All posts by BlackfootFerret

<p>Video script for “Followup to: Rose Quartz Ate Pink Diamond!” 2/12/18 ---------

Hello Everyone, BlackfootFerret here!

One year ago, I released “Rose Quartz Ate Pink Diamond”, one of the most powerful theories I’ve ever made ( ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHKxsxELdw​ ) . It linked several theories together to make my case about how Steven Universe got his amazing powers.

It was a controversial theory. So I’m making this followup video to clarify things and correct mistakes. As well show how well the core theory has held up over the past year.

The real theory, revealed in the twist at the end, was: “Pink Diamond gifted her powers to Rose Quartz to personally found the Crystal Gems and save The Earth, shattering herself in the process.” But that didn’t fit well in a thumbnail, so I shortened it to “Rose Quartz Ate Pink Diamond”, for reasons I’ll cover at the end of this video.

So let’s start with the fun part! Here are all the mistakes I made in the first video:

Many people pointed out I used a screenshot from Cartoon Universe at a time their channel title had been hacked. I did NOT do this on purpose.

I was a latecomer to Steven Universe, and in a hurry to binge watch the show and splice my theories together before the rumored Jan 30th reveal about Pink Diamond. When the Steven Bomb was leaked almost a month early I panicked and cut some corners.  

I didn’t know the established SU theory channels well yet, and grabbed several interesting screenshots, including “Top 10 Unsolved Theories in Steven Universe!’ which was the part of the screen I was looking at at the time. I wasn’t even aware the name change had been a hostile hack until others told me about it.

I want to apologize to Cartoon Universe for this mistake, and have become a Patreon supporter of theirs as a way to make amends.

My next error in the first video was citing the wrong season numbers for Steven Universe episodes. This is because I binge-watched the show on iTunes, and for reasons known only to the ghost of Steve Jobs, Apple has an entirely different season breakdown.  

For example, Apple says “Gem Heist/The Zoo” is the first episode of Season Six. Not only does Season Six not yet exist, “Gem Heist” is actually in Season Four.

This is weird, but actually good, because it makes the Little Butler cartoon line up perfectly with the timeline. Little Butler is a reference to Steven Universe itself, and the Richingtons, who
Amethyst says move next door in Season Three, would appear right when Lapis and Peridot move into the Barn. Amethyst also says the Dog, representing Lion, only appeared halfway through Season One, which is indeed when Lion showed up.

This is important, because Greg says the show had a Cat named Money that only appeared in the pilot episode, representing a hidden member of the Crystal Gem family that we were never aware of.

The Pilot of Steven Universe tells the story of Cookie Cat, a refugee of an interstellar war, a story that bares a very strong resemblance to Pink Diamond. And a major plot point is that the Cookie Cats have been discontinued, and are being replaced by Lion Lickers. Steven’s powers appear for the very first time when he bites into a Cookie Cat, and by the end of the episode he’s eaten the last remaining Cookie Cats in the world, thinking, perhaps correctly.. That Cookie Cat is the source of his gem power.

Even though the Cat Named Money is gone from the show, the Little Butler family still has way too much Money on their hands. And the episodes “Tiger Millionaire” and “Tiger Philanthropist” show Steven dressing up as a feline in a pink shirt wielding Money as a weapon, eventually giving the money away in the second episode.

I believe these episodes foreshadow the relationship between Steven and Pink Diamond, but only time will tell.

My next mistake was occasionally calling both Jasper and Ruby by the pronoun “He”. This was a complete gaff on my part, I know that all gems are female, except for human/gem hybrids like Steven.

Now let’s address one of my side theories that might be in jeopardy, the origin and identity of Lion.

My theory was that Rose created Lion in the same way that Pearl created her Holo Pearls, as a gemless energy-projection of herself that was then severed from the whole to become its own mirror-flipped entity.

Pearl couldn’t reform herself in “Steven the Swordfighter”, because the Holo-Pearl she created still existed, and counted as a twisted ghostly form of herself. This Anti-Pearl, unwillingly compelled to act as a training dummy, destroys Pearl’s favorite tree and eventually attacks Steven in an effort to recover Pearl’s gem, so that IT might become the real version of Pearl instead. It’s only after Steven defeats the Holo Pearl that our Pearl instantly reforms after an unheard of delay of two weeks.

Pearl reforms in the hours between “The Return” and “Jailbreak”, just like all the other defeated Crystal Gems. It wouldn’t have taken her two weeks to rez unless something was blocking her. </p><p>My theory was that Lion is an inverted projection of Rose, created and programmed by Rose to assist Steven while she was gone. Lions knows things that only Rose would know, like the location of the Secret Training Base that Pearl thought only she and Rose knew. Lion’s mane contains treasures and secrets that Rose couldn’t trust to anyone else. And somehow, even though Pearl says Rose never had a Lion, Lion was able to learn of Steven’s unpredictable birth, and return Nora’s incorrect tape to Pink Diamond’s ship.

Ever since Steven raised Lars from the dead with The Power of Pinkness, giving him warp zone hair just like Lion’s mane, many people said that Lion must be a regular earth lion that Rose brought back in the same way.

While I admit my theory is shakier than before, and might need revision based on future reveals, I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

Lion and Lars are similar, but also different. Lion keeps eating those gem hybrid crystal scorpions, while Lars no longer seems to eat at all. Lion has amazing powers to warp space and blast things, but the only power we currently know Lars of the Stars has is the ability to evade gem sensors. Perhaps both of them received a large intelligence boost after being touched by Pinkness, but it might also be that Lars simply got a confidence boost he desperately needed to unlock his true potential, and Lion was always sentient from the beginning.

If I need to update Lion’s theory in the future I will.

But now it’s time to clarify points about the core theory. So let’s begin with the beginning: Why did I start the video with Jasper?

My goal was to show that Steven’s Mom had an impossible Power Level for a gem of her type. Bismuth said Rose Quartz was completely normal when she was grown, and Big Jasper has the highest naturally occurring power level of any know Quartz. The only way Rose could stand a chance against Jasper, let alone the Diamonds, was if Steven’s Mom received a power boost in some unusual way.  

Peridot doesn’t call Jasper “The Ultimate Jasper”, she calls her “The Ultimate QUARTZ”, and Jaspers, Amethysts, and Rose gems are all members of the Quartz family, grown on Earth. While each family is different, they are also similar, and The Zoo shows that other than color, normal jaspers and amethysts are hard to tell apart! We haven’t had the chance to see a normal rose gem yet, but from the thousands the Diamonds defeated and bubbled in the Zoo, their average power level can’t be all that different from the other quartzes.

The Rudies consider Big Jasper a war hero, even among gems. And from her huge, flawless exit hole, to tales of fighting the moment she burst from the ground, it’s easy to see why. Compounding this is Big Jasper’s non-standard nose gem, which actually marks her as an
off-color mutant that won the lottery and got larger rather than smaller, dwarfing all the other tiny twisted exit holes around hers. Big Jasper is the quartz equivalent of Wolverine, there’s no way any regular quartz could dare to match her, let alone surpass her power!  

But Steven’s Mom did surpass Jasper. Because while every other member of her gem cut failed and got bubbled in the Zoo, Rose Quartz faced off against what looks like a fusion of all three Diamonds in the Inverted Pyramid wall mural. And somehow won, forcing all of them to flee the Earth.

Forget Jasper, Rose Quartz had a Diamond power level! And there’s only one gem she could have gotten it from: Pink Diamond. Likely the very diamond Rose is shown wielding in the mural.

The importance of Power Level is shown in “Garnet’s Universe”, where Garnet’s companion who is definitely not Slippy Toad constantly tracks Garnet’s power as she trains.

Here’s another example of the Power Level Argument from Undertale: Sans the Skeleton is several orders of magnitude stronger than Asgore, the King of All Monsters. If Sans was a monster, he should be the King instead. But Sans never becomes the ruler of the Underground, even if you kill all the other main characters! Because Sans isn’t a monster.. The only explanation for his impossibly high power level is that he has a human soul. Sans also has darkness inside him, which monsters shouldn’t be capable of.

There is something truly special about Steven’s Mom that allows her to do things that should be impossible. For example, she’s the only known gem in the entire universe who can Heal..

Eyeball the Ruby twice claims that Rose is the only known healer in the universe, once by deduction in Bubbled, and flat out on the witness stand in The Trial. Healing is not innate to rose quartz gems, only Steven’s Mom can do it.

Garnet has shown us, by gifting her Future Vision to Steven  three times with a kiss, that one gem can voluntarily grant their power to another for a limited time, before that power fades and returns to its owner.  

But what would happen if the gifting gem shattered before the gift wore off, leaving that power with nowhere to go except stay with the gem it was gifted to?

Now consider that Healing is a unique power in the gem universe. Only a unique gem could possess a unique power. And there are only four one-of-a-kind gems we know of: The Four Diamonds.

Both the power of Rose’s healing ability, and its rarity, point to only one possible source: Pink Diamond. The very diamond Rose supposedly shattered. </p><p>But Rose didn’t shatter Pink. The Trial shows Rose used her famous sword on the day she stabbed Pink. Bismuth designed that blade so it could never harm the central gem, even by accident. Blue Diamond may believe a sword shattered Pink, but we know this is impossible.

And there’s plenty of evidence that Pink was gifting Rose Quartz her power, even before she was shattered.

Let’s go back to The Answer for a moment, where Rose, a completely ordinary quartz soldier, and Pearl attack Blue Diamond’s entire court, all by themselves. This attack seems like madness, a suicide mission.. Yet Rose and Pearl dive in and not only survive, but take down gems left and right like they’re having a picnic. Then, immediately after Garnet forms, Rose stops Pearl from attacking this new fusion of two enemies and calls a sudden retreat, warping herself and Pearl away with powers we’ve never seen any quartz gems use before.

Rose was flushed deeply pink during this battle, and had a Super Saiyan power level. But when Garnet meets up with Rose and Pearl later, Rose is back to her usual white and pink color scheme. Rose was carrying Pink Diamond’s power in the arena, but it had faded by the time she met up with Garnet.

Now fast forward to Gemcation, where a flashback shows Garnet and other Crystal Gems preparing to fight a titanic twisted gem that could only be Pink Diamond. Garnet is here, so this must be after The Answer, but Pink Diamond is still alive. Which means Pink Diamond was still alive during The Answer. Which means that if Rose had Pink’s power during the Answer, she could only have received it as a gift.

