Spoiler Exact context is her treatment of Bismuth. In which case that's not off the mark at all, she majorly, majorly fucked up with how she handled the Bismuth thing. Rose was a bad person, in how she handled other people. Good ideals don't erase that.
Spoiler: thoughts on pink I do think she's like....idk. I sympathize with her on some level, and I don't think her rebellion was PURELY from "but I don't want to have Diamond responsibilities, I just want Earth", I think it was also that she to some extent took Yellow and Blue's dismissal of her excuses for why the colony couldn't happen as a dismissal of her, and her feelings, which could easily lead to her being like "they'll never listen"--and I can see her thinking they wouldn't listen early on either bc Blue and Yellow....have both definitely destroyed organic life for Gem colonies. Gems Come First, Organic Life Does Not Matter. I can see how Pink would look at that and go "I might be a Diamond too but if I express wanting Earth to stay as-is because of its organic life, at best they'll tell me I'm being silly and to complete the colony." I can also see why she would want to stop being Pink if she just wanted to live on Earth--after all, even if they'd let her keep it as it was, she probably wouldn't have been able to be on it much. that said, I think her decisions were poor, and her estimation of the Diamonds' response to what she did was so far off it is....not even funny. she acted in a kind of selfish manner, imo, and was...definitely manipulative, whether she intended to be or not, and it being for the "greater good" of Earth's organic life is....fair, but also doesn't excuse her actions. and I DO think what she did to Pearl is fucked. I know Pearl was an enthusiastic participant at first, and heck, Pearl has been said to have even been proud to keep that secret for a while--but Pink didn't seem to at all consider what keeping that secret FOREVER with NO OTHER OPTION would do to Pearl, and that is...massively selfish and damaging to Pearl in a way I can't really forgive. ESPECIALLY AFTER PINK FUCKING DIED FOR REAL, LIKE COME ON.
Spoiler I think... One of the major themes of the show has been that love, while good and important, is not on its own all you need for a relationship. Love takes time and work and for all parties to be able to talk to each other and be listened to. And Rose, I think, really did love the Earth and the Gems and everyone, but she didn't see the need to talk about things with people, or actually let anyone talk to her about her plans, and usually she'd shut people out entirely rather than clear the air with them. Which leads to Bismuth being locked away in lion, which leads to Pearl being completely unable to get closure with her over any of her plans, to the point where Pearl represses things and sings about how it's over and she needs to move on so why can't she or sends Steven on a roundabout journey through her past just to be able to open the conversation and have this enormous burden she has never been able to talk about in the open. Rose didn't want to ever talk about it again, so Pearl has never been able to actually work through any part of what happened. And Pearl almost certainly would have kept the secret from everyone else, but... I don't think she would have never tried to talk about it with Rose, and she can't. I do think that Rose did get better about these things - at least I would very much hope that Rose kept her word about never using the command ability again. And Greg helped too. But Rose... She meant well, she had good ideals, but she could b so careless with people, and make decisions she couldn't take back at the expense of other people and then shut away the evidence of those. Steven, at least, can do better. He has her love but he got Greg's compassion, he talks with people instead of shutting them out. So they'll make it through ok.
Spoiler Greg Universe is the best person in this show, except maybe Steven. I don't mean best character, I mean best person. He brings tears to my eyes at a rate that startles me. Steven is a lot more like him that his mom... which... he raised him, so, that makes sense.
Spoiler Mulling it over I find that I think of Pink/Rose as a mostly good-intended person who was bad at what she did because she was... incompetent, and fighting a war she couldn't win, incompetently, and a lot of people seem to think she somehow PLANNED all of her mistakes, and that's what I don't like. This girl? No way. She thinks about 3 seconds ahead, there is no mastermind here. If she did have a game plan, it was incredibly poorly calculated. Unless it turns out that she actually did plan to sacrifice/trade Gems for humans, and on that day, someone @ me so I may reluctantly toe my way into the pool of shame and wallow in it. Tag urself, make sure to remind me of my mistakes. I am consistently wrong at fan theories. The one time I was right, it was Yuri on Ice, so. So.
