gamer-emma
74 posts
Latest Posts by gamer-emma
The legendary Cynthia Khan 🥰🔥👊
Photographer Mattias Klum from National Geographic gets close and personal with a lion.
Artist Whips Up More Custom Horror VHS Tapes
That ending tho’.
Audio please 🔉
i ship butterfather and the monarch muskateer, the spicy romance novel type
oh spicy
It looked like something from the boomerang app and it wasn’t...
Skintones for POC companions in Dragon Age
Whitewashing is a huge problem in every fandom, and DA is no exception. All of the characters above are whitewashed and have their skin lightened on a daily basis.Â
There is no excuse when someone whitewashes a character. Take your appropriate swatches if you must, and make sure you are staying true to the characters actual skin tone. Use these colours if you’d like - they were more meant to prove a point. You are certainly welcome to use them as a base.
Stop whitewashing POC. Stop lightening skin, stop slimming down features, and stop blaming whitewashing on lighting. You know better than that. You can do better than that.
Do not take swatches from the lightest part of the face - all the light colours shown here are meant for highlighting purposes. They are the highlights of the face, to be used to display light bouncing off the surface of one’s skin.
Every image of the characters except Josephine was taken from the dragon age wiki site and was only altered to fit and blend with the pictures. All other graphics are mine.Â
CHRIS HEMSWORTH IS A FREAKING GEM.
”thAT’s hAirSPray IN mY eYES!!!”
Vintage Postcard: Rose’s Roses, 05.06.2018 Artwork © Blacknemera
Watch: How toxic masculinity follows men from birth to death.
I don’t usually share this kind of thing, and I will delete it later. But this June 20th the EU want to pass Article 13 that will destroy fair use on the internet and will effect non-EU residents too. Goodbye to making money from fan art and livestreaming games and parody videos. No can do. Visit saveyourinternet.eu to very simply send a pre-written email to you MEPs. Please spread awareness as there’s not much time.
Jesus breakdancing to impress his friends (AD 20)
I used to think i was introverted bc I really liked being alone but it turns out I just like being at peace & I am very extroverted when I’m around people who bring me peace
Another crap thing I do to make references, if you like it I can make more tutorials but idk if someone would find sense in my crazy stuff hahaha
One of the best pranks I’ve ever seen, even the dog was shook…
To All Writers of Everything Ever
I need to rant about this:
Also known as the best writing program ever! It’s a full-screen writing program!
So you open it up, and it looks like this:
You’re thinking, “Ok, so what? It’s a screen with a picture. Whoopdie do.” But it get’s better! It’s customizable!
See that “appearance”? Click it.
You can also use custom fonts that you have installed!
See that “music”? Click it.
If you drag your own music into the folder, like so:
You get this!:
But wait! It gets better!
See “typing sounds”? You can change those too!
Perhaps the best is - YOU CAN USE ANY PICTURE FOR THE BACKGROUND. It will automatically fade it for you!
Seriously, guys, this tool is wonderful. You can use it for:
Research papers
Novel writing
Play writing
Short stories
Homework assignments
Ranting about your friends when they piss you off
Writing your shopping list
It auto-saves. It exports to .rtf. Hotkeys from Word for italicize, underlining, and bold work. You can print RIGHT FROM THERE.
And the seriously best thing ever?
It fits on a flash drive. The entire thing with added music is maybe 131MBs.
The bestest thing ever.
It’s free.
Me when I’m in my feelings but I have to stay moisturized so my skin can flourish
Haha I found my old roughs from Adventure Time’s episode: Bad Timing.Â
PSA: don’t ship Tom Holland’s Spiderman with Deadpool…
“for my last order to you as a diamond:
 let’s never speak of this again.
 no one can know.”
Are you telling me that the Teletubbies have, canonically, fucked? Because I am very uncomfortable with that information.
A Single Pale Rose & The Tragedy of Pink Diamond
This Post will Contain Major Spoilers from A Single Pale Rose; If you have not watched the latest episodes of Steven Universe, please do so before reading!
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If I could describe my feelings about the latest episode of Steven Universe in one word, it would be SHOOK because it was a massive turning point in the series that I think a lot of us were both not expecting it and hoping for it all at the same time. Now, I don’t consider myself to be a complex or serious theorist on the series in anyway, as many of my posts are really just for the sake of provoking a conversation and looking at episodes with a different or alternative context. Theories for me are for the sake of the fun of it and aren’t meant to be taken too seriously in anyway, but there are some things that I wanted to point out from the recent special that I wanted to share.
So lets start with the big one.
Rose Quartz is Pink Diamond.
Shoutout to all the theorists who subscribed to this theory so early on in the series. I’ve always been in the camp of White Diamond Conspiracy, but I am so humbly glad to be wrong about it. There are some things about this fact that I wanted to talk about because I’ve noticed a lot of fans have been saying a lot about Pink Diamond and her character, and I wanted to clear some things up.
First, I want to talk about Pink Diamond as a Diamond.
