Is Amethyst imitating some of Pearl’s wavy hand gestures up there? Beautiful.
Pearl is totally focused on Steven. I don’t think she even realises what Amethyst’s real problem is. She’s just lasered in on how she, Pearl, doesn’t want him to know what really happened here. I don’t think she sees the real depth of self-loathing, which makes me think that she (and maybe Rose and Garnet?) describe this place as parasitical without thinking about how it would affect Amethyst to hear it described like that.
And how long have they been doing this song and dance? If Amethyst has never actually felt able to vocalise how she felt because it would be three-against-one, and Pearl has just spent a billion years spouting this rhetoric off to make herself feel better, then that’s a billion years they’ve spent not talking about it. The only difference now is Steven has changed the dynamic - he’s someone who comes from the same place Amethyst does. An ally with no preconceived notions. But she’ll talk about it with him - not with Pearl.
In people who have painful histories, they sometimes develop a survival strategy that treats any potential help or breakthrough as a serious threat to stability. Any interaction that might open up insight, empathy, respect, or compassion is so terrifying that it merits attack or avoidance. It’s the only way the person can protect the pieces of themselves they’re already struggling to hold together, because to reveal those pieces is to leave yourself too vulnerable. So they take refuge in assaulting the good will of others, which reinforces the internal belief that they are contaminated, bad and beyond salvation. If your world is in turmoil, then sometimes the only thing that can soothe you is knowing you’re in control of your own annihilation.