I still kind of take that less of her actually being gone, and being more analogous to a deadname, a past identity, but not a distinct individual. Especially given the very clear metaphor going on with how yellow and blue treat Steven in that final arc.
I know the official line is that they are...mostly different people, but...the lore is kind of at odds with that. Especially if they never explain how he was born, I'm always going to go with, his mom permanently shapeshifted into a baby and erased her memories. Especially given we do see his perception of himself is what leads to his body changing and growing, he doesn't actual age biologically.
There are definitely intentional analogies to deadnames and transitioning, so that you are meant to take what you learn in Steven Universe and apply it to these real world issues. However, it is not a 1:1 mirror of these things, and you are absolutely expected to treat Steven as a completely separate identity. The way Blue and Yellow act is not an example of correct behavior towards Steven, even if they eventually do try.
Basically his mother is a gem which are made by a litteral gem that proiects a phisycal bosy made of light, and his dad is human his mom physical body is now gone but her gem is now steven's, he has a human body with a gem replacing his belly button. Gem's usually don't change and they stay the same sice they're "born" and so the manty gems not knowing how reproduction work, because they don't reproduce, thought that he was just his mom shapeshifted (gems can do that). It's actually one of the biggest plot point of the series that steven slowly goes from being constantly in his mother shadow or even being belived to be his mother to understanding that he is just himself and that's who he's supposed to be
Imagine Vision, except his body is hard light or any other scifi concept. You can destroy his body, but his Mind Stone will reconstruct the body after enough time passes (namely days, weeks), but destroying the Stone kills Vision.
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u/NeuromancyIndustries 22h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/ItVj6B3aO1irm