Pearl (Canon)

**"Pearl"** is a main protagonist in *Steven Universe*.

One of Rose Quartz's closest followers, Pearl is one of the last surviving Gems on Earth who joined the Crystal Gems in their rebellion against the Gem Homeworld. Pearl would afterwards protect the Earth over the next several millennia alongside her friends while later teaching Rose's son, Steven, the ways of her people.

## Personality

Pearl is a perfectionist and strategist who values thought and reason. She is very intelligent, graceful, and controlled, having a wide range of knowledge on many topics. Although she gets easily flustered when her plans fail, or when Amethyst and Steven should hear, she is very caring and motherly toward Steven, to the point of occasionally being overbearing, but always well-meaning. She is also supportive. Despite her intelligent and calm demeanor, she has been known to be overwhelmed when confronted by an unknown force, ability, or situation she does not understand. It is shown in multiple scenes that she is very self-conscious about her own worth and her strength. She is rather organized, impaling M.C. Bear Bear to maintain symmetry in a pile of various appliances and school supplies. She can sometimes let more slip out than she means to, and end up backing herself into a corner when interrogated.

Despite being a perfectionist who values thought and reason, there are times where Pearl lets her emotions get the better of her or rule her judgment, causing her to be unthoughtful and irrational. Her inner turmoil over her love for Rose and her subsequent absence has more than once made her lash out at Steven, and in an attempt to keep forming Sardonyx she betrayed Garnet's trust and principles which caused their relationship to deteriorate. When realizing how much she hurt others Pearl will apologize and try everything she can to set things right.

Out of the Crystal Gems, Pearl appears to be the most poorly adjusted to life on earth, generally being unaware of human social conventions and activities, such as jokes, games, arcades, food, and birthday parties. She expressed a great desire to leave Earth in Space Race, going so far as to risk her and Steven's life. Pearl seems to have a pessimistic view of humanity, as evidenced by her statement in "Keep Beach City Weird."Despite this, she is dedicated to her cause in protecting humanity more or less out of her love, loyalty and admiration to Rose Quartz. She does, however, find certain aspects of Earth rather amazing, and despite her poor understanding of human society, she was able to pay for the Cookie Cats Amethyst and Garnet stole in "Gem Glow," drive Greg's van in "Ocean Gem," and subsequently fix it in "House Guest."

In the past, Pearl's personality was drastically different. She was very arrogant and viewed herself and the Crystal Gems as superiors to humans. This was best shown in We Need to Talk, as she viewed Greg as insignificant, doubting he could ever fuse with Rose. However, this eventually changed over time.

Pearl has an inferiority complex, admitting she often feels weak or like nothing when compared with others, even saying she's useless on her own. This leads her to take drastic actions in order to prove herself or to feel stronger, like overcompensating when fighting Peridot or reassembling the Communications Hub in order to fuse with Garnet, respectively.

## Appearance

Pearl is slender, with a pale-white with slight hints of blue skin tone. Her hair is pale peach/tangerine, and styled into a pixie-cut. She has sky-blue eyes, a pointy nose and thin lips. She is usually drawn without eyelashes or pupils, however they are seen in some closeups. She is a few inches shorter than Garnet.

When she debuted, she wore a sky-blue tunic that had a diaphanous chest and transferred into a ballet skirt on the lower half. She also wore short peach-colored leggings, light green socks, and flats that match her tunic.

Pearl currently wears a bright teal tunic with a turquoise satin sash ribbon around her waist. She wears short yellow-orange leggings, soft pink socks, and narrow ballet flats that match her tunic.

## Abilities

Pearl possesses standard Gem abilities, including weapon-summoning, shape-shifting, bubbling, regeneration, fusion, agelessness, and superhuman strength/durability. She can fuse with Amethyst to form Opal, Amethyst and Garnet to form Alexandrite, Rose Quartz to create Rainbow Quartz, and Garnet to create Sardonyx

Pearl is shown to be quite knowledgeable in human engineering, despite her naivete towards human culture overall; she was able to repair and upgrade Greg's destroyed van and was able to construct a spaceship out of old airplane materials and scrap.

Pearl is shown to be considerably tough too, as she can take many hits.

Before succumbing to her wounds. In "Coach Steven," she took a headbutt from Sugilite, and could still move, given Steven's encouragement. In "On the Run," she took an explosion from Amethyst's whip directly and was fine almost immediately after, despite being briefly immobilized and scratched.

In Historical Friction she says one of her talents is detail to facts. She has shown this skill in the past usually coupled with her holograms.

### Skillset

* **Spear Proficiency:** Pearl is very skilled in the art of spear-wielding, and goes in tandem with her pattern of fighting that involves dancing. She moves gracefully and swiftly, attacking with grace and poise. She handles herself well in melee skirmishes.
	+ **Dual Wielding:** Pearl is capable of wielding dual spears in battle, implying she may be ambidextrous.
	+ **Energy Projection:** Pearl can fire arrow-like blasts of energy from the tip of her spear. This can be done as rapid-fire, or charged to unleash a more powerful blast. In "Attack the Light," this ability is named "Fireball".
* **Swordsmanship**: Pearl possesses expert knowledge and skill with a sword, and, like her spears, can wield two at once.

