Like you kind of see Rose acclimating to being seriously involved with humans rather than keeping them at arm’s length. Her little speech also gives you a clue as to why she sacrificed herself to make Steven.
I also think we saw a lot of Greg in the process unlearning toxic masculine behaviors (like putting women on a pedestal as he did with Rose, depending on them for all his domestic labor as he did by expecting Vidalia to feed him and do his laundry and clean up after him). Taking care of Sour Cream for a day sort of started him on the path to emotional maturity, and understanding that Rose was, while powerful, flawed and still in the process of learning and ironically more “human” than he assumed and realizing that he can’t expect the women in his life to take care of him.
I also think after seeing so much of Rose’s dark side (the way she played Greg and Pearl off one another) it was nice to see her kinder side, the side that… made her worth staying with, the parts of them that attracted them to her in the first place.
I think it’d be cool to see that side of her with Pearl too though, because so far we’ve never seen Rose treat her that well. I think Peal was probably legit Rose’s Pearl, a mindset neither of them could shake which lead to a nasty power imbalance in their relationship.
What I also think is cool about Rose’s speech is that she’s sort of wrong but maybe not totally? Like we do see gems grow and change, but I think only after the advent of Steven, who kind of shows gems how to grow and change.
It’s sort of like he exists to bridge the gap between humans and gems.
Also what I like is that gem motivations aren’t really so different from human motivations if you make an effort to understand them (which while probably not true of IRL aliens if there are any is a good metaphor for dealing with people with vastly different experiences from you)
honestly, the more i think about mr. greg, and that greg/rose/pearl triangle in general, the more upsetting i find it. and not in the way the writers intended.
my problem, summed up, is that pearl is the only one presented as wrong.
on one hand, mr greg dealt heavily with pearl’s grief and her trying to move on from it – and it was nicely handled, as well as very emotional. watching it, i felt that the crux of the matter wasn’t that she has to move on to get along with greg, it’s that she has to move on, and being able to get along with greg is indication of that progress. however, analyzing it from a narrative standpoint, the line between the two gets incredibly blurred – because as it was written, the point of the episode is for pearl and greg to get along, and exploring pearl’s grief was a stop in that road. not the other way around.
and thinking about it, throughout this whole love triangle narrative, the ‘blame’ has always been placed on pearl. objectively, greg is the villain here – and before people jump up to greg’s defense and call me a man hater, i like greg, and i don’t think he’s a bad person. but he butted into rose and pearl’s millennia-long relationship, knowing they were together, knowing what it meant to pearl, and still went ‘eh. fuck it. i want rose and i don’t give a shit’. that is objectively the way this thing happened, and yet when you look at fandom, practically no one sees any issue with greg, while pearl is ‘salty’ and ‘bitter’ and ‘a bitch’.
that’s not just a problem with the fandom. it’s a problem with the canon. the two flashback episodes regarding the greg/rose/pearl situation were from greg’s point of view, with him as the hero, and pearl as the villain. it does not for a moment occur to young greg to feel guilt over what he’s doing, nor does the story paint him in a light where he should. ‘story for steven’ shows their first meeting as a dreamlike fairytale moment, with pearl’s only role there being to whine and stomp her foot in a way that’s meant to make the audience laugh at her. and while ‘we need to talk’ burst that fairytale illusion and made rose and greg’s relationship far more real, weighted and nuanced – it also came at the expense of straight out placing pearl as the villain. the opening scene to that flashback is rose and greg spending time together, and pearl butting in, ruining it, and acting all smug. this is what cemented her in many fans’ head as the bitch trying to ruin a mutual, loving relationship, when greg was the one who did that. but you don’t see greg being an asshole, oh, no, he’s just a good guy trying to get to know rose and understand her feelings better.
why? i’m sorry, but why on earth am i supposed to sympathize with greg in this situation? because he’s steven’s dad and he’s a good guy and the audience needs to love him no matter what? why are the crystal gems’ faults, and particularly pearl’s, explored in depth and laid out plainly, while greg was shown to be do exactly one wrong thing in the history of the show, back in season one when he faked his injury?
