Exhibit 1: Homeworld is faceted and white (an argument can be made that the facets are purely aesthetic though)

Exhibit 2: White’s Pearl is cracked similarly to Homeworld (like her owner’s gem?)

Exhibit 3: We do not see actual evidence (so far) that this projection even HAS a gem; there is neither one on her head (like her mural) nor one on her stomach (like her pearl)

Exhibit 4: White may no longer move and, if her gem were cracked, would probably be severely weak or injured, resulting in seeming frozen….. alternatively, her body is a colossus- a giant statue which does not move- save for what looks like ACTUAL light projections (head, and maybe arms). It’s a prosthetic. She probably ‘moves’ using her bubbles to do her bidding (like how she moved Steven), but doesn’t actually move from her place. Exhibit 4 is kinda debatable. 

I have a theory I came up with just now.

My friend said joking “White is a star bro”, and my mind was blown.

There is a star, named BPM 37093 and nicknamed “Lucy”. That star is a white dwarf made out of DIAMOND. It was once a shiny star like our Sun, but it shrunk and its core crystalized into diamond.

White Diamond may be a star who became a white dwarf and crystalized into diamond, that would explain how she was formed. That occurs naturally, so she may really be the first diamond.

Oh, and that may also explain why she is all shiny.

she is the first diamond, and gems–diamonds included–are made. then what the hell made her? someone? no one? would she even be a gem?

“she’s not like us. she isn’t even like them!” a direct confirmation. she isn’t like gems, and she isn’t like the diamonds, then what IS she like?

she’s a literal celestial light and/or pure burning energy–gems have concentrated physical forms, and yes, they are made of light–but it’s light that is contained and regulated. white diamond seems like she is out of control, almost like there’s too much of her for any other being to handle–and the scope of her power seems as if, either accidentally or purposefully, it’s literally torn homeworld apart.

again, she isn’t like a gem, and gems come from the ground–diamonds too. she probably didn’t emerge from a planet like every other gem. where else could she have come from? ah yes, space.

(coughs) REALLY PLEASE, JUST LOOK AT HER

all that kept in mind, my theory comes to this:

white diamond isn’t a gem.

did anyone else notice that White Pearl never really moves? 

She just kinda floats from place to place one position

White Diamond (even though we never see her full body all at once) looks like she’s holding the same position as well.

White diamond is blank. Her face has no definitive features outside of her eyes, nose, and mouth. She speaks in a manner similar to that of GLaDOS, a robotic antagonist in the portal games. Everything about white is… blank… perfect.

I believe that white is the base form of all gemkind. And by that I mean she is the default, the ‘factory settings’ for all gems. She’s the most basic coding for a gem. All other gems have individual emotions and thoughts and beliefs, but white is void of any of those.

But that’s not the main point of this post, I believe she can revert other gems to this form as well.

White Pearl has no personality. Yellow Pearl is obnoxious and rude, and Blue Pearl is shy and quiet. It seems like her individuality has been erased. She moves rigidly, and is always en pointe. White pearl doesn’t even have her own original voice. She now has a different form of White Diamond’s voice. (Yes, they have the same VA). It’s possible that her eye was destroyed during the process of removing her personality.

The way she doesn’t walk. The way she only appeared to do White’s bidding. The way she’s—for lack of a better word—T-posing. The way she can phase through walls like a hologram.

The way she’s voiced by the same actress as White Diamond.

i will fight for the place where im free to live together and exist as me,

i will fight in the name of freedom for every single gem and human,

i will fight for those who are different, the way i am is all ive ever known,

i will fight to be everything that everybody wants me to be when im grown,

the odds are against us, it wont be easy, but we’re not gonna do it alone!

So for all the people in the critical tag who are expressing open disdain for the Diamonds and the messages of pacifism in Steven Universe, do you have these same problems with Undertale:

An RPG where you literally have the choice not to kill any of the monsters but befriend them, even Asgore, and even Asriel. The former is a child murderer and the latter is an evil flower. There are many more morally questionable characters like Alphys who like the Diamonds was also responsible for painful and horrendous experiments on monsters. Hell, she’s responsible for the creation of Flowey but she still gets a happy ending. 

I love how, in their moment of hopelessness, all of the gems are focused on whatever mental hangup has been plaguing them for the entire series.

imo the only person who deserves criticism for their redemption is asgore because he basically is reintroduced to society despite deliberately killing 6 children

flowey? i mean being an emotionless flower is suffering enough

alphys was following orders and was genuinely remorseful for what she did, and eventually fessed up to it

at the end of the day, at least undertale never tried to make you sympathize with space colonizers. the humans were in the wrong for starting the war and quarantining monsters underground, and the story has no problems letting you know monsters hatred of them is wholly justified

heeres a Hot Take™: the character who i really think is more loved by the fandom than she deserves? toriel.

before i can adress toriel herself tho, consider this: all the characters op listed have some reason for their actions. whether its justifiable is a whole other matter, but lets go down the list

asgore: lost both of his children in one night, and then still had to try and do what was best for an entire kingdom, so he, as many leaders do, declared war. without anyone else in power to really stop him, this decision was allowed to go unchecked. the only other person with any form of political power, his wife, fled instead of talking him down.

