#at this point i shouldve made an original post so i could subject the steven universe tag to this

[mbat]

okay but she was literally made for rose. made to be roses. she was made to always be by her side and serve her and dedicate every second of her endless existence to her. it was written in her code. it was established by their society on every level.

not to mention she wasnt just assigned to any random high ranking gem, but one of the four leaders of the entire species. this is not a role to be taken lightly, even if she was never supposed to get the credit or appreciation a pearl deserves for such devotion and effort and action.

you have to imagine how it felt to be by roses side, especially when rose began to change, not to mention how she cared for pearl, and actually wanted to treat her like a person (the best way rose could, even if it wasnt perfect. in fact, it was far from perfect.)

rose began to do genuinely admirable things, in my opinion. she wanted everyone to be treated equally, and to save an entire planet from obliteration, and she was willing to fight for it, give up everything for it. again, she was far from perfect at this, but she had her intentions.

and in it, they were always by eachothers side. rose even gave pearl the choice to leave, save herself, but pearl didnt want to leave the person she was literally made for. also lets be real, both choices kinda sucked. she could go back to homeworld and be a slave, or stay on earth and risk shattering, or at the very least be stuck there forever far from her people and everything about gemkind except for the ruins of a brutal war.

but pearl didnt care that those were the choices, she was made to stay by roses side, and she adored rose. the untold thousands of years theyd known eachother, weve only seen small glimpses of it. you have to imagine how it felt. they did almost everything together.

not to mention the biggest moment in the show, rose giving pearl her darkest secret that would shatter (no pun intended) everything that happened when it came to the war and homeworld vs the crystal gems. she trusted pearl to help her do this, even though it was really clear pearl was miserable in doing it, and rose did her final diamond command to make sure pearl kept it.

but in this fucked up scene, comes a bond. not a healthy one, but one nonetheless

but really, isnt that what summarizes this whole thing?

they spend thousands of years by eachothers sides, almost always together, knowing almost everything about eachother, theyve made a life together, and changed so, so much together.

and then a human arrives. humans, who only live to be around 80 if were lucky, as compared to the immortality of being a gem.

and rose falls for this temporary creature.

thousands of years of gem-baked devotion, adoration, effort, life... it meant nothing, it felt like. her feelings that she was made with, they didnt seem to mean anything to the person who they were made for.

rose starts giving this creature attention that we have to assume she never had before, not in that way. i believe we heard that shes had flings with humans before, but never like with greg.

and you have to wonder how it compared to how she was with pearl all those years.

and eventually rose makes a decision that is, quite literally, unheard of. something that has never happened in the entire universe, and who knows if itll even work, or how itll work, or why. and this thing will take away rose, and rose knows that.

rose wants that. to be gone. forever.

and she chooses this with greg.

i mean, gems dont even die, not really. and this is something that gems seem to know, at least homeworld does. the way they use gem shards, they know that the shards are still alive, fractions of a consciousness.

so... how should a gem even feel about death?

they experienced shatterings on the battlefield, but you expect loss in battle. it still hurts like hell, but its what happens.

but this isnt a battle. this isnt even a fight.

and its not against roses will, her life isnt being taken away from her. shes giving it up, to bring new life into the world yes, but what would that even mean to pearl? she doesnt care about organic life forms, especially humans, and especially not more than she cares about rose. id even argue pearl didnt care as much about what rose stood for as she mightve thought she did, she mostly did for rose.

so why should pearl care about new life, especially at the cost of rose?

but how she felt didnt matter. it happened anyway, and she lost the person she was made for.

of course she wasnt a good parent. to her, 13 years is a blink of an eye, she was still grieving as if it had happened yesterday.

she wasnt equipped to raise a child, for every reason imaginable. i dont even know if anyone actually tried to prepare her, not really?

this isnt to excuse her actions, of course. she did a lot of things she shouldnt have, and contributed to stevens long list of traumatic memories, but im just explaining, yknow?

so yeah. she was bitter. and yes, she wasnt chosen by rose. she was bitter because she wasnt chosen.

can you blame her?

i dont even blame rose, either, not entirely. do i think rose handled things well? uh, fuck no. i love rose so much, but she was not good at like, most things.

rose knew the situation she was in, that she was given what was basically a toy that was made for her, one that was literally made to replace one she broke, and that toy was living and had thoughts and feelings, but those thoughts and feelings were programmed to be made for her. to think about her, serve her, live for her.

rose doesnt strike me as the type to completely understand power dynamic issues the way she probably shouldve, especially not for the first few thousand years, but i have to imagine she found a level of discomfort in this, because she knew pearl didnt really have a choice. rose loved pearl, but could she even know pearls feelings were real, when they were artificially made? was it fair to either of them?

how was she even to let pearl down? did she even really want to? would pearl have even listened, considered it for a second? what would pearl even do if she was told the truth about it?

she deserved the truth, of course. but she didnt get it.

i have to imagine that maybe rose was trying to drop hints when she would go off with humans, not that that was entirely her motivation for doing that of course, but what does that say to pearl except for 'i dont think i can be what you want me to be for you'? rose couldnt devote herself to pearl. rose wanted more, anyway.

rose loved humanity, something pearl couldnt do for a long, long time. pearl only had eyes for one thing, and rose wasnt the same. the ultimately wanted different things, and those things werent compatible, at least, not for them.

to me, theyre tragic, to put it simply. they both couldve had it all, had they just known how, but there was no guide book. there was no one like them before them.

and it was always doomed to fail, because how do you love someone whos created to love you?

"pearl is just made of bitterness over not being chosen" wow what an absolutely horrible takeaway from the complex and fucked up story of this character