We only have context for Pink Diamond as a Diamond in two instances: Before the colonization of Earth, and after. We know, based on the flashback in Jungle Moon, that Pink Diamond was treated very differently than the other Diamonds. She was not given any colonies, any armies, or even any real responsibilities as a Diamond. She as ultimately only a Diamond in gem and status, but not in power and respect. Pink Diamond was childish and immature, acting on her impulses and her feelings rather than anything else, and with some fairly justifiable reason. She wanted to be respected, and she wanted to be treated like the other Gem Matriarchs, so she demanded to have a colony of her own, thinking that by having that, she could be respected as the Diamond she was.Â
She wanted her own Army. She wanted her own Planet. And so, she was given the Earth.
Fast-Forward to Pink Diamond in A Single Pale Rose, and we see a very different portrayal of her. She no longer wants to fit into her mold as a Diamond. She no longer wishes to have the Earth as her colony. She realized the Earth was a special and unique places that taught her about life outside of the role she was created to play, and that became more important to her than her status as a Diamond and her desire to be treated as such. She no longer wanted to run her colony, knowing that it would destroy the planet that she grew so fond of, and kill the people she fell in love with. This portrayal of Pink Diamond is much like the Rose Quartz we hear Garnet talk about in Your Mother and Mine to the Off-Color gems, and is consistent with the Rose Quartz we’ve grown to know over the course of the series. A gem who grew to understand and know the planet she was colonizing in a way that the other Gems never had - a understanding that led her to give up her role and life as the Gem she was forever and to actively fight against the Diamond Authority to free the Earth from its tyranny.Â
But why would Pink Diamond chose to do this as a Rose Quartz gem, and not as a Diamond? Wouldn’t it be more impactful to have a Diamond rebel against the Diamond Authority and not just an ordinary soldier?
Rose Quartz gems are a vein of Gem that Pink Diamond, from context given to us by Blue Diamond in Human Zoo and Blue Zircon in The Trial, made herself. We don’t know a lot about Rose Quartz gems outside of the fact that they are soldiers, much like any other gems like Jaspers and Amethysts. It doesn’t surprise me, then, that Pink Diamond would disguise herself as a Rose Quartz to travel freely outside of her palanquin to explore the Earth. Its very much so a story of The Princess in Disguise: a high-ranking, royal disguising themselves as a commoner to explore the world outside of their castle.
Perhaps Pink Diamond was able to connect with her fellow gems in a way that a Diamond could not as Rose Quartz. Garnet mentions in Your Mother and Mine that Rose Quartz found allies in gems like herself - defective, off-color gems that did not fit their molds to begin with. It is rather obvious that Pink Diamond was aware that she was flawed; That she was unique as a Diamond not for her flawlessness, but in her flawed nature. Perhaps Pink Diamond saw that she was not alone when she came to know the other gems whom she felt related to her in similar ways, gems that did not fit their roles or their statuses, much like she didn’t. In my opinion, I do not blame Pink Diamond for disguising herself as a common gem rather than remain herself; I’m sure she was able to see a different side of her colony as Rose Quartz, a side that would never reveal itself to her as a Diamond. Perhaps she no longer wanted Gems to feel obligated to follow a Diamond - she makes it clear that she wants to fight for the freedom of the planet Earth and the freedom of other Gems. She gave up her mantle as Pink Diamond in order to forge a new identity for herself and allow others to do the same. I think thats one of the reasons she created the Crystal Gems.
I know a lot of people are angry about the fact that Rose Quartz was a facade for Pink Diamond, or that Pink Diamond was pretending to be some kind of rebel leader when in reality she herself was a Diamond - but I personally do not think that this reveal changes anything about the Crystal Gems and their story. I think, if anything, it simply switches the pieces around. I’m a strong believer that Garnet’s telling of the Story of Rose Quartz is accurate, but what I think is different is the pieces involved and some fine details.
We know Pink Diamond demanded to have a Colony, so Homeworld gave her the Earth. She began her colonization, just as she was instructed and just as she was meant to, playing her Role as a Diamond, but as the colonization of the Earth continued, she came to learn and understand more and more about the planet and slowly began to fall in love with it. In Garnet’s words:
Curiosity turned to Appreciation. Appreciation turned to Fondness. Fondness, turned to Love.
Rose Quartz was a figure that stood for freedom; She represented liberation and the freedom to forge your own destiny and life outside of the role a Gem was made to play. Her transition from Pink Diamond to Rose Quartz is a perfect example of that philosophy manifested in the greatest way: Pink Diamond gave up her life as a Diamond to live as Rose Quartz and to be free of the role she was made for. That, is a core belief of the Crystal Gems - the Earth of their home and they are allowed to live and be who they wish to be on Earth. There are no obligations. There are no rules. There are no requirements. Gems can be who they want to be on Earth and experience life how they choose to experience it. Pink Diamond wanted to free the Earth from Diamond control and free the Gems on it to allow them to live how they chose.Â
Pink Diamond wanted to protect the place that taught her that she did not have to play the role she was made for. She wanted to pass the message of liberation along to others to allow them to feel the same way she did. Her heart and her gem were in the right place. She had nothing but the best intentions, but even still…
…She was still Pink Diamond, and she was still very, very flawed.