Spoiler Yeah and like, that's the point, that's why Rose chose Greg to have a kid with. Because I think she wanted to stop being herself but she also wanted to make sure the person that came after was a good person. And Greg might be 'just a human' but he's so, so compassionate and kind and loving, and while I'm... actually not entirely sure if Rose realized that Greg being that was didn't make it 100% sure that Steven would be that way, I think that's all stuff she really, really wanted for Steven. Knowing that Rose is Pink makes it even more clear, in that Diamonds have a lot of power. It could be abused so, so easily, even with it being focused around healing and shielding, and the fact that Rose is not actually a Rose Quartz implies to me that Steven's power actually isn't just bound to healing and shielding in the way a Rose Quartz's power might be. Because Roses Quartz are confirmed to have been designed as support soldiers and battle medics, but Pink Diamond doesn't actually have that programming, she was just keeping to the theme to more convincingly act as a Rose Quartz. Her being a Diamond explains the absurd power level, down to bringing back the dead as Steven or shielding herself from a direct assault from three Diamonds as Rose, but I think she could probably do more things than she let on. And I think even if she wanted to stop being herself, I think there's probably some hesitance about leaving that level of power in someone else's hands... so she wanted to make sure that person was based on and raised by the best human she could find?
Spoiler I think she accepted some Gems as the cost for protecting humans, or at least learned to accept that fast, because even if she's not fighting to shatter and she's telling her soldiers not to fight to shatter, accidents happen. We've seen that with what happened to Lapis, where Lapis was poofed but not shattered by a rebel Bismuth, then captured by Homeworld who incorrectly took her for a rebel. And as much as that left Lapis in a bad, horrific situation, I think Rose would see that as okay in the course of saving many, many lives. We see this in how she tells Pearl that they can be shattered for rebelling against the Diamonds, even! Even if Rose tried to avoid shattering, she accepted it as the cost that her side would face if they lost, but the risk was worth it to her, and I feel like she made it pretty clear to other people. But that's not trading the lives of Gems for humans... that's protecting humans even if failure means the death of Gems as well as humans, or being willing to try and make a heroic last stand even if the odds weren't good. I don't for a moment believe she realized that she could succeed in getting Homeworld to abandon Earth at the cost of the lives (or rather sanity) of thousands if not more Gems... even if the end result still protected Earth, I think the unexpected tragedy probably fucked her up hard, especially as she tried to heal her former companions only to realize that she couldn't even with the power of a Diamond. I wonder, will it take multiple Diamonds to cure what they caused?
Spoiler I DESIRE THIS PLOTLINE....... I don't know how they would make that happen?? But Wow Imagine the animation sequence for healing the cluster *u* See: the incredibly heart-wrenching explanation of her feelings in Lion 3. She wanted to be Steven way, way more than she wanted to be herself at that point. I would too. That's still one of my favorite episodes... I've cried every time. "That's me, loving you--and me loving being you!"
Spoiler That's one of the several things I thought of that makes it not work so well, yes. But we have gotten misinformation from stories that gems relate to us before, and most of them only described it as a 'bright light.' It was sudden and confusing and theoretically happened so fast Rose could only protect the two people closest to her. We might be getting filled-in information that isn't strictly accurate, just like how Garnet's retellings of the war weren't always accurate even though she was there. I'd be splitting hairs and making up excuses in order to justify this, but that feels like not a problem after the last two episodes >u<
Spoiler some timeline stuff is driving me crazy now and im dying for answers blue implies that pink created the rose quartz gems. they're all that's left of her legacy. but they're all bubbled in pink diamond bubbles on the (edit: diamond) base. pointless speculation: did she create them for the explicit purpose of disguising herself as one? if so, why and when did she bubble all of them? also, remember the giant crater in the Russia area. Spoiler: big I'm guessing that pink came from that. but that would also be really confusing for the timeline. that would mean pink was made on earth, beamed to homeworld, then eventually put back on earth. which, im stealing this theory from a friend, would fit into the off color theme that seems to go around pink/rose. holly blue calls the earth amethysts a disgusting strain of quartz. jasper is always fighting to prove herself. earth gems are seen as lesser. maybe pink is an off color diamond. they gave her a defective colony and a hand me down pearl to shut her up I also wonder if the inside facing shape of the pink diamond put any strain on the body. maybe Steven is just a short dude, or maybe he's a little stunted by having a significant portion of his gem permanently covered.
