So I have these... “comfort stories”. Basically it’s some mostly nameless OCs that I put through every single angsty situation that makes me feel good just because I can. My actual original story, the one I may one day be known for because it is actually good, was one of my biggest comfort stories until I realized it had actual potential and gave it an actual plot, but I still use the characters and setting for comfort stories. Some of my others are set in random AUs I think of, and rarely in some fandom verse

I just imagine these scenarios when I need a distraction from the pain of being alive and stuff, so since they aren’t actual stories I ever plan on writing and since it doesn’t matter if they have a plot or make sense, whenever I see in media or fic or anywhere else an angst scenario that makes me feel good, I shamelessly apply it to all my comfort stories. I still do and redo scenarios from movies I watched as a child.

Anyway, telling this all because I found a fic that starts with something that reminds me a lot of one of my comfort stories, except it’s much more amazing and full of small moments I am totally “stealing” and anyway I am in love

My Comby fic got notes really fast compared to what I’m used to... I did use all the promo methods I have access to, I really wanted people to see it, as it’s the first time I wrote something in this fandom because I thought someone had to, but no one had yet

One of these mornings I was half awake trying to imagine scenes to stay awake and I imagined a post-canon scene of the Separated Indigo Twins AU in which the twins are adult and Red is visiting Blue on Homeworld and kinda catches her making out with a guy, so Blue panics and makes a barrier of ice so he can’t see her or her bf

Keep in mind this is in no way canon to the AU, I don’t even know who has the romantic subplot with Connie (I mean, in the Separated version it’s likely Red since he knows her the longest and stuff) and stuff, I am not sure if Blue will end up with guy or if she’s even into guys, but I kept thinking of this for fun, so let me tell you guys about this supposed boyfriend

He’s likely an OC, though he could also be Connie’s friend Jeff. The idea is that bf was born in Beach City and spent his childhood there, but moved out before the Gem Glow equivalent. Probably used to hang out with Red and know the basics about gems and stuff as everyone in Beach City does, but wasn’t there when major events happened. His parents probably remember the day Yellow and Pink came to Earth to take Blue though.

So he meets Blue, they have fun and when they are parting Blue tells him she lives far away, but comes often to visit her brother. Bf thinks she is probably from Empire City or something, until he meets Red again and learns he has a long lost twin sister. Only then he links the dots and realize the mysterious girl with a color name and a gem on her hand has to be Red’s sister. Red breaks to him the news that Blue lives on Homeworld. He freaks out a bit but becomes chill once he remembers that Blue comes often to visit, so they could still date, right?

Their relationship goes on like this. Blue never tells him much about gem stuff unless he asks, but he occasionaly learns things from Red (he even meets the fusion of Red and Connie).

One day Blue decides to take him to visit her home and he is amazed by everything, and only then he learns that she is called Blue as in Blue Diamond, and who the Diamonds are/were in gem society. Also that they’re huge, which he only learns because the couple run into the others in the palace.

He goes from “I’m into this girl with a mysterious charm” to “I have a crush on a girl who lives in another galaxy and she’s kinda of an alien” to “I love my alien girlfriend” to “My girlfriend is space royalty and her Moms could simply step on me if I hurt her”

(I apparently have fun with these half-gem/human ships)

It’s official, in the Separated Indigo Twins AU, Red is living in s1 while Blue is living in SUF

(Mostly when it comes to what is happening in the background, their mentalities are roughly the same)

I was thinking of what the names and weapons of the Steven fusions in the Rose Moms AU should be, and when it came to the weapon of Steven’s and Dawn’s fusion all my mind could think of was “Stabby, the space roomba”

I figured out the Zoo Arc in the Rose Moms AU!

Gonna share here bc who knows when I’ll get to write it

So, the CGs arrive in the Zoo and realize it won’t be easy to get in. Even if they try to pretend to be Homeworld Quartzes, Rose Quartzes never had a good reputation and they know that all the ones that didn’t rebel were probably punished in some way (though they never learned the details) and so they could get in trouble even if they’re not recognized as rebels. Moonlight suggests they pretend to be Amethysts, Dawn thinks it could work while Sunshine is sure it couldn’t possibly work

They do it since they promised to save Greg

They manage to pass for odd colored Amethysts but Holly Blue doesn’t want to let them in, she says she will take Steven herself. Dawn says BD ordered they watched the moment he was put with the other humans because the Amethysts there were not trustworthy. Holly Blue agree to just let the highest ranking of them in, which they end up saying is Dawn.

Sunshine and Moonlight stay with the two guards and avoid their questions the best they can. Other Amethysts arrive to gossip with the guards and Moonlight recognizes one of them as someone she knew on Earth. She whispers it to Sunshine, and Sunshine is that friend that just stares at the gem in question and says a bit too loud “wow it’s really 8X-something!”

The Amethyst asks her how she knows, Sunshine tries to say it is because she heard some story about the war but they all know there’s just one member of PD’s army that did anything relevant in the war. The Amethyst take a closer look at Sunshine’s gem and realize they are Rose Quartzes. Then:

Sunshine: We don’t want to fight!

