aperfectpearl:

So I hear the new hate is that Pearl was an emotional replacement for Pink Pearl.

Okay. So:

*Pink Diamond and Pearl clearly did not get along. They didn’t hate each other, but they were awkward af. That one scene in NWOFA spoke volumes about their relationship – they didn’t know how to act around one another. Pink tried to make a joke, Pearl took it literally (of course), and Pink just sort of sighed and gave up. This scene probably played out a lot of the years.

*Speaking of years, Pearl was given to Pink “a few thousand years” before Pink was given Earth. It wasn’t some rebound thing – they had plenty of time to get to know each other, even if it was awkward, and they definitely weren’t even friends before Earth, never mind anything else.

*Pink never forced Pearl to act like her old pearl. She absolutely could have – she had that power, and if Pearl really was a replacement, why not make her act the part? She tried to encourage Pearl to have her own personality, and was thrilled when bits of it started peeking through, but she never forced anything on Pearl, which is important

*If Pearl was an emotional replacement, then she was really, really bad at it. “I was supposed to make her happy, I just… never could.“ Really, really bad at it

Pink/Rose and Pearl were definitely not a perfect couple, but Rose was capable of seeing individual gems for what they were. Her first pearl wasn’t interchangeable with the Pearl we now have. She let Pearl find her own self instead of pushing an identity on her. And given what we know about Pearls, that’s important.