jean-and-ali-liveblogs:

Ali: So, it took me like ages to caught up on the fact that beginning of Together Alone was a dream, but now that I know, I have a theory… or rather a debunk of another theory.

So, one of the big theories about what happened to White Pearl is that, in short, Pink Diamond gave her paradoxical order like “don’t listen to my orders” or “I don’t want you to do what I want” thus breaking her (Which Open Book was supposed to foreshadow) and then White Diamond replaced their respective pearls.

Well, I don’t believe that anymore.

Steven is clearly dreaming about past events, having his own self interposed on past Pink Diamond.

Look at them! Laughing together, having fun together, Pink Pearl freely touching Pink Diamond. This completely doesn’t look like how Homeworld wants Pearl to treat their owners. And even earlier, Pink is blowing kisses at her, and Pearl doesn’t get flustered or anything like that, but laughs. Pink Diamond already got to her, already made friends with her (heck, maybe they are even in love, I would not put that past Pink), already in at least some ways liberated her from “I am a mindless object and my feelings don’t matter” mind-set. Pink Diamond would not have any reason to get frustrated with her, to ever blow up and give her any kind of paradoxical order. And if she already did, then it clearly went okay.

And you can clearly see that they are both playing this game, because when Yellow Diamond comes over to check if everything is how Homeworld’s rules want, they both pretend to be a perfect owner and a perfect Pearl. They are already doing something “wrong” in Homeworld’s eyes.

So it’s not that Pink Diamond broke her Pearl and then White Diamond took it away from her. White Diamond took her Pearl away, because she noticed this. She noticed that Pink wasn’t acting as the diamond should and that her pearl wasn’t acting like a pearl should. Whatever happened to this pearl, it was White Diamond punishment. Some awful, terrible and cruel punishment, but still only that, not a result of direct Pink Diamond’s actions or a weird order.

The only part that is left unclear is what exactly White Diamond thought. Because it seems that pearls are – at least for diamonds – custom made to fit the personalities of their diamonds. And even from this short dream we can already see that this Pearl is silly and playful. 

So, White Diamond either punished her because she saw only her blame, judged her defective and bad influence on Pink Diamond.

Or she was well aware that Pink Diamond was encouraging her, but punished Pearl, because she can’t really break another Diamond the same way.