• lapis says some curious things in mirror gem.

'did you even wonder who i used to be?', paired with lapis announcing her name as if it's a weapon, her general demeanor, her unwillingness to talk about her past, *and* the fact that no one else seems to recognize her or be able to predict her abilities, suggests that there is something about lapis that we do not know yet—something that she is intentionally keeping hidden.

it's worth noting that the way lapis phrases her callouts—'did you even wonder who i used to be? i'm lapis lazuli'—implies that whoever she was, she's not that person anymore; she's lapis lazuli now. this echoes her later sentiment in chille tid ('we're malachite now'), where we see there's a precedent of lapis identifying only as a fusion.

• lapis is certain that, once she returns to homeworld, her innocence can be proven (in a way that it couldn't be while in the mirror).

despite being placed in the mirror in the first place by a homeworld gem, lapis demonstrates that she is confident that she will be treated with clemency if she returns, so much so that she attempts to do so with a severely cracked gem (which, canonically, no one but rose quartz can heal, and will only get worse with time).

and yet, while being questioned in the mirror, she doesn't show her interrogators evidence that she is not a crystal gem. even if they didn't ask her to, we know that she doesn't have to follow orders; the fact that she can choose not to is what leads the realization that she is still sentient while in the mirror. why did she choose to remain imprisoned? why wouldn't she prove her innocence 6,000 years ago?

perhaps, to do so, she'd have to reveal a far greater secret.

• 'that's just how it is with me' in same old world.

when steven tells lapis he feels like he only sees her when something terrible is happening, that doesn't bum her out or even surprise her. she smiles, softly (wistfully, i would argue), and says 'that's just how it is with [her.]' even the cluster isn't treated like its presence alone is a bad omen. this echoes, quite closely, the view we tend to have of ruby and sapphire: that you only see them in hard times.

• lapis has some peculiar imagery.

her mirror is engraved with an eight-pointed star, made of two diamonds laid atop one another. she chooses to create this shape again with her hydrokinesis, and a similar shape is seen in marble madness with peridot's plug robonoid. additionally, in her wartime and current-as-of-reunited outfit, her insignia consists of a blue diamond in two parts. on no other gem is the diamond insignia broken. curious!

• lapis has overwhelming power, unparalleled by any crystal or homeworld gem that we know of (except yellow diamond).

lapis, alone and in a weakened state, is able to defeat the crystal gems with brute force. it isn't even difficult for her. it does not make sense for all lapises to be this powerful; homeworld could not have lost the war on earth, a planet that is mostly water, if they had even a few gems as powerful as lapis on their side.

neither pearl nor garnet seem to anticipate how powerful she is. in fact, pearl specifically mentions that it's unusual! even jasper, who theoretically should know what lapis is capable of, considering that she's her prisoner, is surprised and confused that lapis is as strong as she is, and ultimately she's unable to overwhelm lapis's strength.

• lapis is, somehow, special.

lapis consistently frames herself as a person of consequence, and yet, while in her mirror and after her return, homeworld apparently can't figure out who she is, and neither does she tell them.

this, in addition to the fact that it is simply not possible that gems with lapis's abilities are common, indicates that lapis is different in a way that she hasn't yet made explicit.