hes shown to regret his actions, but he made the critical mistake of talking himself into a corner, and then proceeding to fall into a trap that many people do: he thought, “if i turn back now, ill be sacrificing everything i already put into this”, so as time went on, it only got harder and harder to back out. hindsight is a bitch, yeah?

flowey: he is literally a soulless flower. like, he actually literally does not have a soul. not to mention, hes a child. i think most people tend to forget that. hes a child who died, only to be brought back with no soul or feelings. he was bored, and responded in an emotionless, childlike manner, by repeatedly breaking what he saw as toys. is it justified? of course not. but i think its understandable.

alphys: i think most people tend to forget as well that alphys wasnt ever acting out of malice. she injected the fallen monsters with determination because she genuinely thought it would help, and that she was doing the right thing, and at first, she WAS doing the right thing. trying to cheat death may have been naive of her, but it was certainly noble. and her failings after that? every single one of them was caused by fear. she was scared. and who wouldnt be, after turning monsters into amalgamations who could never die? i can say myself that i have tried to ignore problems in hopes that theyd go away, i think most people have. and yes, she was a bad friend to both mettaton and frisk, but that was again driven by fear. she was afraid of being alone. was it selfish? yes. but i can absolutely understand doing what she did when youre afraid and have never been taught how to cope with that, as i strongly suspect is the case with alphys.

frisk: i need everyone to understand that frisks actions in game are almost wholly controlled by the player, save for a few small moments. frisk has no control over what is done, not on any route. while they may be separate from the player, they are still controlled by the player, and to try and shift the blame onto them is just plain ignorant.

chara: now this one is the one that i see most commonly. everything that they are is completely erased because of a misinterpretation of their appearance at the end of the genocide route. i want to make it clear that chara has no effect on anything that takes place, except for after the end of a soulless true pacifist run. and even then, i strongly suspect that they may just be reminding you that you are not above consequences. and besides, they werent originally Like That, they were taught that violence against monsters is the answer by the player, and all of the actions they took on the genocide route. while i wont pretend that they were completely innocent, i will say this. their hatred was reserved only for humanity, not monsterkind. their actions after a soulless pacifist run are solely caused by the player.

speaking of the player, i wont try to justify a genocidal player. the motivations of each player are different, and their actions are for them and them alone to come to grips with.

now, all of that being said, that brings us back to toriel.

im,, ambivalent towards her. i think shes a fun character, but i think she tries to have a moral high ground and a sense of “holier-than-thou"ness that she doesnt actually deserve.

so lets go through her actions as i see them:

1) she left asgore instead of trying to talk him down from starting a war.

justifiable, she was angry and grieving and disgusted, and i know some people just arent good with confrontation under stress, but,, not particularly noble or good of her.

2) criticizing asgore for not simply taking one human soul and crossing the barrier to get six more.

i have problems with this for a couple reasons: one, how could she know that asgore wouldnt just be struck down the same way asriel was? and two, if its that simple, why didnt she do it herself? how long were they trapped down there again? how long did she as well stay complicit in all of monsterkind being trapped there simply because she couldnt put aside her own anger?

3) she never answers frisks calls??

look, i get it, shes trying to keep herself from being put through more grief. but i think it tends to be forgotten here that, despite everything, frisk is a child. theyre a child, alone, facing an underground that wants them dead. think about how terrifying that must be for a child. and then, they go to call someone who took care of them all through the ruins, someone who they may even see as a mother figure, for comfort, and what do they get? nothing. absolutely nothing at all, from someone who allegedly cares about them. putting aside the adult thoughts and justifications for a moment, imagine how that must feel from a childs point of view. that would be absolutely crushing. think about it any way you want, but in my opinion, it was nothing short of cruel of toriel to not answer her phone, and only added more stress to a journey that would already be traumatizing for any average child.

also re: soulless flower

as we see in the no mercy route and multiple neutral routes, his asriel shows through multiple times, especially when frisk/player continues to spare him. you might say, maybe that's never happened to him before! but he mentions going through hundreds of timelines to kill everyone. you really think he's never been spared before, when one of the main characters is papyrus, who tells the human he still believes in them after they murder him?

as for him being a child...not only has he lived for a very long time when you add all the timelines he made together (which doesn't count for most of the other players who have no memories or limited ones of previous timelines) but...being a child literally only goes to a point. a kid does something stupid because they're a kid? yeah. genocide is not one of those stupid kid things.

as for the really, no offense, stupid claim of toriel being bad because she doesn't pick up the phone when frisk calls...

1. if frisk waits like toriel says, we hear her phone get stolen by a dog. it is entirely plausible something like this happens again.

2. Later in the game if you call certain people, it will get to a point where they say "once you get past this room, the signal will be too weak to call me again". Toriel lives in the very first part of the game, behind a door that had extremely long halls. It's probable that this is another reason she doesn't pick up the players calls.