### Unique Abilities

* **Holographic Projection:** Pearl can project holographic images from her gemstone, which she uses mainly as a visual aid when lecturing Steven. While most of the holograms seem to be intangible, some, like Holo-Pearl, are able to interact with solid matter. Furthermore, the holograms can function without Pearl's presence up to two weeks, implying that her holograms can live independently. In "Chille Tid" it is shown Pearl's dreams are projected as holograms as she sleeps.

* **Psammokinesis:** Pearl is shown manipulating a small amount of sand to create figurines in "Giant Woman". It is currently unknown how much sand she can control at one time. This ability has only been shown once.
* **Water-Walking**: Pearl can walk on water, as seen in "Together Breakfast".
* **Pocket Dimension:** By performing a specialized dance, Pearl can summon and store objects with her gemstone. However, in "Sworn to the Sword", she did this with no dance.
* **Nephelokinesis**: In "Sworn to the Sword", Pearl is able to channel clouds in the direction of her choice, able to gather clouds surrounding the arena around her to create a fine mist, reducing visibility and able to quickly dissipate it.
* **Photokinesis**: In "Keeping it Together" Pearl can be seen using her gem like a flashlight. In "Chille Tid", she shows that she can project her dreams through this ability.

## Relationships

### **Canon**

#### Steven

Pearl acts as a kind, and sometimes overprotective maternal figure towards Steven. She loves teaching Steven about Gem history and culture, as well as teaching him other things such as the art of sword fighting.

As opposed to Garnet's more pragmatic and Amethyst's more fun-loving personalities, Pearl acts as a mentor. She always tries to speak gently to him and is usually the first to show concern when taking him on a dangerous mission. However, in "Space Race", she allows her own interest in returning to space to cloud her better judgement despite trying to attain her original goal of showing Steven the cosmos.

Pearl also tends to patronize Steven and frequently underestimates his abilities, thus viewing him more as a child than as a fellow Crystal Gem. She is surprised to find that Steven is able to summon his shield in "Gem Glow", return to normal after transforming his fingers into cats in "Cat Fingers", think of strategies to escape the obstacles that they encounter in "Cheeseburger Backpack", as well as the Pyramid Temple in "Serious Steven". She ignores Steven when he brings up the idea of everyone eating breakfast together in "Together Breakfast". She also does not feel that Steven is prepared to learn about the dark side of gem history, when she tells Amethyst that Steven "isn't ready" to learn about the bad history of Gems in "On the Run". In "Sworn to the Sword", it is shown Pearl's maternal feelings towards Steven stems from her love and admiration for Rose Quartz.

Despite recent events and her guilt, she is shown to support Steven and his endeavors in Historical Friction. She compliments him on his wisdom when he says the flaws and working through them are important in anyone. She helps rewrite the play to be more accurate and is the only Gem to watch it. She is excited to see Steven on stage, so much that she waves and calls out to him.

#### Garnet

Like the other Gems, Pearl respects and follows Garnet's orders without question. She does, however, believe that the Gems are a team and may not exactly see Garnet as a leader, most likely because she will always see Rose Quartz as leader despite her being gone. When there are signs of danger, however, Pearl usually turns to Garnet, often hiding behind her or holding onto her arm. In "Secret Team", it is clear that she shares an unprecedented fear towards her with Amethyst, so afraid of Garnet's disapproval (as well as what she would do if she found out) that both she and Amethyst willing to put past their differences to keep the popped Gem-bubble a secret. She has known about her true identities for several thousand years. In "Cry for Help", it is apparent that Pearl looks up to Garnet as she was excited to fuse into Sardonyx in order to destroy the Communication Hub that Peridot rebuilt. Pearl enjoyed fusing with Garnet so much that she rebuilt the Communication Hub twice so she and Garnet could just fuse into Sardonyx resulting in Garnet getting very angry at Pearl and refusing her apologies, causing Pearl to be sad afterwards. In "Friend Ship" Pearl makes up with Garnet.

#### Amethyst

The two have a strained relationship which is likely due to their contrasting personalities. Pearl is often seen scolding Amethyst, who often teases Pearl in return. Regardless of their differences, Pearl and Amethyst have been shown to be able to put their differences aside on multiple occasions in order to work together. For example, in "Secret Team", Pearl and Amethyst are forced to fight together, and complement each others' skills, even sharing appreciative smiles; in "Warp Tour", they praise and admire each others' fighting techniques; in "On the Run", the two reveal that they really do deeply care about each other, despite their differences and frequent fights. In "Story for Steven" they are shown having a much closer relationship before the events of the series, close enough to be perfectly content hugging and resting in each other's arms. It can be assumed that Rose's departure and Steven's birth somehow lead to their relationship deteriorating with time.

## Trivia

* In the transition from the pilot to the series, Pearl underwent the most drastic change of the three Gems. Among these changes are:
	+ Removal of gold ring around her gem
	+ Removal of earrings
	+ Skin color changed (from blue to white)
	+ Pointier nose
	+ Rounder face
	+ Slimmer, more cartoonish build
	+ Drastically different outfit
	+ Different hairstyle, covering ears and pointing backwards instead of forwards
	+ Rose-pink hair color to peach
	+ Eye color changed (black to a light blue)
	+ Removal of hearts on slippers and slipper color changed (dark blue to light blue)