Steven Universe Stuff

I was thinking about how Yellow and Blue Diamond’s Pearls were not only made for them to match the Diamonds’ appearance, but were also made with a personality to compliment their respective Diamonds as well.

Like her Diamond, Yellow Pearl is also strict and temperamental. Although she remains subservient to her Diamond, she’s willing to bark at anyone else going against the rules (i.e. Peridot using the direct Diamond communication line)

So Blue Pearl…

She’s as different in personality to Yellow Pearl, as their respective Diamonds are to each other. Blue Pearl is very quite, and when she does speak it’s very softly, similar to Blue Diamond’s own gentle nature. When her Diamond is grieving, she kneels along side her.

But what does this all have to do with White Pearl? Well we’ve already made the observation that based on White Pearl’s gem placement and her outfit design, ignoring color, looks much more like a custom made Pearl for Pink Diamond. However, if the pattern of Pearls’ personalities being made to compliment their owners, Pink Pearl’s personality and behavior would be unacceptable from a Pearl by Homeworld standards.

If Pink Pearl were to be anything like her Diamond, her resulting personality could have ranged from being stubborn, impulsive, questioning. All traits that would have been undesirable in any Gem, let alone a Pearl.

Pink Pearl was made personally for her Diamond. She may have been “altered” by White Diamond upon meeting this Pearl, deeming this one unfit.

But then, why would White keep what would have been seen as a defective Pearl, an Off Color Gem?

To make an example out of her.

i don’t think SU is wrapping up, and i don’t think s6 will be the last one, either.

there’s one important reason, and it’s one i feel don’t get talked about all that much: steven does not yet truly challenge the homeworld system. 

right now, his real focus is to get white to help him heal the corrupted gems. 

even blue and yellow - who he’s in the process of befriending - still own pearls. they still rule absolutely. they’re still only friends with him because he’s pink diamond. they don’t understand rose’s reasons for leaving them, even if they’re more willing to listen than white is.

this is not all that odd - most gems in the crystal gem rebellion started for personal, even self-centered reasons, only later learning to have compassion for the wider causes of earth, justice, equality, and gemkind’s freedom.

the more i think about it, the more i think the crew were very clever in not bringing blue & yellow pearl along for this particular adventure.

if gems like jasper and nephrite are to have arcs of their own - which seems likely, considering how much orange there is on the timeline, how the crew loves to tease jasper’s arc, and how steven promised to heal centi first - then corrupted gems benefits from being addressed before the homeworld system. 

the diamonds are not necessarily the “final boss”. gems like jasper, nephrite, eyeball, and to an extent pearl, shows that the internalized hierarchies and roles of homeworld gems are perfectly capable of reproducing themselves without their diamond present to support it. 

pink diamond, too, could not change the system - not just because she was young and didn’t truly grasp the depth of it, but because telling her gems to be free as a diamond would only perpetuate it. 

the system itself may be the “final boss”. not blue, not yellow, and not white diamond. this includes the hierarchy, colonization of other life forms, parasitic kindergarten reproduction, and the unquestioning belief in a type of “society first” collectivism that strips gems of any personal freedoms outside their designated roles. 

this is also why it’s so poignant that peridot isn’t there - she has great concern for the homeworld hierarchy, her old home’s dwindling resources, and budding plans for alternative means of creating resources. things that will be important for homeworld’s future, but may be distracting now. 

the absence of these elements gives steven focus. he’s healing gems, not overthrowing the government he just kinda-sorta understands. yes, he’s been thrown down a rabbit hole where he will most likely confront some of these issues, but i highly doubt they will all be resolved right away. 

SU loves to plant and payoff slowly - and that’s a good thing. we need to truly experience homeworld to explore satisfactory ways of untangling its problems. we need to address long-suffering characters, such as the corrupted gems we’ve grown to care for, to truly understand the depth of their devotion to their diamonds. moreover, they bring home how even perfectly loyal gems are - ultimately - disposable, for the greater society, when push comes to shove.

all of this helps us understand why rose came to hate her home planet and leave her family behind. seeing what she rebelled against, and why the system exists from the point-of-view of its rulers, helps us understand what steven can do. how he - as bismuth said - can become someone even better than rose. how the next generation can learn from the past to create a better future.

Seriously, let me repeat: White Diamond is the most alien character I have ever felt the presence of, and she is a character in a show completely plot driven by aliens.

A show that has been running for 5 to 6 years now, leading to the moment we finally approach this single character.

A character, of which we’ve seen pictures and symbols of since season one, yet we never even had a name drop until the same minute (no exaggeration) we were going to see her face to face.

Even though she didn’t directly say a single negative word, her voice alone sounded terrifying.

Her perfect symmetrical pose as she stood, her face completely blank from emotion even though she wore a constant smile with no malicious glare in her eyes. Her completely white and silver room allowing no emotional connection other than feeling like you do not belong there. Her skin beaming with such bright unnatural light, which is terrifying in itself before you recognize that every single being in the gem species creates their physical form out of light. The light that creates her body, and her person towering in that room was created in such a way that made it impossible to focus on a single object except for herself.

The fact that her body felt so unnaturally eerie, just standing there with no movement as she spoke, was terrifying. She looked like a statue, or as if she was a robot with a human face plastered on it. A robot programmed to show emotions in the face, and even if you didn’t know the being in front of you was a robot, you could tell the being could not feel empathy even though it was programmed to show the right facial features for certain emotions. She felt so scary as an authoritative figure that she radiated power.

She is the definition of a dictator- someone who originally created the idea of dominance.

There are characters in plenty of fiction that have amounted to these things, and I would never argue with anyone on that. However, the reason I say that this is truly and truthfully the most terrifying character I’ve ever seen is that I got all these feelings, thoughts, and observation from this character when she was on screen for exactly 30 seconds.

Garnet + kittens

Bonus:

Her linework and coloration is how the Crewniverse typically draws backgrounds, using a distinct watercolor-esque style with less defined lineart so the characters pop no matter what background they’re on.

Those feet do not belong to any SU character. Nobody in this show has nails or even distinct heels. The level of detail is jarring since we’re so used to much more simple characters while the detailed art is allowed to rest in the background. She feels like a permanent fixture in her throne room, a living part of Homeworld itself. 

Her face is the only part of her that’s animated and even slightly resembles the typical style of the other characters, but even still no character has so much detail on their eyelashes, or even their lips (most lips in this show are just two lines on either side of the mouth). Her facial features are also pitch black on a figure that is otherwise pure white to light gray. Every character design in the show employs contrast to highlight certain features to a degree, it’s a basic component of any visual medium. But the contrast in her face is noticeably more dramatic than any other image in the show, whether it’s the richly colored characters or pastel environments.

Blue has a left arm, representing right brain thinking

Yellow has a right arm, for left brain thinking

White thinks with her head

Pink thinks with h