Comment on Steven Universe - Relapse to Beach City

  1. Xegil on Chapter 9 Wed 27 Aug 2025 10:59PM UTC

    My thought was that there were two problems in Rose and Pearl's relationship; lack of honest communication of emotions, and lack of equality.

    Rose was always put on a pedestal by the other gems, and by Pearl especially. The big reason Greg was able to win her over was because he treated her like an equal, something not even the diamonds did.

    With Pearl's already established unresolved problems and this inequality between the two, I doubt there was an honest line of communication about their feelings for each other. The pressure on Pearl to feel worthy of Rose, and the pressure for Rose to feel worthy as a leader could've fed into each other.

    So this chapter represented these problems: a struggle for communication and equality.

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    1. seriouslypeeved (Guest) on Chapter 9 Thu 28 Aug 2025 12:05AM UTC

      I think you hit the nail on the head. The sad thing is they were always setup to fail at those things. Rose seemingly had a close, open and mostly equal relationship with her original Pearl (outside of however the scream incident went down) but she totally shut down after Volleyball was mind controlled. It seems like she barely even talked with Pearl before they went down to Earth for the first time.

      The only thing I would add is that Pearl and Rose don’t really have anything in common or any shared interests. As much as Pearl grandstands about fighting in the name of Rose Quartz and everything she believed in, Pearl doesn’t really believe in those things. She constantly talked about how much better Gems are than humans and it took like a decade and a half of raising a human to stop. Pearl was fighting to be with Rose and Rose was fighting to save Earth and escape her abusive family.

      Pearl was also very much living in the past while Rose never wanted to think about it again… and that was before her parents/sisters turned almost all of her friends into mindless monsters.

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      1. Xegil on Chapter 9 Thu 28 Aug 2025 01:28AM UTC

        That's a really good point, Rose and Pearl being too different from each other to ever be compatible, and Pearl struggling to believe in Rose's ideals.

        I also felt that Rose dealt with issues concerning confrontation, in the sense that the Rose Quartz was created as a means to avoid honest confrontation with her family, the Diamonds. That very likely bleeds over into her other relationships, especially with the crystal gems.

        There's also new problems around in my story, since Rose now experiences being with the crystal gems as Steven. That creates new perceptions that Rose likely never got to see, when she was above everyone and, in my opinion, detached.

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        1. seriouslypeeved (Guest) on Chapter 9 Thu 28 Aug 2025 02:49AM UTC

          Oh 100%, not that I can really blame her considering all confrontation had ever gotten her was White essentially murdering Volleyball. Pink Diamond could never have saved the Earth. Rose Quartz was the only way.

          But yeah Rose definitely avoided confrontation with the other Crystal Gems. Like I know that the gems problems were heavily exasperated by her death, but they were definitely present before hand and I honestly think she didn’t even fully realize they had problems. She probably didn’t know how to approach them about it. Hell, it seems like she didn’t even realize Pearl wanted to fuse with her in We Need To Talk just to get a dig in at Greg.

          It’s why Greg and Rose worked out so well, for better or for worse. They had similar pasts and the exact same coping mechanism of never look back.

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