if this was a real life situation – if you had a friend who was happily married to another woman for fifteen years, and then had her marriage broken up by a man who knew of it and seduced her wife away anyway – would you be telling your friend to get over it and make peace with that man? or would you be telling her ‘holy shit, that guy’s a sleazy selfish asshole, fuck him’? so why does pearl have to? ‘for steven’, the show explicitly answers, but that’s just not a good enough answer. she has been making a great effort to act civil towards greg this whole time for steven’s sake, and her lack of a meaningful, positive relationship to him never stopped her from serving as an extremely devoted and caring mother figure for steven. so, again: why does pearl have to befriend greg?
and of course, in this episode, the blame is once again on her: greg is a good guy, he’s willing to let go and move on, he wants to be on good terms with pearl! but pearl has to throw that tantrum and ruin everyone’s fun. and then SHE has to go and reflect on her actions and her feelings, and ask herself why she can’t do better, and get over her grief and her bitterness and her jealousy and learn to make peace with what happened. it was pearl’s responsibility to suck it up and move the fuck on, despite there being no good reason why she’d be obligated to. greg didn’t have to do anything. when at the end of the episode he finally, for half a second, begin to express actual guilt for his actions – pearl immediately waves it off, saying it’s none of his fault. so of course, the audience is also meant to sympathize with greg, to feel sad over his guilt despite it being completely warranted. of course he should be guilty, and of course it’s his fucking fault. yes, rose always did do what she wanted, but it takes two to tango, and a less selfish person with stronger morals would’ve rejected that relationship once he realized it’d come at the expense of another, long-established one.
but nope. we are still supposed to walk out of this episode with the impression greg did nothing wrong.
how ass-backwards is this?
also why isn’t Rose EVER blamed for this? she’s the one who knew for sure that Pearl loved her exclusively. I’ve not seen one post calling Rose a bitch for knowing how Pearl felt about the whole situation and still continuing with him?
I agree. I think really it’s on Rose, she pursued Greg. She’d done this before. The only difference was she ended up with more than casual feelings for Greg. Rose is responsible for her own actions, for choosing someone else over her long term partner. I’ve read some really good meta about Rose somewhat enjoying playing Pearl and Greg off one another and I think that’s true, and I think she’d done it to Pearl in the past.
Like Pearl has every right to be angry and emotional, though the fact that she still idolizes and idealizes Rose isn’t super healthy, but actually I think part of what’s going on is Pearl coming to see Rose as imperfect and realizing Rose’s agency in the situation. That’s part of why she’s more able to get along with Greg now, because she understands how Rose was sort of playing with them both. I think she tells Greg not to feel guilty because she realize Rose pursued Greg and not the other way round, and I think to some extent her own sense of guilt is for directing her anger at Rose towards Greg, instead of calling Rose on her behavior.
I think another factor that’s important is the class issue. We’re pretty sure Rose was Rose diamond and Pearl was quite literally her Pearl (a decorative status symbol). Rose was preconditioned to take Pearl for-granted and treat her as “less than” which is why she so easily messed around with other people.
It’s also why Pearl so easily accepts any treatment Rose dishes out. I think also one of the reasons she fell in love with Rose is Rose having treated her as more than just a status symbol, by seeing her as more than “a pretty toy” for seeing her strength, but ultimately Rose wasn’t able to carry that to its logical conclusion. She still treats Pearl as her inferior in many many ways, disregarding her desires and concerns, and allowing Pearl to be utterly self sacrificing for her (”Do It For Her”)
Also am I the only one who seriously ships Pearl/Amethyst?
“I like the way human beings play. I like playing along.”
“And you are not a Gem.”
I don’t think the Gems, particularly Rose and Pearl, have ever felt as alien to me as they did in this episode.
Whenever
we’re reminded of how different the Gem’s behavior and morals are from
humans, it’s often played for laughs, with the Gems not fitting into
everyday human culture and socially acceptable behavior, resulting in funny situations.
This
entire episode, however, addresses it in a rather serious tone, and
through Greg’s eyes we, the audience, get to experience just how
alienated he is from the Gems, and how he has to struggle to try
developing his relationship with Rose into something more than just
“play mates”.
Rose doesn’t do it with any intentional malice. She
likes Greg, but she likes him because she loves humans, and he’s a
particularly cute one. That’s really all there is to it at this point, and that’s what
hurts Greg. Rose’s early affection for him, and view on humans in
general, can really only be compared with a dog person saying how much
they love dogs. Rose treats Greg like a pet, affectionately but very
lightheartedly, and there’s implications that he’s not the first human she’s done this with either. Greg gets upset, Rose laughs, and is then genuinely
confused over how this is inappropriate. And it’s not because Rose is somehow incapable of having serious talks, as we know she had a very serious one with Pearl right before the war. But she has never spoken with or treated humans like they were Gems. She doesn’t mean to hurt Greg,
and in the end she does listen and try to figure things out with him.
