Spoiler hey, quick thought. five thousand years later, blue and yellow diamond still grieve for pink like her death was recent. jasper still acts like the war was recent. i don't think gems heal like humans. time doesn't smooth anything over for them, they don't grow or age on their own.... until exposed to new perspectives. especially human, mortal perspectives. interesting, then, that the humans in the human zoo are locked, along with the earth amethysts, into a sterile and timeless and conflictless system.
...Holy shit I need to watch Wicked. That's such enjoyable condescension, I must experience it in more detail.
I went digging through her tumblr because I can never look at just one post and I found this Spoiler: Image + speculation So I noticed something: Blue, White, and Yellow diamond are shown with several planets. Pink Diamond has one... and what looks like that planet's single moon. Was Earth her only colony? Why would she have only one when the other Diamonds are shown with so many? Weren't the diamonds kind of conquering the galaxy? What if Pink Diamond was the youngest of the Diamonds? That's why Rose was able to actually have a resistance, and why she was able to shatter her. Also Yellow doesn't understand Pink's fondness for humans (and Blue maintains the Zoo mostly because it reminds her of Pink), and treats it... almost like a phase she expected Pink to have grown out of if she'd lived. Maybe it's a rite of passage for Diamonds to get attached to a species, especially on their first colony and over time they care less and less about the life they destroy. This explains Blue's continued grieving especially, to me: it wasn't just one of her kind who was killed but someone she may have seen as a little sister. Also what if White hasn't shown up yet because she's doing the Detached Elder thing? She's not going to fix the mistakes of her youngers unless it becomes clear they can't handle it, and things that seem catastrophic to them might seem less dire to her, especially if she's been around for a long time. Going with "younger Diamonds are more emotional, older ones more detached" I propose the age order as being White, Yellow, Blue, Pink. And while it's 1am and my brain is running away from me, a throw-it-at-the-wall theory on Diamond formation: they grow a new diamond when their territory starts going beyond what the current diamonds can efficiently control. Which is why the empire as a whole didn't go to shit when Pink died, since she only had Earth. The other Diamonds weren't stretched to their limit when she was formed, just expecting to keep expanding as they were. They also slowed expansion when she was shattered because forming a Diamond takes a long time.
Aw fuck, just rip out my heart why dont you(but also please write more if you ever have other stuff you wanna analyze bc that was really, really good) Spoiler As a continuation, maybe the planets they're each shown holding are the planets they were most attached to. Yellow is an outlier with her two, but the ones she's holding are also weird with the diamond marks in the centers- but maybe they represent her and Blue's birth planets? I'm not sure. Yellow's mural throws everything off... Maybe she used to be more sentimental than she'd care to admit. But i think White Diamond's held planet is pretty clearly supposed to be Homeworld. If it is typical for gems to grow attached to a first species, then i would assume hers would be well, other gems. Which might be why she started the whole advancement of their empire beyond their home planet, because she wanted the best for her species. Also the age analysis makes sense to me, both from just how we've seen them act, and the Diamond logos we've seen before- pink was the lowest/newest, while blue and yellow are always equal and white is at the top. Since Pink was at the bottom I'm guessing that there isnt an issue of showing hierarchy between diamonds- so i would assume that while yellow is older, it's not by an amount the diamonds consider especially important(which who knows how long that is tbh) while White is probably much older and Pink was probably much younger. ETA: oh hey, White has those shoulder pad things in the mural but Yellow doesnt... Maybe she's emulating White a bit with her current outfit.
Spoiler: Does this even need spoilering? And Pink's pose looks like she's bursting out of the ground -- suggesting young/recently emerged?
It's interesting that Skinny doesn't have a Gem that looks much like normal Jasper's... is it even faceted?
Spoiler: Gem placement/diamonds Probably been said before, but i really dont understand why everyone thinks pearl was pink diamond's, its much more likely she belonged to white diamond if she belonged to a diamond at all.
I always thought she was White Diamond's because her gem is white but her design includes all four diamond's colors. (This goes along with my headcanon that White Diamond was actually the fusion of Blue, Yellow, and Pink.)