Tumgik
#Steven Universe Spoilers
spectralorb · 2 days
Text
Alien hybrid kid who built his deceased mother up in his mind before learning that she wasn't at all what he thought she was, and other extremely messed up stuff about her true nature — in fact, she originally came to the planet for the purpose of claiming it for herself. The weight of these realizations eventually cause him to undergo a mental breakdown, which results in large-scale catastrophe.
Hybrid powers include:
crystal manipulation
virtually unkillable by normal means
ability to fuse with certain individuals who he shares a connection with
ability to possess the bodies of others
Tumblr media Tumblr media
226 notes · View notes
candyskiez · 5 months
Text
can we talk about how garnet most likely got the story of the rebel hero rose quartz and the cruel pink diamond that created her from rose herself and how pink is described as a coward, cruel, wicked. and how rose told greg it's good he doesn't know anything about her. and how rose felt like she owed greg a list of everything shed ever done wrong. and how rose didn't tell pearl anything about what she did because she couldn't bear to lose that love. and how rose didn't think how her actions would effect pearl and in trying to destroy the part of herself that she felt did nothing but hurt and ruin everything and deserved to die, she hurt one of the people she loved the most. can we talk about the fact rose is a self fulfilling prophecy and destroyed herself twice. once asking pearl to kill pink diamond. and then by having steven. and how both times, it was out of love for change and hatred for herself. and wanting there to be someone better in her wake. and out of fear of what she'd done. and how at the end of the day her story is a tragedy because she believed everyone could change and become a better person. the only exception she had ever made on that was for herself. because she knew she used to be a horrible person and the one thing that scared her more than anything was the fact she didn't know how to fix it. so she didn't. she ended it all, and she prayed that the child in her wake would be a better person. because she, fundamentally, thinks she's irredeemable. and the only good thing she could do now was give her life to someone that deserved it.
can we talk about the fact that rose fucking quartz would rather die than try to confront the people she hurt because she thinks the only thing that'd do would hurt them more. and she can never learn to see the good she did as well. because all she thinks she does is hurt.
can we talk about the fact that rose isn't a twist villain, she's a fucking twist tragedy. oh my god. this fucking SHOW.
1K notes · View notes
hauntthenarrative · 8 months
Text
Haunting the Narrative Round 4
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Haunting the narrative means that the character’s absence heavily impacts the plot. They’re not present or active in the story when their influence is most strongly felt, whether they’re alive or dead!
960 notes · View notes
thefreshprinceofjunes · 10 months
Text
AND NOW FOR SOME META THATS NOT KH
i was looking through promotional art on the su wiki, and i came across the SDCC 2016 signing card
Tumblr media
and i noticed that only four people in the pic have flowers
steven, greg, and pearl have roses, which of course represent rose quartz
while jasper has a hibiscus for some reason?
Tumblr media
so i was thinking about why jasper would have that particular flower, esp when almost everyone else in the pic doesnt have one at all
and then i realized
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
... oh
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
2016 comic con, huh
416 notes · View notes
horizon-penblade · 7 months
Text
Ok i think there are two things that really get me about synthetic red diamond and the first is that he is just that -- a synthetic diamond. He's a freaking diamond!!! Based on the steven universe lore I know, there's normally only the four! And he's not one of them, not part of the diamond authority, bc he's a fusion and it sounds like ren/emerald and martyn/ruby were kinda planning a bit of a coup (or at least some kinda treason) and the thing is that, if they did try to take over, being a diamond is gonna give their claims to homeworld a lot more credibility. Like i could totally see them being a major threat to the DA. Two non-diamond gems being able to fuse into a diamond throws SO many interesting wrenches into the existing gem heirarchy.