The Trial shows us that collusion between Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond had been happening for some time. Rose was clearly identified on the day she stabbed Pink Diamond, and was a known rebel of hundreds of years. But when Rose approached Pink’s palanquin, nobody in Pink’s entire court tried to stop her, and Pink herself voluntarily left the safety of her vehicle to meet with Rose.  

Every gem in Pink’s court should have attacked Rose. But none of them did, because they all knew Rose was also a member of Pink’s court.

Pink’s pearl had been sent away, and although several Sapphires were present, none of them saw what was about to happen. Because at the very moment Rose struck, someone used The Power to Change the Future to change fate into something the Sapphires could never have seen beforehand.

This is the very power that blinded Our Sapphire on the day of The Answer. Sapphire saw her entire life before her as one unbroken line, knew she was destined to be poofed that day, but never tried to prevent it or move to safety.   </p><p>Sapphire didn’t believe the future could be changed.. Until, suddenly, it was.

Steven did the impossible in Future Boy Zoltron when he got Mr. Frowny to smile, even though every possible outcome seen with Garnet’s borrowed Future Vision told him this couldn’t happen. Steven changed the future that day to help Mr. Frowny, the same way Rose changed the future in the Answer to create Garnet.  

The same way Pink changed the future on that fateful day, to give Rose a chance to strike her. Because the Power to Change the Future is every bit as rare and powerful as Healing.

In The Trial, Blue Zircon drops a bombshell: That one of the Diamonds themselves must be behind Pink’s shattering. And in Jungle Moon, we see a young, small, off-color Pink Diamond shatter her own reflection in the mirror.


It’s very interesting to watch how Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond talk about Pink.

Blue was very close to Pink, and was devastated by the news of her loss. Even after thousands of years, Blue still mourns Pink’s death like it happened yesterday. Blue can’t heal and move on, because she still doesn’t know what happened, or why. And in The Trial she’s willing to do anything to uncover this vital information she has to know!

Yellow tries not to get emotional, putting on a stoic face and pretending she doesn’t care. Yellow advises Blue to do the same, the double meaning in her song “That’s the Use of Feeling.. Blue?” But even Yellow can’t hide that she misses Pink too, breaking down for a moment at the end of the song as the tables turn, and Blue tries to comfort Yellow instead.

Unlike Blue, Yellow DOES know something about Pink’s shattering. Yellow seems surprised when Steven actually confesses to the crime, which neither he nor Rose actually did. And in sharp contrast to Blue, Yellow has no interest in finding the truth, doing everything she can to expedite the trial and get Steven quickly shattered and silenced.

Blue Diamond is horrified at Blue Zircon’s declaration that a Diamond shattered Pink. But Yellow seems calm, resolved, and utterly unsurprised. Maybe even a touch regretful as she slowly stands up from her throne and poofs Blue Zircon with a quick finger jab.  

Yellow knows Blue Zircon’s only crime is doing her assigned job too well, and uncovering a Truth Yellow wanted to keep hidden. Yellow can’t bring herself to be mad at this gem. But when Green Zircon makes a quip, Yellow lashes out and fries her own prosecution lawyer in a rage, for not ending the trial fast enough! An outburst that leads to Blue yelling at Yellow to stop!

Yellow is doing everything she can to prevent Blue from learning the very truth about Pink that Blue needs to know in order to heal.  

And yet.. Yellow still cares for Blue, and seems to be doing these terrible things not to hurt her.. But to prevent Blue from finding a truth that would hurt her even more.

Blue has been almost insane with grief since Pink’s shattering. What would Blue do if she ever learned that her closest Diamond, Pink, was actually conspiring against The Great Diamond Authority, and funding Rose’s Rebellion with her own power? If Blue was sad before, such painful knowledge might drive her to madness, possibly even shattering herself too. Something that Yellow, who does love Blue, could never allow to happen.

White Diamond was always the force of raw intellect in The Authority. Perhaps White was the first one to see through Pink’s deception in sponsoring Rose’s Rebellion. White may have convinced her own closest diamond, Yellow, that Pink needed to be kicked out of the Great Diamond Authority. And neither dared tell Blue, fearing that Blue would defect and join Pink, if she was forced to pick sides.

Pink was the one who shattered herself, but White’s decisions may have driven Pink to take this extreme action.


I want to revisit one of my favorite details from the show, a clue that was brilliantly hidden in plain sight for years: The Six Gems on the Temple Gem Door.

Before “Story for Steven”, all we ever got to see was the bottom section of the Door, and saw it so frequently that even this amazing detail eventually became commonplace, and no longer drew our attention.

But the first view of top section, and its huge shiny circular gem surrounded by a five-sided pentagon, happens in a quick camera pan when Greg first sees the Gem Temple at a time before Steven’s House was built.

This brief flicker is the first time we ever see The Sixth Gem, or what I like to call “The One Gem”.

Over the rest of the series, we’re slowly given better and better looks at the entire door, until we finally get our first completely unobstructed shot of the whole door in “Know Your Fusion”.   Whenever Steven Universe or any show releases a detail like this in a long, slow burn, you can bet it’s important. And The One Gem is very important, because it represents the founder of the Crystal Gems. A character who, just like Money/Cookie Cat, we never knew existed.

The gem door follows a pattern, each gem on it has a different number of sides. Amethyst’s gem has 6 sides, Rose has 5, Ruby has 4, Sapphire has 3, Pearl’s strange two-toned gem counts as 2, and the giant gem in the top section is a circle that has 1 side.

The One Gem’s status as a gem is reinforced, because each gem has the same number of connecting lines as sides. As amazing and improbable as it seems, that one link connecting The One Gem to the upper Pentagram matches this iconography. The One Gem is indeed a Crystal Gem, the very first Crystal Gem, and she’s immensely more powerful than all the others. This gem represents Pink Diamond, and her power resides within Rose’s five-sided gem.

“Lion 4: Alternate Ending” goes further into this symbolism, when Lion is compelled to cough up the key to Pink Diamond’s ship. This key has a miniature version of The One Gem on it, and opens a second gem door on Pink’s ship. The new door even has its own version of The One Gem on it, with a mixed white and pink color scheme that resembles Rose Quartz, Pink Diamond, and Cookie Cat.

My favorite shot of Lion 4 is when Steven stops to look down at Nora’s tape, and for a few moments his head is pictured in a halo, between the giant legs of Pink Diamond’s ship. My theory was that Pink Diamond was Steven’s grandmother, and this shot does suggest that Steven is a descendant of Pink Diamond, the child of a space goddess.

Garnet revealed in Three Gems and a Baby that Steven himself is a fusion. We always knew that Greg and Rose were in Steven, but the energy of Pink Diamond was always secretly a part of him as well, making him a fusion of three beings.

Like Steven said, the Answer was in him the whole time!

This is why Steven keeps crying tears that he swears aren’t his when he witnesses the misery of Blue Diamond. Blue routinely shatters gems, it’s unlikely that Rose, who hates shattering, would be this upset at Blue getting a taste of her own medicine. But Pink was very close to Blue, and hurting Blue this deeply was never what Pink Diamond wanted.

All things considered, a year later, I’m more certain of my core theory than ever. That Pink Diamond’s power and mind reside within Rose’s gem, which was passed on to Steven. Which explains why Steven, and Rose, are able to do so many impossible things.

But with all of that being said, I do have one major update to the theory.

Pink Diamond does indeed have the powers of other, lesser gems inside her. But I don’t think she stole them herself.

The Diamonds don’t innately possess the same powers as gems in their court, they have their own unique abilities. This is why Blue Diamond had to summon tiny Sapphire to read the future,
because Sapphire could do something that giant Blue, the Diamond of Magic, couldn’t do herself.

But Pink Diamond could float, just like a Sapphire. And view the future, just like a Sapphire. Rose Quartz used both of these abilities in The Answer while holding Pink’s gifted power, powers that could not have originally belonged to Pink.

The energy of a Sapphire, as well as the energy of many other gems, were part of Pink’s being. Which explains how Steven has such an amazing array of unrelated powers. The question is, how did Pink get these powers?

Originally, I thought Pink must have been a vampire, and willfully stole these powers. But now I know this wasn’t the case.

And the truth is, somehow, even more horrible.

In Jungle Moon, Stevonnie relieved an early memory of Pink Diamond’s, at a time when Pink was Stevonnie’s size, with Yellow Diamond looming over her like a Titan. The Earth’s moonbase also had a small chair in it, better fitting for Pink’s original size. The Roundtable and other Steven theorists were correct: Pink was an off-color Diamond. When Pink acts like a spoiled child, Yellow spits the name “Pink” at her like an insult, which leads the wounded Pink to punch her own reflection in the mirror.

Tiny Pink was not originally formed with the standard four-sided Diamond gem that White, Yellow and Blue all share. She had a five-sided diamond that looks more like a traditional jeweler’s gem.

But somewhere between Jungle Moon, and the flashback in Gemcation, Pink underwent a massive change. Not only did Pink turn into a twisted Titan the same size as the other Diamonds, but her actual belly gem itself changed into a traditional four-sided diamond!

Gems don’t grow like humans do. Pink should have been the same size her entire life. Something must have happened to Pink that massively boosted her form size and power level. And even if Pink did receive gifted power from other gems, none of that would actually change the shape of her own diamond.

An off-color diamond that was transformed into a normal diamond.

Here’s my theory.

Off-color Pink was an embarrassment to the Authority. And especially to White Diamond, who valued purity and conformity over all else. In Jungle Moon Yellow views the original Pink as
useless, nothing more than an annoying distraction, and having to take care of her is an insult added to injury.

The Diamonds couldn’t get rid of Pink, she was part of them, and too important to lose. So White Diamond tried to fix the Problem by doing something else.

She tried to FIX Pink Diamond, to force her to become a normal diamond.

Do you remember the episode “Keeping It Together”, when Garnet and Steven revisit the Prime Kingergarten? They’re attacked by the broken shards of Cyrstal Gems that were forced to fuse together at the gem level by the Authority, as a hellish twisted parody of their own love of fusion.

I thought nothing could ever top Cat Fingers in terms of Nightmare Fuel. But nothing prepared me for seeing the Hand Cluster, where four screaming gems try to form their own bodies, but are sucked back into their merged Frankenstein gem and forced to become one tortured, twisted being.

