Sunshine's Mod Blog

askingforheartbreak asked:

While I personally don't condone Pearl's behavior, it is understandable. She sacrificed everything she had for Rose. Sure, it might have been due to obsession, but how would you feel if you did that for someone who you loved and they left you?

tarajenkins:

I would not feel they were somehow obligated to feel more for me than they do of their own choosing. Good deeds aren’t an I.O.U. to cash in for an ILU.

“Rainbow quartz”, in real life, is artificially created, not naturally occurring. I can’t help but think that choice for their fusion is deliberate. There is no denying that Pearl loved Rose and Rose loved Pearl, but Rose did not love her back in the way she wanted, no matter how Pearl tried to change that. Two sets of eyes seeing in two very different ways.

A lot of the arguments over Pearl’s behavior focus on her love of Rose and how that somehow justifies the harm her behavior causes others. What virtually no one takes into consideration, Pearl included, are ROSE’S OWN CHOICES, made evident by her deepening relationship with Greg and her choice to have Steven with him. Everyone is fighting about Rose, but no one is considering what ROSE wanted. Pearl herself dismissed Rose’s feelings as “just a phase”. But as disheartened as I am to say this, that does not surprise me at all. As a pansexual, I have come across more disrespect and raw hatred of bisexuality in this fandom than I have ever seen in any fandom, which bewilders me given the messages the show conveys. Rose grew to love Greg, and she wanted Steven, and too often that is completely disregarded.

Virtually no one takes into consideration who else is suffering because of Pearl’s actions, either. As a survivor of childhood abuse, it sickens me to see the concerns over how Pearl’s behavior is affecting children be dismissed with accusations of “homophobia” or “ableism”. I love Pearl, and I can sympathize to an extent with her feelings, but when it endangers others, especially children who trust her to guide and protect them, I am not going to give it a free pass or romanticize it. It doesn’t matter if she “didn’t mean it”, it still hurts them. These are not problems that can be hugged away and they sure as hell should not be politely swept under the rug until the next time, as much as you want to because you love the person doing it. It solves nothing, and we have already begun to see how Steven’s internalizing it is affecting his own mental state. Loving someone with issues like these does not mean you should be expected to let them harm you.

The reason why the outcry over Pearl is happening now, I think, is because it has been a pattern, which was very starkly emphasized in this Steven Bomb–a pattern that, so far, has had no one stop and say “you’re hurting people and you need help”. 

No one talks about how she was willing to deny Steven a life with his father in Space Race. Greg was inconsequential, Steven’s love for Greg was inconsequential. There was a pause, a catch, as she answered Steven then: “….yeah. With you.” The lesson was not learned.

In Rose’s Scabbard, she almost let Steven fall to his death, with a look of pure anger, and did nothing to help him when he caught the root, although with her speed if she had intended to act, she would have already been there. When he climbed up, all she spoke of was how he was like Rose, and Steven only hugged her. The lesson was not learned.

In Sworn To The Sword, she was teaching Connie her life was worthless and she should be ready to sacrifice herself to protect Steven. STEVEN was the one who apologized for “messing up” her training, while Pearl once again just spoke of Rose. She called Steven Rose. The lesson was not learned.

In We Have To Talk, we were given a flashback, which showed her trying to sabatoge something that was clearly making Rose happy. The dialogue as she mocked Greg implied this was not the first time she’d done so, either. This was something even Garnet was very clearly disapproving of, though even Garnet also doesn’t speak up. She did bolster Greg, though.

It took one conversation for Rose to realize she was not on the same page as Greg, and she wanted to learn how to get there. So what is the excuse to continue to politely let Pearl harm Steven and others over all this time and never have a real talk about it?

She is an absolutely awesome, developing character when Rose is not the topic. She continues to grow in learning to treat Amethyst with respect, for example. But when Rose IS the topic? Someone besides her always gets hurt.

I’m sure it’s the writers building up to some very big catharsis in the future. I am rooting for her to claim self-worth for herself one day, because she deserves to see she is strong in the real way. But until then, I don’t see how it’s a bad thing to criticize her actions when they harm others, and express frustration over Steven and the others harmed by those actions not being taken into consideration. I’m not saying this is justification for gross namecalling and actual blind hatred. It isn’t. But Pearl needs help, and so do the people she’s hurting.