And then, putting aside the gem politics aspect, I am obsessed with the fact that like. Ok so they're a red diamond because of the red king, right? But ren's not the red diamond. The fusion is. Implying that the red king isn't ren. The red king is something that only exists with the two of them together. There cannot be a king without his hand. and THAT take on third life is giving me so many thoughts that I don't think I can fully flesh out yet since I haven't watched all the way through the dogwarts perspectives but Aaadjkgdsjkksgjb
399 notes · View notes
golvio · 9 months
Text
It’s like…both Hylia and Rauru run into the Robot Problem, where they create/cultivate servants who end up achieving sentience (the Robots in SkSw and the Constructs in TotK) or were already sentient to begin with but were supposed to fit into this grand design to restore the order they’d created (the Sheikah, their respective Links and Zeldas). And it gets a little uncomfortable because both characters are so focused on imposing their respective ideas of order that they…don’t quite see their charges as people?
Hylia at least had the excuse that she was a primordial goddess of Light and Time and therefore had no frame of reference to emotionally connect with the mortals she was charged to protect. Her actions were ruthlessly pragmatic, but it made sense for a god totally alienated from humanity to think like that.
Meanwhile, Rauru has this sort of…naïve carelessness? He descended to earth, took the people living there as his subjects, and even fell in love with and married a mortal woman, but he never seemed to understand that his actions could have unintended and far-reaching effects on the people around him.
When confronted with how the Constructs continued to obey their orders instead of leaving to do other things, he couldn’t really muster up more than a sheepish, “Oops, my bad.” Granted, he was a ghost invisible to everyone but Link at the time, but, still, he never considered including a contingency plan in their programming to preserve themselves and do other things with their lives in the event of his own death.
And then there was him and Sonia positioning themselves as Zelda’s surrogate parents after she lost her original parents in traumatic circumstances related to the Sealing War’s aftereffects. Zelda, having to step up as Sonia’s replacement as his advisor and sole confidant to make sure he kept a level head after the queen died. Not stopping Mineru when she started talking about draconification because he was convinced it’d never come to that. Zelda effectively being primed to accept sacrificing herself a second time to preserve the order Rauru created whether he wanted that or not. And then him taking Link’s arm and replacing it without his permission while he was unconscious, because the Ultrahand is such a useful tool, why wouldn’t he be fine with a little limb graft?
Then there was the whole thing with Ganondorf. Just this catastrophic underestimation of human agency, intelligence, and capacity for cruelty. Zelda herself warned him about Ganon being more dangerous than he seemed, but Rauru waved her off (inadvertently recreating yet another Calamity-related trauma of Zelda’s). Ganondorf might be causing trouble, but in the end he was just like those other funny little mortals Rauru watched over. How could he possibly be able to understand something as divine and complicated as a Secret Stone? Only Sonia could do that, but Sonia was Special because she was so smart and wonderful and he loved her very much, so that didn’t count! Furthermore, how could he possibly come up with a plan that could blindside him and the queen? That would be silly!
(Also, note how he didn’t give any non-Sonia mortals stones until after Ganon proved any one of those funny little guys could master using one without any instruction from Rauru, lmao)
And then the circumstances of Rauru’s own death, and the consequences that had for everyone around him well after he’d faded to myth. Rauru assumed the “consequences” Ganondorf threatened him with were limited to giving up his own life, when what actually happened was that the people of Hyrule were left to deal with Ganon punishing them for Rauru’s hubris, poisoning the land again and again in rage at his imprisonment, while the people themselves had to figure out on their own how to beat back each wave of his bilious rage with no record or understanding of its source. Zelda being left with no guidance for how to return home, forced to make a drastic decision. Mineru, still alive, but unable to intervene was she was just a soul without a body.