This is what happens when you force gems who don’t want to be together, to fuse on the gem level.

And this.. Is how White Diamond tried to “FIX” Pink.  

The Diamonds poofed Pink, took her gem to the lab, and operated on it, poofing other lesser gems and physically merging the core of their beings with Pink’s 5-sided gem, mangling her and them until Pink’s gem looked like a regular diamond. And her form, now much cruler looking, was the size of a normal Diamond Titan.

Pink never asked for these powers. They were forced onto her unwillingly by her diamond sisters, who did not accept her the way she was. And while Pink may have been stronger on the battlefield afterwards, she must have felt horror and pain every moment of her life from then on. Both her own pain, and the pain of all the gems who had everything taken from then, and were forced to become part of her forever.

The Great Diamond Authority treats EVERYONE horribly, even their own!

And this is why Rose’s Rebellion happened, and why Pink was willing to give so much in a desperate attempt to teach The Authority a lesson.


Before I continue, because there’s no way I can go back after going this far, I need to make something absolutely clear. So that my words, and possibly the message of the show itself, are not misunderstood.

The Great Diamond Authority is NOT EVIL.

Yes, they’ve done terrible things. Destroyed planets. Wiped out organic life wherever they could find it. Forced gems to forgo their own desires and act like nothing more than soulness cogs in a massive machine that destroys lives. And shattered countless numbers of their own kind for the crime of being born differently.

But each and every time, the Diamonds did these terrible things because they thought it was for the greater good. That with everything they knew, and were able to feel, these draconian decisions seemed, to them, to be the best choices for Gemkind to continue and thrive.


And this is the true horror of the world of Steven Universe. Because after Pink’s shattering, The Great Diamond Authority itself is broken.

Each of the four Diamonds is part of a greater whole, and represent a different aspect of that being. That’s why each Diamond’s ship is shaped like a body part, only achieving their full power when they combine, Voltron-style, into the Ultimate Power.

White Diamond, who seems to be the oldest and most powerful Diamond, is the raw force of intellect in The Authority. You can think of her as The Architect from the Matrix, an utterly logical being as removed from the rest of the world as possible. She values straight lines and uncompromising scientific calculation above all else.  

White Diamond is the Head of the Authority.

On the flipside, you have Pink Diamond, the youngest and, at least in the eyes of the others, the least powerful Diamond. She has the lowest spot in the Era 1 hierarchy, but has a very important position. Pink Diamond isn’t just the legs, but the HEART of the Authority, if you take a good look at the design of the Zoo. Pink is the force of compassion and healing, and in Matrix terms she would be The Oracle. A being every bit as powerful as the Architect, who spends her time among the people instead of locked away in an ivory tower, learning to understand others and feel what they feel.

The theme of The Mind arguing with The Heart echoes through Steven Universe. This is why Pearl and Amethyst argue so much, they also represent the Mind and Heart, and are as different as two beings can be. But when they do manage to put aside their differences and fuse they form Opal, a fusion much more powerful than Garnet.

This is why The Great Diamond Authority is broken. Once Pink left, and was shattered, The Authority became, both Figuratively and Literally, a Heartless Organization.

When Lapis left the Earth and returned to The Heavens, she sent a warning back to Steven that in Era 2 things were much worse on Homeworld than before. With only Three Diamonds, White Diamond’s power was unchecked, and everything was done her way.

Want a fast, efficient way to stop a world full of rebelling gems? Fire off a Corruption Song and turn all of them into monsters. Want to turn worthless, captured rebels into a weapon you can use? Shatter them all and crush their pieces into a planet-destroying Cluster. Gem life is superior to organic life, so organic life should be destroyed to make way for gems. Gems were made to serve the Authority, and the Authority is pure, and perfect. If any gems dare to question the Authority, they must be defective, and must be destroyed.

It’s all very logical, and efficient. And utterly, completely heartless. But White Diamond can’t see that, because the Era 2 Authority literally does not have a heart.

On a grand level, Steven Universe is less about war, and more about an argument between family members. The Liberal Crystal Gems, founded by Pink Diamond, want to teach The Authority to learn and adapt, and change their draconian ways so that everyone is welcome on Homeworld, and can be themselves. While the Ultra Conservative Era 2 Authority consisting of White, Yellow, and Blue demands conformity, and want to keep things the way they are.

And yet, for being so smart, there is so much that White Diamond doesn’t know.

The Authority thinks fusion is an abomination that disturbs the natural order of which gems are stronger. But the Crystal Gems show time and again that allowing anyone to fuse with whoever they like creates powerful bonds that magnify the strength of their individuals many fold. A power that can easily win battles. If the Authority used fusion more often, their forces would be more effective.

The Authority thinks purity and perfection are the only things of value, and any gem that isn’t perfect is worthless. Yet even mutated and unusual gems have their places in the world. The Authority turns a blind eye to Big Jasper’s off-color status because they find her strength useful. And Padparadscha Sapphire’s inverted gift to see the past might be the only way to learn important knowledge that would otherwise be lost to time.

The Authority believes compassion is a sign of weakness, and fear is far more important for maintaining order than love. Yet Rose’s Rebellion was built upon freedom and love. This power, of gems fighting for what they wanted and believed in rather than what they were ordered to do, allowed a much smaller force to drive off the legions of Homeworld. Imagine how strong Homeworld would be if all of its gems believed in it too?

The Authority thinks organic life is weak and worthless dust, deserving only to be harvested to make gems. Yet Lars of the Stars show a single human infused with gem energy can be a force to be reckoned with, and vex even the greatest of Homeworld’s fleets. Homeworld would not
need Sun Incinerators and planet-destroying Clusters unless they were fighting an enemy in space that was truly terrifying. Imagine what Homeworld could accomplish if they had more human/gem hybrids like Lars fighting with them rather than against them, an army of Nephilim that could vex the enemy instead?

The Crystal Gems do not hate Homeworld. Lapis and Pearl both long to return to space, and the place of wonder they both came from. But they can’t return, because the Era 2 Authority has made life there unlivable, and Homeworld is no longer the place they remember.

The Crystal gems aren’t fighting to destroy Homeworld, they’re fighting to save it. And Homeworld could be so much stronger, and life on it so much more livable, if the Authority would only listen to Rose and Pink, and be willing to change.


And change is the only answer, because there’s no getting rid of The Great Diamond Authority.

Charming little Aquamarine took down the giant fusion Alexandrite with a single zap, defeating every Crystal Gem except Steven with one shot. If Homeworld ever does learn that Steven is back on Earth, and attacks in full force, you can expect them to bring an army of Aquamarines. And Topazes. And every gem type you’ve ever heard of.

Steven may have evaded the Diamonds so far, but he’s never had to actually face one in a fight. And even if the legend isn’t true that only a Diamond can shatter a Diamond, it’s very unlikely that Steven’s friends could get close to one, should Homeworld pull all the stops and finally attack in full force.

Steven will need every friend he can find just to stay alive in the trials to come.

And even if it were possible to shatter the other three Diamonds, that could prove to be a terrible mistake.

We still don’t know exactly how the gem seed injectors work. But it could be that only a Diamond can make the seeds that grow into other gems. If you destroyed the Diamonds, you could doom all of gemkind to die out!

Then the enemy in space that not even the gems could defeat would advance as Homeworld weakened, until humanity would be alone to face the terror on their own. A fight that Earth would lose.

White, Yellow and Blue may be difficult to live with, but the gems depend on the Diamonds, and the Diamonds are here to stay.

But while removing The Great Diamond Authority isn’t an option.. It might still be possible to heal it.

That’s why I believe the Endgame for Steven Universe, or at least a major chapter in its story, is for Steven to heal Pink Diamond, and restore her to her rightful place as The Heart of the Authority.

Ever since she transferred her mind and power into Rose’s gem, Pink Diamond has been doing one thing: Learning.

Learning from Rose and her adventures, then from Steven and his. Every success, failure, lesson and moral Steven has experienced, no matter how large or small, has been recorded by Pink as she traveled with him.  

Through this, Pink Diamond has learned what it’s like to be a regular gem, and a human, in a way that no other Diamond has experienced before. Learning to understand. And most importantly, learning to Love.

Pink did not know what Love was, until she came to Earth, and met Rose. Pink saw a power in this young gem that she had never experience before, and couldn’t understand. As the song says, Pink Diamond wanted to learn how to love, like her. And the best way to do this was to actually be part of Rose for a while.  

This also granted Rose, an amazing tactician, the power to Save the Earth. Because Pink wasn’t just trying to save one planet, she was trying to save The Authority itself by proving to them that things could be different, and many beliefs they took for granted were wrong. And the Earth was the best place to make a stand.

If Steven restores Pink Diamond to life, it would not only end the gem war and save the Earth, the lessons learned there would echo through the entire Homeworld empire. Horrors like the Corruption Song and Shattering would be things of the past. Once Pink rejoined her sisters, it would start Era 3, an age of compassion and understanding that had never before been seen. And the terrors of space would know their time was up as these four living creatures once again combined into the Ultimate Power, stronger than ever before now that it was armed with new wisdom, and allies it couldn’t even imagine before.

But to do all this, Steven must return Pink Diamond’s energy to her gem.

Which means Steven has to unfuse, and never again reform the way he was.

Which means Steven has to poof.
</p><p>
Is there a way to save Steven?

Maybe. There’s still a lot we don’t know about human/gem hybrids, or the gemless energy-based children some gems are able to create.

And in order for Steven to even survive long enough to fulfill this destiny, a lot has to happen.

Steven must locate Pink Diamond’s shattered gem, and unearth secrets that have been buried for thousands of years.

Steven must survive long enough to grow stronger than even his own mother, who would have healed Pink if she could, but never had the power.

And all the while, Steven must protect himself and his friends from the ever-increasing threat of Homeworld. And the Three Diamonds that want revenge on him for the death of their sister, never realizing that if they destroy Steven, they destroy Pink Diamond for good.

And at the end of it all, Steven must make the final decision of what to do.

I don’t think it’s exaggerating at all, to say that the story of Steven Universe could be considered the Greatest Story Ever Told.



Art is at is best when powered by conviction.

The Artist sees a way the world could be different, and creates a work so that the audience can also see what they see.

What is the goal?

