”I was wrong about fusion, you made me understand. Malachite was bigger and stronger than both of us. We could fly!”

    “It’ll be better this time, I’ve changed! You’ve changed me!”
    
    Hoo-boy, Jasper.
       
    The context of that dialogue is so important.
    
    The “change” was Jasper fighting against the fusion, fighting for her freedom, seeing fusion as power instead of a shameful act.
    
    While the act of fusion cannot be forced, Lapis DID force them to stay together as Malachite: Jasper screamed “NO!” when Lapis was pulling them underwater, and Lapis’ subsequent struggle to keep her subdued in chains, a sentence she meant to carry out forever. It seemed disproportionately cruel, a punishment, where a bubble would have worked. In Chille Tid, Lapis refused Steven’s offer of help. With Alone At Sea, we were given Lapis’ real reasoning for doing all this in the first place. It wasn’t to protect Steven, this episode proved how little a threat Jasper was to Lapis or the Crystal Gems at the end of Jailbreak.

    It was to have power over someone else, giving her a sense of control she was denied for thousands of years. For what she suffered from both the Homeworld Gems and the Crystal Gems, for what she suffered in the mirror, she wanted to be in that position of power, and so the cycle continued. I don’t even think it mattered who it was, Jasper was just the opportunity that presented herself first.
    
    And it scares Lapis that she liked the harm she dealt. She shows guilt over it, but that feeling, that need is still there. To deny that she openly admitted she liked hurting Jasper misses out on postive character growth! In her refusal to give into temptation this time, she has hopefully taken a first big step to moving forward.
    
    Jasper hasn’t been given the opportunity for healing. It was really disappointing to see Steven of all people ignore the chance to defuse the situation in the more gentle way we’ve been used to with him. And Jasper is SCARRED now. When we first saw her, yes, she’s an antagonist, but she had agency, confidence, and strength. Now she was on her knees begging to be Malachite again, PROUD she was able to weather the torture she had endured. She wanted to be free when the fusion began, now she just wants it back no matter what it cost her. Knowing Homeworld’s stance on fusion, she is now willing to throw away her loyalty to Homeworld as well.
    

     She didn’t call Lapis a monster to make Lapis look BAD, she meant it as a COMPLIMENT.

    Help them BOTH, Steven. They both need it, they need it bad, and like Centipeetle, it’s not something healing spit (or a punch) can do.