Like…I don’t think he’s evil, much less malicious, but the way the story panned out reminded me a lot of the way Rose Quartz kept accidentally hurting the people who loved her because it didn’t come naturally to her to think of other people as equals, or to consider how her actions made them feel. She loved Pearl, but she didn’t acknowledge Pearl’s baggage from their former relationship as master and servant because she’d assumed they’d moved past that simply by never speaking of it anymore. She loved Greg, but she initially didn’t treat him like a real person. She tried as hard as she could to relate to others and understand them, but in the end she committed one last tragic act of thoughtlessness. She thought would be creating this special, wonderful person free of her flaws who would make the world so much better solely by existing and being himself (at least in part, I think, because she hated herself and thought everyone would be happier without her burdening them with her guilt and her selfish desire to run from her past)…only to leave everyone grappling with the emotional fallout of her no longer existing, including her son, who was stuck dealing with the legacy she’d left behind even though that was never her intention.
She didn’t actively try to sabotage her son’s life from beyond the grave. She didn’t think that the things she’d done would catch up to him, that her old family and enemies would treat him like an interchangeable replacement for her, or that her friends would treat him in strange ways out of grief at losing her. It just…never occurred to her.
But the thing is, I’m not sure if Rauru was intentionally written that way. If he was, the narrative wasn’t really interested in dwelling on the consequences of that, instead treating him and Sonia more like figureheads of this lost, idyllic past that the present must grieve and then strive to follow the example of, even if the present was suffering due to paying the debts of their ancestors’ carelessness.
191 notes · View notes
Note
How much would your AU change if instead of "shattering" pink diamond, pearl straight up ate the fake gem in front of the diamonds like some kind of raccoon who found a particularly appetizing morsel?
I feel like you guys collectively decided that since I entertain you by making comics, you should return the favor by sending these gems to my inbox to entertain me.
314 notes · View notes
timemachineyeah · 7 months
Text
So your dad was human. Your mom was a member of a magical species with strict hierarchical castes that views humanity as inferior. When you were young you were separated from your human father and raised not by your mother, but by other members of that species to help you learn to use your powers. You struggle to use them, though, both because you’re half human but also because your powers don’t seem to be the standard for the type your mother claimed. It turns out this is because your mother was lying to everyone about who she was and she was in fact much closer to the three parents and rulers of her entire species than she previously let on. You then take it upon yourself to talk some sense into these three at best negligent and at worst hostile racial parents and gods. Among your powers is rapid healing, which is useful but also means you have trauma related to repeatedly hurting yourself terribly to save others and playing it off as no big deal. You have something of a hero complex and tend to involve yourself whenever you see needless suffering, to the point of devaluing yourself and your own trauma and feelings.
76 notes · View notes
sophieinwonderland · 9 months
Text
Revisiting Pearl's Plurality in A Single Pale Rose: Separating Canon and Headcanon
Apparently the issue with my previous Pearl posts is that I presented my first post as being canon. And after thinking it over, yeah. That's fair. I did do that. So I just wanted to go over this and look at what's actually canon and what's not.
Definition: Before beginning, my own definition of plurality is that plurality is multiple self-conscious and autonomous agents sharing the same body. Self-conscious means they have at least a rudimentary sense of self and are able to identify themselves as themselves.
Canon: Pearl has multiple Pearls inside her head.
Canon: The first Pearl in her head, the one I've dubbed Keeper Pearl, has a clear 1st person perspective, referring to her phone being taken by an "other me."
Canon: The Pearl who took the phone acted outside of the control or even knowledge of the others, demonstrating agency.
Headcanon: I refer to her Plurals. The use of the term "plural" in reference to Pearl obviously doesn't appear in the show.
Canon: Many of the inner Pearls were locked at some sort of traumatic moment in her history.
Canon: Neither the front Pearl nor Keeper Pearl have knowledge of what happened to the phone. The Pearl who took it was able to act outside of their knowledge or awareness.
Headcanon: The memory separation as "dissociative barriers." This is not described as "dissociative barriers" in the show, but I used them in reference to one headmate not remembering what was done by another headmate. While it's canon that some of the Pearls don't remember actions taken by other Pearls, it's not technically confirmed that the barriers are dissociative.