Amethyst: I don’t want to fight you either, but I can’t let you take what you came here from!

Moonlight: You can’t let us take Greg? Why?

Amethyst: What is a “Greg”?

Sunshine: A guy. You know, the one BD brought here earlier?

Amethyst: You’re not here for the other bubbled Rose Quartzes?

Sunshine and Moonlight: Who?

(At some point the Amethysts think that Dawn must be Star too)

(Of course the Roses would love to rescue the other Roses but the risks it would bring to them, since they are in the room BD spends most of her time in the Zoo in, make it not a very smart idea)

Then you randomly see the url of someone you know from another account who gives you major bad vibes

I have made enough su/asoue posts so that this wont be too random of a post

I realized that the source of a lot of my disagreements with the fandom and frustration over not finding content I like here is the same as the source of my headaches with the asoue fandom specially post Netflix: I overall empathize with the adult characters while a lot of the fandom only empathizes with the children and sometimes even demonizes the adults

I have blamed this on age but it doesn’t seem right because I wasn’t that different from what I am now when I was younger (and I was specifically in the asoue fandom when I was younger so it’s not just hypothetical)

It’s not like they are wrong and I am right or vice versa. I think the characters one likes/empathizes with/etc come from a very personal and complex place and there’s no right or wrong. In my case, I had as a child/teen and still have today a certain type of relationship with my parental figures and a certain view of them that I am sure is a big influence in how I see fictional parental figures. And I know I project a lot.

Just saying this because I find it interesting, that I seem to have found a common thread in all of this

My program: *doesn’t work*

Me: *gets mad*

My program: *works*

Me: *gets madder*

Last ones be looking like my main

I am too old and tired to look for new blogs to follow at random. I just stick to my dash, people who interact with me first and people I meet in chats, since I know beforehand I have some opinions in common with them

But now that I have the minor gems blog, I dont want to run out of stuff to reblog there, so I keep checking the blogs in my recommended tab and others that I find randomly

I am finding some good stuff and some weird stuff too. But the funniest part is that I always check the top tags of the blogs I visit and I mentally judge them based on how many of the characters that I am looking for are in the blog, bc like, half of these characters barely have any scenes and even for the ones that are not super background, it’s naturally hard for them to be in someone’s top tags (exception being characters like the Zircons or Emerald or the Famethyst that have their own subfandom) but still I go to these blogs like 🧐 “so you don’t have a tag for Comby or the Water Bears or the semi canon Pearl from a paid phone game... tsk fake fans”

(And then of course there’s those blogs who haven’t used tags since mid s3 (some of those are dead but some have suf stuff on them) and those who (according to tumblr) only ever used 3 tags, one being their text posts, other unreadable, and the third one that is impossible to understand with no context)

I am too old and tired to look for new blogs to follow at random. I just stick to my dash, people who interact with me first and people I meet in chats, since I know beforehand I have some opinions in common with them

But now that I have the minor gems blog, I dont want to run out of stuff to reblog there, so I keep checking the blogs in my recommended tab and others that I find randomly

I am finding some good stuff and some weird stuff too. But the funniest part is that I always check the top tags of the blogs I visit and I mentally judge them based on how many of the characters that I am looking for are in the blog, bc like, half of these characters barely have any scenes and even for the ones that are not super background, it’s naturally hard for them to be in someone’s top tags (exception being characters like the Zircons or Emerald or the Famethyst that have their own subfandom) but still I go to these blogs like 🧐 “so you don’t have a tag for Comby or the Water Bears or the semi canon Pearl from a paid phone game... tsk fake fans”

(And then of course there’s those blogs who haven’t used tags since mid s3 (some of those are dead but some have suf stuff on them) and those who (according to tumblr) only ever used 3 tags, one being their text posts, other unreadable, and the third one that is impossible to understand with no context)

Sure!

Disclaimer: I am no expert in biology, so please let me know if I got something super wrong here.

This idea was born in the context of thinking of the goal of gems as a species. Until the end of Era 2, expanding the Empire by conquering new planets seemed to be a priority to them, even though gems have no needs for things like food that would make them need resources from other planets, and their means of reproduction means that the population never grows beyond what their current territory can support, since they acquire new territory *before* growing the population. Besides, they are basically imortal and have no known enemies they are at war with, so the population is always growing, different from organic species, in which reproduction is needed to maintain population numbers and keep the species existing. In other words, even if gems stopped expanding, as happens in Era 3, it would take a long time for them to go extinct.

So I compare them to viruses. Viruses aren't considered by all scientists to be life forms because they lack cells, and they are very simple in that they only do one thing: they replicate themselves. For it, they need a living cell in which they *inject* their genetic material so they can make the cell start "working for them", replicating the material and making new viruses.

(Screenshots from the wikipedia article on virus highlighting why and why not some consider viruses to be life. Click to see the full picture.)

