But what would have happened if she was involved but another Diamond wasn't?
For example, lets say Yellow is unavailable would Gems just be like ghosts or zombies; walking husk of their former selves; having their bodies but not their souls?
This screenshot was taken from A Single Pale Rose. Notice anything peculiar about it?
The gem is rotated upside-down.
Now, I’m the person who went off on a huge tangent about this EXACT THING with @spudinacup’s Gone Wrong AU (you can read their comic here, or you can read my meta post here), so my theorist brain went off IMMEDIATELY.
I need to keep using the Gone Wrong AU as an example, so if you haven’t read it, I apologize. I’ll try my best to make sure we’re all on the same page.
Medium-long post under the cut!
Basically, Gem Steven’s here because his human half Did the Die (hence “Gone Wrong”), and when he appears, it’s normal. But, after spending some time along in the bathroom, it rotates so that the pentagon is facing downwards. In my theory, I speculated that this meant that he felt that he wasn’t Steven anymore, and is now trying to figure out who he is aside from him. He and his human half together = Steven, but who is he without the other half? That’s the main question for him in the AU at the moment.
Keep that in mind.
With Rose, she is about to make the biggest decision of her life. By deciding to become Rose forever, she’s killing her old self (honestly quite literally) and moving on. So it makes sense for her gem to rotate.
But, here’s the thing; it was already upside-down as she chose this, meaning that she herself must have been having some kind of crisis beforehand to make it upside-down in the first place.
This means that she’s been thinking about herself as Pink Diamond and herself as Rose Quartz for a long time.
Blue telling her that”as long as you are there to rule, this colony would be completed” was the final thing to get her to decide once and for all that this is something she wants to do.
When she reforms again, permanently as Rose, the pentagon is upside-right.
Because she’s found her identity.
Spud, if you knew all of this, I APPLAUDE YOU.
She is more comfortable as Rose Quartz. Pink Diamond was a b*tch she wanted to leave in the past. She says it herself. “If this is really my world, then I want to give it to the Crystal Gems. I want to live here with human beings. I want to live here with you [Pearl]!” By assuming Rose Quartz, she is leaving Pink behind forever.
That’s not an easy decision to make. She must have been thinking about it for a while. After all, what happens when the Crystal Gems win or lose, and Homeworld leaves? Does Rose reveal her identity and go home? Or does she stay on Earth? How would she stay on Earth? So, becoming Rose Quartz must have become a stressor regarding her persona’s future, the persona she loves being.
Hence, the gem is flipped.
But once she decides to fake her shattering, it becomes normal again, facets flipped, the pentagon pointing up.
We know this is a recent development because in The Answer, Rose’s gem looks like this:
And in Rose’s Scabbard, it looks like this (though this is also a memory, so maybe Pearl never noticed!):
Rose Quartz knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay Rose after the war was over (and this scene in Rose’s Scabbard might have been the beginning of that realization). So, once she realized that faking her death would allow her to continue to exist as she wanted, of course she leaped at the chance. She was so excited in A Single Pale Rose.
Wouldn’t you be, too, if you realized you knew a way to live how you wanted instead of a life you were forced into?
Hey, so..... I'm pretty sure that by a combination of gemetics and Rose's particular interest, amethyst is the closest thing Rose/PD has to a daughter. For me that seriously corresponds with how amethyst has been acting like the older sibling who got out of a toxic household and is trying to support her brother who's still in it when it came to finding out about Rose/PD. She's the only gem who just wants to know how Steven feels and prioritizes his emotional state, rather than making it about her (not that Pearl and Garnet didn't have good reasons).
Amethyst and Steven are so close that they don't even need to dance to fuse. There has never been a intergem fusion on the show that didn't involve dancing. Not even stevonnie. I feel like theirs is the unconditional love of siblings, the only people who can understand fully how the other feels.
Amethyst is the only gem that doesn't initially condescend or doubt Steven's intuitions, despite the fact that Steven regularly surprises even Garnet and is regularly underestimated by Pearl. She supports him when he questions things, even when she can't provide an answer.
Amethyst's relationship with Steven often gets overlooked because she's the least motherly, but I'm pretty sure that's why they have such a strong bond. She gets him, and doesn't treat him like a helpless child. She's been in his shoes. She's always gonna have his back.
Me: HE'S OBVIOUSLY VISITING JASPER IN THE WOODS FOR TRAINING. HE FELT GUILTY ENOUGH ABOUT VOLLEYBALL THAT HE ASKED HER TO TEACH HIM SELF CONTROL. THAT'S HOW HE KNEW HOW TO CONTROL HIS POWER IN BLUEBIRD, BECAUSE THIS ISN'T A STEVEN ONLY POV ANYMORE. THAT'S WHY HE HUNG OUT WITH HIS FAMILY AT THE END OF THE EPISODE, BECAUSE HE DIDN'T NEED TO GET ANGER MANAGEMENT FOR THAT ONE DAY. IT'LL BE A TWIST REVEAL THAT HE'S BEEN FIGHTING HER AND HE'S HANGING OUT WITH JA