The same reason a theorist might, hypothetically, create an epic theory video that deliberately makes a bad first impression, and only reveals the truth at the end.

To change people’s minds.

Thank you all, for listening to the whole story, and keeping an open mind!

Goodnight everyone.

-----------
Final Jam: “Heaven for Everyone” - originally by Queen, performed by The Vienna Symphonic Orchestra Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Hg27XTFXk </p>

<p>Although well hidden, Lion 4 contains a boatload of Steven Universe hints and lore! </p><p>"Secrets of Lion 4!" - Theoretical Shorts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-4cB5kzTIU </p><p>My Master Theory referenced in the video: Rose Quartz ate Pink Diamond!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHKxsxELdw  (The Title is misleading, the video contains a major twist. </p>

<p>Hi folks! Here's a rundown of some of my recent theories: </p><p>- The episode "Future Boy Zoltron" shows that the power to change the future didn't belong to Ruby, but Steven instead. It was Rose who changed the future from what Sapphire was able to see at the time when Rose and Pearl attacked Blue Diamond's court. </p><p>- Rose and Pearl's attack on Blue Diamond's court.. was pointless. They poofed several gems, who would simply respawn in hours, before Rose called a retreat. </p><p>- Pearl was ready to attack the newly formed Garnet, until Rose herself stopped her, said something about "That's why we.." then quickly called a retreat. Later, when Garnet meets Rose and Pearl, Rose immediately accepts and trusts Garnet, and tells her never to question what just happened. </p><p>- Rose has powers that greatly exceed those any Quartz Soldier would have naturally. She has many God-like abilities like creating life, healing gems, changing destiny and an entire bookful of random abilities that far exceed anything either Amethyst or Jasper ("The Ultimate Quartz" according to Peridot) possess. She must have the ability to absorb the powers of other gems. And if she can FLOAT.. this means she acquired the powers of a Sapphire at some point. Which means Rose Quartz also has the power of Future Vision. </p><p>- Using both Future Vision, and the Power to Change the Future, Rose could forsee the love between Ruby and Sapphire, knew that they would never kiss, and staged the whole pointless raid just to give Ruby a chance to be a hero, forming Garnet, one of her strongest and closest friends for life. </p><p>- Creating Garnet was the PURPOSE behind Rose and Pearl's raid on Blue Diamond's court. </p><p>
</p><p>These are just some of the ideas in my newly completed theory video "Rose Quartz ATE Pink Diamond!" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHKxsxELdw ) </p><p>
</p><p>What do you folks think? </p>

<p>Hello folks, I've released the prototype for my new theory video: </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CGJ9jAKhgI </p><p>This project took me two months to make, and featured two complete watchthroughs of the series, the second time going frame by frame. I do believe I've made a breakthrough about the story of Pink Diamond, how her fate has ALWAYS been interwoven with the Crystal Gems, and how Steven ended up acquiring her powers. Along with many other secrets I uncovered along the way. </p><p>While the video is mostly the narration at the moment, I do include key images when called for. The finished version will show every video clip where evidence I'm talking about came from. </p>

