and one more back to the barn observation, because man was that episode meaty:

a big part of fandom, myself included, would look at pearl’s pining for space and homeworld in particular and wonder: why in the fuck? why does she speak of it so lovingly, when she chose to rebel against it, and rightly so– when her kind were probably worthless slaves, looked down upon by all around them?

well, i mean. we were right that that’s what pearls are. but now we know about them in greater detail, and we know they were essentially show dogs. pets that serve as a status symbol. needless to say that’s dehumanizing and absolutely horrible, but think: to the pearls, this was only normal. they never knew anything else.

and our pearl belonged to rose diamond, one of the rulers of the whole planet.

can you imagine the life of luxury she had on homeworld? she wasn’t her own person there, but she didn’t need to be – she was cared for and safe, probably provided everything she wanted, never had to worry about even the single tiniest thing. her job was to dance and look pretty and be rose’s, and that was it.

compared to the life she lives on earth now, well. it’s now much easier to see why she’d miss that. suddenly she’s the caretaker – suddenly she has to worry about everything. she’s taken up a role she wasn’t remotely built for as protector of the earth, for the sake of the person she once belonged to (and still does, albeit in a different, much more complex way) who’s no longer there. the life she leads now is the complete opposite of what she was made for, and what she once had.

‘why would i want to go home when you’re here,’ she asks rose, and that only makes sense: in her mind rose has always signified safety, because rose always looked after her. even after their relationship deepened and grew into something mutual and more balanced, i think that initial association never waned. (the same way pearl’s ingrained need to serve hasn’t.) rose is her home, and as long as she were there, pearl would’ve been fine. and for a time, indeed she was – but now rose is gone, and so is her shelter.



pearl chose autonomy, she chose personhood, she chose to fight. it was a tough damn choice. and though i’m sure she doesn’t regret it on the large scale of things, it’s hard to blame her for being struck with the occasional urge to go back to when everything was simple. but she doesn’t. she’s still here.

pearl is admirable, man.