Pearl, on the other
hand, is an entirely different story. She’s extremely spiteful of Greg, and fully
intentional in showing him just how different he is from them, and how different her relationship with Rose is from his. I’ve only heard people talk about one aspect of this, that being how Pearl wants to showcase to Greg how close and romantic she and Rose can be, and that’s definitely a large part of it. But to me, it also
gave off such a strong vibe of being an act of dominance towards Greg as
a human. Pearl is sending out a clear message to Greg that the Gems are not like him. They are not human, and they most certainly are not his new band buddies that he can act so casually around. They’re an alien warrior race who live for thousands of years and have powers beyond his imagination. He is not her equal, and he is definitely not Rose’s equal, and he cannot hope to compete with them and what they have.
Can we talk about what’s up with the dynamics between Amethyst Pearl Greg and Rose? Like Amethyst being really close with Greg in the 4th of July episode and like turning into Rose briefly and like her being excited to see Greg in a story for Steven and her kind of having his hair and the star symbol on her knees now and then like the way she kind of teases Pearl but also wants her love and approval. It seems like maybe she kind of hero worshipped Rose, but maybe kind of fell for Pearl herself and didn’t like how Rose was treating her but then I don’t get her relationship with Greg?
Or like maybe she sees him (a person from earth) in a relationship with Rose and loves and kind of hero worships him because she’s had a crush or like desire for Pearl’s respect or something and because she’s also from earth and feels alienated from and different from the other gems because of this and thought she could never be with Pearl because of that and because of how she saw Rose relating to other humans, but then Rose fell in love with him and so she decided to be with him because she thought if that’s what a human/earth person who a gem could love was like then if she was like him Pearl might love her?
But then like why does she become Rose with Greg? Do you think she had a baby crush on Greg and then had a falling out with him when she realized his relationship with Rose was serious? but then like why did she sort of borrow a bunch of elements from his look and if it was because she wanted Rose then why did she turn into Rose with Greg? Was that like to taunt him?
Serious hardcore spicy, I feel like garnet would have zero patience for wimpy namby pamby fragrances and would like the “Can kill a man if you overspray” quality of this, but it’s also warm and actually quite lovely, just like Garnet.
Amethyst:
Britney Spears Fantasy
Ultra sugary ultra loud gourmand loaded with cupcake and white chocolate, I feel like she’d be all about the sugary cheap and cheerful in terms of fragrance and would probably have a bunch of body sprays.
Pearl:
Chanel no 5
I suspect she may have walked into a department store and asked for “the best one” and gotten this, finds she likes perfume and gets a little over excited, eventually she’d switch to
Serge Lutens Un Lys
A very delicate lily and lily of the valley scent from a niche house.
or Fredric Malle L’Eau D’Hiver
an ethereal heliotrope with iris, angelica and white musk, extremely fancy.
Steven:
Viktor and Rolf Bon Bon
He’d probably been borrowing Amethyst’s trashy candy fragrances, and Pearl took him to get him a nicer (but still sweet) fragrance.
Connie:
Coty Muguet de Bois
Probably something her mum bought her, a very appropriate for a young lady soft floral, fresh and green, not too ultra girly.
Olympic Orchids Kyphi
I I think as she gets older she’ll shun gendered fragrances and she’d probably like the fact that Kyphi is based on ancient Egyptian recipes for incense.
Rose:
Montale Roses Musk
A lovely rose, massive and yet never overwhelming, always sweet and pleasant.
Greg:
Calvin Klein Obsession For Men
Has been using this as his “dress up” cologne for ages (normally he doesn’t wear any). Warm and friendly and a little silly.
Lapis Lazuli:
Comptoir Sud Pacifique Aqua Motu Eau de Parfum
The scent of the ocean with some lovely florals in its depths.
Peridot:
Comme des Garcons Odeur 71
Metal and green notes and ink, as alien as peridot.
Jasper
Union Gunpowder Rose
Coal and gunpowder combine roses to give it a hint of passion.
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 