<p>2/22/17 - THE FULL VIDEO IS NOW OUT! It features an epic soundtrack and almost three three episodes worth of clips as evidence to back things up, sometimes set to the music!: </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHKxsxELdw&t=1s </p> <hr><p>
Notable additions: </p><p>- The Gem Door has SIX Gems, including the huge white circle above it. </p><p>- "Little Butler" reveals there was a sixth character in the cast that only appears in the pilot. </p><p>- Cookie Cat is actually the stand-in for Pink Diamond. </p><p>- Rose had the power to Change Fate and allow Garnet to exist, not Ruby. "Future Boy Zoltron" proves this power resides within Steven. </p><p>- The Treasure Chest in Lion's mane contains the shattered pieces of Pink Diamond </p><p>Version 1 posting: http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:778269 (to set the date) </p> <hr><p>Hello everyone, BlackfootFerret here! </p><p>Steven Universe, a great cartoon filled with amazing mysteries, is nearing the end of its run, so I’ve taken a temporary side-track from my FNAF videos to address one of its greatest mysteries: The story of Pink Diamond. Who, by legend, was shattered by Rose Quartz in her rebellion against the Diamonds to save the Earth. A shocking act for Rose, whose own sword is specially enchanted to never shatter Gems. </p><p>This video is based on script I posted on the Steven Universe WIki Jan 3rd, right after I learned the Season 6 Steven Bomb had been leaked, but before I’d actually seen it. While this video contains no information about the Bomb, it DOES contain MASSIVE SPOILERS about the story of Steven Universe right up to the end of Season 5. So if you haven’t caught up with this amazing show yet, don’t deny yourself the joy of coming up with your own theories and stop this video RIGHT NOW. Because in seconds, secrets, both revealed and still hidden, are going to be shattered. </p><p>The script moves fast, so whenever possible I play the clip that the evidence I’m quoting actually comes from in the background. </p><p>So let’s begin. </p> <hr><p>Jasper... is the Ultimate Earth Quartz Warrior. </p><p>Peridot flat out calls her that when she shows Amethyst Jasper’s exit hole in the Beta Kindergarten, huge and flawless, standing out from all the misshapen gem holes around it as a paragon to Quartz-kind. A type of warrior gem that only comes from Earth. </p><p>Malachite, the two-gem fusion between Jasper and Lapis, was powerful enough to have the edge on the four-gem fusion Alexandrite, and would have won the fight if Steven hadn’t raised a watermelon army to save his friends. </p><p>In her very first appearance, Jasper performs an ASTONISHING one-hit KO on Garnet, splitting her up for the first time. And she plays with her self-declared rival Amethyst like a cat playing with a mouse, making a point of humiliating her and absorbing all the punishment she can dish out, seemingly without a scratch. </p><p>Jasper, like all Gems, was made for a purpose. “Fighting IS my life!’ she loudly declares, “It’s what I was made for!”, and she’s VERY good at it. To the Ruby Squad she’s a veteran of the battle for Earth, fighting under both Pink Diamond and later Yellow Diamond, a living legend, as Amethyst learns when she impersonates Jasper. A warrior who survived a fight when so many have fallen. In terms of raw DragonballZ Power Level, no Quartz should be ever be able to best Jasper in a fight. By the very definition of their being as Gems, no Quartz could ever be more powerful or perfect than Jasper. </p><p>Except for one. Rose Quartz. </p><p>And not only is Rose stronger.. She’s FREAKISHLY stronger! </p><p>Rose can tear apart Gem soldiers with her bare hands, not even needing her sword. She can float, she can heal cracked Gems, she can create an army of sentient plants and even possess people’s minds in their sleep. Her shield isn’t bad either. Every power Steven has was once owned by Rose. She raised a ragtag band of rebels in defiance of the combined forces of the Great Diamond Authority, sending them running, shattering Pink Diamond and leading the three surviving Homeworld diamonds to cast a terrible curse over the Earth that turn all but a handful of Rose’s closest friends into the corrupted monsters the Crystal Gems have been fighting for centuries. </p><p>Steven has Rose’s gem, and all of her amazing abilities. Abilities that no Quartz Warrior should have ever had in the first place. </p><p>Where did all these amazing powers come from? </p><p>I’m BlackfootFerret, and welcome to The Ferret Theory! </p><p>I recently took the plunge and watched every episode of Steven Universe from beginning to end, twice! For theorists, it’s one of the most amazing shows out there, with little clues hidden cleverly in every episode! Youtubers have been making videos about the show for years, and since the answers about Pink Diamond seem on the horizon, I couldn’t resist jumping into the ring myself. </p><p>
So let’s get back to Steven’s powers, which were originally Rose’s powers. What is it impossible to believe that they belonged to her from the beginning? </p><p>Because Rose started out as a warrior, just like Jasper did, and all Quartzes. She was a Quartz Warrior, just like Jasper, summoning a shield instead of a sword. Yet she has powers that fall far outside the warrior character class. </p><p>Her ability to Heal is her most famous power. Time and again, Gems express how amazing and rare this ability is. Eyeball the Ruby speaks of Rose’s healing powers as legendary, and a major advantage in how her smaller band of Earth rebels was able to stand up to much larger forces of Homeworld. Which suggests that in spite of having the combined forces of three Diamonds, Homeworld did NOT have a healer of their own! Both Steven and Rose can float, but Amethyst and Jasper can’t. While this might be a quirk unique to Rose Quartz gems, this power seems most often associated with Sapphires.  </p><p>Rose also has the power to grant sentient life to plants! Steven discovers this by accident when he sprays watermelon seeds all around his Dad’s car wash as a joke, only to quickly find that this momentary prank actually created an entire NATION of animated watermelon PEOPLE, who moved to Mask Island and developed their own civilization complete with animated watermelon-based animals! Peridot and Lapis tried their hand at farming, but they were never able to do anything like this! </p><p>Steven discovers he has the Cthulhu-like ability to communicate with people in their dreams, and is able to actually possess his own watermelon-kindred this way. He mind-controls LARS by accident before he even knows what he’s doing, making the hostile domination of the mind of a sentient creature look easy! </p><p>These are NOT warrior-like abilities, these are GOD-like abilities! And I’m not even done! Steven can fuse with humans! Steven is largely immune to Gemtech, easily disabling the force fields imprisoning himself and his friends. Every few episodes, Steven seems to unlock a new power that was always within himself all along. </p><p>Pearl can summon/create frazzled-looking robotic “Holo Pearls” with her powers to making weapons-training partners for Steven and Connie, but Rose was able to create LION, a fully sentient creature with an extra-dimensional space in its mane to hold all of her private treasured possessions. This gemless creature is far more powerful than most Gems, blasting rock with its sonic roar and warping all of the Gems to the Moon with a multiple-step extended teleport jump! </p><p>Most Gems have one special ability. Pearl can create holograms, Garnet has Future Vision, and Amethyst is a shape-shifting ace. But Rose has floating, healing, dreaming, shielding, and the ability to create life. Rose doesn’t have ONE power, she has an entire book full of them, and Steven is discovering more abilities with each episode! </p><p>
So here’s my theory: </p><p>Rose Quartz did NOT begin with an entire portfolio of strange, incredible, seemingly unrelated powers. She began life with one singularly amazing power: </p><p>The ability to absorb the powers of other Gems. </p><p>Garnet shows us, by granted Steven the use of her Future Vision on several occasions, that Gem Powers are not strictly confined to their originating Gems. They have an essence that can be transferred. Sometimes willingly, sometimes not? So far, Garnet has only granted them to Steven on a temporary basis, but could a permanent transfer of power between gems also be possible? </p><p>We’ve seen that placement of a gem on a Gem’s body affects not only their personality, but their powers as well. Pearl’s gem is on her forehead, and she’s the highly logical and strategic one that thinks with her mind, and employs delicate precision in her fighting style. Amethyst’s gem is on her chest, and she’s the impulsive emotional one who thinks with her heart, and prefers to smash things with feral strength. The Ruby soldiers would be exact clones of each other if their gems weren’t all in different places, ranging everywhere from well-balanced Doc with his chest gem, to grim Eyeball with a gem for an eye, to poor Leggy who has little mind to speak of at all. </p><p>Is it a matter of pure blind coincidence, then, that Rose Quartz’s gem is on her stomach? </p><p>Steven Universe is designed entirely around food. The Cheeseburger Backpack. How most families in town have food-inspired mutations that mark them as part of the Onion gang, Fry Family, Donut Denizens, etc. Cookie Cats, Lion Lickers, Frybo the FNAF character, food, food and more food! Even though Pearl hates food, and Amethyst and Onion won’t eat something unless it’s horrible. </p><p>Yes, there’s a positive body-identity message here: That a fat lady shaped like a wedding cake and a fat kid who could actually defeat Chunk in an eating contest can still be the last, best hope our planet has for salvation. And that it’s what’s inside that counts far more than your outside, even if you’re usually full of ice cream. </p><p>But what if all this symbolism about Eating does deeper? What if Rose Quartz, the central character of the entire series whose legendary kindness defeated an empire and saved the Earth itself before Steven was even born, was able to do so because she had a dark secret? That underneath all of her self-sacrificing grace and good intentions for her friends and the world.. Rose is actually a gem-essence stealing vampire? </p><p>And, because he has her gem now.. Steven is too, even if he doesn’t know it yet? </p><p>Stealing powers from lesser gems might account of some of Rose’s lesser abilities like floating. But the ability to create life goes far beyond a warrior’s place in the world, whose business is to protect or destroy it. Such a power could have only come from a greater Gem. </p><p>And the only gem harder than Quartz, is Diamond. </p><p>The Rubies say they saw Rose Quartz shatter Pink Diamond with their own eyes.. Yet the Rubies weren’t able to count well enough to realize that one half of Garnet had joined their baseball team as a spy. They may have seen something.. But did not understand exactly what they witnessed. </p><p>Jasper, who has more of a clue, still blames Steven, who he believes is Rose, for what happened to her original Diamond, Pink Diamond. And Jasper does NOT say that Rose shattered Pink Diamond.. Only that Rose was responsible for what happened to her. And the outraged fanatical fury in Jasper’s voice, the last desperate thing she says before succumbing to her growing corruption, is that Rose did something so terrible to Pink Diamond that it’s too horrible to even SPEAK of. </p><p>If Rose did shatter Pink Diamond, it wasn’t by using her sword. Bismuth tells Steven the she forged Rose’s sword to Rose’s exact specifications, cutting through forms like butter, but never damaging the actual gem inside, even by accident. If Rose performed this shattering herself, she used a different power. </p><p>