Supporting Subtext: I think it's likely that Keeper Pearl saying "I am very good at compartmentalizing everything" was in reference to dissociative compartmentalization. The writers clearly had a solid understanding of PTSD and trauma as we see in Steven Universe Future, and Pearl's line having a double meaning referring to the way these different Pearls inside are dissociated from each other makes sense.
Canon: The inner War Pearl has a different view on the fight at the Strawberry Battlefield than front Pearl in Rose's Scabbard. In Rose's Scabbard, Pearl sees the result of the battle as a glorious victory, while War Pearl is traumatized by the loss after it was over.
Headcanon: This is evidence of "emotional amnesia." That is, Pearl dissociated from and buried the memory of the loss. The front Pearl is only focused on the victory and fighting beside Rose against Homeworld, but doesn't connect with the memory of the aftermath. The War Pearl is still in there and remembers, but she's buried deep down.
Conclusion: It's canon that there are multiple Pearls in Pearl's head with their own autonomy and self-awareness. It's canon that these Pearls can act outside of the awareness of other Pearls. I maintain that the internal experience depicted in the canon fits my personal definition of plurality. I also believe that the memory barriers are dissociative in nature, but this isn't actually confirmed and it could technically just as easily be a result of the unique tech/magic of the gems that allows these separate Pearls to take actions in the inner world without the other Pearls knowing about it.
102 notes · View notes
Text
Remember when Ian Jones Quartey squashed the “Rose Quartz is Pink Diamond” theorists by replying to someone’s tweet, claiming that gems couldn’t rotate or change their gem orientation with shape shifting? He was so real for that. The theorists basically had that theory set in stone, and they were all completely flattened because they forgot about the concept of lying for funsies.
40 notes · View notes
animentality · 1 year
Text
I'm laughing at the owl house ending vs steven universe ending discourse happening on Twitter right now.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
I haven't seen the owl house but apparently it has the balls to kill its irredeemable villain.
I mean I applaud it for its audacity.
I respect when kids shows say actually sometimes violence is the answer.
They're right.
123 notes · View notes
candyskiez · 3 months
Text
Big fan of monster transformations as a visual representation of trauma. Even BIGGER fan of when the media goes into depth on the implications and the symbolism of it.
509 notes · View notes
hauntthenarrative · 8 months
Text
Haunting the Narrative Round 2 Side B
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Haunting the narrative means that the character’s absence heavily impacts the plot. They’re not present or active in the story when their influence is most strongly felt, whether they’re alive or dead!
478 notes · View notes
sharkphobicz · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media
this is such a silly loop but it took me a little over an hour so ill post it
98 notes · View notes
particleperidot · 3 months
Text
thinkin about how pink diamond/rose quartz intentionally gave herself titties because she had never seen them before and thought they were cool. she wanted that earthtitty swag good for her
23 notes · View notes
golvio · 5 months
Text
Possibly controversial opinion here, but I don't think you can properly stan Pearl if you completely villainize Rose. You can't just totally write off the foundational relationship of Pearl's life (for better or worse) as Pearl not knowing what's good for her due to a total lack of self-respect.
Not to mention said relationship was just as foundational to Rose's life, as the first "real," serious, grown-up, autonomous relationship she'd ever been in as "herself." Yes, she did totally beef said relationship in numerous self-sabotaging ways, but that, too, is part of being in a grown-up relationship, even if Rose was not psychologically equipped to handle the damage her decisions could cause in a grown-up way.
Like...there was a reason why it was Rose, of all people, that Pearl fell in love with. But there was also a reason why it was Pearl, out of all the Pearls in the universe, even her first crush and lost love, that Rose decided to upend her whole life to be with. Rose was foolish and selfish and she genuinely loved Pearl, even if she ultimately made very adolescent mistakes in handling that love, as inexperienced and traumatized teenagers still learning how to function in the adult world sometimes do in their first serious romantic relationships, particularly when embroiled in a bloody revolution or rejecting their hereditary title.
59 notes · View notes