earth's core is largely made of iron and nickel, with the boiling point of iron alone being around 5184 degrees Fahrenheit (2861 degrees Celsius). That is at least 24 times the temperature needed to evaporate and boil water, something which Alexandrite used to directly counter the water hand Malachite conjured to ensnare her. Given FP’s fire is way hotter than anything Alexandrite has displayed herself, she should have no issue easily burning away any attack that could come her way. Without her main weapon against Phoebe, Lapis would be left with nothing to really push the offensive, and that’s not even considering if the sheer heat wouldn’t just burn through Lapis herself.
“But wait, don't Gems have really good heat resistance?”
Weeeeeellll some of them do. Bismuth does casually bathe in lava and Garnet does state she can swim through it…but Garnet also mentions in the same scene that Pearl and Amethyst cannot. This would more or less confirm this trait isn’t universal amongst gems, and there would be no reason to assume unless stated or shown that the other gems can replicate this kind of resistance. Even if for some reason gave Lapis this resistance, that would be a temperature of 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, which is around 2.3x cooler than the melting point of iron.
Keep in mind that the value presented for iron is on the lower side of things, as the pressure inside of the core could make the boiling point even higher than established. Flame Princess’s ability to control her matrix would grant her access to this heat on command rather than it being a lucky shot, meaning at any point she wants to get serious she can turn on this kind of heat on the spot.
So yeah Flame Princess’s literal aura should be enough to evaporate any water possibly in her surroundings and be way too hot for any heat resistances Lapis might have.
…wait, you still aren’t convinced? After all of this? “Water is water” you’re saying?
Alright fine guess I got one more thing to show.
Point 4: That time in the comics where Flame Princess just survives underwater for hours
This comic doesn’t forget her weakness to water. Jake straight up thinks she died because of this event and prior to jumping in Flame Princess was visibly hurt by the water. The comic takes note by the end that she’s beginning to gain better control over her powers and abilities which could explain her ability to survive underwater as long as she did.
Still more?
Yes this comic is a “secondary source” but the timeframe of this comic doesn’t contradict anything within the main series. It notably takes place after the events of “Vault of Bones” and before Frost and Fire where Phoebe was constantly questioning if she was evil by her very nature. The comic even addresses this as a struggle.
Still not satisfied?
Yes Fionna and Cake is fan fiction by the Ice King but as discussed earlier, all of the stories he wrote about Fionna and Cake were based off of an actual universe and events that Prismo stored in his head. Given it’s just a literal copy of the main universe but gender swapped, anything Flame Prince does here should be applicable to mainline Phoebe.
Factoring these issues in, it’s clear that if push comes to shove Flame Princess can resist the effects of water, or at the very least it won’t just outright kill her if she’s submerged. Combined with her ability to recharge through burning things, Phoebe would never be fully out of commission for long.
Other
Here are just a few quick mini points to cover that didn’t fit with any of the established categories:
The badges are kinda worthless here. None of them really offer anything to make up the stat gap, nor deal with the aforementioned heat that Flame Princess can generate.
Flame Armor doesn’t have any notable feats of resistances so it’s ultimately moot.
Lapis’s thermal control doesn’t match FP’s own heat, and her cryokinesis is limited relative to what she can do as Malachite. FP’s fight against Ice King also showcases that this wouldn’t be an issue for her to deal with.
It’s unclear if the Flame Bits transmutation can work on non-fire people, but given FP never tries this on any humans it’s unlikely to be a factor.
Fire Giants can be an excellent resource for FP to regain fire and continue her offense if activated. They are extremely vulnerable however, and Lapis could likely destroy them if given the chance.
Summary
When looking at everything here, Flame Princess has several different methods of countering Lapis’s hydrokinesis and preventing herself from being incapacitated. Even on the off chance she does get hit, supplementary material such as the comics would suggest that it wouldn’t completely kill her and she’d have plenty of time to recharge herself and get back into battle. By comparison, Lapis has no way to fully halt FP’s offense and would easily get overwhelmed by the quantity of attacks, assuming she doesn’t get faster by the sheer heat FP can emit around the battlefield.
Pokemon may have taught us that water beats fire, but this category favors Flame Princess like the Pokemon company favors Charizard.
Tertiary Factors
Both of these ladies have displayed strong proficiency with their abilities as time went on, granting both some impressive showings of skill. Flame Princess' ability to shift and alter her body and structure does display a great understanding of her own molecules, while Lapis’s various constructs illustrate how creative she can get with just water alone. Even when compared to other characters, they’ve both managed to keep up with many skilled warriors in their series, be it the legendary heroes of OOO or the Crystal Gems themselves.