It’s not as if Rose has never deceived her Crystal Gem friends before. She poofed Bismuth, and hid her gem inside Lion’s mane, removing their best friend and second-strongest ally from the board and somehow kept the secret from everyone, including Garnet. </p><p>And if there’s any indication of just how powerful Rose is when it comes to deception, Rose was actually able to lie to Garnet.. About her own fused origin story. </p><p>
We’ve seen Garnet’s account of how she came to be: That when Rose and Pearl single-handedly attacked Blue Diamond’s court up in the Sky Arena. And how Sapphire had seen the entire course of her own life unfold as one unbroken line, predicting her own Poofing during the attack and accepting this fate. And how little Ruby loved her so much that this little gem was actually able to alter fate and bend the predestined future history of the universe to save Sapphire, fusing with her in the process to create Garnet for the first time. </p><p>It’s a touching story.. But was Ruby really the force that changed the future? </p><p>Ever since that day, Sapphire’s Future Vision has worked differently. Instead of seeing one inevitably strong path, she, and Garnet, see a world of branching possibilities. As if whatever force that once altered fate is still nearby, clouding her ability to see the future with its own ability to change it. </p><p>It’s easy to say Ruby being constantly fused with Sapphire is the reason behind this, but the “Future Boy Zoltron” episode proves this power is actually coming from STEVEN. </p><p>Garnet grants her Future Vision to Steven when he breaks Mr. Smiley’s robot, and has to take the fortune-telling android’s place. Yet despite his desire to help the chronically depressed Mr. Frowny, every possible future Steven sees using Garnet’s Future Vision results in sadness. </p><p>But Steven doesn’t give up. He informs Mr. Frowny’s old partner Mr. Smiley that Frowny is in down, and leaving on a bus. And despite Garnet’s Future Vision AGAIN predicting doom, Smiley and Steven race to catch up to Frowny before he leaves. And achieve the impossible: Actually getting Mr. Frowny to smile, perhaps for the first time in his life. </p><p>Ruby wasn’t here to change the course of the future. But Steven was. </p><p>When Ruby saved Sapphire, way back when, and fused into Garnet, the screen is filled with roses, white stars, and the occasional pink diamond. Pearl moves to attack the new fusion, but is immediately stopped by Rose herself, who quickly calls a retreat before she can explain why. Later, Garnet meets Rose and Pearl, and Rose immediately trusts her, and accepts her, and recruits her  into the Crystal Gems. </p><p>It’s almost as if the very reason Rose attacked an entire arena full of Gems with just Pearl at her side was to create Garnet, one of her strongest lieutenants, in the first place. Using both the future vision she stole from the same Sapphire she got her floating from, and Pink Diamond’s godlike powers, to actually change the future. </p><p>Rose “Don’t ever question this.” </p><p>
Perhaps Pink Diamond’s gem shattered.. When Rose decided the only way to save the Earth was by destroying the Diamond in charge of it, and sucked every last spark of life and power out of Pink Diamond in a shocking betrayal, right in the middle of her court. </p><p>
But somehow, some way, the power of Pink Diamond did transfer into Rose’s gem, and into Steven afterwards. Because in the episode “Three Gems and a Baby” we see a flashback of little Steven, his blue-shrouded father, and his three wise Gem women guardians reenacting a famous picture of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus. </p><p>And there, surrounding his gem, after his father re-buttoned his pajamas to make room for it, is the shape of a diamond. </p> <hr><p>The diamond pajamas may have been the most recent clue, but this is not the first time Pink Diamond’s involvement in the story has been hinted. And that while well hidden, Pink Diamond is actually a major character whose fate has been entwined with the Crystal Gems from the beginning. </p><p>The first well-hidden clue is the Temple Gem Door itself. </p><p>A closeup on the 5 gems in the star symbol in the door reveals that the inside shape of each gem has its own unique number of sides. Amethyst has 6 sides. Rose has 5 sides. Ruby has 4 sides. Sapphire has 3 sides. And in the particular light that bisects the circle on Pearl’s gem, it appears to actually have 2 sides. </p><p>6..5..4..3..2..  This would suggest there is a ONE somewhere. </p><p>And whenever you get a lucky shot of the top of the Gem door.. You see it. </p><p>Right above the actual doorway is a short bar containing six pink squares, and a triangle pointing downwards, at the door, suggesting the number six. And right above this.. Is THE ONE. </p><p>A HUGE moon-like white circle hovers right above the door, encased in a stone 5-sided Pentagon, the very same stone that outlines the Gem Door itself, suggesting that this huge white circle is the 6th gem, and is every bit a part of the door as the other five. </p><p>We actually see this pearl-like 1st gem all the time on the show.. Because while actual in-episode footage says there’s a crystal warp pad on the giant temple statue hand with the washer and dryer on it, whenever we see this statue hand at the beginning and end of most episodes of Steven Universe, the warp pad has been replaced by a gigantic white pearl. Even though if the statue represents the fusion of all 5 gems, one of Garnet’s gems should be here instead. </p><p>The ONE is an essential part of the 5, and resides inside the Pentagon. The ONE resides inside Rose Quartz’s 5-sided gem. </p><p>
So who is the elusive ONE? This all-important character who has always been with the team? </p><p>Or next clue is in the “Little Butler” cartoon, which is a meta parody about Steven Universe itself, including stand-ins for every character in the main cast. </p><p>Steven is Little Butler, who keeps teaching people things about themselves. The wife is wearing a Pearl necklace, this is Pearl. The tall father figure would be Garnet, while the short daughter would be Amethyst. And the dog has to be the stand-in for Lion. </p><p>Amethyst has a lot to say about this show. The Richingtons move next door in Season 3, about when Lapis and Peridot take up residence in The Barn in Steven Universe. And that, since they’re watching the show pilot, Amethyst notes the Dog isn’t even in the show yet, which fits because Lion joins the cast halfway through the first season. Then Greg launches a bombshell: That in the show pilot they had a cat named Money instead. </p><p>Who in the heck is the cat? Steven asks this question directly when he catches Amethyst tormenting his father by pretending to be Rose, and angrily tosses a cat-carrier from the surrounding junk, yelling “Seriously, when did you even HAVE a cat?” </p><p>But there IS a cat character in Steven Universe. </p><p>Cookie Cat. The cat-faced ice cream sandwich that is half white.. And half PINK. </p><p>How does that song go again? Cookie Cat came from outer space. A refugee from an interstellar war. But now he’s here. “He’s a pet for your tummy!” Steven declares, as he rubs his own belly gem. And then we see a tearful Cookie Cat leaving his family behind as he pilots a UFO, carrying a hobo’s bindle. A bindle covered in Pink Diamonds. </p><p>The very first song that ever appeared in Steven Universe was about Pink Diamond. </p><p>So what happened to Cookie Cat? Why does he only appear in the Pilot episode? </p><p>Because in that pilot, Steven ATE the last remaining Cookie Cats in the world, thinking that they were the source of his gem power. Because all the Cookie Cats had been discontinued, and were now being replaced by the less impressive Lion Lickers. Which just happen to be Lion’s favorite food. </p><p>Cookie Cats have become Lion Lickers. Pink Diamond has become Rose Quartz. </p><p>And yet.. In Spite of being discontinued, Cookie Cat stays with Steven throughout the series in one form or another. He has a Cookie Cat clock by his bed. He has a nightmare about Cookie Cat, who turns out to be not nearly as nice as he thought, blasting him to death with a UFO laser. And somehow, he and Connie are able to get Cookie Cat walkie talkies on Connie’s first gem-hunting mission. </p><p>Take a close look at those Walkie-talkies. Cookie Cat is surrounded by a Pink border. And if you look at it in just the right frame.. That speaker that replaces the eye turns into a diamond.. As Cookie Cat’s expression changes JUST a little.. To give you a sly grin. </p><p>
It’s not hard to find Diamond imagery in Steven Universe. In fact.. It’s almost impossible to AVOID. If you look carefully at the background of any frame throughout the entire SERIES of Steven Universe, you’re going to see four-sided diamonds mixed in there 80% of the time. Especially around important gem technology, or any shot of the sky. Steven Universe is the STORY of a Diamond, with Steven himself only becoming involved in its final act. </p><p>But for something more direct, see what happens when Greg accidently smashes his foot right through the stomach of a Watermelon Steven when he first wakes up. What sort of residue do we find splashed on his leg, that was once inside Steven? A Pink Diamond. </p><p>