Gems are like virus to me because despite their complex society, all of it seems to have been created with the goal of making all steps of creating more gems more efficient. Besides, they can't reproduce on their own and need a host planet like a virus need a host cell. Interestingly, all incomplete colonies we have seen on screen had some sort of life, which makes me think gems may need the same resources other life forms do, which is why the colonies' native life forms inevitably die after gems are done with the kindergartens.

Plus, the injectors were designed after bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, and in the episode we are introduced to the Kindergarten, Amethyst refers to herself and other gems made there as parasites.

(Picture from wikipedia showing bacteriophages injecting their genome into a cell to reproduce.)

Gems are viruses and you can’t change my mind

I have been thinking about a thing I read from Sugar saying that Steven isn’t the forgiving person many of us, me included, thought him to be and that what we saw as forgiving was him ignoring his own feelings due to thinking they’re not important and stuff (let me tell you, this reveal hit me hard) and those posts about not destroying his enemies doesn’t equal forgiveness, and I have nothing new to say about this matter, but I was putting together some ideas about it

Mostly the often overlooked fact that Steven’s choice to talk instead of fight in many cases is linked to how he wouldn’t stand a chance against most enemies? Not on his own, sometimes not even with the Crystal Gems’ help. Of course, his high empathy and him being anti violence (as seen in his reaction to when he learned that his mother supposedly shattered PD, someone he only knew as being evil at the point) play a part in his choice and the show put some emphasis on how he is less about “punching first, asking later” than the other CGs (Marble Madness, Message Received, even freaking Say Uncle) but that doesn’t equal him thinking everything is fun and rainbows. Like, his choices seem to be a combination of these three factors: some rational strategic thinking for his and his friends’ survival, his empathy, and his belief that his own hurt doesn’t matter in the face of other more important things. And it’s fascinating to look back with this in mind

Steven demanded to talk to Lapis in Ocean Gem when she was clearly overpowering the CGs. He could only stare as Centi reformed in Monster Buddies because he had no reliable powers back then, and just because she wasn’t immediatelly attacked she didn’t attack back, which allowed him to realize she was not a mindless monster and bond with her. He suggested not to attack the robonoids in Marble Madness not because he wanted to make friends, but because he knew that understanding what they were up to was the only way they could stop having to fight them every other day. He freed Peridot because he thought what she had to say about the Cluster was important, and that was his only reason to want to talk to her at first - only later, after she showed she was willing to learn a different way of thinking that they became friends. And so on.

The Movie was so shocking to me when I first watched it, because Steven seems so done first with the Diamonds, then with Spinel, and that didn’t fit with how I saw him up to that point. Later Future explained why he was acting like that near the Diamonds, because he was not over all the pain they caused him (how could he, he never even allowed himself to feel that pain). For them all is good, because they changed, they love him, and he hasn’t run away to fake his own death like Pink so that must mean they’re doing it right, right? And Steven, being Steven, probably acts as if all is fine, because fixing the Empire is more important than how he feels, because being gentle and getting them to cooperate seem like the best way, because if they suddenly decided they don’t want to do this Era 3 thing anymore, what could he do?

And Spinel, he clearly wants nothing to do with her at the beginning, he is angry, he hates her. But he once again needs to try and be kind because he needs to know what the fuck is going on so he can fix it (and he takes all of this responsibility to himself because he is Steven Universe and he has to fix everything - really, never before he had such a big team of gems most of whom fought a war before, but he only asks for their help when things look really really bad and he wouldn’t be able to save all of the Beach City citizens alone) so he swallows his feelings and do what he needs to. For all her flaws, Spinel did the best thing she could do when she decided not to stay on Earth. She was right that staying after all she did wouldn’t end well. Steven would force himself to face her and smile but he wouldn’t be happy about it. Not that I don’t think they couldn’t ever be friends or that he doesn’t have any genuine good feelings for her - I think Steven feels bad about her past and wishes her to be happy, but it wouldn’t be right for him to act as if nothing happened while, say, they were still working to rebuild Beach City after her revenge plan.

Anyway, typed all of this to say that I have strong feelings about this all, and this is one of the most interesting developments I have seen lately

I comissioned this from @lunarboy15 and I am in love with the result! These are Blue and Red, the protagonists of my Indigo Twins AU and my Separated Indigo Twins AU, which are two AUs based on my Indigo AU (that one in which Sapphire is the secret Diamond and Garnet is the Mom) but with twins instead of one child (in the first, both children grow up on Earth and in the second Blue grows up on Homeworld).

I still don’t have a fic of neither AU but you can check the tags on my writing blog (Indigo Twins • Separated Indigo Twins) if you’re interested. Blue and Red from the Separated AU are also some of the characters that receive asks in @askthegemhybridsupportgroup

Since Ey-One, Holly Blue and at least part of the Famethyst was around during Garnet’s wedding and the following battle in this AU, you can imagine there was applause when Lapis dropped the barn

I am proud of many things in my Ey-One fic but today I’d like to highlight:

BD’s haters club

I hate waking up