why do people even THINK we were shown the anti-earth prejudice, abusive agates, and general mistreatment earth gems face?
we know jasper hates herself. we know she replicates the behaviour shes experienced because she has no other frame of reference. we know yellow diamond thinks anything from earth should be gotten “rid” of, and only kept jasper out of all of her sisters. we know jasper thinks her sisters all died on earth. we know that jasper has been lied to, manipulated, and probably physically mistreated by agates (or else why make such a big deal out of amethysts whip, portray jasper flinching when amethyst attacks her with it despite knowing that amethyst cant do shit to her, and then introduce holly blue, an abusive whip-wielding agate who was made to “terrify” and thinks all earth gems are scum?)
we know jasper feels like she has nothing and nobody, and clings to her dead diamond five thousand years later. we know that jasper doesnt understand how a healthy relationship is supposed to be. we know that some gems (like the rubies) find jasper impressive because of her military record, while others (peridot) presumed she must be intrinsically inferior because shes from earth beta.
we know that peridot said “why are you earth gems so difficult?”, even though she cant have possibly ever met an earth gem other than jasper- which suggests there are stereotypes about earth gems on homeworld. stereotypes about the gems from a foreign place which is regarded as alien, inferior, and backwards.
we know that jasper was taken from among her sisters and subjected to the same prejudices and mistreatment as them- but also had to contend with her isolation, position in a court where its leader has especial anti-earth sympathies, the expectation that she should be better than her sisters because she was lucky enought not to come out “wrong”- and she was indoctrinated into believing that defects should die, the earth should die, but all the while feeling the loss of her planet, sisters, and diamond
yes, shes an unpleasant person. yes, she was horrible to amethyst, to pearl, to steven, to everyone she regarded as an enemy of her diamond (pink) and her homeworld (which regards earth gems with distain). we know she holds herself to the same bullshit standards she holds other gems to, because she genuinely believes these things. we know that her self-loathing runs so deep that she let herselt corrupt rather than accept stevens (rose’s) “pity”. we know she thinks suffering (including hers) is deserved, and a lesson.
jaspers situation is like that of the quartzes on the outpost- only shes alone, under the watch of a diamond who hates her kind and origins, and told she was only allowed into yds service because she met the bare minimum physical requirements
or else she would have died without ever leaving her birth planet. we know that her legendary status among other soldiers would have fed her complex and her conviction that she has to be strong and fearless or shes worthless and no better than the other earth quartzes
we know that she has been fighting from the moment she was born, and is expected to continue to do so until shes shattered. we know that shes never known kindness, unless she met pink diamond at all and was treated well by her.
so can we stop acting like jaspers character, while unpleasant, exists solely because shes “just mean and bad”? and can we maybe think about cycles of abuse and the kind of shit which might happen to the mind of someone who has never known peace, and who is isolated and shit on for her origins while being expected to “not be like those other earth quartzes”? because people are missing a really great analogy about classism, racism, abuse, and internalised prejudice here
all because they want jasper to just be “mean” and dont want to examine why a gem who has been cut off from everyone and everything she has ever had, told that she has to be better than her sisters while being fed a constant stream of anti-earth rhetoric, was treated like a legend by soldiers but seen as lacking by others because of where shes from, and has generally been acclimatised to all kinds of abuse, bigotry, and general shittiness - might act the way she does? instead of just writing her off as born evil and inherently mean? because she didn’t come out of the ground with these views. she learned them. and like i said, shes been horrible- but shes also suffered for her entire life, so i dont know why people are so keen to act like jasper exists in a vaccuum, and shes surrounded by tolerance, because the earth gems who have each other accepted amethyst as one of their own (a fellow “defect” and earth gem), while jasper, who has nobody, absorbed what she was told and turned those messed up standards on herself too
or maybe su just showed us how shitty earth gems are treated and emphasised the abuse agates mete out, all the while introducing jaspers defective sisters (who she believes to be dead) and the way yellow diamond (jaspers boss) feels about earth and anything from it for like…..literally no reason lol
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
origamiaround
dailybridgerton
izzy806
