Connie Maheswaran

"" is a character in Steven Universe. She is Steven's close friend. She made her debut in the episode "Bubble Buddies".

Appearance
Connie is a young small framed girl with dark skin and waist-length dark brown puffy hair. She has a prominent nose, somewhat thick eyebrows and wears a pair of red lens-less glasses (after the events of "An Indirect Kiss"). She is slightly taller than Steven.

She's usually seen in a variety of different outfits and dresses. She usually wears light blue and white clothing. In the intro, she wears a hat and has no socks. Her casual wear includes blue overalls with a green-striped white shirt; a green shirt and gray khaki shorts; white shirt which has a golden sun, with blue shorts and dark pink flats; pink shirt with blue shorts, and her boots; sleeveless periwinkle dress with a pale violet lace around her waist, and powder blue flats. For tennis practice, she wears the outfit she previously wore in "An Indirect Kiss" (the second casual outfit), along with a pale blue tennis visor and has her hair in a ponytail. Her formal outfit is a pale yellow mini cardigan, white top, black-gray leggings, and pink heels. Her snow wear is a pale blue coat with a thick white fur-collar, white mittens, and pale blue-colored version of her boots.

Personality
Connie has a bookwormish personality, generally being withdrawn and introverted, as well as curious and intelligent. Due to her parents lifestyle Connie rarely stays in one place for long and has been unable to form lasting friendships until she met Steven, often feeling lonely. Her parents are very strict and disallow her from common childhood activities (such as eating donuts or anything with trans-fat), this has led her to flat-out lie about Steven's non-nuclear family, due to paranoid at how they may react. Although despite her obedience to her parents she is not above exploiting loopholes (such as not buying snacks at a theater and instead bringing them from Steven's home).

Connie has grown used to the strange dynamic of her friendship with Steven despite her initial uncertainty to it, as in "Marble Madness" such as when the Gems destroy one of Peridot's robots in front of her, she reacts passively and only comments that she loves hanging out at Steven's place. She can be a bit deadpan at times, such as when she jokes about cutting off Steven's hand in "Lion 2: The Movie" and in that same instance quickly understands that by poking/tickling Steven she could provoke a reaction from Rose's Secret Armory. Her hobbies appear to include tennis and reading, she also plays the violin, as seen in "Fusion Cuisine".

Steven
Steven first saw Connie about a year prior to the start of the series during a parade. He saw her drop her bracelet, and decided to kept it in his freezer so he could return it one day. She also remembered seeing him on his father's float, mentioning the soap bubbles in his hair. He becomes her first friend, although Connie does sometimes feel like her life is rather mundane compared to Steven's. They are currently good friends, and share a mutual crush as seen in "An Indirect Kiss" and "Alone Together". Steven was even more heavily implied to have a crush on her in "Open Book", and it's also shown that she cares deeply for him in "Full Disclosure" as she repeatedly called and visited him to make sure he was okay, even going as far as to say she wanted to "be a part of his universe". It is shown in Sworn to the Sword that Connie wants to protect Steven even if it means losing her life.

Mr. Maheswaran and Dr. Maheswaran
Connie is very loyal to her parents. While they tend to be strict, they want the best for her, and want her to be smart, orderly and healthy. She closely follows their orders, but does occasionally exploit loopholes or even lies to them to get away with something.

Crystal Gems
Connie is on good terms with the Crystal Gems. In "Bubble Buddies", they were excited to meet her. Pearl says in "Full Disclosure" that she doesn't understand human relationships when she is looking for Steven.

Pearl
Connie is shown to have respect for Pearl as a teacher in Sworn to the Sword. Pearl, in turn, respected Connie as a student.

Episode Appearances

 * Bubble Buddies (debut)
 * Lion 2: The Movie
 * Rose's Room (cloud)
 * An Indirect Kiss
 * Mirror Gem
 * Ocean Gem
 * Fusion Cuisine
 * Alone Together
 * Winter Forecast
 * Marble Madness
 * Full Disclosure
 * Open Book
 * Love Letters
 * Sworn to the Sword
 * We Need to Talk

Trivia

 * Connie’s surname, Maheswaran, means “Lord of the Universe” in Hindi and is also traditionally a Tamil surname.
 * Connie appears in the title sequence as the "Mr. Universe" van drives by. She holds the book "A Wrinkle in Time".
 * She is able to write backwards. This is seen in the very short amount of time it took her to write "Harpoon Gun" on the inside of the bubble in "Bubble Buddies."
 * It is revealed in "Lion 2: The Movie" that Connie plays tennis.
 * According to writer Matt Burnett, Connie is of Indian heritage.
 * Following the events of "An Indirect Kiss", Connie can now see normally without her glasses thanks to the healing powers in Steven's saliva. However, in order not to aggravate her parents and optometrist, she pops out the lenses of her glasses and puts the frames back on.
 * It is revealed in "Mirror Gem" that Connie plays violin.
 * In "Fusion Cuisine", it is revealed that Connie's last name is Maheswaran.
 * Connie is the character with the most different outfits so far, though in some episodes she does wear repeated ones.
 * In "Alone Together", she fused with Steven to create Stevonnie.
 * She is also revealed to be embarrassed to dance in public.
 * She lives out of Beach City, as shown in "Winter Forecast", when Mr. Maheswaran said: "I'm almost at Beach City, so start putting on your shoes."
 * In "Winter Forecast", Connie says "itadakimasu", a Japanese word said before eating. This implies that Connie know a little bit of Japanese or is a fan of Japanese culture.
 * Steven is Connie's only friend as mentioned in "Bubble Buddies" when she said she was going to disappear without making a single friend.
 * She also said a similar phrase in "Full Disclosure", where after Steven texted her he didn't want to be friends anymore, she said that she'll just go back to having no friends.

Connie