That being said, skill wise Lapis has probably more impressive showings, at least against other warriors. Someone like Pearl has managed to display more proficiency and understanding of sword combat compared to Finn, especially given her thousands of years of experience over him. Despite that, Lapis managed to copy that style perfectly with her clones, as well as the other gems who have a similar amount of experience in combat. Even when comparing their styles, FP’s while effective is far more simplistic and can be exploited, as shown when PB used her temper against her to destroy the Fire Giants.
Speaking of experience, Lapis has lived for thousands of years and kept up with warriors who’ve lived for similar amounts of time so that should be a done deal right?
Weeeeeeeeeellll not exactly. While Lapis has lived longer than FP, a fair amount of that time was stuck in a mirror with no active combat, and prior to said incident she spent most of her time simply terraforming planets. Even when she began to fight, a large chunk of her battles were won largely through sheer power rather than skill. This is notable where in the battle against the other Lapises, they were able to learn from her and adapt to her skills mid combat, forcing her to just overpower them. Even in her battle with the gems, she had the advantage due to their water capabilities, which made them harder to actively put down and hit.
More importantly, there isn’t anyone in Steven Universe that has much potent control and understanding of fire compared to Flame Princess. The most common pyrokinetics are the Rubies, who have far less versatility than even a basic elemental. By comparison, Flame Princess has fought and beat the Ice King in combat, who not only arguably has the memories of all the past crown lives, but more importantly can weaponize her weakness. While it is true that the Ice King’s powers aren’t one to one with what Lapis can do, he does show similar flexibility and creativity with his powers in their fight, and gives us proof that Flame Princess would know how to deal with somebody that can use her weakness in a fight.
Overall while Lapis takes the edge in pure skill and creativity of her powers, Phoebe’s fight against the Ice King grants her a more relevant example of how she would deal with a water based opponent, making her experience more favorable in this specific circumstance.
Conclusion
Lapis Lazuli
"I couldn’t stay away. If they’re going to punish me like a Crystal Gem, I might as well be one."
Advantages:
Has access to Flame Princess’s main weakness
Faster travel speed
More creative use of powers
Greater experience dealing with generally more skilled fighters
Larger AOE overall
Peridot
Disadvantages:
Weaker and slower overall
Has no counter to Flame Princesses’s Flame Aura
More reliant on the environment for her powers
Has no heat resistance feats that matches FP’s output
FP’s best showings against water would remove her biggest advantage
No direct experience against anyone with as potent pyrokinesis as FP
Jasper (She kinda got better)
Flame Princess
“I’ve realized my place is here, ruling these weak and vicious Fire People.”
Advantages:
Stronger and faster overall
Flames are way hotter than any temperature Lapis could resist
More direct access to her powers at all times
Flame Aura can evaporate all water that could come her way
Battle against Ice King grants her more experience against someone with access to weakness and similar creativity to Lapis’s own powers
Her best showings surviving water would prevent Lapis’s attacks from being fatal
Cinnamon Bun
Disadvantages:
Consistently weak to water
Inferior travel speed
Less skilled and more easily exploited in combat
Smaller AOE overall
Finn the Human (he got better)
On the surface this match might seem like a mismatch between water and fire, but once the weeds are picked out things begin to lean towards Flame Princess more. From a stat standpoint when looking at all ends, both direct feats and just their scaling, Flame Princess tends to be stronger and faster across the board, sometimes by ludicrous degrees.
This brings powers into the equation, and despite the weakness to water, Flame Princess had several different means to counter this problem. Between her size manipulation, better access to her element, and the ability to evaporate the water with her literal aura, Phoebe had many ways to answer Lapis’s attacks. This is all without considering the comics showcasing that she can handle being submerged in water without dying for hours on end. Comparatively speaking, Lapis doesn’t have strong counters to FP’s own powerset, and would inevitably be overwhelmed.
Lastly, despite Lapis’s strong creativity and more cool headed nature in battle, she lacks any experiences against someone like FP ability wise. By comparison, the fight with the Ice King gives that fire Elemental a reference point towards somebody who can exploit her weakness, and how to combat said weakness in fight.
Oh and all of these get worse if you factor in the Pure Elemental form FYI. All of the established stats increase by a notable amount and just being in the domain of FP would cause Lapis to incinerate on sight at best, and at worst end up being possessed and taken over by the fire itself.
So the question remains: Would Flame Princess lose to Lapis Lazuli?
Credit to all calc creators on VBW for their numbers and Rina/Tommy for some of the others.
Special thanks to Ani and Dek for the funny images, Flip for the initial trailer and TN for this match, and L.A.D for the next time trailer. I also want to shoutout Pas for the scaling images and background art.
A big shout out to the Garnet Aile and Charlie Marceline blogs for having some information at the get go.
And lastly thank you to therealCalhoward and Js for their assistance on talking some stuff out and certain segments of this blog.
This was epic!
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