I have two theories about Rose’s part in all of this. One is light. The other is incredibly DARK. </p><p>What if everything we know about Rose Quartz is wrong? </p><p>That, rather than saving the Earth, she was actually the one who CONDEMNED it in the first, when a Quartz Warrior became too ambitious, and devoured a Diamond? That by betraying the leader she had sworn to protect, she’s the one who sparked the devastating war the ended with so many gems shattered or twisted beyond recognition, and the Earth with the Cluster ticking time bomb planted in its core? </p><p>Rose herself lamented how gems were unable to change or grow. That they were always stuck being the way they were created, a thought that horrified her. Which is the very reason she thought a fusion between a Gem and a human would be a good idea in the first place, creating Steven, a human-gem hybrid, and the first gem ever with the ability to grow and become more powerful over time. </p><p>We’ve all heard about the wonderful noble sacrifice Rose made, passing her gem to Steven, losing her physical form in the process. Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl have all lamented about Rose’s passing as though she were dead, and they they would never, ever, see her again. </p><p>But what if that isn’t the real story? </p><p>What if Rose isn’t even actually DEAD at all? </p><p>In the Season One episode “Steven the Sword Fighter”, Pearl creates a “Holo Pearl” duplicate of herself.. And is then Poofed by it. While Amethyst can reliably reform herself in only a few hours, and almost instantly in an emergency, Pear’s respawn takes FOREVER, weeks even, and all the while the Holo-Pearl that stabbed her stays behind, making a nuisance of itself, looking like a ghost under its cloth covering, destroying Pearl’s favorite tree and eventually attacking Steven himself like a type of Anti-Pearl! </p><p>And it’s only after Steven stabs and poofs the Holo-Pearl, destroying this Nega-version of his friend, that the real Pearl finally, instantly, respawns. Almost as if she COULDN’T respawn as long as the Holo-Pearl she created earlier still existed, as if it was actually still a part of her, and counted as an altered manifestation of herself. </p><p>Holo-Pearl still counted as a body for Pearl. And LION still counts as a manifestation of Rose Quartz! </p><p>Lion is much more than just a magical friend to Steven that happens to be the same pink color as his mother: Lion IS what remains of his mother. All of Rose’s treasures are inside Lion’s mane: Her sword, her banner, Bismuth’s hidden bubbled gem, a Greg Universe shirt, the videotape Rose made for Steven, and a mysterious treasure chest nobody has tried to open yet. Rose trusted Lion with things she could tell nobody about, and trusted the great cat like she’d trust herself. </p><p>Pearl tries to show Steven the secret training base that only she and Rose knew about.. Only to learn that Lion has already taken Steven and Connie there. </p><p>For all its show of acting like a giant pussycat, there’s a keen intelligence inside Lion that shows itself only when it wants to, or needs to. Lion was right there to warp Steven back to the Temple when he decided to stay and protect the Crystal Gems from Peridot’s Green Arm ship. Lion hears that Steven needs more training, and immediately forgets the movie theater and warps him to the secret training base. Lion almost suffocates Steven several times in an attempt to ‘accidentally’ show him how to access his mane. </p><p>As Greg and Pearl reminisced together, Rose always did what she wanted. Steven may have Rose’s gem, but Rose created a powerful avatar for herself before she handed it over. </p><p>
Now for a dark question: What happens if Steven gets Poofed? </p><p>If the same rules that applied to Pearl and her Holo Pearl also apply to Steven and Rose.. then Steven shouldn’t be able to respawn himself as long as Lion exists. </p><p>This could lead to Rose/Lion having to make another sacrifice, this time dying for real so her son can return. </p><p>Or something far more horrible could be waiting for Steven. </p><p>What if, after Steven got poofed, Lion scooped up his gem.. And ATE it? </p><p>Rose would return, and Steven would never be able to come out again. And instead of Rose being a part of Steven.. STEVEN would become a part of Rose. </p><p>The Cat Fingers episode proves that two minds can coexist inside a Gem’s body, and war for control over it. Steven turns all of his fingers into cats, only to have them start taking over the rest of him, threatening to devour him entirely. Perhaps this is foreshadowing a conflict between himself and Lion in the future? </p><p>Remember that ability to change and grow that Rose desired so much? What if she started the entire Steven experiment in the first place.. Because she wanted that power for herself? And by devouring Steven in the same way she devoured Pink Diamond, she could have it? And all she’d have to do is eat her own son. </p><p>What would the other Crystal Gems say? When faced with a choice between having Rose back from the dead, or having to actually KILL Rose again themselves in order to save Steven, who would they choose to support? </p><p>I love Pearl, but I think I know whose side she would choose. </p><p>
And yet, there are things about the Dark Rose Theory that don’t add up. </p><p>Rose poofed Bismuth, a very powerful gem, secretly out of sight from all the others, all because Bismuth wanted to make weapons that would shatter gems, something Rose forbid. </p><p>If Rose was secretly the gem-sucking vampire that seems to have devoured Pink Diamond, why didn’t she also eat Bismuth? It was the perfect chance, nobody would have known. And yet.. Rose didn’t devour her former friend, she bubbled her inside Lion, hidden away, imprisoned indefinitely, but still alive and intact. </p><p>Lion might have wanted the training robot to kill Steven so she could eat him, which might explain why she was unconcerned with the robot hurling fireballs at him. But when the robot persists in attacking and slips through the warp rift, she stays with Steven and Connie, giving them support and Rose’s Sword, but forcing them to gain experience fighting a relatively tame enemy so they could become better prepared for the real ones. </p><p>Lion may have seem tempted to gnaw or Steven now and then, or suffocate him.. But ultimately she tries to protect him and prepare him for the challenges ahead. She might be more like a monster now than a gem, but she’s still his mother. </p><p>
Then there’s the mural on the ceiling of the Inverted Pyramid, depicting someone who could only be Rose Quartz battling a gem using power radiating from what appears to be a four-sized diamond floating in front of her hands. And unshattered diamond. Like Rose was channeling the power of a diamond, but hadn’t destroyed it. </p><p>
And the final piece of the puzzle comes from the iconic wall murals of the Diamonds. </p><p>These pictures are a wonder to behold, but the most important part of each image is that it reveals the position of the gem on each Diamond’s body. </p><p>White Diamond’s gem is on her forehead. A lot like Pearl. </p><p>Yellow and Blue Diamond have their gems on their chest. More like Amethyst. </p><p>And Pink Diamond has her gem.. On her stomach. </p><p>
The murals also show that each Diamond was responsible for several planets. Except for Pink Diamond, who was only the caretaker of one world: Earth. </p><p>The story of Cookie Cat suggests there was a war in space before Pink Diamond came to earth. That she made the trip and gave up most of her power in the empire to get away from the bickering of her Diamond sisters, and choose a quieter planet to rule. And eventually learn to love. </p><p>Then the Great Diamond Authority followed her, and also loved the Earth, but for a different reason. Her sisters planned to hollow the planet out, steal all of its life, and turn it into a transportation hub. </p><p>
What if we’re looking at this the wrong way, and Rose’s attack on Pink Diamond is a Snape-killed-Dumbledore situation? Where it looks like Snape is a cold-blooded murderous traitor.. Until we learn Dumbledore himself requested it due to the situation both of them were in? </p><p>
</p><p>Remember when I said the abilities to heal, grant life, mind-control people in their dreams and change the architecture of fate were God-like abilities that no simple warrior would ever naturally have? </p><p>The ability to devour the essence of other Gems and steal their powers is also a God-like ability. </p><p>This vampiric talent didn’t belong to Rose.. it belonged to Pink Diamond herself. And by the time she came to Earth, fleeing the wars, she had already used it many, many times. And felt the corruption and guilt over the Gems she drained gnawing constantly at the back of her mind. </p><p>And then Pink Diamond met Rose. An amazing, charismatic gem with a vision of how things could be different. Full of love and life, and doing everything she could to find the good in people. She shared Pink Diamond’s passion about why the Earth should be saved. </p><p>At first, Pink Diamond might have thought about eating Rose. But then, the more they talked, the more Pink realized that although she as a Diamond was the more powerful Gem, Rose with her courage and compassion was a far better one than she was. Rose would never betray those beneath her in the same manner Pink herself had, testing her powers. </p><p>Pink Diamond didn’t have the heart to stand up to her own sisters and stop their plans for devouring the Earth. But Rose did. </p><p>The only thing Rose lacked was power. </p><p>So Pink Diamond granted her power to Rose. All of it, even the stolen parts. Permanently. </p><p>And then, as she shattered, the screams of the gems in the back of her mind finally stopped. Knowing, as she knew then, that the Earth had a new protector. </p><p>Before Rose Quartz made her sacrifice for Steven, Pink Diamond had already made an equally powerful sacrifice for her. </p><p>
What’s in the treasure chest, the last, most mysterious artifact Rose hide within Lion’s mane? The shattered pieces of Pink Diamond’s gem. </p><p>Rose was never able to heal corruption, or shattering, on her own. She could not undo what Pink Diamond had done, and return the life her friend had so recklessly given to her. So she hid away what remained of Pink Diamond in the hopes that somehow, some day, she would find the answer to healing her friend, and repay the gift she could never repay. </p><p>Rose could not heal Pink Diamond. But maybe, just maybe, a fusion between herself and a being with the ability to grow, might be able to someday. So she tried to change fate once again, and fell in love with a foolish dreamer who lived in a van. </p><p>
Steven Universe tells us that a Fusion is not the same thing as the sum of its parts.  </p><p>This is noted when Pearl repaired the Communications Tower after the Gems shut it down to block Peridot’s report back to Homeworld, in order to trick Garnet into fusing with her again to deactivate the tower a second time. Neither Garnet nor Sardonyx knew that Pearl was lying to them, it seems a Gem in a fusion can still keep secrets from the other parts. </p><p>When Garnet and Pearl became Sardonyx, the Temple actually created an entirely new room for the Fusion as if she was an entirely new Crystal Gem. And the moment Pearl and Garnet unfused, the room began to disintegrate, because the room could only exist while Sardonyx herself existed. Sardonyx is made from Garnet and Pearl, but isn’t truly either of them. </p><p>A Fusion is its own unique being. </p><p>And in Three Gems and a Baby, Garnet says that Steven himself is a Fusion. </p><p>Steven isn’t just made of two people, but three. His mother Rose Quartz, his father Greg Universe. And, secretly, his grandmother, Pink Diamond. </p><p>Anything Pink Diamond can do, or stole the ability to do, Steven can do, and then some. He contains both Rose Quartz’s sparkling light and Pink Diamond’s dark majesty. But isn’t beholden to either one. </p><p>Steven could protect the world. </p><p>Steven could DEVOUR the world. </p><p>And one day, he might have to sacrifice himself to Save the world. To bring Pink Diamond back to life, and end the Gem War for good. Ending his existence as a Fusion in the process. </p><p>But whatever the future holds, and what tales will be told: </p><p>The decision is his, and his alone. </p><p>
</p><p>Rumors are circulating that the song “Love Like You”, which appears in pieces at the end of most Steven Universe episodes, is Pink Diamond singing to Rose Quartz. And that the singer is Rebecca Sugar herself, the creator of the show. And that the entire series is about Pink Diamond’s story, every bit as it is about Steven.  </p><p>You’ll have to decide for yourself. </p><p>A new season is beginning. Let’s enjoy it together. Goodnight everyone. </p> <hr><p>If you enjoyed this, you can see some of my finished videos at: </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaWKNfthQx_k46k9C-SJcr2TJZETCyAFS </p><p>Thanks for reading! </p>