all in all i am very hype for the newest reveal Spoiler rose as pink diamond's attempt to be just another gem, making lots of trouble-making choices in all her short-sighted optimistic earnesty (that steven definitely inherited)? very good. she was a young monarch eager to prove herself, directed to destroy other life for the sake of the empire, grew concerned for the lives she was directed to destroy, and rebels in increasingly large ways on their behalf. i love that trope. it gets me with zuko, it gets me with lotor, it gets me with others i'm not thinking of. flashback pearl looked so young and happy, so much like connie in her bright-eyed enthusiasm for doing what's right and being free. all signs point to, she was given many options to turn back, to go back to homeworld, but felt she was choosing what she wanted. and that's delightful for shipping, because they had some really tender moments together, and it makes beautiful art. aand yettttttt there's so many fun problematic layers. the likelihood that pearl was made for pink, or at least gifted to her from white, to be her pearl - her servant/slave. the way pink trampled so unthinkingly selfishly over her agency, with that geas of "let's never speak of this again," which she never bothered/thought to revoke even when she was dying, leaving pearl in pain and incapable of communicating in any normal way about it. the way pink seems to have tried to face problem after problem with evasions (feeling overlooked, feeling conflicted on behalf of the organics, feeling frustration w/ the static roles for the gems, feeling like escaping the role & responsibilities & reputation of being a Diamond, feeling like playacting at being a person with humans for centuries) the way she seems to have decided that, since she as a gem wasn't changing quickly and fundamentally enough, she decides to effectively kill herself by becoming part of a human child with greg? a kid who would have his compassion and have her abilities and connections to the gem, a kid who could bridge them and heal them as she felt she couldn't, a kid to fix her mistakes. to be the person she wants to be for those she loved, because she couldn't love like them. Spoiler one of the flashbacks to the diamonds' attack on earth showed us white diamond's hand on screen with yellow and blue, so not super likely that she's a fusion /chinhands at this idea
Spoiler: Rose The worst part is, I'm 90% sure Rose told Greg some of the stuff she wanted Pearl to never speak about again.
Spoiler i actually don't think she did - she wanted to but greg waved it off and that he didn't care. i dont remember the actual episode/quote but it definitely happened that way, someone mentioned it in this thread too which is almost a more interesting dynamic, imo! she would have done it if greg let her, but he was willing to let bygones be bygones no matter what it was
Spoiler Yeah but they dated for a long time. And when Greg is talking to Steven about the gem war he definitely knows something. Does he know the details? That's in the air, probably not. But I think he knows some shit Garnet and Amethyst don't.
swirl! :D:D:D you're back! :D:D:D Spoiler: su spoilers! and i love your take on this! :D:D:D 'cause, like, most of the takes i've seen (a lot of them on other websites) seem to go too far in either direction, and yours is the most nuanced and balanced i've seen so far. 'cause, yeah, i can't really ignore that rose forced pearl to never speak of it ever but i don't think that makes her completely bad-intentioned either and this is the first time i've seen a take that balanced it in a way i liked. all the previous ones i saw were just missing something, you know? and it was hard for me to explain what was missing 'cause i was too busy being an excitable puppy over this new twist on pearlrose/pearlpink, and thinking, "damn, connecting pearlrose/pearlrose to my other otps (temple/biff, for example) is really weird now to really get at what the previous ones i'd seen were missing.
Spoiler we still haven’t seen his reaction to Steven knowing Rose was Pink Diamond. I think when Steven talks to him about his mom lying about who she was, we’ll find out exactly how much Greg knows. He knows more than he’s said, but he also wants to protect Steven.
Spoiler And now we get an even better understanding of Pearl's mindset all the way back in Sworn to the Sword
i'm enjoying reading the discussion even tho i havent seen any episodes in a long time (i dont really care about spoiling myself tbh) Have this AMV Shelby Cragg posted, i'm not sure how spoilery it is but it focuses on Lapis
