erinptah: Madoka and Homura (madoka)
[personal profile] erinptah posting in [community profile] steven_universe_universe
You know, for a while now (basically since the Lars development) I had been feeling like Steven was getting over-powered, and it was straining credibility.

I...do not have that complaint anymore.

Date: 2018-05-09 10:50 pm (UTC)
militarypenguin: Edgeworth resting a cheek against his knuckles, from the Ace Attorney Investigations Orchestra Mini Album ~Turnabout Melody~ cover. (SU - dip)
From: [personal profile] militarypenguin
For once, I'm glad we're getting a break; it's a lot to take in. Biggest game-changer since Jailbreak, and this revelation makes that one's look like a fun-sized bar...

Date: 2018-05-23 08:28 pm (UTC)
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
From: [personal profile] full_metal_ox
Hooboy--so where should I even begin? Be forewarned that this is going to come in intermittent fits and spurts.

(An important disclosure is in order here. Much of the heat and vehemence of fandom wank discourse comes from fans' projection into the characters in question [notice, for example, how many shipping preferences consist of Character I Identify With/Character I Fancy.] I prefer to keep identifying details to a minimum, allowing my real name and likeness nowhere near my social media and navigating the Net in the anonymity of my virtual Oxhide; that said, I've gradually come to realize that I'm a lot higher in the privilege pecking order than my immediate social circle had led me to believe, and have been grappling with the fact that I occupy the space I do as an invasive species, and what to do about that; that I'm rather bad at empathy and slow on the social uptake (they weren't really looking for The Spectrum when boomers were in school); that I've often not been making the impression I thought I was. In short, I've been increasingly identifying with Rose Quartz [you can probably also deduce the secretiveness that has proven to be her defining flaw.])

That said: I have the greatest admiration for the deftness with which the Crewniverse--having become aware of the fan theory--methodically and cumulatively discouraged without refuting it; the discrepancies were all in place, as pointed out by Blue Zircon, and Pink's disguising her gem by displaying it at a different angle is the sort of ridiculously simple trick that underlies so much stage magic.

(Should we still be calling her Pink? Now I'm wondering about the etiquette of deadnaming fictional characters...)

Date: 2018-05-24 09:15 pm (UTC)
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
From: [personal profile] full_metal_ox
There was definitely at least one Crewniverse member who refuted the Rose Diamond theory! Someone on Twitter asked point-blank what kind of gem Rose was, and they said "She's a Quartz." (So all my theories and speculation incorporated that.)

Ah--but the devil (or the Diamond) lies in the exact wording; what Ian Jones-Quartey actually said was, "Yo her name is Rose QUARTZ": https://twitter.com/ianjq/status/664605171041746944?lang=en

He didn't say thing one about her literal mineralogical makeup, did he?

My own gradual dismissal hinged largely upon taxonomy--Rose bore a much stronger resemblance to Jasper and Amethyst than to the other Diamonds--and a Jossing of the theory that "Diamond" was a title rather than a race, social rank and Gemtype having been shown to be synonymous in Homeworld society. I found myself accommodating Steven's New Powers As The Plot Demands as a result of unexpected consequence and hybrid vigor. (Heck, mundane interspecies breeding often yields counterintuitive results; ligers are much bigger than either their lion or tigress parents, and pumapards much smaller than either pumas or leopards.

And now I'm wondering what the razzlefrazz Steven's physiological makeup might be--whether Rose somehow gemetically installed X chromosomes, or whether Steven might be something utterly cattywampus like ✩Y; I'm leaning toward the latter.)
Edited (to fix some buggered-up HTML.) Date: 2018-05-24 09:22 pm (UTC)

Date: 2018-05-24 11:22 pm (UTC)
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
From: [personal profile] full_metal_ox
Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to hold that 500-foot Spoilerzilla in reserve, aside from omitting "Gem Type" from the character sheet--being coyly evasive on the subject would itself arouse suspicion.

One possible recourse is the Literary Agent Hypothesis: the Crystal Gems told the Crewniverse what they knew (or, in Pearl's case, were capable of communicating) at the time.

Date: 2018-06-02 08:09 pm (UTC)
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
From: [personal profile] full_metal_ox
Some more (not particularly organized) points, and my apologies for the slow-motion nature of the conversation:

I very much doubt we'll ever get a single definitive account of who and what Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond was/were--that's the whole point about loss and memory, isn't it?

I'd been seeking real-world analogies for Rose; Lawrence of Arabia and David Attenborough, among others, came to mind; now it's looking as if Thomas Jefferson and Rachel Dolezal ought to join the list.

The Pearlception sequence demonstrated a gemologically informed Fridge Brilliance: what, after all, is a pearl but layer upon layer upon layer of defenses secreted in response to trauma? (Steven's addressing the "Pearl within the Pearl within Pearl's Pearl" also--and probably quite consciously--evokes a particular folkloric sort of cumulative storytelling.) A related question: now that Steven has pried out her secret, is Pearl freed from the geas?

The queue of Unfinished Business and collateral damage continues to lengthen--to Bismuth and the Zoomans, we can add the real Rose Quartzes, who found themselves rounded up (and would've been shattered, had Yellow had her druthers) in a put-down-all-the-pit-bulls panic.

(And just how many unintended consequences did Rose/Pink leave scattered around Earth's ecology, anyway? Consider the Strawberry Battlefield and the random crystal animals who keep popping up, for example. An interesting point I've noticed about Lion--who is strongly hinted to be an unintended consequence himself, if his story parallels Lars': the evidence so far is that as a hunter, he stays in his lane, preying only upon fellow crystal animals, such as the basilisk in "Lion 2: The Movie" and the rats in the comics story "Lion's Share"; there is no indication that he poses any threat to humans or mundane animals. As a pet, of course, he's perfectly happy to mooch whatever Steven's eating--see "Cooking with Lion.")
Edited (to fix some bollixed-up link formatting.) Date: 2018-06-02 08:10 pm (UTC)

Date: 2018-06-05 10:29 pm (UTC)
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
From: [personal profile] full_metal_ox
I'm betting she's not free of the geas, but she's been trying to talk around it for a while. They should be able to have clear, effective conversations about it now that Steven knows what she's talking around -- "oh, you mean X, right?" "[hands-over-mouth nod]".

So could Steven wield the authority of Pink Diamond to release Pearl explicitly from the geas? Freeing someone is about as uncorruptive a use of such power as I can think of.

What do you mean by crystal animals? There's all the corrupted Gems, which for once I don't think are Rose's responsibility at all -- that's entirely on the other Diamonds. Lion is a whole different thing, an ordinary Earth lifeform infused with magic. Steven himself has made a bunch of unintentional independent entities, from the Watermelon Island civilization to the Pumpkin-dog, but as far as I can remember Lion is the only one we've seen from Rose's era.

As mentioned, "Lion's Share" from the comic Steven Universe #6 features a couple. The basilisk (page 1, panel 4) has jutting gemstones as dorsal spines; the Steven Universe Wikia page notes that the specimen in "Lion 2: The Movie" died in organic fashion, leaving a tangible carcass, rather than poofing. The rat's eye (closeup in page 2, panel 3) is an amber-toned cabochon.





(Also, I'm betting Amethyst ate the rat Lion brought her.)
Edited (To elaborate upon a thought.) Date: 2018-06-05 11:28 pm (UTC)

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