<p>Hi folks, I wrote this yesterday, thinking I had time to prepare a video by Jan 30th when the Stevenbomb 6-episode series about the fate of Pink Diamond aired.. but SOME <REDACTED> just leaked the Stevenbomb on Youtube. </p><p>So I'm publishing the script RIGHT NOW, God Help Me, I had high hopes for this: </p><p>The following contains NO information from the leak, only up to the end of Season 5. </p><p>
</p> <hr><p>The following video contains MASSIVE SPOILERS about the story of Steven Universe, right up to the end of the current Season Five, and perhaps secrets of what will happen in the next. So if you haven’t seen or caught up with this amazing show yet, don’t deny yourself the joy of coming up with your own theories and stop this video RIGHT NOW. Because in five seconds, secrets are going to be shattered. </p><p>
</p><p>"Rose Quartz ATE Pink Diamond!" by BlackfootFerret </p><p>
</p><p>Jasper... is the ultimate Earth Quartz Warrior. </p><p>Peridot shows us Jasper’s exit hole in the Beta Kindergarten is large and flawless, standing far above all the other misshapen gems around it. A paragon to quartz-kind.  </p><p>Malachite, a two-gem fusion between Jasper and Lapis, was powerful enough to have the edge on the four-gem fusion Alexandrite, and would have won the fight if Steven hadn’t raised a watermelon army to save his friends. </p><p>In her very appearance, Jasper performs an ASTONISHING one-hit KO on Garnet. And later toys with fellow Earth Quartz Warrior Amethyst like a cat playing with a mouse, not even taking the fight seriously until Steven gets involved. </p><p>Jasper, like all gems, was made for a purpose. “Fighting IS my life!” she loudly declares, “It’s what I was made for!”, and she’s VERY good at it. She rose high in the ranks of the Homeworld Gem forces, and worked directly under both Pink Diamond and Yellow Diamond, managing to survive the Gem Wars where so many others were lost.  </p><p>In terms of raw DragonballZ Power Level, no Earth Quartz Warrior should ever be able to best Jasper in a fight. By the very definition of their being as gems, no earth quartz should ever be more powerful or perfect than Jasper. </p><p>Except for one. Rose Quartz. </p><p>And not only is Rose stronger.. she’s FREAKISHLY stronger. </p><p>Rose was not only able to defeat Jasper, but led a ragtag band of rebels in defiance of the combined forces of all four homeworld Diamonds, eventually winning enough battles and rallying enough Gems to her cause to send the homeworld gems running, reportedly personally shattering Pink Diamond, and leading the three surviving Homeworld leaders to cast a terrible curse over the Earth that turned all but a handful of Rose’s closest friends into the corrupted monsters the Crystal Gems have been fighting for centuries. </p><p>Steven has Rose’s gem, and all of her amazing abilities. Abilities that no quartz warrior should have ever had in the first place. </p><p>Where did all of his amazing powers come from? </p><p>I’m BlackfootFerret, and welcome to The Ferret Theory! </p><p>I recently took the plunge and watched every episode of Steven Universe from beginning to end, twice! For theorists, it’s one of the most amazing shows out there. Youtubers have been making videos about it for years, and since the answers about Pink Diamond seem ready to be released later this month, I couldn’t resist jumping into the ring myself. </p><p>So let’s get back to Steven’s powers, which were originally Rose’s powers. Why is it impossible to believe they belonged to her from the beginning? </p><p>Because Rose started out as a warrior, just like Jasper did. She was a Quartz Warrior, just like Jasper, summoning a shield instead of a sword. Yet she has powers that fall far outside the warrior character class. </p><p>Rose is the only character we know that possesses the ability to heal broken gems, a power that the others frequently viewed as miraculous. </p><p>Going one step further, Rose has the power to grant sentient life to plants! Steven discovers this by accident when he sprays watermelon seeds all around his Dad’s car wash as a joke, only to quickly find that this momentary prank actually created an entire NATION of animated watermelon PEOPLE, who moved to their own island and developed an entire civilization of their own! </p><p>Steven discovers he has the Cthulhu-like ability to communicate with people and creatures in their dreams, finding he can not only temporarily possess his own watermelon-kindred, but accidentally mind-controls Lars before he even knows what he’s doing, making the hostile domination of the mind of a sentient creature look easy! </p><p>These are not warrior-like abilities, this are GOD-like abilities! And I’m not even done! Steven can float! Steven can fuse with humans! Steven can somehow cling to life in the cold and airless depths of space! Steven is nearly immune to Gem tech that easily imprisons his friends! </p><p>Pearl can summon/create frazzled-looking robotic “Holo-Pearls” with her powers to create weapons-training partners for Steven and Connie, but Rose was able to create LION, a fully sentient creature that’s far more powerful than most Gems, capable of sending all the Crystal Gems to the Moon with a multiple-step extended teleport jump! </p><p>Most Gems have one special ability. Pearl can create holograms, Garnet has Future Vision, and Amethyst is an ace at shape-shifting. </p><p>But Rose has floating, dreaming, healing, teleporting, shielding, dreamwalker mind control, and the ability to grant life! Rose doesn’t have ONE power, she has an entire book full of them, and Steven is discovering more abilities with each episode! </p><p>So here’s my theory: </p><p>Rose Quartz did NOT begin with an entire portfolio of strange disjointed powers. She began life, like most other gems, with only one special ability: </p><p>The ability to absorb the powers of other Gems. </p><p>Garnet has shown us, by granting Steven the use of her Future Vision powers on several occasions, that Gem Powers are not strictly confined for use only by their originating Gems. They have an essence to them that can be transferred to others. Sometimes willingly. Sometimes not? So far, Garnet has only granted them to Steven on a temporary basis, but could a permanent transfer of power between gems also be possible? </p><p>We’ve seen that the placement of a gem on a Gem’s body affects not only their personality, but their powers as well. Pearl’s gem is on her forehead, she’s the highly logical one that thinks with her mind. Amethyst’s gem is on her chest, and she’s the impulsive emotional one that thinks with her heart. The Ruby soldiers would be exact clones of each other if their gems weren’t all in different places, ranging everywhere from well-balanced Doc with his chest gem, to grim Eyeball with a gem for an eye, to poor Leggy who has little mind to speak of at all. </p><p>Is it a matter of pure blind coincidence, then, that Rose Quartz’s gem is on her stomach? </p><p>Steven Universe is designed entirely around food. The cheeseburger backpack. How most families in town have food-inspired mutations that mark them as part of the Onion gang, Fry Family, Donut Denizens, etc. Cookie cats, Lion lickers, Frybo the FNAF character. Food, food, and more food! </p><p>Yes, there’s a positive body-identity message here: That a fat lady shaped like a wedding cake and a fat kid who could actually defeat Chunk in an eating contest are still forces capable of protecting the Earth from total obliteration. And that it’s what’s inside that counts far more than your outside. </p><p>But what if all this symbolism about Eating goes deeper? What if Rose Quartz, the central character of the entire series whose legendary kindness defeated an empire and saved the Earth itself long before Steven was born, was able to do so because she has a dark secret? That underneath all of her self-sacrificing grace and good intentions for her friends and the world.. Rose is actually a gem-essence stealing vampire? </p><p>And, because he has her gem, Steven is too, even if he doesn’t know it yet? </p><p>Stealing powers from lesser gems might account for some of Steven’s lesser abilities like floating. But the ability to create life goes far beyond a warrior’s place in the world, whose business is to protect or destroy it. Such a power could have only come from a greater gem. </p><p>And the only gem harder than quartz, is diamond. </p><p>The Rubies say that they saw Rose Quartz shatter Pink Diamond with their own eyes.. Yet the Rubies weren’t able to count well enough to realize that one half of Garnet had joined their baseball team as a spy. They may have seen something.. But did not understand exactly what. </p><p>Jasper, who has much more of a clue, still blames Steven, who he believes is Rose, for what happened to his original diamond, Pink Diamond. And Jasper does NOT say that Rose shattered Pink Diamond.. Only that Rose was responsible for what happened to her. And the outraged fanatical fury in Jasper’s voice, the last desperate thing she says before succumbing to her growing corruption, is that Rose did something so terrible to Pink Diamond that it’s too horrible to even SPEAK of. </p><p>If Rose did shatter Pink Diamond, it wasn’t by using her sword. Bismuth tells Steven that she forged Rose’s sword to her exact specifications, and that the blade is made so it cannot shatter gems, even by accident. It’s just very good at poofing them. So if Rose DID the shattering.. She used some other power. </p><p>Perhaps Pink Diamond’s gem shattered.. When Rose decided the only way to save the Earth was by destroying the diamond in charge of it, and sucked every last bit of life out of Pink Diamond in a shocking betrayal, right there in the middle of everyone. </p><p>But somehow, some way, the power of Pink Diamond did transfer into Rose’s gem, and into Steven afterwards. Because in the episode “Three gems and A Baby” we see a flashback of little Steven, his blue-shrouded father, and his three Gem guardians reenacting a famous picture of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus. </p><p>And there, surrounding his gem, after his pajamas have been shifted about to make room for it, is the shape of a diamond. </p><p>
I have two theories about all of this. One is light. The other is incredibly dark. </p><p>
What if everything we know about Rose Quartz is wrong? </p><p>That, rather than saving the Earth, she was the one who actually CONDEMNED in the first place, when a quartz warrior became too ambitious, and wanted to become the leader instead? Betraying the leader she had sworn to protect and sparking the devastating war that ended with some many gems shattered or twisted beyond recognition, and the Earth with a ticking time bomb planted inside its core? </p><p>Rose herself lamented how gems were unable to change or grow. That they were always stuck being the way they were created. A thought that horrified her. Which is the very reason she thought a fusion between a gem and a human would be a good idea in the first place, creating Steven, a human-gem hybrid, and the first gem ever able grow and become more powerful over time. </p><p>We’ve all heard about the wonderful noble sacrifice Rose made, passing her gem on to Steven, losing her physical form in the process. Garnet, Amethyst, and especially Pearl have all lamented about Rose’s passing as though she were dead, and they would never, ever, see her again. </p><p>But what if that isn’t the real story. </p><p>What if Rose isn’t even DEAD at all? </p><p>In the Season One episode “Steven the Sword Fighter” Pearl creates a Holo-Pearl duplicate of herself.. And is then poofed by it. And while Amethyst can reliably reform herself in only a few hours, and almost instantly if need be, Pearl’s respawn takes forever, weeks even, and all the while the Holo-Pearl that stabbed her stays behind, making a nuisance of itself, and eventually attacking Steven like a type of Nega Pearl! </p><p>And it’s only after Steven stabs and poofs the Holo-Pearl, destroying this Nega-version of his friend, that the real Pearl finally, instantly, respawns. Almost as if she COULDN’T respawn as long as the Holo-Pearl she created earlier existed, still counting as a version of herself. </p><p>Holo-Pearl still counted as a manifestation of Pearl. And LION still counts as a manifestation of Rose Quartz. </p><p>Lion is much more than just a magical friend to Steven that just happens to be the same pink color as his mother. The extra-dimensional space inside Lion contained Rose’s sword, Bismuth’s bubbled gem hidden away after Rose secretly poofed her without telling the other Crystal Gems. Lion teleported Steven and Connie to the secret training base that Pearl was absolutely certain was a secret shared only between her and Rose!  </p><p>For all its show of acting like a giant pussycat, there’s a keen intelligence inside Lion that shows itself only when it wants to. As Greg and Pearl reminisced together, Rose always did what she wanted. Steven may have Rose’s gem, but Rose created a powerful avatar for herself before she handed it over. </p><p>Now the question becomes: What happens when Steven gets Poofed? </p><p>If the same rules that applied to Pearl also apply to Steven and Rose.. Steven shouldn’t be able to respawn himself as long as Lion exists. </p><p>This could lead to Rose having to make another sacrifice, this time dying for real so that her son might return. </p><p>Or something far more horrible could be waiting for Steven. </p><p>What if, after Steven got poofed, Lion scooped up his gem.. And ate it? </p><p>Rose would return, and Steven would never be able to come out again. And instead of Rose being a part of Steven.. STEVEN would then become a part of her. </p><p>The Cat Fingers episode proves that two minds can coexist inside a Gem’s body, and war for control over it. Steven turns all of his fingers into cats, only to have them start taking over the rest of him, threatening to devour him entirely. Perhaps this is foreshadowing a conflict between himself and Lion in the future? </p><p>Remember that ability to change and grow that Rose desired so much? What if she started the entire Steven experiment in the first place.. Because she wanted that power for herself? And by devouring Steven in the same way she devoured Pink Diamond.. She could have it? And all she’s have to do is eat her own son. </p><p>What would the others say? When faced with a choice between having Rose back from the dead, or having to actually kill Rose again themselves to save Steven, who would they pick? </p><p>I love Pearl, but I think I know whose side should would choose. </p><p>
</p><p>
And yet, there are things about the Dark Rose Theory that don’t add up. </p><p>Rose poofed Bismuth, a very powerful gem, secretly out of sight from the others, all because Bismuth wanted to make weapons that would shatter gems, something that Rose forbid, and told Bismuth so. </p><p>If Rose was secretly the gem-sucking vampire that seems to have devoured Pink Diamond, why didn’t she eat Bismuth? It was the perfect chance, nobody would have known. And yet.. Rose didn’t devour her former friend, she bubbled her inside Lion, hidden away, imprisoned indefinitely, but still alive and intact. </p><p>Lion might have wanted the training robot to kill Steven so she could eat him, which might explain why she was unconcerned with the robot hurling fireballs at him. But when the robot follows she stays with Steven and Connie, giving them support, but forcing them to gain experience fighting a tame enemy so they would be better prepared for the real ones. </p><p>Lion may have seem tempted to gnaw on Steven now and then.. But ultimately she tries to protect him, and prepare him for the challenges ahead. She might be more like a monster now than a gem, but she’s still his mother. </p><p>Then there’s the mural on the ceiling, which depicted someone who could only be Rose Quartz, battling a gem using power radiating from what appears to be a diamond. An unshattered diamond. Like Rose was channeling the power of a diamond, but hadn’t destroyed it. </p><p>And the final piece of of the puzzle comes from the iconic wall pictures of the diamonds. </p><p>These pictures are a wonder to behold.. But the most important part of each image is that it reveals the position of the gem each diamond has on their body. </p><p>White Diamond’s gem in on her forehead. </p><p>Yellow and Blue Diamond have their gems on their chest. </p><p>And Pink Diamond has her gem… on her stomach. </p><p>
</p><p>
Remember when I said the ability to grant life was a God-like ability? Something that a simple Quartz Warrior could never have naturally had? </p><p>This also applies to the equally God-like ability to devour the powers of other gems. A gem with such an ability would be unparalleled in power. </p><p>The Diamond Authority murals show each of the four diamonds is responsible for several planets, with White, Yellow, and Blue controlling several apiece. But Pink Diamond is only responsible for one: Earth. </p><p>Pink Diamond must have grown to love that one world she was responsible for. And she must have known the plans the other Diamonds had for it, eventually tearing it inside out to create a major Gem transport hub. </p><p>What if we’re looking at this all wrong, and it’s a Snape-Killed-Dumbledore situation? Where it looks like Snape is a cold-blooded traitorous murderer.. Until we learn Dumbledore himself requested it due to the situation both of them were in? </p><p>The power to devour gems is too great for a Quartz Warrior to be born with. Only a Diamond would possess that sort of power. And Pink Diamond’s gem is also over her stomach. This horrible power originated with HER, and by the time she arrived on Earth, she had already used it, several times. And felt the corruption and guilt over the gems she murdered gnawing constantly at the back of her mind. </p><p>And then Pink Diamond met Rose. An amazing, charismatic gem with a vision of how things could be different. Full of love and life, and finding the good in people, who shared Pink Diamond’s passion about why the Earth should be saved. </p><p>At first, Pink Diamond probably thought of eating Rose. But then, the more they talked, the more Pink realized that although she was a diamond was by far the more powerful gem.. Rose was actually the better gem, and more worthy of being a leader than Pink herself was. Rose would never betray those beneath her in the same manner that Pink had done testing her own powers. </p><p>Pink Diamond didn’t have the courage to stand up to her own sisters and stop their plans for devouring the Earth. But Rose did, even inspite of her lower station.  </p><p>The only thing Rose lacked was power. </p><p>So Pink Diamond granted it to her. All of it, even the stolen parts. Permanently. </p><p>And then, as she fell apart, the screams of the gems in the back of her mind finally stopped. Knowing, as she knew, that Earth had a new protector. </p><p>
Before Rose Quartz made her sacrifice for Steven, Pink Diamond had already made an equally powerful sacrifice for her. </p><p>Steven Universe reiterates that a Fusion is not the same thing as the sum of its parts. When Garnet and Pearl fuse to become Sardonyx, the Temple actually creates an entirely new room for Sardonyx, which then starts to tear apart when Garnet and Pearl unfuse. Sardonyx no longer exists, so the room no longer exists. Sardonyx is made from Garnet and Pearl, but she’s her own being, with her own entertaining personality, and isn’t truly either of them. </p><p>And Garnet says that Steven himself is a fusion. </p><p>Steven is isn’t just made of two people, but three. His mother Rose Quartz. His father Greg Universe. And, secretly, his grandmother, Pink Diamond. </p><p>Anything Pink Diamond can do, or stole the ability to do, Steven can do. He contains both Rose Quartz’s sparkling light and Pink Diamond’s darkness. But isn’t beholden to either one. </p><p>He could save the world. </p><p>He could DEVOUR the world. </p><p>But whatever the future holds, and whatever tales will be told. </p><p>That decision is his, and his alone. </p><p>
</p> <hr><p>I apologize if more proofreading and fact-checking needs to be done, I'm in the process of watching the whole series over again and saving clips. </p><p>I really thought I had time to make a video about this. </p>