Pink Diamond, as we’ve seen her, is very aware that she is not like the other Diamonds in the Diamond Authority. She knows that the other Diamonds treat her differently - she wasn’t given any colonies to rule over like the others had, she had to demand for one. She wasn’t allowed to interfere or be involved in the process of colonization and she was simply expected to play the role of a Diamond in appearance, not in power. She knew she was flawed. She knew that she did not matter, or at least she felt that way. Thats why you hear her say as Rose Quartz:
“Blue and Yellow Don’t care. They never have. This is Pink Diamond’s Colony. We can end it all… Right here, right now.”
However, we all clearly know this is false. The Diamonds cared greatly for Pink Diamond, so much so that they fought back against the Crystal Gems and their uprising to the fullest extent of their power. The fact that she says this about Blue and Yellow Diamond is really, in my opinion, heartbreaking, especially when you think about how much Blue and Yellow Diamond are aching over what they believe to be Pink Diamond’s demise, millennia afterward. Even in the sequence where you see Pearl as Rose Quartz supposedly shattering Pink Diamond, you can clearly hear sounds of anguish and mourning and despair in the background. Pink Diamond made a spectacle of her own demise in front of her entire court, and I had been wondering why Pearl was crying so much when she did what she did. Perhaps its because after the fact, she saw how wrong the both of them were to do what they did. Pearl must have heard or seen the distress of the other Gems for what she had done and thought that what they were doing was a mistake.Â
But this is what Pink Diamond wanted. She wanted to free the Earth. She wanted to free other Gems. She wanted to be free of being a Diamond - She must have felt that there really weren’t any other options for them, or at least believed that this was all that could be done, at last at this point. It wasn’t like Pink Diamond didn’t try other ways to leave the Earth. We see her and the other Diamonds in Can’t Go Back, with Blue Diamond saying:
“But this is what you wanted. You begged us for a Colony of your own, and now all you want to do is get rid of it. First, there were too many organics, then their cities were too difficult to dismantle, and… and now these Crystal Gems? We’re tired of your excuses, Pink.”
It gives me this impression that Pink Diamond was already in love with the Earth at this point and had been for some time, and that she created the guise of Rose Quartz and the Crystals Gems as a way to hinder the colonization of the planet. Blue Zircon says during The Trial that at the time of Pink Diamond’s demise, Rose Quartz was a known threat for a few hundred years, meaning that Pink Diamond and Pearl had been sabotaging their own colony for at least a few centuries before resulting in their final plan together. Pink Diamond was trying to get rid of her colony for a long time, so she could leave the Earth be without having to take any drastic measures. She had given the other Diamonds several excuses to try and see if she could abandon the planet - Too many Organics to conquer, Cities that were too difficult to destroy, and then finally, a coup of rebel gem known as the Crystal Gems. She had been trying for a long time to leave the Earth, but because of her own previous actions, the Diamonds would not let her.
“You must understand. You… are a Diamond. Everyone on this planet is looking to you. You don’t even have to do anything! Just smile and wave. Show everyone you are unfazed by this little… uprising. Your gems will fall into line and these… Crystal Gems will be, no more. As long as you are there to rule, this colony will be completed.”
Its in this moment that I think Pink Diamond formulated the plan to fake her demise. Blue Diamond instilled this idea in her that a Colony needs a Diamond to rule over it, and Pink Diamond believed that if she was no longer around, the remaining Diamonds would finally abandon the planet for good. I think too, this is why this episode was called Can’t Go Back - not only for Lapis who felt she couldn’t go back to Earth, but also for Pink Diamond, who could now no longer go back to being Pink Diamond after she swore herself to being Rose Quartz.
She can’t go back to being a Diamond, and she no longer wants to.
I know a lot of people are saying that Pink Diamond was stupid for being so selfish, and that Rose Quartz is awful because of how she kept her past a secret, or how she treated Pearl, but I for one, honestly just feel bad for her. Its tragic, to me. Pink Diamond was so carelessly optimistic about her plans that she thought everything would be okay. She didn’t want to hurt anyone else except herself in the process, but because of her actions, she ended up hurting everyone, and I believe that to the day Steven was born, she never stopped feeling guilty about what she had done and the actions she had taken.
Were her actions selfish and stupid? Yes, I do think so. Was she justified in what she did? Not really. Was her heart in the right place? Did she have good intentions? Absolutely.
After Homeworld left the planet and sent their final attack, I’m sure that was when Rose Quartz realized the gravity of her mistakes. I think that was when she realized that what she had done was wrong, and I think that she had been doing all she could afterward to try and make up for it. Its why she did everything she could to try and heal the corrupted gems, to try and make up for what she had done to them inadvertently by fighting for their freedom. They were her allies and she wanted to do what she could for them, but perhaps in the end, she really believed that the world would be better off without her.
And maybe thats why she was so happy to be able to have Steven; Maybe thats why she was so happy to be able experience something so unique and amazing a being a mother… Because even as Rose Quartz, she was still the same, horrible, Diamond underneath…, and maybe one day, someone better would come along to be able to fulfill the hopes she had that she realized she was never able to in the first place.
And that someone was Steven. I believe in Steven.